"On Saturday, Gus Van Sant -- one of the industry's first openly gay directors, whose credits include
Good Will Hunting and
To Die For -- spoke at the Queer Lounge about his efforts to get
Brokeback Mountain made five years ago.
"'That's the one that got away,' he acknowledged. 'I dropped the ball. I didn't get the cast I wanted. I wanted big-name actors so I could make a political statement.' Van Sant generously called Ang Lee's film 'everything I wanted
mine to be. I'm not sure it would have happened like that five years ago. It's all come true, and I'm really happy it worked out.'"