Quinceañera: The TV Series?

Quinceañera's Jesse Garcia and Emily Rios: Taking their queer-inclusive East L.A. Story to the small-screen?

Monday night at the GLAAD Media Awards here in NYC, I had a chance to chat with the nice Wash Westmoreland, one of the co-directors (along with Richard Glatzer) of the award-winning film Quinceañera (which did snag the GLAAD Award for Best Limited Release Film of the past year).



(from left) Jesse Garcia, Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland chat up the press at the GLAAD Media Awards in NYC on Monday.

Westmoreland said that he and Glatzer are working with ABC Family to turn the movie -- about a Latino family living in L.A.'s Echo Park neighborhood -- into a series for the generally wholesome channel. "They're being great," explained Westmoreland, "in fact they're encouraging us to be edgy and true to our story." So, yes, it sounds like you can expect to see the young gay Latino male character of Carlos (played by Jesse Garcia) looking for man-on-man love (or some version of it) on the TV show. When I asked if the gay villains from the film, the white male couple (who engage in some three-way action with Carlos, before evicting him and his relatives from their property) will be part of the series as well, Westmoreland said that instead of having them be the gentrifying bad guys -- "we didn't want them to be the evil gays every week" -- there will be a straight hipster couple causing trouble for our protagonists. Oh, those menacing hipsters!!!

More Quinceañera dish after the jump!

Rios & Garcia and the L.A. skyline. And directors Glatzer and Westmoreland on the job.

I'm not sure if the young female character of Magdalena (played by Emily Rios) will still be facing her almost-mystical pregnancy, but Westmoreland did say that the old uncle character will be present (he dies in the film) in some capacity. And bonus: Other gay characters on the show will include a "Bear" couple, which as anyone familiar with L.A.'s gay landscape knows, you can't set a show in or near Silver Lake and not have some gay bear representation. "I'm looking forward to having the first regular bear characters on TV," said Westmoreland, smiling. (Not sure if those guys on The Sarah Silverman Program count, but I didn't want to be a wet blanket.)



Want this guy in your living room every week? Si!

Also, Westmoreland said that pretty much all of the original film cast is involved too, so maybe you can see hottie Jesse Garcia looking tuff and foxy on a weekly basis!