Frameline50: ‘Before I Do’ Helmer Gary Jaffe, Star Cole Doman On Making A Gay Film With Gay Actors [VIDEO]

Gary Jaffe’s touching and affecting dramedy Before I Do boasts a queertet of terrific actors doing fine work led by the ubiquitous and multi-talented Cole Doman who plays John Michael, a young gay man about to be married, but uncertain about what he really wants. Four of his closest friends throw him a bachelor party at a bucolic lakeside cabin. They include his first love/now bestie Alex (Michael Hsu Rosen), fun loving Luís (Robin de Jesus), hyper-sexual Simon (Jared Reinfeldt) and newly admitted bisexual Kit (Nico Greetham), who John Michael has known since childhood.

John Michael and Alex rekindle their romance, which brings about all kinds of mayhem. Read a more in-depth review HERE.

Doman brings great nuance and shading to his role, showing us a complex, confused guy who is forced to make tough decisions, unsure of whether they’re the right ones or not. “Sometimes I just wanna burn it all down,” he confesses to Alex.

Jaffe has crafted a fab ode to gay friendship that also captures universal relationship complications, sexual and otherwise.

Before I Do is Jaffe’s first feature. The Brooklyn-based filmmaker made three award winning short films (Sunset, Next Level Shit, Last Summer with Uncle Ira) and is also a theatremaker.

Doman made his feature debut in Stephen Cone’s Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party as the titular closeted teen in 2015. In addition to many shorts (he co-wrote and starred in Starfuckers) his other film credits include Alan Ball’s Uncle Frank (2020), Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s Mutt (2023), Zia Anger’s My First Film (2024), Matthew Fifer’s Haze (2024) and Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind (2025).

On TV, he had recurring roles on the reboot of Gossip Girl and Let the Right One In as well as appearances on Law & Order: SVU, Chicago P.D, Modern Family, American Gods and Shameless.

He will (hopefully) soon be seen, opposite Jessica Chastain and Pablo Schrieber in Apple TV’s The Savant, which was supposed to premiere last September but was shelved after the Charlie Kirk murder, a decision Chastain publicly stated she was “not aligned” with. Doman agrees.

Doman does excellent work on the show as Steve Dunicki, an Indiana cadet who’s been indoctrinated into a white supremacist hate group.

No official word from Apple TV on when it will actually drop.

His theater credits include Your Own Personal Exegesis at Lincoln Center Theater, Other People’s Dead Dads at Dixon Place and the National Tour of Wicked as Boq.

Doman will next be seen in Tij Doyen & Michael Calciano’s Gorilla Gorilla and is just wrapping work on the Netflix series, Kennedy, directed by Thomas Vinterberg.

Before I Do world premieres at Frameline on June 26. Visit: FRAMELINE

The Contending had the pleasure of a VIDEO chat with Jaffe & Doman.