"I thought if I connected those two guys at the time I could go into the studio and say 'look I have these two guys' and they would do it. There was always the problem with the gay community aspect of the film so they needed a reason to overcome that fear that they had of making a film that wasn't going to have a very big return money wise, so that was my plan," he said.
Van Sant said that when the idea launched again, with a different writer at the helm, he forgot he had offered Sean a part.
"We had a meeting with him at his house, and half way through the meeting – it took me that long for me to remember – I realised that I'd actually gone through all this and met him before, I'd somehow forgot," he said.
