Jim, I know that soon after you read the book "Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies," your production company, That's Wonderful Productions, optioned the rights to it. What was it about this story that made you want to share it on the screen?

Jim Parsons: The overall thing was that it so powerfully hit me in the gut and in the heart that it seemed a story worth telling, a story worth adapting. A little more specifically — although related to it — was that as a gay man in a long-term relationship, there were so many things I could relate to and looked forward to the chance to explore in a sincere, deep way. I was excited by that prospect.

Ben, I read that you auditioned through Zoom with Jim and the director, Michael Showalter. Can you talk about that experience and what drew you to the character Kit?

Ben Aldridge: I had an initial conversation with [turns to Jim] you guys about the script, which felt like it went really well. It felt like we were speaking the same language. I had hoped that then that would lead to taped auditions and perhaps quite a few hoops to jump through, et cetera. Very fortunately, that didn't happen. A couple of days later, they said that they wanted me to play Kit, which was a huge surprise. [Laughs]

I was drawn to the film for similar things, exactly the same as what Jim said. I felt like I hadn't yet been in something or maybe watched things where a relationship was at the center of the film. In queer stories, it's often about the difficulties and the challenges of being queer and overcoming that, which ... those stories absolutely are essential and need to be told. But this was about the joy of love, but also the difficulty of love, and that you can't love without risk of pain. I'd never seen that with two men. I was very excited to be telling the story.