If you're not from Los Angeles, Get Him to the Greek might just sound like your average road trip comedy. They have to get from London to California. Actually, The Greek is an outdoor arena in the hills just behind Griffith Park and the Observatory. Concerts have to end by 10:30 because of neighborhood... more

If you're not from Los Angeles, Get Him to the Greek might just sound like your average road trip comedy. They have to get from London to California. Actually, The Greek is an outdoor arena in the hills just behind Griffith Park and the Observatory. Concerts have to end by 10:30 because of neighborhood curfews, but the acoustics and fresh air make it worth going home early.

That's the landmark destination for this spin-off from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Russell Brand reprises his role as Aldous Snow, the rock star who was dating Sarah Marshall. By now, Snow has relapsed into his drug addiction. Record company intern Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) has the idea of staging a comeback concert for Snow, so his boss (Sean Combs) assigns him to accompany Snow.

Sarah Marshall was the directorial debut for screenwriter Nicholas Stoller. He returned to direct the second chapter in Aldous Snow's legacy. He's stepped it up since the Hawaiian romantic comedy. Now Snow's rampage of debauchery flows in a quickly edited assault of party images from England to L.A. It could make the audience as uncomfortable as it makes Green, as he discovers the life of rock n' roll can be nauseating.

Discussing the film over the phone, Stoller said he found the following questions perceptive. He's been used to answering "What was it like to work with Sean Combs," probably since he cast the artist in the film. We analyzed the party scene, the editing style and unconventional leading men, because what else would you talk about with the director of Get Him to the Greek?

SuicideGirls: There's a rich cinematic history of spinoffs, like Billy Jack. Were you thinking about that when you designed this?

Nicholas Stoller: Oh really? I kept trying to find spinoffs and literally couldn't think of any, when we were thinking about this movie. Billy Jack was a spinoff of what movie?

SG: The Born Losers. He was a supporting character.

NS: Cool, okay. I literally could only think of Elektra that was a spinoff from Daredevil.

SG: Also Evan Almighty spun off of Bruce Almighty.

NS: Oh, that's true. Is that a spinoff? I guess that is a spinoff, not a sequel.

SG: And U.S. Marshals from The Fugitive.

NS: Right, U.S. Marshals. [Laughs]

SG: But Billy Jack was really successful so you're in good company.

NS: Okay, we've got one. One for four. We're going to up the odds.

SG: Was it a tough decision then?

NS: You know, it actually didn't start as a spin-off. Basically, at the Sarah Marshall table read, Jonah and Russell had really good chemistry and I thought, "That's a movie." Those two guys seemed like a movie to me. During the Sarah Marshall shoot I thought of this idea, pitched it to both of them and they thought it was a funny idea and they wanted to work together and thought this was different than other stuff they'd done. Then I wrote a few drafts of the script and Russell was actually playing a different rock star. It just seemed odd to me, so then we decided to make it a spin-off.

SG: Do you have another character who could spin off from this one?

NS: I think the concierge. I want to see what that guy's life is about. Played by a wonderful T.J. Miller.

SG: Are you worried about the spoiler coming out that they do get to the Greek?

NS: [Joking] I am a little bit. I am a little bit. I tried to keep it under wraps for as long as possible because it does kind of ruin the end. I did what I could, but in this age of the internet it's hard to keep that kind of secret. Certainly, it's like with a romantic comedy where you kind of know they're going to get together and it's the journey that's fun. Hopefully that's the same thing with this. People are surprised by the twists and turns of the journey.

SG: Is it tough to make a party look really gross and rough?

NS: Yeah. Definitely the movie is structured like a bender, so it's supposed to start really fun. I'm sure everyone has that friend who likes to party and you hang out with them one night and the first night's awesome. Then the next night he's like, "Let's do it again!" We wanted to certainly capture that. As it went along, I liked to try to make the parties grimmer and grimmer. In Vegas we definitely cheesed it up as much as we could. A lot of it was my costume designer, Leesa Evans, and it's subtle. You wouldn't really notice. It's kind of subconsciously that you're feeling grossed out. It's because the party guests are dressed cheesy. What's happening in the story is gross. The suite itself was Jan Roelfs, who's my production designer, who designed this kind of gross, kind of awesomely gross suite. Then starting in London, you intentionally kind of try to make it seem cool, like it's an episode of Entourage but with Jonah in it.

SG: You know, Entourage makes me uncomfortable too.

NS: Yeah, it makes me uncomfortable. I know, they know how to live it up, those guys.

SG: But I can relate to that gross, sad party that's trying to be cool.

NS: Totally. I'm really glad to hear we captured that. We were really trying to capture it. We shot so many fake parties in this movie. Jonah and Russell would show up to set and I'd be like, "All right, so we're doing another fake party." If I never have to shoot another fake party again, I'd be happy. I don't know how they do it on Entourage. The actors have to yell over music that's not playing. All these extras are dancing but there's no music and it smells like a gym and no one's drunk so it's not fun.

SG: Have you had any rough party experiences as a Hollywood player?

NS: Nothing like what Jonah's character goes through. It really isn't like the music industry, especially in the comedy area of Hollywood. In comedy I'm surrounded by a bunch of other comedy nerds. I just really don't have any. I don't have the crazy party story. I wish I did. That's why I made the movie. I wanted to experience it, even if it was totally fake.

SG: You don't have to confess to a bender, but don't people in Hollywood go out desperately looking for something to happen?

NS: I'll say this is kind of a funny party story. It's not really a party story but Rodney Rothman, who's my producer, and I when we cast Sean Combs, he took us out to his studios which was pretty exciting for us. So basically, we met Sean Combs at Nobu which was pretty thrilling as you can imagine, two Jews get to meet and hang out with Sean Combs. We left our cars there and went with him. He was like, "Come with me in my car." So we went with him in his car to his recording studio. We enter the recording studio and it's like every famous rapper on earth is just there hanging out. So it's like Will.I.Am is there, Busta Rhymes is there, it was crazy. We're there, the hours are ticking by, I go up to Sean, and I don't know him that well yet so I don't want to disrespect him or anything, but I also am getting very tired because it is a Tuesday night. So Rodney and I go up to him and are like, "Hey, are we going to go soon." He's like, "I'm going to show you another recording studio." So we get into his car and I call this like a soft kidnapping, because now we were just with him and he wouldn't let us go home. So we went to another recording studio. By this point it's two in the morning which for me is pretty late. We get there and finally, I just had to say to him, "I think we just have to go home." He wanted to take us to a third recording studio. So anyway, that's something of a party story. It was very exciting. I heard "Boom Boom Pow" before it came out. That's my coolest moment, hearing "Boom Boom Pow."

SG: Do you see audiences embracing alternative looking guys like Jonah, like Seth Rogen and Jason Segel?

NS: Yeah, I think so. Honestly, I think most comedians don't look like Brad Pitt. They're kind of more everyman. I think that there's a long history of that. Even look at When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal is a good looking guy but he's an everyman. I think same with Segel or Jonah or Seth.

SG: But they're still leading men, not just clowns.

NS: Yeah, I think so. I think they can be romantic leading men. You have two different groups of actors. You have the super good looking supermen like Brad Pitt or George Clooney or that kind. Then you also have more everyman, who I actually think are good looking, they're just more the everyman like Tom Hanks or Jason Segal. I think that's always been that way.

SG: Is it possible to have that without a double standard, so alternative women can have leading roles too?

NS: Yeah, I think so. I think that that totally exists as well. I think actually there are obviously very pretty actresses who are very famous but I think sometimes if you're almost too pretty, it kind of can prevent you from being acceptable to an audience. Then that prevents you from being a movie star. I think obviously Jennifer Aniston is quite pretty but she also has kind of an everygirl quality on screen that appeals to audiences.

SG: Could there ever be a Suicide Girl leading lady?

NS: It's going to happen. We'll figure it out.

SG: How did you come up with the aggressive editing style of Greek?

NS: I think with a romantic comedy, especially with Sarah Marshall, you can kind of wander around a little bit. The story can drift a little bit. You can kind of just hang out with this character or these characters in Hawaii or whatever. I think with a road trip comedy that you're just driving, driving, driving, you have to keep it driving. You have to keep that kind of narrative push going. You have to keep it going forward basically. As soon as you stop for a second, I would feel the story kind of sag. Also, it was intentional, it's a rock n' roll comedy so I wanted to have a lot of short scenes. So I'm sure there's way more scenes than in Sarah Marshall and they're much shorter because they're constantly moving locations. They're constantly on the road going city to city. I also wanted to try, unlike with Sarah Marshall, just because the story called for it, to try a little bit more inventive visual stuff like the absinthe montage, try to kind of get in the head of what it's like to never stop partying. Or like the montage in London where they're passing out or getting drunk and what that's like, try to capture that.

SG: Did you know what you were going to use as you shot it, or did you figure it out in editing?

NS: I way overshoot and there's a lot of cut scenes that will be on the DVD that are actually quite good, funny scenes. You kind of learn something new on every movie, or you learn a lot of things on every movie, that when you have a movie called Get Him to the Greek, anything that doesn't have to do with getting him to the Greek, you just cut. There's a fair number of scenes that I very quickly learned, and this is true I think of cutting any movie, a bunch of scenes drop out very quickly. Then you're kind of fine tuning the movie for the rest of the post process.

SG: Does that become the Nicholas Stoller style moving forward?

NS: I'm not sure if I have a style. I would just say that the story maybe calls for that kind of quick cutting and cutting to the joke. I will say that we do try, and this is true of Sarah Marshall and also with Greek and I'd also say Superbad is like this or Knocked Up, which is that we want to have a lot of jokes. We want the audience to be laughing every 30 seconds or every minute. So to achieve that, you do have to cut a lot. So my editor and I, we'll test the movie and do the laugh track. We'll actually record the laugh track when we test the movie so you can play the laugh track with the movie. Obviously not everything needs to get a laugh, but when you're swinging for a joke and it doesn't get a laugh, then we'll switch it out for another joke or we'll edit the scene.

SG: Do you see a third phase of the Apatow wave? First you guys were underdogs, then you were hitmakers and now maybe you can settle into a third thing?

NS: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Usually those kinds of labels are placed on it from the outside. From the inside, it's kind of like whatever we think is the next interesting or challenging thing to do. I think it kind of comes from that. Greek seemed, after Sarah Marshall which I love and loved making and was very exciting, this seemed like a different kind of challenge: to do something where you're following two guys on the road. So it kind of came from that. This is a challenge, it's a different story to tell but it also has the kind of emotional heart that we're trying to tell this balls out rock comedy but with heart and a center to it that's kind of emotional. That's what I'm interested in is delivering hard comedy that has heart but I think the story might change or what seems interesting might change.

Get Him to the Greek opens June 4.

As the frontman for heavy duty California rock band Korn, Jonathan Davis has turned angst into an art form, and has sold an impressive 32 million albums worldwide since the group's inception in 1993. Having battled addiction and long-term depression, much of the inspiration for Davis’ lyrics has... more

As the frontman for heavy duty California rock band Korn, Jonathan Davis has turned angst into an art form, and has sold an impressive 32 million albums worldwide since the group's inception in 1993. Having battled addiction and long-term depression, much of the inspiration for Davis’ lyrics has come from internal demons. But right now he’s making noise about an external issue that will likely affect us all in some way – the April 20th drilling explosion at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

Owned by Transocean but leased and operated by BP, the disaster at the rig appears to be caused, at least in part, by the oil giant’s concern for profits above safety. Channeling his anger at the company’s culpability into action, Davis is the instigator behind a boycott of BP’s products by a coalition of touring bands. Initially it consisted mostly of those on the traveling Mayhem Festival bill, which Korn are currently co-headlining, however the coalition’s ranks have rapidly swelled and now include artists such Lady Gaga, Anthrax, Backstreet Boys, Maroon 5 and Filter.

Though the Deepwater Horizon spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, the human and environmental issues it raises are far closer to home for Davis. He was born and raised in Bakersfield, a city within the borders of Kern County, CA, which has the dubious honor of being the largest oil producing county in the US. Though rich in oil, eighteen percent of Bakersfield’s population lives below the poverty line. The city also ranks as one of the least educated in the nation.

Music was a way out for Davis, but his ties to his hometown remain strong, as evidenced by the first single off Korn’s new album, Korn III: Remember Who You Are. The track is called “Oildale (Leave Me Alone)” and is named after a suburban town 3.5 miles northwest of downtown Bakersfield. Surrounded by oil wells, Davis calls Oildale “the most impoverished, fucked-up place I think I've ever been to.” Though this statement is anecdotal, if the video for “Oildale” which was shot there is anything to go by, it's clear the place could do with benefiting a little more from its oil wealth.

SuicideGirls caught up with Davis shortly after he came off stage after performing at the Mayhem Festival in Idaho. Talking the day after the new album’s release (Korn III: Remember Who You Are has since debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 sales chart), we spoke about life, music, organized religion, close encounters of the crop circle making kind, and his hope that his wrath for big petroleum will prove to be contagious.

Andrea Larrabee: How did the BP boycott come about?

Jonathan Davis: That thing started out, for me, just seeing what was going on. I was just disgusted with that company. Myself, personally, I wasn't going to buy any of their products. I told my management about it and they're like, well, let's boycott it if you feel that strongly about it. So we started the whole boycott just to send a message to those companies. If enough people don't buy their products then they'll feel it. We're not going to put them out of business or anything, it's just [about] trying to say that you need to be held accountable for destroying these people's lives. Why didn't [they] spend that extra money to make sure that this didn't happen? Hopefully by us doing that - and we're getting more and more bands that are joining everyday - it'll send a message to those oil companies to spend the money to make sure it doesn't happen again. Because it's only one well - there's hundreds of them in that gulf, and thousands in the whole word. They need to be held accountable to make sure the safety measures are there.

AL: This kind of corner-cutting seems to be something that's endemic in the whole industry. I don't know if you remember the Exxon Valdez spill that happened 21 years ago.

JD: I remember that as a kid, yeah.

AL: That was basically caused because Exxon were too cheap to repair or replace a broken sonar on the tanker. And the situation after the spill was exacerbated because the company was too cheap to implement safety measures they'd already promised were in place which were a condition of operating out of the port in Valdez. Two decades on, we've learned nothing, and are dealing with a similar but far worse situation.

JD: Well BP, basically if they'd have spent seven million more dollars and two more days this would have never have happened. It's just them being cheap.

AL: What do you mean by that?

JD: It came out on air that if they'd have used a more expensive - the proper - concrete, which would have cost seven million more bucks and an extra two days for them to pour it, that that wouldn't have happened. All that stuff, it's just retarded.

AL: If we're going to prevent anything like this happening again in the future we have to penalize BP today as a deterrent for other companies who might be tempted to put profits above safety. And it feels like BP have left us to clear up their social and environmental mess, while their priority clean up-wise appears to be sucking up the oil so they can sell it.

JD: Yeah. Like they had the idea to funnel it into a tanker. They're worried about the fucking oil and not the people [whose livelihoods] they've destroyed. I mean they've got more money than god - we'll just pay everybody and everything will be fine. But there's no amount of money that these people could get. Some of those places [that have been affected] have been around for hundreds of years. They've been passed down from family to family - like this oyster factory on the gulf coast I saw. This guy, his dad gave it to him, and his grandfather, and his grandfather before that. It's been like a hundred years. And they're going to have to close their doors because they don't know what's going to happen, if the oysters are going to be ruined forever.

AL: Knowing what happened after the Exxon Valdez disaster gives me huge cause for concern with regards to this spill. I mean those affected by Exxon Valdez were originally awarded a $5 billion settlement, but the oil company, because they had deep pockets and they could, appealed and appealed against it. After being held up in court for years, the settlement was ultimately reduced to $507 million, and it took two decades for the first payments to reach those who were entitled to it, by which time people had committed suicide, succumbed to illness caused by the pollution, and their livelihoods and those of their children had been destroyed. The money got there way too late to help, and it just seems like the same thing is going to play out this time.

JD: It probably will because those companies are untouchable. Obviously the government's not going to do anything about it because [the politicians] make back door deals with them. The bottom line is oil is our life. Our wars are fought over it. Everything is surrounded by this stupid fucking brown shit that comes out of the earth...[It's something that] everybody has a vested interest in so it's up to the people - us - not just sit by and let shit happen and depend on our government to work it out. It's on us to do something.

AL: You talk about oil being our lives, but really the wealth generated by it only benefits a tiny percentage of already obscenely wealthy Americans. I had a very profound experience a few years ago when I went to Norway for the Øya Festival. While I was there I learned that a massive percentage of the country's oil wealth goes back to the people. The money pays for health care, social services, education, and the arts. Meanwhile, the oil companies drilling in California don't have to pay any royalties to the local or federal governments - even though the oil is being sucked from beneath land that belongs to all of us. And we have a bankrupt state.

JD: I know, it's ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. There's countries in Europe and all around the world, people got it together. It just seems like here, in the States, it's so fucked up. I see it first hand because in the town I live in, where we did the "Oildale" video, there's hundreds of pumps around in Oildale but it's the most impoverished, fucked-up place I think I've ever been to. All these people who live near the oil fields, they don't receive anything. They're poor, it's overrun with drugs, it's disgusting, and if we [got] something out of it it'd be amazing. Just the fact that in Norway, they've got social services, art, everything - fuck! I want to move to Norway.

AL: When someone wants to put an oil well in our backyard or off our coast, we're always told the local economy needs it and it's going to bring wealth to the community. But here in America, very rarely does the local community substantially profit.

JD: None of them profit. It sucks the life out of [them].

AL: The sad thing is that those in Alaska are better off than those in Oildale, Kern County, CA. At least the residents of Alaska are getting checks from the oil companies at the end of the year. What's going on in California in that respect is worse than Alaska - worse than Sarah Palin territory if that's possible!

JD: It is. It's fucking horrible...It's so simple, make these companies pay for the oil they're pumping out and give [the money] back to the government or the community.

AL: These oil companies do seem to operate above the law, and above governments. Do you have any hope that this boycott will actually have any real effect?

JD: I hope it does. I mean I saw a report that BP's sales were down in places anywhere from ten to forty percent. I hope they go down more. I hope people get pissed off. I mean they've got lots of money and it's going to affect them in some way. They should be held accountable. I'd love to see them be put the fuck out of business. It's just unfair. It's just really unfair that a company can do that and get away with it. And the [Exxon] settlements that have taken fucking two decades, it's just a horrible situation all the way around.

AL: The boycott started out with you and the bands on the Mayhem Tour, but it's since spread with artists such as Lady Gaga signing up. Who are the most recent additions?

JD: I haven't seen the latest list. I know Disturbed and a lot of hard rock acts have come on board.

AL: What kind of messages of support have you been getting from the other artists involved?

JD: We're getting people saying why don't you do a concert or something like that. But those concerts don't really make that much money, and with everybody's scheduling, the best solution we have now is as simple as not buying their products.

AL: Well it's a kind of democracy that you can practice everyday. You vote everyday with your dollars.

JD: Yeah, so the biggest thing anyone can do is take their money away from them.

AL: So would you also ask that your fans boycott BP?

JD: I would totally urge them to do that. It's a decision that they have to make. I'm not into really political shit, to me it's about seeing the environment and people being hurt. It's more coming from a human standpoint. I think if you're human and you actually see what's going on down there, you'll feel compelled to not buy their shit.

AL: Could you see yourself at some point taking the Willie Nelson route and using vegetable oil?

JD: In a perfect world, yes. But out here it's hard to find it when you're going from town to town. What needs to happen is it needs to be available at every station. If you could go to any station and pump vegetable oil into your car, it'd be easy and I think everyone would do it.

AL: The new album, Korn III: Remember Who You Are, I know that the original concept for it, which you've since deviated from, was to explore the themes of the five symbols of the downfall of man. In interviews you listed them as being organized religion, drugs, power, money and time, but I would also add oil to that list as a factor in the downfall of man.

JD: Yeah, I would too.

AL: Oil is probably responsible for as many, if not more wars than religion. Often people substitute the word religion for oil because fighting in the name of religion is more palatable then oil.

JD: Yeah, definitely, it is. It's a fucked up world we live in. I wish we could just get it right.

AL: So the new album, it was released yesterday?

JD: Yes.

AL: How's that been going?

JD: It's been going great. Everyone that's got it that I've ran into is really loving it. We're very proud of it. It was very hard for me and Rey [Luzier] and the band to make, mentally, the stuff we went through. But musically and the way we recorded it was more [about] going back to the old school way of doing things. We recorded it on two-inch tape, no Pro Tools or click tracks or any of that shit. It seems like music in general has become so dependent on all these machines to make everything perfect that music has lost its soul. We did it the old fashioned way. That's what we wanted to do. It was so amazing making it, hearing it the old way, and hearing the music breathe and the tempos fluctuate around the vocals. It gave it its own kind of soul. So we were very, very happy about it.

AL: Tempo fluctuations are so important. A song should speed up when you're heading into a chorus because you're so excited about getting there. To not have that emotion expressed with a natural tempo shift means you're killing some of the very excitement that you're trying to create.

JD: Yes. It just takes the emotion out of it. And we did some simple little things, like I sang all the choruses and it's all just one voice. There's some backing voice just to lift up the choruses here and there, but I haven't done that in years. I'm used to using a stack of vocals and getting them tuned and all this stuff. I totally fell into that hole, and it sucks. People are just relying on technology so much it's taken the human out of everything.

AL: In the lyrics and in your vocals you can definitely hear very raw emotion.

JD: Yeah, you can feel it. Now if I'd have done that same shit and done three or four vocals on it, it would have took away from that. That's what I love about listening to the record, you can feel the emotion on every chorus and every little thing that's different each time around. It makes for an enjoyable listen.

AL: Lyrically, which tracks are closest to home emotionally?

JD: All ten of them are. [laughs] I swear. If you knew the fucking shit I went through making this. It was basically me and [producer] Ross [Robinson]. It was one big purging of me trying to figure out what makes me so unhappy all the time. And I came up with big topics like people pleasing, or guilt, and just living in the past. All these things I figured out working with him that were sparking me to start writing.

AL: I know that you're suffered from depression for a long time and that you are self-identifying pathological people pleaser. It must be really hard to feel so compelled to please when you have a ton of people hanging around you because of the very nature of the industry you're in.

JD: Yeah. It drives me crazy. I mean I put myself out there and sacrifice myself to make them happy. I'm trying and I'm learning as time goes on to stop that, and I'm learning to be able to say no. That's hard for me but I'm doing all right. It's a work in progress.

AL: I have a terrible time saying no. Someone will ask me to do something and I'll say no in my head but I'll hear my voice saying yes, because I don't want to ever upset anyone or appear like an asshole. How do you get past that to learn to say no when you need to?

JD: You've just got to jump in and do it. Like with swimming or anything else, you just do it. It's not going to be as bad as you think it's going to be. It really isn't, and it feels good. Just stick to your guns and you feel kind of a weight lifted off your shoulders.

AL: You also debuted Korn Live: The Encounter recently which features concert footage shot amidst a crop circle.

JD: Yeah. It was a TV show on HDNet that we did and it was one of the most amazing things that we've ever participated in. We're huge fans of Pink Floyd's Live at Pompei and we kind of used that as a template for it. We had circle makers come out from the UK. They stomped out a crop circle and we did a show in the middle of it. And something happened, we started jamming between songs and it just turned into one big jam concert with our new songs and some old songs. Looking at it, it's just amazing.

AL: So you took all your gear and a generator out into the middle of a field?

JD: Yeah, basically, we did. Our stuff, the generators and lights. It was the most insane load-in I ever saw because we didn't have enough plywood. When you're in a wheat field they have ditches for irrigation lines for where the water comes through, so it's not level ground. Everything's on wheels and these poor guys were out in a hundred degree heat just busting their asses to get everything in there and [trying not to] destroy the crop circle in the process. It was a huge undertaking but we pulled it off.

AL: Obviously if you're bringing in world-renowned crop circle artists into the mix on camera you're taking the supernatural element out of crop circles. Did you ever believe that extra terrestrials were involved in their creation?

JD: When nobody knew what was going on, sure. Because like how can someone do that? But when you see how they do it, how easy it is to actually make a crop circle. The guy took me out and I actually did my own crop circle, and they're relatively easy to do.

AL: That's so funny. I remember when they first started turning up, you'd get all these experts talking on TV about how difficult to near impossible it would be for a human to create these things.

JD: [laughs] I know, and it's so fucking simple. All it is is a measuring tape and a four-foot board with a rope - three simple tools. It's hard pushing that wheat over. I mean it's work, but relatively, I saw how easy it was to make, and if you've got a couple of guys you can just knock it out pretty quick. I mean the circle makers did it in one day, that whole big thing.

AL: You're famously very anti organized religion. Do you wish that debunking religion was as easy as debunking the myths behind crop circles?

JD: Yeah. Any kind of organized religion I can't stand because it's just another fucking con business. I see it. I mean I worked closely with them when I worked as a funeral director back when I was a kid. I saw how corrupt [it was] and how fucking it's just one big show. But it's something necessary. Over the years I've watched, people need hope and something they believe in. So if it affects them in a positive way, then good. I'm not going to sit here and judge them and say they're assholes. It's just something that's not for me.

AL: Well I can understand it, because working at a funeral home you must have seen them reach into people's pockets when they're at their most vulnerable.

JD: Oh yeah. And then I had this Catholic priest try to tell I was gay and sleep with me, and it was just all this crazy shit.

AL: Was that at school?

JD: No, that was when I was a funeral director.

AL: I know that you've been sober for many years. Did you do the Twelve Step program which demands that you invite a higher power into your life?

JD: No. I know it works for some people. Some people need that. Some of these Twelve Step programs are just another substitute for addiction. They really push god on people, or a higher power, which I understand. You need something when you're doing it. But I had friends that had gone through it, and it's really like a fucking cult. All these people telling you, you can't hang out with this person because they drink and it's going to make you relapse. And the whole thing with how they treat alcohol or any kind of drug addiction as a disease - it's bad, you're always going to be an addict, you're always, bad, bad, bad, bad, without any positive kind of reinforcement - it just wasn't for me. So when I quit, I stopped in one day and I never looked back. For me, I just think about all the things I would lose if I was to drink or do drugs again. I mean I've got children, I've got a beautiful wife, family, and all that would go away - and that's more important to me than getting fucked up.

AL: How many years has it been now?

JD: August 22nd, it'll be twelve years.

AL: Congratulations. Do you still get the urge?

JD: Every day. Every day. 'Cause I'm out here on the road and everybody's partying and drinking. I surrounded myself with that. Actually I'd say the first eight or nine years I was in the party chopping up lines, making drinks for people. It's more about the ritual. I was enjoying the ritualistic side of it, but not seeing the people in the morning, how they're hurting. [I like] not being like that guy.


Korn III: Remember Who You Are is out now via Roadrunner Records. For all things Korn visit modlife.com/korn.

Chris O'Dowd's breakthrough role was playing uber geek Roy Tenneman in the Emmy Award winning British sitcom The IT Crowd. His character is well endowed in the information technology department but not so blessed when it comes to social skills. It's safe to say, however, that in real life... more

Chris O'Dowd's breakthrough role was playing uber geek Roy Tenneman in the Emmy Award winning British sitcom The IT Crowd. His character is well endowed in the information technology department but not so blessed when it comes to social skills. It's safe to say, however, that in real life the exact opposite is true.

The highly personable Irish actor, who's starring in three upcoming films -- The Boat That Rocked (written by Richard "Bridget Jones" Curtis), Hippie Hippie Shake (with Sienna Miller and Derek Jacobi), and Gulliver's Travels (with Jack Black and Emily Blunt) -- displayed a distinct lack of prowess when it came to dealing with digital phone technology during SuicideGirls protracted attempt to interview him.

The first time Chris called in, he'd just embarked on a hike in the cell phone black hole that is Hollywood's Runyon Canyon park. Thus our conversation was unintentionally aborted just as it had begun. It would take a total of five phone calls, including two more entirely aborted ones, before our interview was complete.

Nicole Powers: So where are you now?

Chris O'Dowd: I just driven my friend home and I'm parked in her street. What a lovely hike that is.

NP: It certainly is. The view's amazing from the top. How long are you in Los Angeles for?

COD: I'm going back to London tomorrow. I just came over to go for a couple of jobs and I got one of them but it's shooting in London. We start in a few weeks.

NP: Congratulations. What film?

COD: It's called Gulliver's Travels.

NP: Ah. I heard about that. It's got a really cool cast hasn't it?

COD: Yeah, we've got some great people. It's Jack Black as Gulliver, and then Emily Blunt, as the Princess -- myself and Jason Segel are fighting over her.

NP: So with Jack Black in the lead it's going to be a very funny version of the classic tale?

COD: Yeah, I can't imagine there's going to be a lot of tears.

NP: Who's directing?

COD: A guy called Rob Letterman who's recently done this Monsters vs Aliens 3D thing that's big in the box office at the moment.

NP: So that's quite a leap for him, going from science fiction to a classic tale.

COD: I know, but I guess there's a lot of green screen in this as well because everyone's supposed to be tiny in Lilliput [one of Gulliver's many fantastic destinations]. It's shooting in Pinewood [England's leading film production facility] from the end of April. It should be fun. I'm just going back to England to learn how to ride a horse...I'm a general in the army, so there's going to be a little bit of horse riding. I think it's going to be really fun though, we're all kind of learning together -- Jason and Jack have to learn as well,.

NP: Your breakthrough role was in the British TV series The IT Crowd. Has that finished shooting now?

COD: No. They're very short series, six episodes each. We'll do another one, I think, towards the end of this year or the start of next year. It's kind of in and out in two months so it's kind of ongoing.

NP: How many seasons have you done so far?

COD: We have done three. Hopefully what's going to happen is we'll do a Christmas special this summer, and then another series later on.

NP: Are you actually a nerd like your character?

COD: No. I'm too cool for school. No, there are similarities but I'm probably not as socially inept.

NP: Which is probably a good thing!

COD: Thank god! I just don't know how people like that would survive in the world.

NP: I love the T-Shirt your character wears in one of the first episodes, that RTFM (Read The Fucking Manual) shirt.

COD: Oh I love that. I think that was Graham's thing, the writer. We put a lot of thought into the T-shirts. With a lot of these nerdy guys it's the only kind of fashion choice that they make, you know, what slogans are on their T-shirts, so they put a lot of thought into it. I like the idea that you never see him in the same T-shirt twice, so we've gone for that.

NP: What were some of your other favorite Ts?

COD: I've got a great one of a pixilated Kermit the Frog, which I think is quite fun, and a lot of Asian anime.

NP: How does your dress style differ from your character's?

COD: I'd like to say that I haven't stolen some of the T-shits that he wears, but I'm afraid that would be untrue. I've taken a few of them. I guess I probably have more then one pair of trainers. There are less spillages on my own clothes than on Roy's clothes.

NP: So you try to avoid saving food for later on the front of your own shirts.

COD: I'm a distinguished gentleman.

NP: I hear you wash too.

COD: Occasionally. We always had an idea for Roy that he'd spill something on his T-shirt and he'd just open up his wardrobe and he's got a thousand different T-shirts in it -- just on hand.

NP: I think with a certain class of geek though, they wouldn't be hung up, they'd just live in a pile in the corner of his bedroom -- they probably would never make it to the wardrobe.

COD: I quite like the idea of it being a big thing for him. Rather than just being completely slobby, he has this one element of his life where he's really tricked out, in the same way that he would be able to rewire a motherboard -- he puts that much dedication into it.

NP: Has there been any area of geek culture or geek speak that's leaked from the show into your own life?

COD: We have a geek consultant on the show who is the finest example of that kind of person I've ever met. You get the impression that the only time he leaves his bedroom is to come and work on the show. He has kind of infiltrated our minds with different websites, stuff like BoingBoing. I haven't become a geek by doing the show.

NP: Are you a Mac or PC person?

COD: I'm a Mac man.

NP: Another distinguishing mark from your character.

COD: I was a PC guys for years but now I'd never be able to go back.

NP: Once you go Mac you never go back.

COD: That's what I've heard.

NP: So the next project that's already been released in the UK that we're getting in America in the fall, is this film The Boat That Rocked.

COD: It's a really amazing movie.

NP: Can you tell us a bit about it?

COD: It's essentially a look at offshore pirate radio between 1966 and '68. At the time there was only about an hour of popular music a week on the radio in Britain, and it was illegal to transmit, so boats, they were going to international waters, which is maybe ten miles off the coast of England, and transmitting across the nation, to 25 million people towards the end. So a group of DJs, we all go out on this boat. The DJs are myself, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, Rhys Darby and Nick Frost, and a couple of others, and the film documents our time and the crazy time for music -- amazing time for music.

NP: Obviously it's based on the story of Radio Caroline, and you play DJ Simon Stafford. Who was your character based on?

COD: I guess he was an amalgamation of different people. I play the breakfast jock -- and the breakfast jock on Radio Caroline at the time was Tony Blackburn, so there's definitely an element of him in it. He's very kind of positive, a bit of a romantic, he uses gimmicks and a lot of jokes. A very transatlantic kind of a voice. And then I called in different Irish DJs that would have been contemporaries of Tony Blackburn at the time, a guy called Larry Gogan and a couple of other people. There's a bit of Kenny Everett in there as well, who was a DJ on Caroline at the time. So there's a few different people, but Tony Blackburn was definitely a huge draw.

NP: His equivalent in America would be Casey Kasem -- Tony Blackburn had that kind of cheeseball element.

COD: I kind of think of him as a very sweet guy though. It's an affectionate love, you know.

NP: There's another incredible cast on this film, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans,

COD: Emma Thompson, Kenneth Branagh

NP: Who was the biggest surprise to work with?

COD: I was surprised that Phil Hoffman was so down to earth and lovely. He was just so giving and generous with his time. I was just amazed that he was doing it, because he came on board quite late. I remember we had all been cast and I guess Phil was still negotiating or whatever, so they were talking about different people, and then somebody threw that name into the mix. I was like, "No way." And then they were like, "No! We've got him." I was like, "Oh! My god!"

NP: Did you actually shoot it on board a ship?

COD: We did. We shot it half and half. We shot five weeks on a ship off the coast of Dorset and then five weeks in Pinewood for the interiors. But we shot on a hydraulic platform on a thing called a gimbal, so it's always rocking, the whole sets rocks throughout to give the impression of being afloat.

NP: When you were doing the location stuff off the coast of England were you freezing your ass off?

COD: No. It was amazing. It was during the summer. Obviously it was in England, so at night it got very, very cold. But during the day sometimes, when the sun is out, and [they] played the music of the time over the Tannoy between scenes or between takes, it was petty amazing -- such a lovely experience.

NP: Global warming's done well for England. It's much milder there these days. I'm all for it.

COD: Oh, you are? I'm drinking some petrol now.

NP: Glad to hear it. So you've gone from one movie about 1960's revolutionary pop culture to another, because you've also done Hippie Hippie Shake which is about Oz magazine, which was the precursor to the lad-mag generation of publications. I understand you play Felix Dennis, who went from Oz to being Maxim's publisher, and the chap that defended him in the indecency court case, which the film focuses on, was John Mortimer who went on to write Rumpole of the Bailey.

COD: That's right. He's played brilliantly by Hugh Bonneville in the film. He was a civil rights lawyer for years and years and years before he started writing for TV. He did a lot of very high profile cases. And that whole Oz trial was a very seminal case. It made British legal history and it did kind of end up changing the rules about censorship and freedom of the press, and freedom of speech, so I think it was an important film to be made.

NP: Were you aware of the story of Oz before the script came in.

COD: Yeah. I had heard about it through a friend whose father used to do some of the design for the covers and things like that. He was a graphic designer on the Kings Road in the '60s, and I met him a few times and we talked about it. Then I ended up getting the film, which was incredible. It's a different time. It's interesting doing those two films that were both kind of '60s films, one of them is '66 to '68 and the other one picks up where that left off, '68 to '72. Things changed very quickly. The whole kind of hippie thing came in at the end of the '60s in Britain, and so it's a very different feeling.

NP: The Boat That Rocked being the earlier film, and Hippie Hippie Shake being the later one. They both deal with censorship, the difference being that Hippie Hippie Shake has a happier resolution where freedom of expression is concerned.

[Chris' cell phone battery runs out of power and the line suddenly goes dead.]

[Four days and several attempted phone calls later...Chris is now back in London and communication has been restored.]

NP: With all these technical difficulties with your phone, I just want to check, have you tried turning it off and on again?

COD: [laughs] I could feel that coming.

NP: So we'd moved on to and Hippie Hippie Shake and how the Oz case was an important milestone in British legal history.

COD: What happened in real-life and in the film, you know, we end up going to prison for a little while, and then the case is overturned. It did make a huge, huge difference, and John Mortimer had a lot to do with that, our defending lawyer. I think that the judge's name was Argyle [played by Derek Jacobi in the film]. He was just this horrible old curmudgeon of a man that was just part of the real old establishment.

NP: Your character went on to found Maxim and the publishing empire that created the whole lad-mag phenomenon. Are you a reader of lad-mags?

COD: I can't say I am. I tell you what though, I met up with him, you know, and he was an incredibly charismatic man. And he also runs a publication called The Week, which is terrific. It essentially condenses all the world's news into a weekly magazine, and he sent me a subscription, so I get it every week.

NP: Did you meet any of the other people portrayed in the film?

COD: I didn't. I actually have met Germaine Greer on different occasions, but nothing to do with the film. I think they're in Australia, so it's kind of difficult. They are pretty much all Australian except for Felix Dennis.

NP: This was another amazing ensemble cast movie.

COD: Yeah, Max Minghella, Cillian Murphy and Sienna [Miller]

NP: What was Sienna like to work with?

COD: She's a very bright girl you know. She puts a lot of thought into what she's doing. She's great. She was really fun, as you can probably imagine.

NP: And this is another British film.

COD: Yes. I'm all about the British film industry.

NP: It amuses me that you come over to Los Angeles, you've got a Hollywood agent, and all they do is send you straight back to England.

COD: It's incredibly frustrating. I'm back in London now to shoot Gulliver's Travels. That was the first time I'd spent any time in LA, but I really enjoyed myself, so I'll probably go back. And I do kind of think that there's some really quality writers over there. I'm eager to get over there and do some good work.


The first Season of The IT Crowd is available now on DVD from MPI Home Entertainment (we particularly enjoyed the l33t subtitles in the DVD extras). Season 2 will be available on DVD on June 30. The Boat That Rocked will be released in the US on Aug 28, 2009. A release date for Hippie Hippie Shake has yet to be confirmed.

At the Richmond Tattoo Show last year, I was told to check out a portfolio from a guy by the name of Timmy B. He wasn't at his booth, but I looked through photos of his work --I was impressed, to say the least. As he approached the booth, I was shocked to see someone under the age of forty standing... more

At the Richmond Tattoo Show last year, I was told to check out a portfolio from a guy by the name of Timmy B. He wasn't at his booth, but I looked through photos of his work --I was impressed, to say the least. As he approached the booth, I was shocked to see someone under the age of forty standing before me. At only twenty-three years old, Timmy has become the talk of the east coast over the past few years. This could be credited to his relentless travel schedule, but I think with work like his it was just a matter of time before his name was on the tip of everyone's tongue.



TattooSnob:Let's run through the basics before we start. Tell us a little bit
about yourself?
Timmy B: My name is Timmy B, although some internet folks may know me better as Timmy Nitemare, long story, but I'm ok with that.  I'm currently working at Cherry Bomb Tattoos in New Port Richey, FL alongside an awesome realism tattooer named Billy Toler.  I've been tattooing about 5 years now and have to say the experiences I've had are unbelievable.  One of the more recent being that I am now sponsored by Eternal Inks and that is a huge accomplishment for me, so I have to say thanks so much again for picking me up.   I am beyond grateful for the people I've met and get to call my friends, I love what I'm doing and wouldn't trade it for the world.



TS:I'm sure people make comments about your age on at least a semi-regular basis--but seriously, how are you such an amazing tattooer at only 23? Any idea where you feel like you'll be at 33?
TB: I do get the age thing a lot, being 23 has its perks but it also can have its downfalls.  Certain people judge a lot on age and assume someone who's as young as I am must know nothing about tattooing.  I usually leave my age out of things and let the work speak for itself but hey, you can't win em all.  All I can say is that I'm just trying to better myself and experiment with style all the time and I hope I can keep doing it until I'm 33.  I'm just grateful I have the opportunity to do what I do and really hope to continue learning for as long as possible.

TS:How would you describe your work? Your portfolio shows you feel comfortable with a number of different styles.
TB: I hate this question, haha,  My style I guess is something along the lines of Illustrative realism with a lot of Traditional or neo traditional feeling and influence.  I've dabbled into a lot of styles and I am comfortable doing a lot, my primary focus is really to just give someone a solid tattoo that won't fall apart in 5 years.  Only time will tell I guess so 5 years from now if you see my style completely change, you'll know why....





TS:I know you've done quite a bit of traveling in the past, do you plan to continue that in 2010?
Timmy: I was going to try and settle down a bit for 2010, but that definitely didn't happen.  I'm doing a lot of shows this year that span all over the country as well as a few guest spots, and there is also a Europe trip along the way which is pretty exciting.  I would list the shows and guest spots but that would pretty much take forever so I'll spare you the reading..haha.

TS:Are there any cities or shops that have become favorites because of your trips?
TB: I Love Chicago, Denver was great, one of my absolute favorites would definitely be Austin Texas, I always have a blast out there and a lot of my good friends work out there.  As far as shops, No Surrender in Texas was amazing, thank you Mr. Zach Ross, and Ink and Dagger in Decatur GA is always interesting, And as we all know that the infamous and famous Russ Abbott is the owner, and he's my favorite teddy bear.  This question is to hard though, I always have a blast on my guest spots and every shop I go to is always filled with great and talented people so I can list them all.  But you know who you are, thanks everyone.



TS:In terms of conventions, do you enjoy working them or do you only
attend a select few?
TB: I love working conventions, Its like seeing your family on a holiday, you get the chance to see a ton of great people and your best friends all put into one place for the 3 or 4 days and just do good tattoos and party.  I always look forward to shows and the whole convention circuit, if you go to a show and don't have fun, something is seriously wrong...



TS:I hear you're on Team Cool Kids, can you explain what that's all
about? Who else is on the team?
TB: We can all thank Mr. Tanane Whitfield for Team Cool Kids as he is the driving force behind it all.  I'll try and give you the short version of what its about.  Tanane called me up and asked me to start a crew with him, keep in mind I had never even met Tanane at this point, so this phone conversation was pretty funny.  But anyway, He said he wanted to start a crew of solid up and coming young tattooers who could pretty much try and defy and recreate the stereotype of tattoo artists.  We want to issue a new generation of tattooers who are willing to help people and not be competitive just to show that this industry does not have to be a cut throat industry,  we want to show future tattooers that we can all be friends and accept each other and every style along the way.  We also plan to start being more active for charities and other groups in society to try and make the world see that tattooing is an art form and we can help and contribute in good ways. As far as who is in it, there is a solid list and I'll give you a few examples, Obviously Tanane Whitfield, Myself, Taylor Cort, Kyle Cotterman,Myke Chambers, Dennis Duarte, Pepper, Drewski, Scott Olive, Nora, Steve Martin, Short, and Brando.





TS:Who was the last artist that tattooed you?
TB: Mr. Bryan Reynolds, I love him, so we got matching tattoos on the side of our fingers....

TS:Do you have a list of artists that you want to be tattooed by?
TB: Oh hell yeah, Just to name a few, Jeff Ensminger, ( My hero ),  Russ Abbott-again...Myke Chambers, Dustin Golden, Nick Baxter, Bryan Reynolds-again, and I dont know there are a shit ton so thats a few for now.



TS:Any last words?

B]TB: Check out

Myspace.com/TimmyNightmare
NightOwl.com
Eternal Tattoo Supply







NightOwl.com
TattooNow

Alot has happened in the past few months. I was diagnosed with Sarcoma a form of cancer on June 3, 2010. I started college on June 7, 2010. Had surgery to remove the tumor on June 18, 2010. Made honor roll in college in Summer I. Got elected to be a part of Lamar County Relay for Life. Started a team... more

Alot has happened in the past few months. I was diagnosed with Sarcoma a form of cancer on June 3, 2010. I started college on June 7, 2010. Had surgery to remove the tumor on June 18, 2010. Made honor roll in college in Summer I. Got elected to be a part of Lamar County Relay for Life. Started a team called Sarcoma Awareness. Now I am in Summer II classes.......
I don't believe anything else could go wrong.....but I know I am a strong person and I will get through whatever is thrown at me



We do need donations and it goes for a great cause please help me in the fight against cancer!

Sarcoma Awareness Relay For Life

Geoffrey Rickly has been singing for the critically acclaimed, post-hardcore band Thursday for over ten years. But only now could he release an album as acomplished as Common Existence. Finding a balance between his bookish smarts, taste for social and personal awareness, and a decade of being in a band,... more

Geoffrey Rickly has been singing for the critically acclaimed, post-hardcore band Thursday for over ten years. But only now could he release an album as acomplished as Common Existence. Finding a balance between his bookish smarts, taste for social and personal awareness, and a decade of being in a band, Thursday have compiled their most aggressive, mature and best work to date. We called up Geoffrey to talk about it -- and share a 'Common Experience.'

Auren Suicide: Can I tell you a funny story?

Geoffrey Rickly: Absolutely.

AS: I actually met you on the Warped Tour. I'm in a band, and the first day we were on the tour, my band and I were wandering around, completely miserable in the heat, and you let us come on your bus to hang out in the air conditioning.

GR: I remember that! What's the name of your band?

AS: Rocket.

GR: I totally remember that. You gave me some stickers! We totally had Rocket stickers up.

AS: We did give you stickers! You do remember! We were so grateful the whole rest of the summer. We were like, "What a nice guy that Geoff is!"

GR: [laughs] Alright! Can I tell you something kind of funny?

AS: Sure.

GR: To tell you the truth, I was sort of wondering about this interview because the last time I did an interview with SuicideGirls was at Warped Tour in LA, and there were three women who interviewed me. I didn't know what SuicideGirls was yet. This was maybe in 2002 or 2003. After the interview they were like, "It's a really bad neighborhood, can you walk us to the bathroom?" And I was like, "Yeah, sure."

AS: Okay...

GR: And then they were like, "Can you come inside with us actually?"

AS: No!

GR: I was like, "Uh, no, I don't think I can do that, that's not appropriate, there are probably other girls in there." And they were saying, "No, we'll check-there's no other girls in there." So I just said, "No, I'm not going to do that." I really didn't know what was going on. *Then later it just hit me and I realized that they were trying to get me to go in the bathroom and make out with them. So...I seriously didn't know what was going on. I couldn't figure out why they were trying to make me go in the bathroom with them!

AS: Well at least this interview is on the phone, so don't worry, there is no danger of that happening.

GR: I was worried that this interview was going to be with one of those girls and that they were going to be like, "Man, you had no idea what was the fuck going on."

[No previous interview with Geoff has been featured on SG -- we therefore must surmise that some imposters tried to lead him astray -- Ed.]

AS: That's incredible. Are you sad you didn't go in the bathroom?

GR: I don't know. Truth be told, if I had known what they wanted to do I might have been into it. I was a lot younger then, and it was before I was attached or anything.

AS: Speaking of which, I've been reading up about your new album, Common Existence, and your writing on this one seems to have a lot to do with the fact that you're more grown up now. The press release even says that this record is your first from an "adult perspective." When did you realize you were a grown-up?

GR: If anything, a lot of realizing that I was a grown up happened as soon as I felt very out of touch with a lot of things that I felt very in touch with when we started the band. We've been a band for almost eleven years now. I've done all my gowning up in this band. Eleven years later, the Geoff that sings for Thursday is a different Geoff. I'm not hanging with a bunch of punk rock kids throwing shows in my basement anymore. I'm not trying to make rent in a shitty small apartment, you know? It's just very strange to realize that I'm about to turn thirty and my whole twenties will have been spent in a band.

AS: Is it weird for you to relate to younger bands now? Or to your audience?

GR: It is. I don't feel any connection to a lot of the culture that's going on now with young people. But at the same time I think there are a bunch of kids who like bands now who all grew up on Thursday. So I can see, sometimes, where they're coming from musically. If anything, it's more of a lyrical standpoint where I feel a major disconnect [with younger bands]. I don't sing about girls, I don't sing about a lot of the things that today's bands are singing about. I don't know if it's good or bad, it's just one of those interesting things that developed over time.

AS: Well I'm sure a lot of the bands on the Taste of Chaos tour you're on now were influenced by Thursday. That was most likely one of the first bands they liked that was cool!

GR: [laughs] That's funny! You know I've heard that some of the other bands are psyched to tour with us. I really like the Cancer Bats, so I'm looking forward to seeing them.

AS: Of course, I know at certain points you have sung about love and girls. But you do have the reputation of being a very literate, cerebral, bookish band. I mean, the time that I met you on the Warped Tour, you we're actually sitting outside reading short stories or something.

GR: [laughs]

AS: We were seriously like, "Who is this guy?'

GR: I do get that rep. But I feel so lucky that my job gives me so much free time. And I write, so why would I not read everything that I can possibly get my hands on?

AS: What books or writers influenced Common Existence?

GR: Almost every song on the record is connected to a different writer. The first song, "Resuscitation of a Dead Man" is influenced by Denis Johnson's Resuscitation of a Hanged Man. Another song is based on a book [Martin Amis'] Time's Arrow. The whole record also has a lot of themes from Roberto Bolano, a poet who wrote The Savage Detectives and a few other things. The song "Circuits of Fever" is very influenced by [writer] David Foster Wallace.

AS: There seems to be a lot of medical references on the record.

GR: Oh, that's interesting.

AS: Yeah I was wondering where those came from.

GR: There are a lot of postmodern cues on this record, one of them being medical, or scientific, so there are a lot of those references on the record. One of the recurring themes of Thursday records is transportation and the idea of moving through the world very quickly. Transportation has always been kind of a postmodern tenant of literature, too. That's something that I've always grabbed on too. Someone told me today that our records are like Planes, Trains & Automobiles because they all get mentioned in lyrics...

AS: That's cool! I didn't think about that. After I heard the title, knowing how into literature you were, the first thing I thought about was existentialism and existential dilemmas. Now that I've listened to it, it seems like it was definitely something you were conscious of -- especially how humans tend to always think their own shit's the most important...

GR: Absolutely.

AS: Which is kind of hard to realize! To me that's a growing up thing. When you can look out and realize it's not all about you! Do you have a favorite existential writer?

GR: I mean, everyone kind of loves [Albert ] Camus, I guess. What really interests me about existentialism is that nothing was ever the same after it. All modern literature has tinges of existentialism in it, whether it is [Charles] Bukowski or [William S.] Burroughs. It all has the theme of overarching loneliness creeping into everything. Existentialism is a door that once it's opened, you can't close. As soon as you think to yourself, "Ooh shit, maybe God doesn't exist," then if you think, "Oh no, maybe he does" -- it doesn't matter, that door is opened. You know what I mean? It's the possibility that will haunt you no matter what. It makes itself more and more obvious to you in different ways.

AS: When I discovered that stuff I felt so much better about myself. I realized that everyone feels like shit all the time.

GR: It can do that, and it can do the opposite, too. I think that if the feeling has never occurred to you before it can make you seriously depressed [laughs], versus reassuring. I guess that's what a lot of Common Existence is about. Not only is it "common" in the sense that it's not meaningful, that is to say it's cheap, everybody feels this, it's common, but "common" is also "shared" with everyone. I like that duality, you know? That in the end, all of our little petty concerns mean nothing, they're just common. But the big stuff, we all share. We all get old, we all die. At the very least the stranger that you see on the subway is sharing the same crisis that you are, at heart. We're all staring into the same void. [laughs]

AS: It took you a year to do this record. Is Thursday a democracy in the writing process?

GR: Haha. Yeah, it is. But it's like the United Nations. I remember this quote from [Radiohead's] Thom Yorke where he said, "Radiohead's writing is like the U.N., only Thom Yorke is the United States of America." So basically he does whatever he wants and everyone else can deal with it. I think that we're more like the rest of the U.N., where sometimes some countries have more power than others, it's always changing. In Thursday sometimes you get your voice heard and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you get to tell everyone, "Fuck you! I'm going to bomb you if you don't listen to me!" It's a struggle, it's a fight, but this time it turned out great.

AS: It did turn out great. I think this is the best Thursday record.

GR: You know, I think it is too. And a lot of my friends have been calling me and saying the same thing. That feels really good. It's interesting because we were so big in 2003 when the [post-hardcore] genre just exploded. We were at the forefront, we were the leaders of it, and now it's a totally dead genre. Nobody wants to have anything to do with it, for the most part. Everybody's moved on. But we're making our best music now, so it's kind of funny.

AS: Well, fuck 'em. You know what? Trends come and go, but at the end of the day how many bands have been around for eleven years?

GR: Yeah! [laughs] It's true.

AS: Not many!

GR: People are asking, "Oh is this record going to appeal to the indie rock scene kids?" And I'm like,"No, it's not." I don't think there's a ton of indie rock kids out there that are dying to get into a band they liked in high school. I just don't really think so. But I do think that if we keep on doing what we're doing and do it well and do it for years, then maybe we won't be a genre band, we'll be a band that's just a fact of life. When you think of NOFX or Bad Religion, you don't think, "Well those are just punk bands." You think, "Those bands have been around forever." And those bands would not have stuck around if they hadn't been good bands.

AS: Are the goals of what you want to do with the band different from when you first started?

GR: Totally different. When we started we just wanted to play basement shows with our friends, do it for a year and then go off, finish school and be teachers and artists, shit like that. Then we surprisingly had a career that just blew up out of nowhere. Once we were given that career we felt like we were given such an opportunity and a platform to just make some beautiful art. We decided to just roll with it and try to accomplish something really great. Not only did none of us think it was going to happen, but it wasn't even a dream. We were like, "Let's just be a punk band." We just wanted to do it and have fun. It had nothing do with having a career.

AS: You know sometimes that's how it works out. It's the stuff that you least expect and put the least amount of pressure on that happens. It's more natural.

GR: So true.

AS: I heard you once said, "I wish I was a woman because then I could be a feminist," which I thought was hilarious. Did you say that?

GR: Oh, wow. I wonder how old I was when I said that. I'm sure I did say it, I used to say crazy shit like that all the time. I've always felt like music isn't worth anything if it's not making life better for everyone -- not just you and your group of friends. Music should be focused on bringing compassion and freedom to everyone. So gay rights and women's rights and transgender rights have always been a huge part of what we do with Thursday. I've just always felt like it's really hard to express yourself when you're not engaged in trying to help people be free.


Thursday's Common Existence is out now. You can also catch them on tour through April 19. Go to their MySpace page for further details.

Dita Von Teese is one of the world's most dazzling women. The Swarovski-adorned mistress of striptease has done more to preserve and promote the hallowed art of burlesque than any other performer alive today. Her sexy and spectacular shows feature stunning costumes and larger-than-life props, but... more

Dita Von Teese is one of the world's most dazzling women. The Swarovski-adorned mistress of striptease has done more to preserve and promote the hallowed art of burlesque than any other performer alive today. Her sexy and spectacular shows feature stunning costumes and larger-than-life props, but are always grounded in the purity of the classic art form. Thus they have an innate dignity that never relies on the kind of bump and grind sleaze that many of Dita's contemporaries mistake for erotica.

In a league of her own, the Michigan born and Orange County raised girl, who once had aspirations of becoming a ballerina, is an international glamour icon. Celebrated both for her performance art and her impeccable vintage style, her world-class status was sealed in October 2006 when she became the first ever featured headlining guest performer at the legendary Crazy Horse in Paris. She returned to the prestigious cabaret club in February of this year for a limited two week run which was so successful that she was immediately booked again for another series of shows the following month.

The hottest ticket in town, Dita's run at the Crazy Horse attracted such luminaries as Jean Paul Gaultier, Kanye West, Kylie Minogue, and Stephen Spielberg, among others. Her performances are as rare as they are exotic however, in part due to the time and expense they take to conceive. Fortunately those who are unable to witness Dita in the flesh have two new options. The first is a DVD of Dita's Crazy Horse show. The second is Stripteese, a set of three miniature flip-books books which capture individual facets of her repertoire and come packaged together in a deluxe gift box.

We caught up with Dita to find out more about the books and DVD, her new Opium Den set which was 4 years in the making, her plans for shows in Paris and Vegas in 2010, and her life in the romance capital of the world.

Nicole Powers: From reading your last interview with SG (with Daniel Robert Epstein in 2006), I understand you're keen that people appreciate the history of burlesque. The format of this set of books harks back to vintage Victoriana. What inspired you to do the mini flip-book format?

Dita Von Teese: The photographer, Sheryl Nields approached me with this book idea, and we took it to my publisher. Sheryl and I had worked together on several occasions for magazines and ad campaigns. I always liked working with her a lot, and trusted her to shoot my shows, which is rare for me because with all the time and money it takes for me to build a show, I don't let just anyone shoot them. But I really love her as an artist and as a person, and I loved her idea for this book. I just showed up and did my hair and makeup and did my show for her as she shot it stop-animation style. The end result is fabulous. I'm happy with the way the three little flip books look tucked inside the velvet-flocked bookcase. It's been selling well for the holidays.

NP: What was the technical process to capture images that would move as you flipped them. Was it done on a still or video camera? And how long did it take?

DVT: It was shot on a still camera and on the RED camera. Each show was shot in its entirety and we used the one we liked best. I think we did two days of shooting for it, several months apart from each other because the first was just done for fun, before the idea for the book.

NP: The packaging is exquisite. Where you involved in the design of that too?

DVT: Actually, for this book, all I did was describe the kind of look I wanted, and then approve it. I've always had this obsession with velvet flocked wallpaper, because when I was little, like 5, I remember that the house I moved into has this gold flocked wallpaper in the dining room, and I was devastated that my mother had it torn down. So I always have this flocked wallpaper in my houses since I first moved out as a teenager, and the cover of the book is inspired by it too.

They did a great job. I've been working on my step-by-step how to beauty book, so I didn't have a lot of time to devote to the design of this flip-book, so I kind of left the design to them and was thrilled that it came out so beautifully. I just wanted to pose for the pictures and do the promotion and signings for this book this time around, because my other book Burlesque and The Art of the Teese was an arduous task because I insisted on being hands-on. This time I had to let go a little bit.

NP: Stripteese depicts three of your burlesque sets: Bird of Paradise, Classic and Martini Glass. What's the creative process you follow when you decide to create a new set?

DVT: The Bird of Paradise and the Martini are longtime shows of mine, but I wanted to do a third more intimate striptease for this too -- "the Classic" -- which isn't a stage show I do. I wanted to make one of the books more of an intimate striptease, and less burlesque-y. So I wore this beautiful magenta silk corset that Mr. Pearl made for me. I think it's my favorite of the three flip-books.

With regards to the process of actually making a new burlesque number, it's different every time. Some of the shows I make take about four to six months to create if it's a real rush, but most of them take much longer. For instance, my newest act, The Opium Den, took about four years to complete because the set is very elaborate, the costume was intense to make, the hand props were difficult, and I had a hard time deciding how I wanted the show to play out, so I kept procrastinating on finishing it.

And the music presented a whole new challenge. I have all my show music custom made for me these days, and so for this Chinese themed show there was a chance to do something really unique with the music. It's very traditionally cinematic at the start, somewhat dark, then turns ultra sexy, then turns somewhat humorous with some real retro burlesque Chinese music.

For one of the songs I took The Cure's "Lullaby" and had it turned into this powerful and sexy Chinese song. People go wild over it when it kicks in, because you recognize it, and it's very powerful. I have this incredible music guy that I work with, he always manages to pull off my absurd ideas. He has the patience of a saint, which is vital when you're working with someone like me who has absolutely no musical vocabulary.

But every show I make is different and presents new challenges. The three new shows I made for The Crazy Horse were really fun because I got to work closely with the dancers to create shows with them, which I loved. I also recorded two songs for those shows. Singing was a whole new thing for me, but I got offered a record deal from it, which is hilarious to me because I'm really terrified of singing, probably because I hate the sound of my own voice.

NP: I understand your longtime friend Catherine D'Lish designs your costumes. I assume this must be quite a collaborative process. How does that work?

DVT: Well, she's a fabulous costume designer, and it was fun all those years when we would work together because we both had this obsession with Swarovski crystal and we would like to see how far we could take it, how many crystals could we get on a costume. I'm sponsored by Swarovski, so we were able to order all these extravagant custom-cut rhinestones in any color, shape and size we wanted, and she would have this amazing team working for her, like a family. It was great because, as a fellow performer, she knows how the costumes have to work, and could figure out inventive ways for the pieces to come off. Catherine has been performing herself a lot more these days, so she's been shifting focus on her own shows, so this year I decided to work with some other designers for the shows that I did at The Crazy Horse.

I worked with Christian Dior and Elie Saab on the gowns, and Mr. Pearl on the corsets, Stephen Jones did my headpieces, and Christian Louboutin made custom shoes for me. It was amazing to work closely with Elie Saab, he did three gowns made in the haute couture atelier in Paris. There was one insane moment where I asked for a swatch of the fabric one of the gowns was made of, this very fine almost invisible tulle that had silver beaded stars all over it. It's this long trailing beautiful gown [which has] miles of this gorgeous beaded tulle...So they come back with two things -- a piece of plain tulle and a bag of the beads. I had no idea that each and every bead -- hundreds of thousands of them -- was embroidered on by hand. It was amazing. That's what true haute couture is. I'm baffled by the details in the workmanship, and of course, shocked that I get to wear them onstage.

Right now I'm working with Mr. Pearl on a new costume. He's meticulous in his fittings, and has incredible taste, so it's nice to let it go and trust everything to him. It's all Swarovski jonquil, which is a beautiful canary yellow, and it's got tons of yellow curled ostrich. It's been in the works about two years now because the beadwork is very fine, and the fit of his corsets is beyond anything. Somehow he gets the tiniest waist you can imagine, but he makes the corsets out of this very fine mesh, so it's hardly there, and is like a second skin. Honestly, no one knows how he does it. That's why Jean Paul Gaultier and all the designers in Paris enlist him. No one can do what he does!

I'm baffled by the feel and the look of his corsets. I know that when I'm long gone, those corsets he has made for me are going to be the most important pieces of clothing I ever owned. He's a very good friend, and my Paris apartment is very near to him, so we have fittings and sip violet champagne. Mr. Pearl is obsessed with violets. He always brings me a little bunch of them and he smells of violet perfume. He's the most elegant man in existence!

NP: You've been so influential fashion-wise, bringing vintage and burlesque style into the mainstream. You've also designed a super-cute T for H&M for their Fashion Against Aids campaign and have a limited edition Wonderbra lingerie line. Do you have any other future projects clothing-wise?

DVT: I love working with Wonderbra. It's been a really great collaboration the past two years. I also have a signature stocking collection. I would really love to branch out into a clothing line, maybe a line that looks at my own vintage clothing collection and recreates some of those amazing lost designs.

NP: Could you see yourself devoting more of your life to fashion design down the line?

DVT: I would definitely like to continue working with lingerie, and if the right opportunity comes along that I feel I can put my name on and my energy into, and feel good about, yes, I would like to do more. But I'm careful about which things I lend my name to. I've been offered jeans campaigns, and obviously, that wouldn't make sense for me.

NP: Your frequently go en pointe in your shows and are seen wearing pink/red point shoes in the Bird of Paradise images. This question's for the ballet geek in me (SG actually has a ballet group). Are you traditional in your choice of pointe shoe? Or do you go for a little comfort and modern day technology with a Gaynor Minden type shoe?

DVT: I haven't been dancing on pointe as often as I used to. Somewhere along the way I started having high heels made as backup for all the shows I do on pointe, because I would get so nervous over "real" dancers being in the audience. At The Crazy Horse, all the Paris Opera Ballet stars came to see me, and that was daunting! But I still dance on pointe from time to time onstage, especially for my Powder Compact and Carousel show, and of course for the burlesque Swan Lake [The Black Swan].

And yes, I go for the Gaynor Mindens. A friend of mine with ABT [American Ballet Theatre] told me years ago that they would change my life and make me more stable onstage, and she was right. I've been dancing on pointe since I was 11 years old. I learned the right way the hard way and at this point, at 37, I don't need the extra suffering, and I like the extra flex Gaynors. But I would love to see the SG ballet troupe someday! You would love the music I had made, it's all the most famous parts of Swan Lake re-recorded in striptease big band style. It's hilariously genius!

NP: Do you still take ballet classes?

DVT: Yes, I just started up again the other day. My friend Liz Goldwyn, who also has a fabulous burlesque book called Pretty Things, brought me to a bitch of a Balanchine class. My inner thighs are on fire still! I also used to take private classes with a Russian teacher. I love the flamboyant Russian style. I'm always looking for ballet classes with funny teachers and live piano accompaniment.

NP: What else do you do to keep in shape?

DVT: I do a lot of Pilates. I work out with Mari Windsor in LA. She's amazing. I do that about 4-5 times a week. She has this amazing DVD every girl should have. It's a 20 minute butt and leg workout with a rubber band. I do it when I'm traveling. Sometimes I do yoga too, and then I also have a little trampoline that I take out in my house, and I run and dance on that thing to my favorite obnoxious dance music. It's a killer cardio workout. I love to eat you see, so I have to work out. I believe that variety is the key to keeping up the momentum and having a successful workout regime.

NP: At his point in your career, how many people do you have in your creative team?

DVT: Well, still no glam squad, no stylist, no hair/makeup team. I like being self-reliant in that way. I have a few favorite makeup and hair people that I work with on certain shoots, but I don't use a team for red carpet things or anything like that. I think independence is vital. But I have a manager, publicist, a prop wrangler, a personal assistant and a pet sitter, and I guess I have about three attorneys that specialize in different things. I guess that's not exactly a "creative" team. My manager is really the only one I work with on a creative level. I can't live without her. I can count on her for everything. When I'm making a new show, creatively, I usually think about the show and research and hire someone. For instance, I hired trip ropers for roping lessons for my cowgirl show, and I hired a bull rider to teach me how to ride my mechanical-bull lipstick, and yeah, I smoked opium the traditional way to "get a feel" for my Opium Den show. Research!

NP: Your shows -- and the photos in Stripteese -- feature elaborate props. Who designs and builds them?

DVT: I work with a few different prop makers. I go to different people for different kinds of projects. I have my favorite welders, foam sculptors, etc... I'm very involved in the creation of the props, and I do a lot of the cosmetic work on them too. Most of the glitters and rhinestones I do myself. It's therapeutic.

NP: My singing teacher always said you should "f*** the lighting guy." I think he was being a little OTT (he was rather theatrical and flamboyant), but it sure helps if you're nice to them. In performance (and life) so much is about the lighting. Any tips?

DVT: Oh yeah, well I agree. Lighting is so important and I cringe when I see how little attention is paid to burlesque show lighting. I learned a lot at The Crazy Horse in Paris. They're the masters at lighting naked women to perfection. So when I was performing there, I would keep a sketchpad and draw diagrams of the lighting during rehearsals, and make friends with the lighting team and ask lots of questions. Lighting can make or break you, and beautiful, artistic light is what makes a show look grand and beautiful.

I get really excited when I'm at venues with exciting lighting rigs! And although I don't go so far as to "f*** the lighting guy," as your friend suggested, I have been known to send gifts and notes and to hang out with them and "ooh" and "aah" over their talents to show my gratitude. I did a show with someone recently who was dreadful to the crew, and I watched first hand what happens when you throw attitude. Those lighting guys aged her ass 20 years! So yes, make friends with the lighting guy!

The key is light that comes from all angles, especially from underneath and sides. You have to fill the ass with light. No white light, no red light, ever. And speaking of lighting, I always have good lighting in my house too. Dimmer switches in every room!

NP: You have a DVD of your Crazy Horse residency coming out. I know in the past you've said that you don't like to film your shows, but after watching the Bettie Page movie the other night it made me feel sad that so much of her work was destroyed under pressure from the government. Your work has been captured for posterity -- and, unlike Bettie, you own or get royalties from most of it. That's got to be a big upside right?

DVT: Yeah, I get funny about being filmed, for a few reasons. It's hard to capture the feeling that one gets when watching a live show, and also I'm not so willing to just hand over these shows that I put all my own money and time and heart and soul into, so it's rare that I come to an agreement that works for me and makes it worthwhile. But I've been filming more of my shows lately. Besides the Crazy Horse DVD, I filmed some shows I did at the Casino de Paris too, which is the big stage Josephine Baker and Mistinguett danced on. I filmed my Opium Den act and some others on that grand stage, and will probably release some of that footage next year.

NP: Burlesque is shrouded with such a rich history, and performing at such a historic venue must add a whole new dimension to your work. What have you learnt while working at The Crazy Horse?

DVT: The Crazy Horse is amazing. It's so cool to be backstage with those girls, they're incredible talents, and they work so hard. They're like racehorses! So beautiful. The Crazy Horse has been open since 1951, and the list of famous people that have been there to see that show is just mind-boggling. Everyone from Marilyn Monroe, Gypsy Rose Lee, Salvador Dali, Mae West, lots of US presidents.

It's a very special place. The girls are so disciplined. They get weighed in weekly to keep their ideal weight that is set for them. They're drop-dead gorgeous, and insanely talented dancers. And the best part is that they all get along, like a team. I spent a lot of time working with them and I love them so much.

It was daunting to go in there the first time. I was the first guest star ever to come in there, so they were rather suspicious of me at first. But I insisted on not having special treatment, and I worked hard, and we discovered a mutual admiration for each other. I don't have nearly the kind of dance training they have, but they would come to me for advice on other aspects of performing, and they would always come to see my other shows around Paris. I have great friendships with many of the girls. I think they are extraordinary, and I'm glad that The Crazy Horse is seeing a revival. I'm their biggest fan. I think it's the best show ever!

NP: Will there be more Dita shows at the Crazy Horse in 2010?

DVT: I'm most likely going to bring the show I did in Paris, the one that's on the DVD, to the Las Vegas Crazy Horse at The MGM Grand sometime in 2010. It's a much different show than the one I did there a few years ago. It's much more elaborate and I do three full numbers instead of just one. And I am also in the process of thinking of the new acts I want to do in Paris for another run.

The thing is that none of my existing shows fit on that intimate stage, so I have to create special shows for their stage. The Crazy Horse is like being in a movie. The audience can see every little gesture. It's much different than the burlesque I usually perform on big stages, and most of my stage props are too tall to fit on that stage. The Crazy Horse stage is a little more than 6 feet tall to make the girls look very tall. They're all between 5'8 and 5'10.

NP: I understand you've recently moved to Paris. Is it really one of the most romantic cities in the world?

DVT: I love it. It's beautiful. I've traveled the world and I still can't find anything nearly as beautiful. I love the architecture and the pride that Parisians have in their city. I've been living there part-time, and I love the challenges that being in a new country presents. I love the ways that it also makes me appreciate America too. There are great things about both places. It's changed my life to have a place in Paris in addition to my place in Los Angeles. I'm really happy that I finally did it. I realized one day when I was talking to an old friend from 15 years ago; I mentioned I wanted to live in Paris and he reminded me I said that way back when. So I was like, "What am I waiting for? Why am I afraid?" I just did it. And it's not always easy, but I like the independence it makes me feel.

NP: What are some of your favorite haunts? And why?

DVT: In Paris? There are so many restaurants I love. There's La Perouse, which is probably the sexiest, most romantic restaurant ever. It's a very old, antique historic place. You can book these private little rooms, and the waiter rings a bell before entering the room, so you have total privacy in this plush little antique salon. The antique mirrors are still on the walls that bear engravings where ladies checked to see if the diamonds they were gifted were authentic. It's the best place to seduce and be seduced, and the food is delicious too.

I also frequent a restaurant and bar called Mathis. I saw Yves Saint Laurent there before he passed away. It's the place to be in Paris, very elegant and the food is divine. I also love to go to a brasserie called Bofinger where I order plates of oysters and bulots. For bars, I usually go to a place called Montana, or The Hemingway Bar at The Ritz. I love to go buy my tea and have lunch at Mariages Freres in the afternoons, and for late night dining after shows I go to a place called Poule Au Pot. They have a gold plaque with my name at my table because I was there every night after The Crazy Horse!

In LA, I don't go out very often. I go to Chateau Marmont sometimes, but mostly I'm a homebody. I go to bed early and wake up early. I like having the days in LA. I also spend a lot of time in my favorite traditional Korean spas in Korea town. My favorite one is open 24 hours and I go there for three hour long massages and scrubs. It's cheap and fabulous. And I love to just disappear and sit there with all the girls and watch Korean soap operas.

NP: You wrote a chapter on stripping in my friend Carrie Borzillo's book Cherry Bomb in which you wrote that when stripping one-on-one for someone special you should also "tease him with your words." Are you a fan of sexting too? And, if so, has it ever got you in trouble?

DVT: Oh yes, I love sexy-texting! But I'm also a good a love-lust letter writer. I write with rose-scented red ink on my personal stationery. A stranger recently tried to blackmail me to buy back some love letters I wrote to a boyfriend 15 years ago, and I said, "Feel free to sell them on eBay if you want. What do I care if people find out that I'm romantic!"

That's one downfall of fame, I get lots of people that want to extort money from me to buy things that they think -- hope -- will be scandalous for me. Really, what could be scandalous for me? I'm a burlesque dancer!

I really don't write anything I would be embarrassed of anyway, and I only sexy-message with my beau, and he's even more discreet about his privacy than I am. I never sexy-texted with guys I was casually dating. Trust is important. And again, I don't think it's a big scandal for a burlesque dancer to get caught sexy texting!

NP Being sexy is a lot of fun, but as we peel the layers off we all just want to feel secure and loved. What makes you feel loved and secure?

DVT: My very closest friends, the friends I've had for twenty years. And my family. It's nice to be around the people I don't have to keep up any image for, that I can trust with everything.

NP: Having had a romance very much in the public eye, are you keen to keep your private life private at this point? And how possible is that?

DVT: It's really difficult. There's only so much you can do. Right now, I'm trying to preserve the privacy of a fairly new relationship, but it's not easy between relentless journalists that won't let you get away with not discussing personal things, and then there's paparazzi. Sometimes pictures pop up on the internet and we had no idea whatsoever that we were being followed and photographed, and that's an odd feeling.

But I accept that people want to know. I know that personally, I don't like reading endless interviews from actors that refuse to discuss anything but their acting craft. It's boring. You have to give a little something.

NP: I interviewed your ex, Marilyn Manson, recently. We had an hour-long conversation, during which he repeatedly talked about the loss he felt after past relationships and the trouble he's had dealing with it. I also have another friend going through a tough divorce right now. What advice would you give when it comes to moving on and the mental adjustments you need to make to make that happen?

DVT: It's funny because I've been some kind of divorce counselor for a few of my girlfriends that are going through it now. One of my friends wants me to write a book with my little mantras and pearls of wisdom. I'm full of them! I guess the best advice I have is to accept the pain and to know that it's part of the risk we take in loving. Inevitably we learn from heartbreak and we recover, and hopefully emerge ready to become a better partner for someone new.

In the midst of a hellacious heartbreak, I work my ass off to stay occupied, and I try to imagine myself further down the line when I'm right again, and in love again. I've been through enough heartache to know that we don't ever die from it, and we always find someone better suited to us. And I personally force myself to think hard about what I did wrong and try to get my revenge by being a better person for someone new. My revenge is always based in living well and trying to be better. It works every single time!

NP: What do you look for in a relationship now? And how has that changed as you grow older and wiser?

DVT: I guess I've just realized that I want to be with someone that inspires me to want to be a better person, and that feels the same way. No one is perfect, so it's up to us to choose the things that are OK and the things that are not. I'm not perfect. I'm just looking for someone who can accept my crazy, and I can accept theirs. I know which things I will no longer accept in my relationships, and I'm not afraid to say no anymore. I know that I'm wiser about a lot of things in love, and I'm grateful for all the experiences, good and bad.

NP: How do you find new inspiration and happiness in your life?

DVT: Well, I enjoy what I do for a living, and I like to keep trying new things and challenging myself. I don't have trouble finding inspiration, it's just finding ways to execute the ideas. That's usually where the frustration lies. As far as happiness, well, I think of it as being like the weather, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, [but] you can't appreciate the good weather without the bad.

NP: You have an upcoming film project, Mata Hari (written by Martha Fiennes). Can you talk a little about this?

DVT: Well, it's just a script right now. It's not actually in production. It's an amazing script, and I would love to play Mata Hari, especially because the other Mata Hari films were hardly factual, and this script sets the record straight on her. I don't really have any interest in acting unless it's in films I would actually like to see, so I pass on most of the acting projects that come my way. I really like being true to myself and doing what I do. I have no problem being content to be a burlesque dancer. I didn't do it as a stepping stone to "bigger" things, I did it because I love it.

NP: Stripteese will make an excellent Christmas gift. What's on your Xmas list?

DVT: Mostly I love Christmas because I like seeing my friends and family, and being home for a change, and baking cookies and entertaining. But when it comes to gifts, I really like sentimental gifts, or things I use all the time, like teacups and martini shakers, vintage picture frames, scented candles. It's easy when you look around my house and see all the stuff I collect. Just stop by an antique store and pick up some silly trinket and I'm happy!


Stripteese is available from Amazon.com and all fine booksellers.

Meet Dita at her two Los Angeles book signing events: Friday December 18 @ Hennessey and Ingalls at Space 15 Twenty (7 PM), and Sunday December 20 @ at Revamp Vintage (2 PM).

For more information on Dita's appearances, performances, books, DVDs and lingerie go to Dita.net.

For five years, Hugh Laurie has had to defend the character he plays on television. As the star of Fox's House, Laurie still finds viewers, be they fans or critics, asking him questions about Dr. Gregory House's often unpleasant demeanor. Why does he have to be so mean? Are you saying it's... more

For five years, Hugh Laurie has had to defend the character he plays on television. As the star of Fox's House, Laurie still finds viewers, be they fans or critics, asking him questions about Dr. Gregory House's often unpleasant demeanor. Why does he have to be so mean? Are you saying it's okay to be rude if you save lives? But despite his questionable bedside manner, House continues to be a ratings winner -- one of the reasons perhaps being that his obnoxiousness is administered with an equal dose of humor.

This is no surprise for those who know where Laurie comes from. An education in comedy at Cambridge University's Footlights lead to a hugely popular BBC sketch show, A Bit of Fry and Laurie. The show co-starred Laurie's longtime comedy partner Stephen Fry, and ran for four seasons in the U.K., though, unlike Monty Python, which was also spawned by the Footlights, it never made the leap over the pond. Still mining the comedic vein, Laurie played an archetypal upper-class twit called George opposite Rowan Atkinson's exceedingly evil Edmund Blackadder in Blackadder the Third and Blackadder Goes Forth. Laurie's breakthrough role as Mr. Fredrick Little in Columbia Pictures' family-friendly film Stewart Little gave Laurie his first mainstream hit in the U.S. as a leading man, and also proved that he could pull off the American accent he would later call on with House.

This year, Fox is rearranging the furniture, moving House, which is now half-way through its fifth season, to Monday nights. 2008's final episode had House make the uncharacteristically thoughtful gesture of buying the object of his "affection" -- Dr. Cuddy (played by Lisa Edelstein) -- her old medical school desk for her new office. Expect that to pay off with more romantic tension in the upcoming weeks.

With the show midway through production, Laurie is still dressed like House for our interview in jeans and a sport coat, with stubble perfectly maintained by Hollywood stylists. Off duty, however, Laurie's real voice and posture make him a distinctly different person; The abrasive voice is replaced by a calming lull, and those listening to it find themselves looking up constantly during conversation, since there's no camera bringing the viewer up to Laurie's rather elevated eye level.

Question: Why do people care if House is nice? If he can save their life, can't he be as mean as he wants?

Hugh Laurie: I don't know the answer to that. I suppose because doctors, holding as they do the power of life and death, patients are already sufficiently unnerved...To then be in that relationship with a human being who doesn't appear to treat his responsibilities with any great sense of delicacy is I suppose unsettling. It frightens people. Here is a guy with this power to save lives and he is not subject to the normal social niceties. Maybe that's rather threatening.

Q: Does it surprise you that five years in, we're still discussing this?

HL: It's surprised me every step of the way: five shows in, five days in. I'm constantly surprised.

Q: Forget about all the medicine. House is the funniest show on television. How do you approach the comedy?

HL: I shouldn't be saying this. I'm going to let you say this, but I agree with you. I love it. Every script I find hilariously funny. Some of the wittiest things I've ever read. I just relish it. It's part of what makes House to some degree forgivable. I think his wit and his playfulness go some way towards mitigating his frankly clumsy social skills.

Q: It shows respect that he thinks you're smart enough to understand what he's insinuating.

HL: Right, that's true. That's true. You can never accuse him of patronizing anyone. He's gloves off right from the start. He's not going to go gently on anybody. That's true.

Q: Do you get more positive fanfare for Dr. House or negative?

HL: Well, because Dr. House's moral failings, or his social failings anyway, are all mitigated by his skills as a doctor. If he was even one percent less skillful, he would be simply intolerable. So really I think a lot of people are saying, "I wish there were someone there who I could count on to get to the answer, no matter what that person is like. They could be nice or not nice, but if they get to the answer, the answer's everything." When you're staring death in the face obviously, you want the best, irrespective of his nature.

Q: In the entertainment industry, have you seen brilliance as an excuse for bad behavior?

HL: Boy, that's a good question. Yes. I have. Not that often. I have more commonly seen bad behavior and thought, "Oh, you're not good enough to get away with that." But yes, I have. It's actually pretty rare. Oddly enough, my general experience is that most people on both sides of the camera are a pretty congenial and collaborative bunch. Prima donnas, I know there's this sort of popular picture of prima donnas stamping in and out of their trailers and refusing to do this, that and the other. I've actually not seen a lot of that. A couple of times but they're rare. I will of course give you their names directly after this.

Q: Is it excusable when they have the goods?

HL: It would not be excusable if you were, let's say, married to them or if you were trying to do business with them in some way. But as an audience member, yes, I have seen performances and thought to myself, "I don't really care what it cost that person or the people around that person to achieve that performance. That's a wonderful thing. That's a wonderful piece of music, or acting, or whatever it is." I have thought that was worth it. But of course I'm not the one who's had to pay the price for it.

Q: What is your level of interest between the case of the week and the overall story arcs?

HL: That's the awful challenge for these guys, the writers, to have those things in perfect balance, because the case every week must be a sufficiently intriguing and satisfying mystery, a structure on which they can hang everything else. And yet it can't be everything because that's not what the show is. The show is about much more than that, but that sort of central spine has to be there. It's very, very difficult, I imagine, to get the balance. It's incredible how frequently they manage to pull it off.

Q: You know, it's never the first thing they think it's going to be. Why don't they just rule out the first thing and save 10 minutes?

HL: Because we've got to fill 43 minutes. We could I suppose get it right the first time and then play cards for the rest of the show. Maybe we'll do that one day.

Q: What is going to happen with House and Cuddy?

HL: I honestly can't tell you very much because they don't tell me. I look about 10 minutes ahead in my life. That's usually the way I operate. It's partly a function of having so many problems to solve right that second that I actually have very little energy to project into the future and very little memory of what happened. Honestly, someone asked me just what happened in the last show and I honestly can't remember. I think I may be permanently brain damaged.

Q: How would you like it to go?

HL: Well, of course as fictional characters, as a viewer, I would want those characters to find some sort of peace. They're two lonely characters I would want to find some sort of peace. But as an actor, in some ways, I'm sort of less interested in what happens than in how it happens, because that seems to be David Shore's genius -- in the way of executing something. Someone once said, "Ideas are 10 a penny. It's all in the execution." It's all how it's done. For example, that kiss [earlier in the season] was just a beautifully written scene. It was an unconventional, unanticipated and rather beautiful moment. That's his skill so that's what I look for. I look for the how, not the what.

Q: Talking about House's voice, it's more than just an accent right? He doesn't just sound like you speaking American.

HL: I am only partially conscious. I had no plan. It wasn't a calculated plan. When I started doing the pilot and the first few shows I was sort of experimenting. The voice that I settled on, I just thought it was right. I can't really say why. It just came out that way. To begin with you are experimenting with fast, or slow, or high, or low. What sort of pitch? What sort of rhythm and volume? Is he a shouter or is he a whisperer? This is where I wound up, I can't really explain it.

Q: Is that a lot to think about because you also have the limp to focus on?

HL: There are days when it does slightly get on top of me, I must admit it. The peculiar thing about it is that it doesn't get any easier. This is what astonishes me because everything else you do in life, everything from making omelets or playing violin, get easier the more you do it. Not putting on an accent and I don't know why that is. There is something in ones brain that must resist it.

Q: Have you ever read anything in one of the scripts that is so outrageous even you have a hard time, like "How am I going to get away with this?"

HL: No. I think I never have read anything that was un-actable. I've read things that I thought, "Wow, this is going to be tough. We are going to have to get this right because if we don't this whole thing isn't going to work at all." But no, David Shore is just simply too smart a writer, as are his co-writers. They are just too smart to really hang anybody out to dry, as it were.

Q: Has anything ever made you hate him as a person?

HL: No, no. I completely agree that House is not an easy proposition. He may not even be morally a good man. But then, the truth is we don't only like the people who are morally good. Of all the friends we have, are they the 10 morally best people we ever met? No, of course they are not. That is not how we choose our friends. Thank God, because it would be a weird universe if we did.

Clearly this is a troubled character. There was an episode, one of my favorite moments in Star Trek, when Captain Kirk looks over the cosmos and says, "Somewhere out there someone is saying the three most beautiful words in any language." Of course you heart sinks and you think it's going to be, "I love you" or whatever. He says, "Please help me." What a philosophically fantastic idea, that vulnerability and need is a beautiful thing. Actually, House is a character in need of human contact and some kind of redemption. That "Please help me" aspect I think is an important element in the show.