How Jordan Firstman outgrew his TikTok persona with ‘Club Kid’

Photo courtesy of Elliot Sjaastad.

“Class, take your seats,” said Jordan Firstman as he joked to an audience in the Folino, still wiping away the tears in response to his debut feature, “Club Kid.”

While most master classes from the past few semesters have centered around big names like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Ariana Grande, Jordan Firstman’s name caught my eye in this term’s list of discussions at Dodge College. Not quite with the decades of experience in the public eye, 35-year-old Firstman’s “Club Kid” — which he directs, writes, produces and stars in — is considered by many critics to be one of the most exciting film debuts of the decade.

“I think deep down, I knew ‘Club Kid’ was a major thing for me. I knew if I made it the way that I wanted to make it, it would be a big shift in my life,” said Firstman.

Firstman is just one in a line of recent young filmmakers that have been emerging even in just this past year. With 21-year-old Kane Parsons’s “Backrooms” and 27-year-old Curry Barker’s “Obsession” proving to be some of the most popular films of this past year, audiences seem ready for a major generational shift in filmmakers that has been bubbling under the surface for some time now.
Like Parsons and Barker, Firstman also got his start on social media with a boost in popularity on TikTok during the COVID-19 lockdowns paving the way for his recent work. When interviewer Scott Feinberg went to play one of his most popular videos, Banana Bread Publicist, Firstman visibly cringed before asking Feinberg to turn it off.

“I'm being dead serious right now: No,” said Firstman. Later, when discussing “Rotting in the Sun” — a film where he plays an exaggerated version of his internet self — Firstman elaborated on this sentiment. 

“I was at a point in my life where I wanted to strip the whole internet persona. So I was like, ‘Let's just burn it to the ground,’” said Firstman. “People thought I was a thing that I was playing, and I felt so different from that character.”

This disjointed feeling is also what led Firstman to the idea for “Club Kid.” Known for his somewhat darker and edgier comedic style online and in shows like “I Love LA,” moving to a more intimate form of storytelling was a drastic shift. Yet, to Firstman, this change was essential.

“There was a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, (“Club Kid”) isn't a comedy, it's a drama,’” said Firstman. “There's going to be funny moments, but everything has to dramatically lead us to the next moment. So, I went and chopped a lot out. It felt great … It felt liberating in a way. It felt like getting strong, like you’re at the gym and you're shedding away all this fat and you end up with this lean muscular figure. And that’s what I feel like the movie ended up being.”

This isn’t to say that Firstman lost the elements to his voice that initially made him popular on social media. As a gay man, queer identity continues to be central in his work. 

“You get the compliment from straight people, they’re like ‘This isn't even a gay movie, it's a movie for everyone.’ And I'm like, hold your breath there for a second,” said Firstman. “It is an explicitly queer movie, but I think there's a reality to the fact that I had tried to make very explicitly queer things my entire career.”

In “Club Kid,” Firstman stars as Peter, a gay man in his 30s partying in New York before real-world responsibilities come crashing down when he realizes he has a 10-year-old son. Firstman’s real world relationships played a big role in the social realism at the heart of the film’s success.

“Every breakup I've had has led to my greatest creative work, which is so unfortunate because now I'm only dating to break up,” said Firstman sarcastically. “I went through another breakup with the … guy who was (the) love of my life, and that person I adore and have had a lot of love for. So, I think that second draft after the breakup is where, yeah, shit got real. All the love you feel in the movie came from that period, because I was breaking up with someone that I was still in love with. So I had all of this love, and I didn't have anywhere to put it, so I just put it in this movie.”

Shot on a budget of around $3 million, “Club Kid” relied on these deeply intimate and human forms of storytelling for its heartfelt tone. Shooting at real parties in New York without the budget for hundreds of extras, Firstman and his team had to navigate the unique struggles of independent filmmaking to pull off what otherwise might seem like a simple scene to shoot.

“I showed up to set, it's the opening of the movie, the most important party of the movie, and there's 30 dilapidated extras sitting in the corner,” said Firstman. “I'm like, these are not cool people, they can't be in the movie, no shade dilapidated extras. But then, me and my producers all got on Grindr and just started being like, ‘Come to Bushwick for $100,’ and it worked. So, that's the opening.”

When “Club Kid” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, it quickly became one of the most buzzy films of the season. Despite premiering out of competition, where bigger films like last year’s “Sentimental Value” or “The Phoenician Scheme” premiered last year, “Club Kid” had the largest bidding war of the festival. A24 ultimately acquired the film for $17 million and is gearing up for its wide release in the U.S. on Nov. 6. 

“I didn't quite know if they were going to accept us because it has a commercial kind of thing going on that Cannes doesn't always like, and I'm a first time filmmaker. I'm an American filmmaker. It's a comedy, there was a lot of stuff, but I was like, ‘I think there's a chance,’” said Firstman. “There was one morning, I jolted up at 4 a.m., and I was like, ‘We got it. We got it.’ I looked at my phone, it was a bunch of the French flags from all my friends, and I just burst into tears.”

While Firstman couldn’t reveal what he has planned next, the awards season buzz for “Club Kid” has propelled it to new heights of popularity. While it may not be the box office juggernaut of something like “Obsession,” Firstman’s debut is another glimmer of hope for the emerging generation of new filmmakers who started on social media.