‘Ponyboi’ star River Gallo wants intersex thriller to put queer spin on mob movies

You’ve never seen someone like Ponyboi writer-star River Gallo holding a gun up to “the bad guys that be” in a New Jersey mob thriller before — but, then again, you’ve likely never seen someone like the intersex actor leading any major movie in history.

“It’s been challenging,” Gallo tells Entertainment Weekly of breaking new ground for the community, as an intersex person portraying an intersex protagonist in a movie centering that character’s perspective. According to the interACT advocacy group, intersex people encompass those born with “differences in genitalia, hormones, internal anatomy, or chromosomes, compared to the usual two ways that human bodies develop,” and Gallo doesn’t take the task of representing that community lightly in Ponyboi.

“[They say] ‘You’re blazing trails, you’re the first,’ but it’s sort of a burden to take on a little bit, because I can’t speak for everybody. I can only be as specific as I can about my own experience.”

And that specificity manifests in Ponyboi in distinct ways.

The film takes place across one night in 2003 Jersey, with Gallo starring as the titular sex worker who, alongside her friend, Angel (You‘s Victoria Pedretti), is embroiled in a messy criminal plot spearheaded by Vinnie (Dylan O’Brien), Angel’s boyfriend and a drug dealer who’s having an affair with Ponyboi.

“I’m from New Jersey, and growing up, there’s a huge canon of cinema based mostly on mob movies, but more recently, Jersey Shore,” Gallo reflects, noting their home state’s imprint on pop culture — before they came in and remixed the formula. “I knew I wanted to create something that felt familiar to audiences, to expand upon a genre that queer people haven’t been part of, and completely flip it on its head — put this intersex trans person behind the gun and holding it up to the bad guys that be.”

They add, “I knew I wanted to create an entry point for people to be able to consume a story that felt familiar enough but create a curiosity and a compassion toward intersex people.”

Perhaps the best example of Gallo following their instincts is a scene toward the beginning of the film, which sees Ponyboi — who, like Gallo, experienced family and doctors who attempted to hide their intersex status from them through childhood — showering and shaving hair from spots all over their body.

“Unseriously, I wanted to look like I was in a Lana Del Rey music video,” Gallo says with a laugh, and it’s all the more endearing when you realize they’re only half-joking. A similar tone electrifies portions of Ponyboi, such as one wild sequence where O’Brien raps in the nude to the dreamlike, melodramatic framing of Bartlett’s cowboy-hatted hunk.

Seriously, however, Gallo observes, “When I was writing that scene, I was thinking about how a sex worker would prepare for the day. I was thinking about how an intersex, non-binary sex worker would prepare for the day, the preparations of trying to fit certain molds of femininity, knowing you can’t fit all of them because your body is different.”

The moment marks a quiet revelation, contrasted with the bombast of the rest of the film’s aesthetic. Ponyboi‘s story evolves via light romance with a handsome stranger (Murray Bartlett) and a volatile — yet wholly moving — heart-to-heart with a trans performer (Pose‘s Indya Moore) inside a club while Ponyboi is on the run from Vinnie. While the character brandishes a firearm and things eventually come to blows in physical tussles over the course of the volatile evening, Gallo’s script never loses grip on the tender undercurrent of intimacy established back in Ponyboi’s shower.

The power of the scene places us “intimately there, in the quiet moments of a person’s life throughout this day,” Gallo explains. “A person we’ve never seen on screen before.”

Big-picture, Gallo knows Ponyboi carries weight for many people like them. It’s also a cathartic exercise in cinematic therapy for its maker.

“What inspired this? My daddy issues. Being from New Jersey,” Gallo says, coolly. “For a lot of my life, I didn’t know that I was intersex. When I found that out in the making of the short film [Ponyboi is based on], I realized I had to make art about this.”

Gallo says they “felt betrayed” by their family and “a medical industry that kept that information a secret” from them. So, they worked it out on screen, and audiences get to go on the resulting journey with them.

“I felt like I needed to create something that came clean about who I was fully as a person and a very large community of people who are varying in different experiences,” Gallo explains. “Not all intersex experiences are the same. I had this deep fervor and passion to make something that can speak to all of those things.”

Universally, Gallo understands the importance of mining fresh territory for their community. But, they also know that centering their individuality can also make a lasting imprint in the film industry and beyond.

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“The hope is that this will inspire new artists and filmmakers to carry the torch and tell intersex stories as well. It’s been nerve-racking and emotional. If this is people’s first entry witnessing the life of an intersex person, meeting an intersex artist — how do I want that first impression to be?” Gallo asks. “I hope I’m making a good impression. I mean, I look amazing, so, I think I am!”

Ponyboi is now playing in theaters.