Dustin Lance Black Talks 'Mama's Boy,' his New Memoir

The world met Dustin Lance Black at the Academy Awards in 2009 when he accepted the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for "Milk," Gus Van Sant's biopic on 1970s political activist Harvey Milk. In his moving speech, Black acknowledged the hope that Milk's activism brought him, saying that if Milk were alive that February night, he would want Black to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there "who have been told that they are less than by their churches or by the government or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you God does love you, and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours."

While Black's promise of federally mandated equal rights for LGBTQ people has yet to happen, the ten years since Black's acceptance speech have shown seismic change in societal acceptance of queer people. Gay marriage happened, LGBTQ representation has grown dramatically in the media, and a gay man – a Midwestern mayor – is the fastest rising candidate amongst the large slate of Democratic candidates. For Black, the decade has also brought change: since 2013 he has been in a relationship with British Olympic swimmer Tom Daley, whom he married in 2018. The couple has a son, Robert Ray Black-Daley, who was born via surrogacy last June.

He also came to terms with his mom Rosa Ann 'Anne,' with whom he was very close growing up in San Antonio, TX as the middle child of three boys. A single mom raising those three boys, she lived with polio, worked in the military, converted to Mormonism and held strongly conservative values. (She died in 2014.) Black recalled in a recent NPR interview how he came home from college at Christmas when he was 19 and heard his mom state her opposition to LGBTQ people be allowed in the military. "And my tears just started to fall, because I was an out gay man back in Los Angeles, and she wasn't just talking about gay people in theory, she was talking about me and my friends. And I couldn't stop those tears. And a good Southern mom can read tears like tea leaves. And she knew."

Black tells of his relationship with his mom in his new memoir "Mama's Boy," currently in stores and with online vendors. It is a book that came about when Black looked at the great political divide that defines politics in 2019 and decided to examine his sometimes conflicted relationship with his mom, looking back on being a gay boy growing up in a conservative, Mormon household and how he and his mom came to terms with his being gay.

EDGE spoke to Black about "Mama's Boy."

Why now?

EDGE: Why is now the time to share "Mama's Boy?"

Dustin Lance Black: I've been asked to write a book a couple of different times in my life, after the Academy Awards and after the Supreme Court win that got rid of Proposition 8. I thought those both felt like self-congratulatory times to write a book and that sounds like a damn boring book to me. "Mama's Boy" really started as a conversation with my mom years ago when we saw within our own family a widening divide that was because of a political divide. The conversations were getting increasingly heated and we were finding ourselves at odds with our own family members and we became concerned with that. I for one, had just stopped talking to much of my family because of it. Instead of the fires cooling, they only got hotter.

I grew up in an incredibly conservative home: military, Mormon and Southern and I had no choice but to find common ground with my conservative mother because I was raising her as much as she was raising me. She's a paralyzed woman with Polio. I know what it took to bridge those divides: the conversations, the hard work, courage and curiosity to keep our relationship strong and loving and this is the moment I thought where I ought to share that story. Hopefully it can help some folks on either side of the divide and perhaps heal a family or two. Even better, start to mend a community. I finally felt like I had a story of my own that had a purpose.

EDGE: Your definition of a "mama's boy" is?

Dustin Lance Black: A "mama's boy" is the luckiest kind of boy in the world. He is a boy who has a mother who is loving, supportive, a rock, and a motivator. If you are lucky enough to have a mom like that than you are a "mama's boy," you better count your lucky stars.

Biggest challenge?

EDGE: What was the most challenging thing to write about?

Dustin Lance Black: There were many. I hope that people know that there is also a lot of humor in this story. It's not all darkness. I was incredibly close with my mom and had to be. The time between my inadvertently coming out to her and when we finally started to speak again was a difficult time for me. I didn't enjoy recalling that. Our family was struck with tragedy after tragedy in the last half decade and those were not easy moments to recall. Tragedy can be a great motivator and it's those events that motivate the last third of the book, which drove me to try my best to show as much courage and curiosity that my mom was willing to show me and my LGBT friends. If my good Mormon mom could travel to California to meet a bunch of queer kids, I damn sure better return the favor and show the courage and curiosity to travel back to Texarkana and mend relationships with my family and then to Salt Lake City to mend relationships with the Mormon church.

EDGE: What does your mother's story have to teach us?

Dustin Lance Black: I believe my Mom's story is that there is no such thing as impossible and she proved that. Connected to that, there is a far higher plane of existence and politics and how you define yourself politically and that it's also not impossible for every single one of us to find it.

Being a dad

EDGE: Now that you have your own child, how has fatherhood changed your perspective on your mom?

Dustin Lance Black: First, I have come to understand that you can actually be productive on very little sleep. I used to argue that I needed at least 6-8 hours of sleep if I was going to write anything that was good. I've now learned that is not possible, and I just need to get to work. I have so many questions that I wish I could ask my mom about who I was as a little one, because having a son opens your eyes and opens your heart. You start to look at the world with a curiosity of a little one. I think by example, since my mom taught me to lead with curiosity and courage, those are the two qualities I would love to pass on to my son.

EDGE: Being gay and growing up in a religious family must have been difficult, when did the moment of connection between you and your mom happen?

Dustin Lance Black: I tell the story in the book. We were so close, and incredibly connected until I came out in college, but wasn't out to her. That's when the divide began, because I could no longer tell her what was going on in my life or my heart without fear of losing her. When I did finally come out to her, it did not go well. For us, the moment of reconnection happened when she was brave and bold enough to hop on an airplane by herself. She is someone who has not flown very much, and she is paralyzed, so this was not easy to do. She came to my college graduation party that was attended by a lot of gay people. I chickened out and never told my mom that so many of my friends were gay. I didn't want my friends to know that she didn't react well to me. The byproduct of that omission was that they all started talking to her about what had gone on in their lives.

Changing Hollywood

EDGE: Although much better now, gay representation in movies still lags. As a community, how do we change that?

Dustin Lance Black: I often say that I won't be satisfied with minority inclusion, not just LGBTQ inclusion, I think we have to fight for our brothers and sisters in other minority movements. I won't be satisfied with minority inclusion, in film and television, at least until we are represented in equal number of how we exist in real life. Until then, film and television is a lie. Its all fiction. It's all inaccurate. How do we fix it? Well, I think that we have a responsibility to fill our writers' rooms with diversity, including LGBTQ people. We have a responsibility when we are in a position of power in the business to hire minority writers and directors. That is the only way we get our stories told and told often. I encourage my straight friends to write gay characters and I hope that they would ask a lot of questions, but I also encourage our business to make sure that minorities are employed. That's my challenge to my Hollywood community and I do try to hire in a way that is a reflection of that.

EDGE: Since Harvey Milk's time, we have seen lots of change in LGBTQ rights. What needs to happen to continue in the right direction?

Dustin Lance Black: The most urgent right now is to make sure that the coalitions between us and other minority movements are strong. To understand that we can't win alone and that we are going to need our brothers and sisters in other movements to help us. That also means that we have a responsibility to help them. Just show up no matter what and do it visibly. We need to push forward an Equality Act in the United States. One that promises that we can not be fired or kicked out of our homes just for who we are and who we love. The time has come that when we drive from LA to Washington D.C. and not have our rights and protections change a dozen times. We should be able to stay in our homes and our hometowns, no matter where that is, as gay people and still be able to achieve and strive. We shouldn't have to leave our homes or hometowns to feel safe.

Talking Buttigieg

EDGE: How far do you think Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg will go?

Dustin Lance Black: It's May of 2019, and right now we should be paying close attention to all of the Democratic candidates. So far, I see every reason to support him. I think that he absolutely fulfills Harvey Milk's call to elect gay people and to send that message of hope. I do like that he is talking about things that folks outside of the LGBTQ community and the Democratic party care about. We will see how far he goes, but what does it matter? I think that the fact that he is running and that there is a candidacy is so incredibly important. Milk didn't win every election. He won once, but it always mattered. It always sent a message of hope and I feel certain that there is a young queer person out there somewhere that will see that they don't have to stop their dreams from coming true.

EDGE: I have to ask, "Where do you keep your Oscar?"

Dustin Lance Black: My Oscar is in the guest bathroom in my house in London. It's a bit of a UK tradition. There he is able to be enjoyed in private by all of our guests. They can practice their Oscar speeches with him and also it keeps him out of sight, because I don't want anything at all in my sideline that makes me feel like my work is done.

For more information on Dustin and to purchase his new memoir "Mama's Boy: A Story from Our Americas," visit, Dustin Lance Black's webpage.