"I found Trick through frustration," he recalled. "An actor from one of my plays had done a reading of it, actually it was called "Gay Boy" then, which I thought was kind of funny. He said it was cute, but it needed work, and I loved it."

Fall and the script's writer teamed up, Fall optioned the movie from him and then another three and a half years went by trying to raise money. Fall then called a friend of his, Andy Fleming, who directed the current Watergate comedy "Dick," who passed the script on to someone. That someone became Fall's agent, and the agent's lover ended up producing the movie and putting up all the money.

"Once the money was in place, we just started pulling everything together and we started the casting process, which was the hardest part of the whole thing," Fall said. "From the script, I knew the movie was going to be made or broken on its cast, because it's a very character-driven thing. If it's not cast right, it would totally fall apart, and I'd seen it fall apart during the readings. It was scary, because I don't think my casting director thought I knew what I wanted being a first-time feature director. So, I ended up casting all the major leads myself."

Tori Spelling, of Beverly Hills 90210 fame, ended up on the picture as a spunky actress who is the best friend of the main character. Fall said he never saw Beverly Hills 90210, so he had very little preconceptions when she auditioned, although he admits: "I knew peripherally that people didn't take her seriously, just by how people reacted when I mentioned her name."

Christian Campbell, brother of Neve Campbell, stars as the sensitive musical theater writer, although Fall said he almost didn't make it into the cast.

"He blew his first audition," Fall said. "He wasn't being vulnerable enough, and he was odd and just wasn't right. And luckily he came back for a callback, and I didn't know he was coming, because I probably would have said he's not right. And he came in and was just really great, he did his homework on it and was wonderful. So, he was immediately right."

J.P. Pitoc plays the hunky go-go boy and Clinton Leupp aka Coco Peru plays the bitchy drag queen who steals every frame of celluloid in which she appears. As per usual, the gay press has made an issue of the fact that both Campbell and Pitoc are straight actors who are "gay for pay." (Although they also praise when openly gay actors like Wilson Cruz are hired for straight roles) Admittedly, I also questioned Pitoc about his and Campbell's sexuality after seeing a premiere of the film in San Francisco, but that was mainly because Oasis only features queer interview subjects and had either of them been gay boys they would be perfect Oasis subjects.

But on screen, I never doubted for a second that Campbell and Pitoc were two gays guys who wanted to sleep together, and that's all that should matter to anyone. Fall said the question arises in the gay press for the simple reason of people just wanting to know.

"I can totally understand it because as a gay man, we're so starved for images of ourselves that when you see a gay movie and two boys up there kissing, you want to know if they're gay or straight," Fall said. "But it was never an agenda for me to cast only gay people in the movie. I have a bunch of openly gay people in the movie, both in front of and behind the camera. It just so happened that the two best actors for the leads were straight, and I didn't even know they were straight when I cast them. In fact, I kind of assumed both of them might be, actually. It's just very unprofessional to ask them, because the real question is are you willing to do the role and do it with integrity. They were both very enthusiastic."

Fall does admit their heterosexuality did have its shortcomings during production.

"It was harder for them to ad-lib stuff because they were straight," he said, "and all the contact had to be choreographed."