Joel Kim Booster

Joel Kim Booster is a gay comedian, writer, and actor who had his mainstream breakthrough with the romantic comedy Fire Island (2022) -- a film he wrote and starred in, setting Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in the iconic queer vacation community of Fire Island, New York. The film, which he developed over several years with director Andrew Ahn, became one of the most celebrated queer comedies in recent memory: funny, emotionally generous, and attentive to the class dynamics, body politics, and friendship bonds specific to gay male culture. Booster has spoken about writing Fire Island as a love letter to the community that formed him and as a deliberate effort to make a gay romantic comedy in the Hollywood tradition -- where gay characters get to be fully human, messy, and in love. He has also performed stand-up comedy and appeared in Shrill, Search Party, and Loot. He is one of the most frequent guests on the pop-culture podcast Las Culturistas, hosted by Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers, where he has been a frank and hilarious voice on queer life and the absurdities of the entertainment industry.