GenQ - For the not so straight individual

queerplanet headed to downtown Chicago to see the movie The Unseen, and to meet the man both behind and at the forefront of it. Phillip plays 'Sammy' in this unforgettable portrayal of a blind shut-in, who has the heart of a child, the strength to explore his world (limited as that might be), and who, along the way, suffers abuse and deep rooted hatred, but discovers love.

This is clearly a breakthrough role for Phillip Bloch who is better known as Hollywood's elitist stylist. From fashion guru to changing images to some of the hottest, sexiest stars in Hollywood.

Phillip has also been voted one of the ?Four Most Lusted After Men in Fashion,? in Cosmopolitan and one of the ?'Fifty Most Hottest Bachelors,? in People Magazine. It's no wonder Phillip has been dominating our television screens, with appearances on Good Morning American, CNN, ABC, E!, Style Network, Oprah, Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight, just to name a few. Besides giving us the inside scoop on how he keeps Naomi Campbell, John Travolta and Halle Berry looking fabulous, Phillip Bloch talks about his behind-the-scene charity projects, shares his plans for acting and his love for producing and trying to make the perfect story, a story not often told in Hollywood.

Sit back and enjoy my brother from another mother - he will forever be that to me - and see why Phillip hasn't been given his due recognition in the GBLT community, and how queerplanet is about to change all that!

queerplanet: Welcome Phillip Bloch! queerplanet is so excited that you took the time out of your busy schedule to speak to us about what's important! Fashion! Okay, seriously, congrats on your role as Sammy! Wow! When I first realized what was happening to the character of Sammy, I did say to myself, Fashion guru? ?How will he pull it off?? But you did, and then some? My first question is about the role in ?The Unseen? which I just loved. How did the part of Sammy come to fall into your lap?

Phillip Bloch: Well, I've been working as a celebrity stylist for years in LA dressing everybody from Halle Berry to John Travolta to Vivica A. Fox and just everybody, I mean I would work with Sandy Bullock, Salma Hayek. I'm the one who dressed Halle when she won her Oscar. I put the tiara on Salma when she wore it to the Oscars...

qp: Really?

PB: Yeah, you know when Jada wore the green cut off Versace dress?

qp: I loved that dress.

PB: I did all that, so I've been in the business for years and years and I have worked with Mariah, I've worked with ... everybody. So, anyway, I had done that for about ten, twelve years and I was kind of at the point where I just thought I wanted to do something different. I didn't know quite what I wanted to do and I have a lot of friends in the movie business, obviously, and I was very intrigued by the story telling process. I am not very intrigued by the movie business, but I'm very intrigued by the story telling business of movies. And there was a movie I saw when I was a young child called ?A Patch of Blue?...

qp: mmmm?.

PB: Starring Sidney Poitier and Shelly Winters and it's one of my favorite movies; and the other girl Elizabeth Hartman played this young, blonde, blind, innocent girl...and so I love that movie so much. I would love to do something with that movie and make it a little more modern, but I love the simplicity of it...that is was just, you know, it was basically in four locations. There are only three or four characters, and I just loved the simplicity of it and yet, it was so poignant and so touching and it told so much about society and I thought ?This is a movie that is so current now.? Here we are 45 years later, because it was made in 1960, and yet it is a very current story.

qp: Right...that's true.

PB: On my way to kind of make a remake of that movie, somehow, someway, I wasn't sure how and what form it would take. But I thought it was going to be a more urban story. I guess I thought I wanted to deal with the Latino race issue.

qp: Oh'that's excellent...

PB: You know like, whether you're a light skinned or dark skinned Latino, I had a whole different idea actually, but so long story short, when it finally came, just when I was just looking around and you know different things would come up and I would just keep it in mind, and long story short, I ended up seeing a picture of the movie, Anne B. Real.

qp: Right. (Director: Lisa France)

PB: And a tiny little low budget picture, because it was going to be showing at the Newport Beach Film Festival...and when I saw the picture I was like ?Oh my god?, this is the director, this director should direct A Patch of Blue, this is what A Patch of Blue should look like, my version of A Patch of Blue should look like this.

qp: So you produced this movie then?

PB: Yes, I ended up producing it, I helped...I inspired it, we like to say. And so it turned out that I had a friend that knew Lisa and the friend was trying to get Lisa and I, Lisa France and I to meet, for several months because my friend knew I wanted to do this movie my friend of this director. So Lisa and I were just kind of like ?Ok, ok, ok...?, but we never really did it. And then as it turned out I saw this picture and I was, Anne B. Real? That sounds like the movie that Heidi wants me to watch? (Heidi Krucker) We called Heidi's office. I say, ?What's your friend's name? What's her movie's name?? They were like ?Lisa France and her movie is Anne B .Real. I said, ?Oh my god, you're gonna die, I just saw a picture of it and she is the one that has to direct ?A Patch of Blue?.

qp: It's fate.

PB: And we contacted Lisa, and she had never seen the movie A Patch of Blue. So she and I got together and we had a great day. She was kind of in a down mood, I guess I'd say, and I called her up and I sent my assistant over to pick her up and you know, blah blah blah,. We just got along great and we ended up going to this fashion show with Appolonia, you know Appolonia from Prince, a fashion show in LA downtown and Lisa had never really been to a fashion show.

So she was like ?Wow, this guy is my little lucky charm here, Wow, how exciting.? And we just got along, and she went and watched A Patch of Blue. I went home and watched Anne B. Real. We kind of separated that night. I sent her home with A Patch of Blue and she sent me home with ?Anne B. Real?. We both watched it and I was more convinced than ever that she was the director I wanted to do it with, she loved the movie but she came back to me and said ?I have just a few things...one - you have never acted; two - you're not, you know, 21; three - you're not innocent (laughs); four - you're not blind; five - you're not a girl. What about this movie is ?YOU, why do you think this movie is you? That's a lot to take on as an actor, to play a blind person. What are you seeing that I'm not seeing?? Basically I said, ?I don't know, I just know this part is me, I just know that this is a story I have to retell.

qp: Wow

PB: I don't really want to do a remake, I'm not into remakes, but we just got together another time and another time we kept talking and we kept finding mutual ground. Everything was just very synchronistic and we had mutual connections in the South and we both had to go to Atlanta at the same time. It was her birthday and I said ?You know what? ?Cause I believe you are the right person, I'm going to fly you down to Atlanta for your birthday and I'm gonna go do my thing, you're going to do your thing and we'll do some investigating while we're down there and if it works out it'll work out? And lo and behold we ended up going to the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired. We met with the film commission in Atlanta; Lisa knew a whole lot of people there because one of her first movies was shown down there. And everything just fell into place.

qp: What are some of the ways that you prepared for the role in this movie?

PB: We went location scouting and we found the town, and we were like, "This is the right town." The people at the Atlanta Center for the Visually Impaired were blown away by my ability to live the blind life so to speak, I mean they did some training with me and everything just fell into place. I didn't even need to do any training I just could do it. I shaved blind instantly. I made lunch for myself blind instantly. I would walk down the street and I would like be ?Oh, there's a truck coming. They're making a right turn.? They were like ?Oh, my god, how do you know this?? I would say, ?I can hear the noise. I can hear where it's turning.?

qp: Excellent.

PB: So long story short...that's how it kinda basically came about. After we found the location, we had done the blind training and Lisa met with the people afterwards. They had a little talk and because they were ?This guy is cut out for this, he just, knows what he is doing.? So, Lisa was inspired, I was inspired, everybody was inspired and then Lisa said, ?Everybody leave me alone for ten days? ... and she basically went off and wrote a script and granted, it had several incarnations since, but my character was always kinda the same. She knew enough about me at this point that ?Sammy? has a lot of me in him. There is a lot of me in Sammy and a lot of Sammy in me. The rest of the script changed a lot, but Sammy was kind of the same all the way through. I mean, obviously the circumstances changed because Roy's character changed a lot.

qp: Yeah Roy...um...

PB: It was kinda written with Forrest Whittaker sort of in mind.

qp Oh, that's right, yeah.

PB: But then Steve ended up being Roy which is just as good or different.

qp: Would it have been different with Whittaker versus Steve?

PB: I definitely think so, it would have been different. It was really hard for me being a novice, there were definitely times when Steve would come in and there were certain parts he felt his character wouldn't say or wouldn't do or wouldn't be and he would remove things. He would talk to Lisa and Lisa would say, ?OK, well, if you really feel that strongly...? you know the great thing about Lisa as the director is she's a director not a dictator. So that is important. She believes in you, within reason I think, and obviously someone like Steve she respects him, so if he says my character wouldn't do this or isn't that, she would kind of sway to him a little. I definitely think there were things she thought that ?No, you are going to say this and do it.? It was very hard for a first time actor because he would take chunks of the dialogue out and as an actor, you learn. I didn't learn everybody's dialogue, although I sort of did, you kind of listen for their last sentence. When they say ?I'm going to the store.? then it's your line, I don't memorize their whole paragraph, but I know when he says ?I'm going to get cake and cookies and this and that and blah blah blah blah and I'm going to the store.? That's my line now. But when he takes out a whole paragraph then, you're just like ?Uh-huh.?

qp: Yeah, it's your first time as an actor?

PB: The first day I thought I was gonna to lose my mind, because we shot all the truck scenes where we are driving in the truck and I'm talking about sex...

qp: Oh!

PB: ?I ain't had sex before but, you know, I've seen Harold and Miss Kathleen, I've heard Harold and Miss Kathleen doin? it. The first time they did it I thought he was killing her and duh duh duh duh duh? There's none of Steve's dialogue in there, it is all me talking and I look at it now it doesn't seem like very much, but when it's your first day of shooting and it's all that stuff and it's just YOU nonstop, also you don't have your cue, because a lot of your words come to you because you have ?I'm going to the store.? Oh, but what are you going to get at the store? Well, don't forget to get me some ...? You know you have a cue, so it cues you to what your next line is, what your saying. But when it is just you talking, and Sammy's kind of all over the place, there's no cue and it's very, very difficult for me. But, I did it, and at the end of the day they said ?If you made it through today being your first day y'all, y'all be able to do anything else ?cause this is gonna be your hardest day.? It probably was, the first day was my hardest day.

qp: Well you answered two of my questions...now I have to go down on my computer. (laughter) queerplanet got a chance to interview Lisa France and she told me, ?Oh, you've gotta talk to Phillip, he is great, you should interview him for queerplanet, blah blah blah.? So she gave me your contact information. I wanted to ask... she only praises your acting in this film, what was it like working with her? you said a little bit about how you worked with Lisa so just give me the experience.. you met, you bonded, but how was she on the set as far as a director versus the person?

PB: It is difficult, because I have been so much a part of the process and a lot of times, like Steve and all the rest of the cast like Katherine, Michele Clunie, Gale Harold, everybody else was cast probably a month before shooting, Steve I believe was cast about a week before we started shooting, literally, we were going into rehearsals and Steve was finally signed on the dotted line, whereas I had been involved for over a year of change. I had been through every incarnation of it and helped raise funds, etc . So I was him, I was just waiting to escape. Sammy was just waiting to get out of me. I say I don't know that I am a good actor, but I can channel somebody. It's more channeling to me than acting, I don't know if I will ever act again as I was sort of said...

qp: WHAT???

PB: I don't know, I just don't know. You just don't know what...que sera sera, whatever will be will be, but I don't know that I am a great actor but I feel that there are certain stories that I'm meant to tell and ...Hold for a moment? (Oprah on other line)

qp: We are waiting, because Phillip is talking to Oprah's people. Hehe

PB: (continues..) I gotta go do Oprah next week.

qp: You know, I was thinking about that because you were in Chicago the four days...we should have talked to you Monday before you left, but I've been thinking ?Why haven't you gotten on things in Chicago?? I mean, as an advocate for supporting Chicago. I know Hollywood sometimes doesn't come here as much as say, New York or LA. We have Oprah!

PB: I love Chicago! I actually picked the story about the movie, and about this woman at the Visually Impaired Center in Atlanta - an African-American woman named Annie Maxwell kind of inspired a lot of my character. A lot of my character is taken from her, and parts of her life story, and things that she told us and we have actually said to Oprah. We all love Oprah; she does amazing things for people and different places.

qp: There was another part in the film, about Sammy as far as when he...um... There was a line in this film that as a black-bisexual woman hit me that Sammy said to Steve Harris who played Roy, ?I'm not trying to take the color off your skin, what was the quote??

PB: ?I'm not trying to peel the black off your skin, why are you trying to change the way I'm dressed??

qp: I love that line! I was, oh that's right you know...

PB: ...it is so symbolic, especially with someone like myself who has worked in wardrobe and clothes for all my existence, practically. I was a model for years....

qp: Really?

PB: ...the styling even. I worked in Italy, I did John Galliano's first shows, I was in Gautier's shows, I was always in Italian Vogue, so for me clothes are very important in my life so that was a great line, and all this hullaballoo about what Sammy was wearing and it's all very symbolic of how we judge people from the outside.

qp: Exactly.

PB: The interesting thing about being visually impaired is you don't have any of the judgment. It sounds corny but the reality is [that] working with visually impaired kids and Maxwell, it really...if they don't like you, they don't like you because you don't dress nice or you aren't handsome or you are overweight or your teeth are crooked, it's just all based on personality period. And emotion and feeling that you get from them, so that was really just such a poignant line and I think for someone like myself. I mean, I have always dated people of the African-American race...

qp: Well, I thought of that...

PB: It's always been, I just never have seen things that way. My family's always been very open to it, you know. My parents are very open to me being gay; my father was never a problem, my relatives were never judgmental of who I dated or what I dated, or what color they were, so I've never lived in a color oriented world either, ironically.

qp: Exactly.

PB: I think people think of me as this person that judges everything by what someone is wearing and that's a job, that's not me, it's a job, it's a routine, it's a schtick, you know, for lack of a better word, but, I don't really care what somebody is wearing, I don't really care what somebody is...I mean it's all...

qp: I think it's kinda funny what you do. If you don't care necessarily about that kind of thing, but your whole job, your job is to cater to everyone to make them look fabulous.

PB: You eat caviar and steak enough times and you go ?Hmmm, today maybe I'll have some hamburger or maybe I'll have pasta.? I mean, you just can't live on the same thing all the time, and I think when you are inundated with every...the same things over and over, you always look for a deeper purpose. I feel like that was my whole thing about going to do movies as opposed to the styling, is I wanted to tell stories. I think in the styling what I was doing involved clothes. Clothes were my utensil - my paint or my pastels or my chalks, whatever want to call it - they were my medium, but I was always trying to tell a story. I was always trying to project an image or tell a story.

qp: Right.

PB: And, I think now I am just telling a different story and telling a more in depth story with the acting and creating movies.

qp: You kind of want to expand and grow, evidently. You are searching for something different or new.

PB: Yeah, man cannot live by bread alone. I'm just not interested in what's going on...and plus I think Hollywood has changed from when I started in the business in the last, twelve, thirteen years since I started in Hollywood. It's changed. The celebrities that are out there now I don't care as much about.

qp: The 40's are gone. It's not like the 40's in Hollywood.

PB: I think [of] all these 20-year olds who have no career behind them. I just don't care as much. I mean, it's just not as important to me. Will they even be there in five years? Will they still have careers? I mean, like the people I started with Salma, Jada, Nicole Kidman...

qp: Oh, I love Nicole Kidman.

PB: All these people, we all started around the same time in Hollywood, them acting, me styling, and they all still have careers. I wanna see where Nicole Richie and, nothing against Nicole Richie or Paris Hilton, but, where will they be in 10 years? Jessie Simpson or Eva Longoria, I mean, all these people I don't know ?are like different. I like Paris and Nicole, I like going out with them, and I like them. I question where their careers will be, if everything is too big and too fast, and if it's all about their personal life as opposed to their talent and their acting you know?

qp: They aren't Sidney Poitier. All the great actors I grew up with, like Katherine Hepburn, those kind of people, it's gone. We have a very select few of great talents and that is what I am kind of looking for, that's why we like the indie films.

PB: I love Angela Bassett, I love ... I think Halle is a very good actress, I love Halle, I love Angela Basset, I think Jada is a great actress, I think Vivica is a great actress.

qp: The movie, The Unseen was in the South, right? So, what kind of image or feedback did you get from the locals? What did you draw from the regular people who were there?

PB:Well, it was really interesting because the first time I ever went to Atlanta I got off the plane, and I went to pick up the train into the city, and it was back in 1990. And I got off the plane and I thought, "Oh, my god, I'm home." And I never knew why, and I always felt at home instantly and now, as a matter of fact, I'm working on a project with Giancarlo Esposito and he is going to direct the movie. I'm working with the writer that wrote the Rosa Parks story and a Tuskegee airman - his name is Paris, Paris Frawly I think is his last name - and he is going to write a script for us about the Civil Rights movement from 1960 to 1965.

qp: Oh, great.

PB: And it's the story all about, you know, the unsung heroes, the foot soldiers of the movement. There is so much about the South, I mean, that we would have to do an interview just about the South. I just have so much emotion about it and I feel like that is another part of my, like I say, I don't know that I'm going to be an actor, but I'm here to tell certain stories, I'm here to channel and tell certain stories and that's the next story I want to tell, about that movement and about these foot soldiers. Prejudice is alive and well in the South.

qp: And Chicago too, don't get me wrong'Everybody thinks it is so much better than it was 50 years ago hah, believe me as a female and there are certain things. That is why I really like those kind of films. That is why I was actually drawn to Lisa, because I thought she was interesting. When she quoted that her mother said ?You have a lot of black people in your films.? she's said, ?Well, those are the people in my life.? That's a theme, a mentality that we have, we don't see color. We don't see any typed of color, Hispanic, Asian, anything but this white and black thing, nothing in between, it's very irritating.

PB: Go to Australia, everything is white there. I just went to Australia. I have been going to Atlanta regularly since 1990 and it is so interesting. As a gay man who 'loves the brothers', there is always definitely a difference and I was aware of the prejudice issue down there. But I was always referred to as 'white-skinned' or 'yellow,' or 'red,' or this or that or you know, although in the last five years I feel there has been such a change. Even in the gay community it's really become more prejudiced, and I think that the brothers are definitely more separate. I feel like it is just definitely more, there is almost...I don't know if it is a black pride that's based on insecurity almost, like pretending to be proud because they are insecure, you know what I mean? Like, 'I'm gonna stand tall,' but really I am scared by it all...know what I mean?

qp: I noticed when I got back from Japan that blackmen, definitely the black women, everybody who's gay, has an issue with, because it goes into the South. It goes into the Baptist Church thing, it is such ?down lowness? about being gay, about being lesbian and bisexual and I think that is what happened. We are kind of underground and we stick with, ?nobody should know? and it's a big thing that the white society embraces, more ?out?, more open, than their black counter-parts. We are sticking to our people (generally speaking) who are ?down low? and that is what happened I think. New York is different; I mean it is WAY more accepted than in some places, by far and wide...

PB: I honestly think it has become a lot more everywhere lately. I think in the last couple of years I've noticed it. I think in the gay community, there was prejudice in the gay community, and then I think in the early 90's there wasn't as much and then all of a sudden...I don't know whether it is the ...it is such a complicated issue. I just feel like, it's very difficult now. I have dated African-American men all my life practically, and I just know it is a lot different now than it was, and it is a lot harder to get a date now.

qp: Really???

PB: I feel, I guess, I think, well I think that, you know the ?myth? of the black man and the big ?thing? is so much more prevalent now. You get all the, Chelsea kind of white boys that are out there, ?Ooh, I'm gonna get some big black dick? and would they really be seen with someone like that? I also think you do see a lot more mixed dating going on like the trophy boyfriend, the trophy-like boyfriend and the trophy white ...

qp: The black bald-headed man in Six Feet Under, that kind of thing.

PB: Exactly, in some places it is more acceptable. Several friends of mine we have had conversations about it, and you say ?I am not the trophy white?, and I say ?Why is it harder for me?? ?Well, because you are not the trophy white boyfriend any more, you're bigger than that.? When a brotha wants a trophy white boyfriend he wants a Chelsea boy with the muscles. If the brother is going to go for the white boyfriend he is going to go for the white boyfriend. You're too big, you're bigger than life, you're intimidating to them, you know they feel like...you bring back, bring up all the insecurities that they were hiding from and that having the white boyfriend would make them feel bigger or better. You bring up all those insecurities, ?cause you're in this life and you're famous and you're not just sitting there waiting to cook dinner for them or, let them be the man, and it's really true. One of my friends that I dated, I dated off and on, lives in DC, handsome, big brotha, and you know one day I just said ?Why are we not boyfriends? Why am I just the Piece?? He said ?We could never be boyfriends.? And I was like ?What do you mean?? ?You're not the stay at home, namby-pamby boyfriend that's gonna like bring me my slippers and cook my meal and keep the house clean and you're not the trophy boyfriend either, you're bigger than all that. You're like a separate entity.?

qp: Well, welcome to my world, trying to date. There you go, we have the same issue. I really believe the issue is the insecurity of the black men, gay or straight, they want someone who is a little bit docile and if you are out there making your career, you're not there for them, for their ego. I have dated many people, because I am bi I have dated many people, I'm 50/50 I date men or women, but I can't get a date with a black man because I'm out there doing different things, it's true, because they won't date you. I used to be in computing, ?Oh, you're smart.? I mean, it's a weird combination on that. I'm not generalizing I am telling my life story now. I know we have the same problems.

PB: You know, you travel, and I know they just think I have boyfriends in every town. Every time I'm with them I go to travel they're ,?Oh, so you're going to go see your boyfriend in duh duh duh? and I say, ?I don't have a boyfriend there.? ?Oh, yeah sure, you must have boyfriends everywhere? and everywhere you go ...you know the whole thing is all their insecurity, but they put it all on you.

qp: I have to ask this question, for the members of queerplanet, what was it like working with Gale Harold and Michelle Clunie, we have avid fans here.

?

Come back next week to hear all about working on the set of 'The Unseen', Phillip's role as producer, his charity work, his fight for gay actors and his favorite celebrities.... Phillip Bloch Part Deux.

**All pictures have been used with permission. All copyrights apply.