Don Boyd's previous films include the feature My Kingdom, starring Richard Harris, and the documentaries Donald and Luba and The Passions of Louis Malle.

BBC Storyville: How did you meet Andrew and Jeremy?
Don Boyd: I met them at a dinner party. I began to talk to Jeremy with no idea whatsoever that he had any connection with Andy because they seemed so different. Jeremy mentioned that he'd been married, so I didn't even know he was gay. When we got to the table I was sat in between the two of them. I talked individually to both, again with no knowledge that they were a couple. And then, I can't remember who made the remark first, but I suddenly put it together that they lived in the same place, but weren't necessarily gay. I later realised they were together.

BBC Storyville: What made you think they'd be good subjects for a film?
Don Boyd: I liked the fact that they were from fantastically different backgrounds: Jeremy is this Cambridge-educated, very patrician guy and Andy is an ex-junkie from a very working-class background. They also both had different means of finding that they were gay. Jeremy was gay in the 1950s when it was illegal and it didn't quite have the glamour it has now. Andy was coming out when it was much more acceptable. The fact that they are middle-aged was also intriguing. These are not stereotypical gay people with limp wrists and terribly camp clothes. I didn't know of any films that were real portraits of men living together. They may have dealt with the politics of gay marriage, but that's something quite different. This is a real portrait study.

BBC Storyville: How did you propose the project to Andrew and Jeremy?
Don Boyd: This gets to the nub of my technique. I explained to them immediately that they would have absolutely no sight of anything I shot and the only time they would see it was when it was screened. I told them that I would ask questions that most people would be embarrassed by, about their sex life, about their pasts. But I said I would never initiate interviews, it would always be in the context of me observing what they were doing and if I suddenly found myself sitting with the camera trained on them and a subject cropped up, they would find themselves off-guard, talking about things that they would never imagine discussing. They agreed to that - basically they said, "We'll trust you." It was a great honour and privilege that they said that. It was an immense risk they were taking to trust someone they hardly knew. Thank God they liked it! They'd watched me film them for 105 hours and had no idea how it would all end up on screen.

BBC Storyville: Do you think they anticipated you filming for that long?
Don Boyd: No - they had no idea. And I hadn't anticipated spending so long with them. Initially I was meant to finish the film at the end of March 2004, but in November they rang me up and said they were going to get engaged and had picked 1 May for the wedding. It was never called Andrew and Jeremy Get Married - initially it was just called Andrew and Jeremy - but we adjusted it, which meant filming right through till May and then editing.

BBC Storyville: The film was very well received at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. What do you think a mainstream, largely heterosexual audience, will make of it?
Don Boyd: It gets big belly laughs in front of gay audiences and heterosexual audiences, which pleases me a lot. But I am very sensitive about the degree to which the film appears a heterosexual version of a homosexual world. Interestingly enough, 99.99% of gay people I've talked to about it say I should have no worries whatsoever and that it doesn't feel in any way patronising. I think that the way Andy and Jeremy related to me meant they were more interested in talking about their relationship and backgrounds rather than rationalising their sexuality to someone who wasn't gay.

BBC Storyville: There's not an explicitly political angle to the film, but it's inevitable that it will get talked about in a political context.
Don Boyd: The title of the film means that it has a political message that I had not intended but which intrinsically is there. It's the sort of film you want to talk about over dinner after seeing it. I refused to give it any kind of journalistic context. You bring the context to it and it invites debate. If one had fashioned it in a more sociological way it would have been boring. The fact that the film is coming out when gay marriage is a hot issue is really just a happy accident. It may have a short life as a political film but I hope it will stand the test of time because, ultimately, it's a quirky, old-fashioned love story.

 ANDREW AND JEREMY GET MARRIED HOMEPAGE