Jordan Firstman captures the highs and lows of being a ‘Club Kid’

The episode introduces Club Kid’s Peter, a New York club promoter who owns and controls parties filled with music, sex, drugs, drinks, ketamine, and confetti. Ten years after the story begins, Peter is older and worn down but still pulled back into nightlife when Arlo, a ten-year-old British boy, arrives at his rent-controlled Lower East Side apartment. Arlo’s mother has died, and Peter—who does not remember sleeping with a woman—is his only remaining family. The boy’s arrival forces Peter to ask whether abandoning his old life could make him a better father and person.

A film clip shows Peter comforting Arlo after Arlo discusses his mother’s death. Peter tells him sadness is acceptable—even crying for a week—and then admits that he sometimes cries because he has little self-esteem and does not like himself. He says Arlo’s arrival has recently made him feel better. Firstman explains that Peter has always spiraled through thoughts about being inadequate, especially during drug comedowns, but explaining those feelings simply to a child becomes the first time he says the truth aloud. Firstman describes the father-son relationship as mutual: Arlo teaches Peter to grow up, while Peter teaches Arlo to be a kid.

Firstman researched traumatized children with help from his sister, a Minneapolis social worker who works with children Arlo’s age and read every script draft. She told him that children exposed to severe trauma often grow up quickly and learn to seek consistency wherever they can find it. Firstman says Arlo understands that returning to London would be bad, while Peter—despite being chaotic—is kind and feels safe. Arlo therefore has his own motives: he yearns for safety, stability, and dependable love, and recognizes that Peter might provide them. Firstman wanted Arlo to be an active character rather than merely a plot device.

Firstman started writing Club Kid in winter 2023 after another television project, his supposedly more serious “A project,” failed to move forward. His “B project” had begun as a funny premise: what would happen if a child suddenly appeared in the life of someone who felt inappropriate and immature? Around age 32, while partying heavily, experiencing comedowns, and wondering when he would finally feel like an adult, Firstman combined that premise with his own self-questioning. He calls the result a delayed coming-of-age film about a gay man in his thirties. He later cut many jokes and reframed it as a drama with funny material rather than a comedy with darkness.

Firstman says every project he makes contains sadness because he is emotional and cries almost daily; he drives around Los Angeles listening to Frank Ocean and says crying may be his favorite feeling. He recalls crying to Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” as a child and enjoying the intensity of the emotion. He developed humor partly as a defense after coming out at twelve and facing bullying, including being pushed into lockers. He says he sometimes still becomes cutting when threatened, but has shed many defenses while making Club Kid. Joni Mitchell’s idea that laughing and crying offer the same release also influenced his view of the film.

While writing, Firstman lived in Berlin and fell in love with a party-going man, entering a scene where he used drugs from Thursday through Monday. He describes Thursday dinners with cocaine, Friday nights at clubs such as Berghain, and Monday and Tuesday comedowns that left only Wednesday for work. He calls Berghain a pinnacle of queer club culture, with world-class DJs, an exceptional sound system, separate house and techno spaces, and areas for sex and drugs. The door staff curate the atmosphere by sensing whether someone belongs. Firstman says he was never rejected, usually wearing gym shorts, a tank top, sneakers, a fanny pack, and a windbreaker.

Firstman wanted Club Kid to portray gay nightlife’s pleasure and darkness rather than offer a formal oral history of gay culture. He argues that gay men, after being unable to live openly for so long, may pursue life and love intensely, accepting both high risk and high reward. The film was shot on film and drew on 1970s New York cinema, including Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, Paul Mazursky, Martin Scorsese, After Hours, and The King of Comedy. The crew used Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and parts of Soho to evoke an older New York. Real queer parties and clubgoers participated because they trusted Firstman to depict the underground scene honestly.

Firstman grew up in Northport, Long Island, in what he calls a picturesque, “Gilmore Girls” town. His parents were newspaper journalists, and he had twin older siblings, a dog, and a cat that allegedly did not get along. At fourteen he dragged his parents to an open call for The Lion King, despite being one white teenager among hundreds of Black children auditioning to play Simba. He nearly became the lead in Brighton Beach Memoirs at sixteen and traveled alone to New York auditions. He hid his love of musicals but became devoted to Sondheim’s Company and dressed as Elaine Stritch for Halloween three years in a row.

Firstman says he wanted to become an adult early and used New York acting opportunities to build a separate life while his parents divorced. As a teenager, he traveled from Syosset to Manhattan, stayed with friends from Thursday through Monday, and falsely told his parents he had no school on Fridays. After a disastrous year in New York, he dropped out of college after a year and a half, learned to drive in two weeks, and moved to Los Angeles without knowing anyone there. He later worked as a celebrity-event photo-booth operator from ages 21 to 23, witnessing Hollywood’s social hierarchy and eventually seeing former rude clients praise him in their DMs.

During the pandemic, after a toxic relationship and the cancellation of another television project, Firstman challenged himself to post one esoteric impression each day for a week. Ariana Grande shared the videos for eight weeks, producing hundreds of thousands of followers and celebrity messages. His Mother Nature character complains that humans have exploited her and considers killing them all. Followers then sent him secrets, often while he was drinking Four Loko; he responded with jokes before turning them into songs for the comedy album Secrets. He believes people trusted him because little shocked him, and that turning shameful revelations into silliness offered catharsis. He now accepts that he cannot control how audiences distinguish him from his characters.

Discussing his HBO series I Love L.A., Firstman describes Charlie as an ambitious, manipulative, scrappy celebrity stylist whose hard-earned defenses conceal a sensitive soft side. He connects the character to his own difficult years trying to establish himself in Los Angeles. Regarding Club Kid, he says the film unexpectedly moved audiences at Telluride, including white seventy-five-year-old men who left the theater crying. Because that audience might not seek out a movie about a club kid, he sees promoting the film to them as part of his job. After working almost nonstop for three years, he plans to pause and decide what he wants his life and art to address next.