Indie film darling Greta Gerwig already has two movies out this year, one of them being Damsels in Distress, in which she starred. I actually got to meet her for that film when I was interviewing Whit Stillman. While they were paired, Sillman commented on her character in the Arthur remake, as an example... more

Indie film darling Greta Gerwig already has two movies out this year, one of them being Damsels in Distress, in which she starred. I actually got to meet her for that film when I was interviewing Whit Stillman. While they were paired, Sillman commented on her character in the Arthur remake, as an example of how studio movies give characters silly traits.

In Lola Versus Gerwig stars as Lola, a woman whose fiancé (Joel Kinnaman) cancels their wedding sending her on a spiral of casual sex, dating, drinking and disaster. This is not one of your Kate Hudson wedding movies.

The impressive credentials of Greta Gerwig include a magna cum laude honor from Barnard College. As an actor, she starred in notable indies like Hannah Takes the Stairs and The Duplass Brothers’ Baghead. Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg got her enough notice to land big Hollywood movies like No Strings Attached and Arthur.

Curled up in a hotel chair, Gerwig remembered me, since we’d only met two months prior. We sort of continued the conversation where Damsels in Distress left off. Durning our conversation, Gerwig got us thinking about how awesome it is to be bored, which was a most exciting and unexpected twist.

SuicideGirls: Are you concerned with the images of women movies put out?

Greta Gerwig: Meaning is it something I worry about?

SG: When you’re taking movies and looking at other movies in the industry.

GG: Well, I think we’re in the middle of a really exciting time for women in film. Largely it’s women generating parts for themselves. I think we’ve gotten a lot more interesting female characters within film and television. But I think typically when you’re given a script to read, the majority of scripts I read, women are ciphers. They’re not really full characters a lot of the time. That being said, neither are a lot of the men. I mean, truth be told, there’s just a lot of bad writing out there. There’s also a lot of good writing but of course everybody’s fighting to get the good writing. I’m on a long list of people but I do think about it. I’ve been very, very fortunate with it. I feel like I’ve looked for women who seem like they’re dynamic human beings in movies, and I’ve been lucky enough to play parts like that that seem like dynamic human beings who aren’t just a stand-in for a pretty girl or something.

SG: Whit Stillman was amused that your character in Arthur gave tours of train stations. Did that seem far fetched to you?

GG: She was a tour guide, yeah. I got the best e-mail that I’ve ever gotten from anyone from Whit after he saw Arthur. He said, “All the departments executed their jobs well and the projection was very good.” I said, “Thank you, Whit, for seeing the film.” Yeah, that seems slightly far fetched but I think Arthur is a fairy tale movie. It doesn’t exist in reality. I think it’s like an archetype. It’s a fairy tale of the prince and the pauper almost.

SG: What was it about this perspective on marriage falling apart and women in relationships in Lola Versus that appealed to you?

GG: Well, she’s the gal moving the story forward. She’s the one making all these mistakes. I really liked how big she messes up. She doesn’t mess up little. She messes up in this grand way and she really screws up her friendships and relationships and is selfish and not really thinking about other people. There was something exciting about that. It was just incredibly fun to do and I knew when I was reading it “This will be really fun to act and I can really get into this.” It was, I was right.

SG: Lola is writing a dissertation on silence. Do you feel we have a fear of silence?

GG: Yes, I do. I think we have a fear of silence and a fear of boredom which is maybe the same thing.

SG: God, it shouldn’t be.

GG: Silence and boredom? I think boredom’s great. I think boredom’s so useful. Raymond Chandler wrote about writing when he said that he would give himself four hours every day and he had to sit at his desk and he didn’t have to write but he couldn’t do anything else. Eventually you get bored enough you start writing. I think boredom covers up for something else. I think boredom covers up anxiety about being alone or being quiet and not having anything to fill your brain or your hands or your eyes or your ears with. I think that creates anxiety which we interpret to be boredom but is actually anxiety.

SG: I would have thought boredom is something to be avoided but silence can be lovely.

GG: I think boredom is to be embraced. I think boredom can create really wonderful things. I think there’s a lack of boredom in the world right now. I think there’s a total lack of boredom. If you’re on the train or on the bus in New York, everybody’s on their phones or on their tablets and they’re entertaining themselves to fucking death. It’s literally like a David Foster Wallace book. And I’m part of it too. I’m not better than it. I’m a human. Of course I love a screen that talks to me. It’s the best thing in the world. You don’t have to sit with yourself anymore. But I think it’s so dangerous. Those moments of boredom on a plane or at the doctor’s office don’t exist anymore and maybe good thinking got done then. Maybe nothing got done then but maybe something got done. I don't think we can really assess the loss of that.

SG: They might be watching some of your movies on those phones and tablets.

GG: I know, they might be. I might be feeding the beast. I probably am feeding the beast. I’m part of it. I’m part of the problem.

SG: As someone who works as much as you do and develops your own projects, when do you get to be bored?

GG: I’m bored all the time. It’s a weird combination because I try to stay off the internet and the television and the media enough that I can have time and space to think and work, but at the same time, I’m involved in making content so I can’t be totally removed from it. It’s a weird balance to strike. It’s somewhere in the middle but it’s very easy to get sucked into the internet as everybody knows.

SG: That’s why I’m employed. I produce a lot of that.

GG: I know, it’s great. I mean, it’s totally beguiling but it’s weird. I have Google Chrome and you can look at your search history. For me, looking at my search history it’s like you can see the machinations of your mind going, “Oh, I wonder if he made this movie with this person. Oh, then that led me over here. Then I wonder what is arsenic anyway?” It’s really indulging all these stone skipping thoughts but I don't know. Maybe I just have this reaction because I’m secretly addicted to the internet.

SG: Well I learned something from one of your movies, also written by a woman, No Strings Attached. I learned about tea for your vag. I didn’t know that was a thing.

GG: Yeah, that line made it in. I love Liz Meriwether. She’s hilarious. I love her show too, New Girl. I think she’s really funny and great. I hope I get to make another movie with her.

SG: So tea for your vag is a thing and that helps women.

GG: Tea for your vag, yeah, totally.

SG: With all of the avenues available now in indie films, is it easier as an artist to reach an audience, via social media or these devices?

GG: I don’t really use a lot of those. I don’t tweet. I don’t do that stuff but yeah, I think it is easier. I don't know that I’m taking advantage of it though but it is easier.

SG: When you’re trying to raise financing, do these options, including VOD and downloading, help you get the money to make a movie?

GG: I actually stay far away from those kinds of decision making moments because it’s thinks I have no real aptitude to think about. The VOD stuff or the different ways you’re going to raise money, I just want to make the movie. Then however it gets to people, I let that happen however it happens.

SG: How have your educational studies of acting been important to your work?

GG: I didn’t go to conservatory. I got to take from some amazing teachers who were actually teaching at Julliard but I was at Barnard College at Columbia and I majored in English and philosophy. I was doing a lot of theater and taking a lot of acting classes and I guess I’ve always seen it as filling my toolbox. I feel like it’s all kind of haphazard because I didn’t have a full on four year conservatory training program. But I think the benefit of it is I never lost how fun it is and I’ve never lost that feeling of it’s all play. It’s never felt like work or drudgery, writing and acting. It has always felt free and exciting and it makes me happy. I think part of that has been preserved because I didn’t overwork it.

SG: Is it your type of music on the Lola Versus soundtrack?

GG: No, my type of music, I like big ‘70s rock, I like Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music type stuff. I like Patti Smith. I like David Bowie. I like rock n’ roll. Lola Versus is in theaters June 8.

(image) by Jeckyl Suicide (image) Ingredients 2 cups plain flower
 2 tsp baking powder
 5 ml salt
 2 eggs
 1 cup milk
 1 cup castor sugar
 2 tbs instant Cuppacino
 100g butter (room temperature)
 cupcake cups Icing:
 125 ml fresh cream
 1 cup icing sugar
 1 tbs instant coffee powder
... more

by Jeckyl Suicide




Ingredients
2 cups plain flower

2 tsp baking powder

5 ml salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup castor sugar

2 tbs instant Cuppacino

100g butter (room temperature)

cupcake cups

Icing:

125 ml fresh cream

1 cup icing sugar

1 tbs instant coffee powder

mini chocolate balls

Method:


Preheat your oven to 180 degrees (celsius). In a bowl, sift together all of your dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, cream together your butter and sugar before slowly adding the eggs.
Add this mixture to the dry ingredients. Combine thoroughly before spooning into the cupcake cups, places in a muffin tray to hold them in place.
 Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.
 Place onto a rack and allow to cool.

And now for the icing; In a bowl, whip the cream until it's stiff before adding the combined sifted icing sugar and instant coffee powder. Once the cupcakes have cooled, smother them in the coffee cream and then sprinkle with mini chocolate balls to garnish.


Viola!




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by The Wine Guy (image) [Yeah, we partied with Everclear back in the day!] Spirits are funny, because people tend to drink them illicitly before they turn twenty-one, but then a lot of people leave them behind, only to rediscover them as an adult. You have bad memories of Jäger bombs, Everclear punch,... more

by The Wine Guy


[Yeah, we partied with Everclear back in the day!]

Spirits are funny, because people tend to drink them illicitly before they turn twenty-one, but then a lot of people leave them behind, only to rediscover them as an adult. You have bad memories of Jäger bombs, Everclear punch, and Cuervo tequila. These memories get burned into your brain and you write off certain drinks because of the follies of your youth.

So lets break down the field and find some lovely cocktails for you, so you can enjoy your adulthood with an adult beverage. Wine and beer are great. They are each in their own right a wonderful playground with all sorts of adventures. However, there is nothing quite like a good spirit. Drinking spirits is an interaction with the booze in a way that wine or beer can never be.

Spirits are an investment one makes over time, which pays greater and greater dividends. The first whiskey I purchased was Chivas Regal. I wanted to be more sophisticated than my mad dog drinking buddies. It took me soooo long to finish that bottle that I had no desire to purchase a second. I kept at it though, plugging away with Jameson, Jack, Jim, Crown, and Bushmills. Finally, I found Johnny Walker Black and that is where the love affair truly began. A year later, when I sipped Laphroaig ten year for the first time, I knew that my love for whiskey would last forever.

So what I am saying is, spirits are not to be undertaken lightly, and I do not believe there are any shortcuts. You have to train yourself before you can jump into the world of aged booze. No need to be discouraged, there are so many fun ways to get started.


[Riae in Sweet Jack]

First, stop buying the plastic bottles. The producer is telling you that their product is not worth being put into glass, and now you are going to put it in you? Nothing can be learned from such filth. Invest an extra few dollars. It will be worth it, I assure you.

I recommend starting your whiskey adventure with something smooth like Jameson or Crown. Both of these are easy to drink and very affordable. You can start by mixing your Crown with coke, and your Jameson with Baileys, Amarula or Drambuie. As you get used to that, you can add less and less mix, until you are drinking it straight.

Once you are drinking it straight – without making the whiskey face – then you may proceed and start exploring nicer whiskeys from around the world. Try Highland Park and Laphroaig and see where your whiskey tastes lie.

If you do not enjoy whiskey, fear not, there are so many other spirits to choose from. Lets tackle brandy. First and most important, Cognac is a place where a specific type of French brandy comes from. The region is also so famous that you’ve heard of it. So guess what? You are paying for that fame. Hennessy, Courvoisier, and Remy Martin are big giant factories pumping out Jack Daniels quality brandy and charging you way too much for it. If it has to come from France, try an Armagnac instead, where you will be paying for the quality and not the name. Or buy a Spanish brandy where you will be rewarded deeply for your courage.

Spirits produced from non-famous regions are always a great gamble. Had rum from Ghana the other day that was fantastic! Which brings us to Rum.

There may not be a better bargain in booze, than rum. You can get top shelf rum for the price of mid level whiskey. Forget Bacardi and Captain Morgan, that factory swill represents rum as much as Ancient Age represents whiskey. Spend a little money on rum and you will see an incredible jump in quality.

After you have tried a nicely aged, well-made rum, you will never wave off that beverage with contempt again. You will not need coke or pineapple juice with these beauties. With two crisp twenties in your hand you will drink like a king with change leftover for a nice beer. Be careful though, these rums drink a little too easy, and you may find yourself refilling your glass once too often and drunk texting people on your contact list who either did not want to hear from your drunk ass or formerly enjoyed hearing from you but now not so much.


[Rain in Tequila]

Which brings us to tequila! If you can’t hear the song playing in your head, then you have had bad experiences with this wonderful drink and need to exorcise them with some good ones. Jose Cuervo Gold is an imposter. This is caramel colored crap with the word tequila on the label is really a chemically engineered hangover machine. Stop buying it!

Go and get yourself a real tequila – and not a famous one that comes in a box. I’m looking at you Patron! Start off with something clean and simple like Milagro Silver. This is a perfect mixer for margaritas, and makes for a good shooter as well. Then grab yourself some moderately priced Reposados and Anejos, and see where your taste lies.

A Reposado has been aged in a barrel for 3 to 6 months generally and that is why it is darker in color than silver, which has not been aged at all. It tends to take on a spicy character and can make the best margarita ever, but remember to use less mix so you can taste the tequila! An Anejo has been aged a year and they are very smooth, though some retain some spiciness from the barrel. They will be even darker in color and are meant to be sipped, don’t shoot them just because they are smooth you fiends!


[Rambo in Private Bar]

Vodka and gin are the two most famous clear liquors. I could go on and on about the myth of high quality vodka, but I will summarize instead. You may prefer potato vodka to grain vodka. You may prefer wheat to potato. These ingredients do change the mouth feel and are worth debating. After that, what you are really arguing about is how clean the vodka is. It’s a neutral spirit and has no flavor. So stop spending tons of money on vodka! It is going to taste like whatever you mix it with.

Gin on the other hand is a nuanced, flavorful spirit that can be incredibly different from style to style. A nice dry gin, made for martinis, is going to taste vastly different than a botanical rich gin made for gin and tonics. The quality of gin and the quality of tonic matter greatly. If you believe they do not, then I know you have never had one of my gin and tonics.

In conclusion, when it comes to spirits pay for the quality not for the name. Find the values from the smaller houses and less famous places. Take the extra money you save from buying Titos vodka instead of Grey Goose and use it to buy a nicer bottle of rum, tequila, gin, or whiskey. Join a small but happy club of people who know how rich and rewarding spirits can be.

They are a drink that may be consumed at the end of long day, sipped slowly, and peacefully. They can bring friends together to explore the wonderful new cocktail you concocted in your kitchen. They can be lifted to toast those of us that are present and remember those that are no longer with us. They are to be savored not gulped. They are to be treated with caution and respect not abused and devoured. They serve as a reminder that some of the finer things in life are available to us all.

Enjoy…responsibly.




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(image) by Nicole Powers (image) This year is the 20th anniversary of Buy Nothing Day, which began in Mexico in 1992. The day of protest was started by Vancouver artist Ted Dave, and was subsequently championed by the Canadian-based anti-consumerist media organization Adbusters. It is now marked annually... more

by Nicole Powers



This year is the 20th anniversary of Buy Nothing Day, which began in Mexico in 1992. The day of protest was started by Vancouver artist Ted Dave, and was subsequently championed by the Canadian-based anti-consumerist media organization Adbusters. It is now marked annually around the globe, on the day after US Thanksgiving in North America (a Black Friday in more ways than one!) and on the following Saturday internationally.

There are many economic, spiritual, and social reasons why you should participate, but when we spoke to Adbusters co-founder Kalle Lasn recently he focused in on the environmental imperative for taking a stand against the great American tradition of conspicuous consumption.

“If everybody on the planet lived like we do in North America, then we would need five planets. There’s seven billion people on the planet, and at the moment there’s just one billion that are living high on the hog. We’re the five planet lifestyle people," explains Lasn, who challenges the wisdom of our society's desire – and economic need – for infinite growth in a world with finite resources in a new book, Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics. (A longform SG interview will be forthcoming.)

“In a way I think there’s some kind of shaming that has to go on," Lasn continues. "Buy Nothing Day is the perfect time to ask – How much is enough? How much is enough for me, for my family? How much is enough for my city? How much is enough for this country that I live in? Isn’t there something unethical about me having a five-planet lifestyle, and saying what President Bush said many years ago, that the American way of life is not negotiable. Well, Buy Nothing Day is a day when you wake up to the fact that it is negotiable – and it has to be renegotiated.”


For more on Buy Nothing Day visit: adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd

Chantal Claret is a very satisfied pleasure seeker. The Morningwood front lady, who admits she was once “a very naughty girl,” has just released the album she's always wanted to make – The One, The Only… her solo debut – and is currently being gratified by a residency at the Hard Rock’s... more

Chantal Claret is a very satisfied pleasure seeker. The Morningwood front lady, who admits she was once “a very naughty girl,” has just released the album she's always wanted to make – The One, The Only… her solo debut – and is currently being gratified by a residency at the Hard Rock’s swanky Vinyl club in Las Vegas and by a husband (Jimmy Urine of Mndless Self Indulgence) whom she tells us is “one of the good ones.”

Her freshly minted music – which might come as quite a surprise to those used to the pop-infused rock of Morningwood – is perfect for Sin City, being a glamorous and gutsy mix of ‘60s inspired retro rock & soul.

A longtime friend of SuicideGirls, we thought is was about time we caught up with the sexy chanteuse and kick-ass woman’s woman. During the course of our conversation she shared her recipe for finding love, and spoke about the wonders of real women (with real asses) and the joy of making out.

Nicole Powers: I’m just turning the tape recorder on so everything you say can be taken down as evidence and used against you.

Chantal Claret: Although I have a fear that that’s what happens with every phone call I’m on...I have to tell you though, I met one of my best friends ever, who is still one of my best friends to this day, she used to work for SuicideGirls, and we met via phone when she interviewed me about six years ago.

NP: Oh, very cool. Who would that be?

CC: Lauren Clark [a.k.a. Auren Suicide].

NP: Oh, oh my gosh, Lauren is amazing. I love her.

CC: She’s going to be there this weekend in Las Vegas too…We actually met for the first time at a SuicideGirls event on New Year’s and she’s still one of my BFFs.

NP: Oh, I love that. SuicideGirls is awesome for bringing like-minded folks together.

CC: Yeah.

NP: So that was in the days when you were Ms. Morningwood. This album is quite the departure, but it’s a glorious departure too.

CC: Thank you so much.

NP: I’ve just been rocking out all morning to “Real Girls” – that’s everything that SuicideGirls is about in one badass phat track.

CC: I wanted to write a song for girls. There’s a lot of songs – like by Beyoncé and “I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly” – all that stuff is talking to guys, telling them about how a big girl is all right. But I wanted to write a song from a girl with a big fat ass to another girl with a big fat ass. You know, girl to girl, let’s be proud of ourselves. It’s not only for girls with big fat asses. I don’t want to exclude girls if they don’t have the natural goods, but, you know, be proud of yourself and shake your shit.

NP: But, as you say in the song, do you think “real girls get the boys”?

CC: I do. You know what, my husband loves some “tig ol’ bitties” as I call them. Even though men think they want like supermodels, that shit doesn’t keep you warm at night. I’m telling you, secretly, guys like a little bit of stuff. The good ones like that. I mean, I’ve never had a problem getting dudes and I’ve always had a little meat on the bones. So if I can do it anybody can do it.

NP: Good to know. So where did the inspiration for this album come from? Because it’s complete left of field for people that are used to hearing you as Ms. Morningwood.

CC: This is me. Morningwood was actually hard for me. That was sort of out of my comfort zone. I love rock & roll but I always say what you sing in the shower is really what you love to sing, and this is the stuff that I sing in the shower – upbeat ‘60s music, I grew up [listening to that]. Everybody gravitates towards one type of music when they’re young and they’re discovering music on their own, and the music of the ‘60s – be it girl groups or soul or British invasion or garage – that was the stuff that really I ate up. I couldn’t get enough of it. That was what I always wanted to make. Finally it got to the point where I was just like, I better shit or get off the pot, because if I don’t do exactly what I want to do somebody else is going to do it and I’m going to sit there kicking myself. Plus, you know, you have to do what you believe in whole-heartedly otherwise what the fuck is the point?

NP: You’ve got such an authentic retro vibe on this album. As a shower singer, what’s on your Top 10 list of tracks to let rip to?

CC: My go-to shower songs would probably be “A Fool In Love” by Ike and Tina, The Exciters’ “He’s Got The Power,” “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” by Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone’s “Wild Is The Wind” – there’s a lot of soulful stuff in there. “Why Keep On Breaking My Heart” by Nina Simone. I like to fancy myself as a strong black woman when I’m in the shower.

NP: Your neighbors must have a great front row seat to your shower covers concerts.

CC: I’m always so curious if they hear me, and then I’m like, they must be impressed because it sounds good. The acoustics in the shower are awesome. That’s the best place to sing. I want to record a whole record in the shower with water running and everything. That’s also where I write a lot too. Stuff comes to you in the shower and then you have to keep singing it over and over and over again while you dry yourself off so you can go record it.

NP: That’s why I loved being in London because the acoustics in the Underground are like that too, and when you were coming back from a club at stupid o’clock in the morning, you could just let it rip in those long tunnels.

CC: Are you in London?

NP: No, but I spent my college years there.

CC: Oh, I love it there. I want to sing in the tube. I love London. I miss it there. I want to go back.

NP: Well, you’re going to be in Vegas. I understand you did your first show already.

CC: Yeah, I did it in June at the Troubadour, and now I’m going to start a residency at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas, which is mind-blowing. It’s a three-month residency for ten dates and it’s all ages and free. It’s at this new club they have called Vinyl, which is a 650 person venue that they just opened. I’m their first residency and it’s pretty fucking amazing that they took a chance on me.

NP: This album, with its 60s swagger, was built for Vegas.

CC: Yeah, it feels like old Vegas. It feels like we’re bringing back the Rat Pack and all that stuff. It feels classic. It’s such an amazing concept to do. I mean, every musician’s dream is to be in one place and have people come to see you, and what better place than in Las Vegas? That’s so fucking cool. And the Hard Rock, which is the only hotel there that’s based on the idea of music….I’ve always been a Vegas-y performer in that regard. I like to entertain people. I consider myself more of an entertainer than I do necessarily a musician, and I think that’s what Vegas loves.

NP: I was chatting to Dita Von Tease about Vegas, and, you’ll appreciate this, she was mourning the loss of the Liberace Museum.

CC: Oh, yeah. I tried to go to it last time I was in Vegas. I was so beyond excited, and we got there and it was shut down. I couldn’t believe it! So I’ve never gotten to see it.

NP: What do you like to do in Vegas?

CC: I do Vegas like an 80-year old. There’s different kinds of Vegas for different people. There’s the Ghostbar and crazy Vegas, and then there’s grandma Vegas, which is the way that I usually do it. We go play 5 cent Keno, go eat an $11 buffet, and then [go to] a discount show. We do old people Vegas.

NP: That’s hilarious.

CC: I’m a mega-great Bingo player. I’m a huge fan of Bingo. I’ll go play Bingo for a couple of hours. I won like $152 at 5 cent Keno…Like 5 cents into $152 is mind-blowing. If I had been playing with dollars I’d be talking to you from my private plane that never lands. That’s the only kind of gambling I can allow, Bingo and Keno, in my mind, because otherwise I’d just lose all my money.

NP: Talking of potentially destructive but enjoyable pastimes, you have a really interesting track on the album about your father, “Pleasure Seeker.” It’s a very complex track. I’m guessing that you had quite a complex relationship with your dad.

CC: Not only did, still do. We have an interesting relationship. I’m a momma’s girl I guess you could say, so I definitely have a hard time with him. I didn’t realize how therapeutic that song was until even after I played it for him. I think the first time I really realized how intense it was was at the first show when he was there and I sang it to him. I brought him up to the front and I was like holding on to him and singing it. It felt so cathartic. It really was. Because I just heard the bad things that I was saying about him, even though I wrote what I ultimately felt, that I still do love him.

NP: Right, because you’re calling him "a lying, stealing cheater...[I’m just like him, I’m a pleasure seeker]."

CC: Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is really not very becoming. When I first played it for him, I was sick to my stomach. Honestly, I was going to poop my pants. I was so nervous. I thought this could end my relationship with my dad. I honestly did. I said, this could go either way. This could either open a dialogue or I could never talk to my dad again, I have no idea how this is going to go. I sat him down and was like, “Hey, want to hear some new music I’m writing?” He said, “Yeah,” and I was like, “I wrote this song about you” [and pressed] play. And then I just watched him listening to it and I was shaking. Afterwards he was ecstatic. He was like, “I love it! It’s amazing.” He plays it for all of his friends. He’s like, “I want to be in the video.” He loves it. Where I was seeing only that I wrote the bad stuff, he really saw the bigger picture from the first moment he heard it – that, regardless of everything, I love him. It’s a love letter. No relationship is easy, so I still do.

NP: I think that you’ve got to love someone in spite of their faults. If you’re in love with someone and in denial of them, then you’re not really in love with that person, you’re in love with your idea of them.

CC: Totally. And believe me, I see all of my dad’s faults, as are listed variously in the song. I see a tremendous amount of faults, and he saw past that, and I’m so grateful for that because honestly, this song really did make us closer which is incredible.

NP: The song also brings up that dichotomy that women have; we do love the bad boys but then there’s the reality of that too.

CC: Well, fortunately I am lucky, because I had my father as an example, I do not love bad boys. I only love nice guys. If somebody is bad to me or something, I’m out the door. I, luckily, was not blessed with that bad boy gene of going after guys who are not nice.

NP: You’ve seen the reality of it.

CC: I’ve seen what it can do to a woman and I never want that in my entire life. I was lucky enough to find one of the good ones and married that mo-fo.

NP: Awe. He sounds like an awesome dude.

CC: He’s a sweetheart and an incredible performer as well. He’s the singer of this band, Mindless Self Indulgence. He’ll be my hype man for the shows that he’s in [town for].

NP: Ah, so he’s going to be involved”

CC: Yeah, he’s does the intro on the record….so he’s going to be doing my intro in Las Vegas.

NP: That’s awesome, you get to like hang out in Las Vegas together.

CC: Yeah, but then he has to go to Europe to go on tour for a little while.

NP: You also have a couple of tracks on the album about the flip side of love, “Black Widow” and “Can’t Save Her.” Talk a bit about those.

CC: “Black Widow” is about a bitch who’s looking for money. I am not a gold digger by any means, but while I was writing it I was like, the only way I’m going to remember these details – 5’9” and five inch heels, red hair, big brown eyes – is if I make it about me. So I had to make all the details about me. That’s just about a gold digging woman, which I am not by any means. That’s the only song where I tweaked it to make it easier, honestly, to remember.

“Can’t Save Her” – that’s pretty self-referential. I write a lot about myself, I guess I’m a super narcissist. I apologize. That one is about a girl who has sowed her wild oats there and back again, and has been around the block, and is afraid of not being able to come out of that dark, dark shit. I’ve definitely been there before. I’m a happy go lucky person, but I’ve done a lot of dark, dirty shit in my life.

NP: Are you on the other side of the dark and dirty shit now?

CC: Oh, yeah. I’m the most well trained house cat in the entire world. I’m so domesticated. I just like to cook and watch TV. That was a long time ago, when I was young.

NP: Are you the total Suzy Homemaker then?

CC: Oh, it’s ridiculous. Yeah. Yesterday I made brownies and bacon and cookies and stuff like that. I’m like the Paula Dean of Los Angeles. But when everybody’s young, you go through it. You do all of your stuff. I was a naughty girl. A very naughty girl.

NP: I think that you have to get that out of your system so you can settle down and have some sort of peace of mind.

CC: Exactly. I got that all out of my system. If I hadn’t, I bet you at some point in my life I would freak out and want to do all that stuff. That’s when all of that stuff happens to people where they have their midlife crisis and they go buck wild. I’ve gone buck wild, there and back again, so I’m good. I don’t miss it, I just like to write about it.

NP: What did your buck wild days entail?

CC: Oooh! [laughs]

NP: Dare I ask?

CC: You know, hard partying ways in New York City, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of boys. I was a player. I was really a conquistadora as I like to say. If I had a bedpost and I put notches in, it would’ve been broken off because I would’ve whittled it to the bone.

NP: How did your man capture your heart?

CC: He’s incredible. I met him on tour when my band was opening for his band. I thought he was weird. I thought he was super nice. Then we ended up on a drunken evening making out in Philadelphia on a pier and then in a stairwell for about 8 hours and we talked. I honestly think the trick in finding love and somebody that you love, is somebody who makes you laugh and makes you cum. That’s my love recipe.

NP: I love that you said that you made out for 8 hours. I think making out is so underrated.

CC: It is. The other secret is not having sex on the first date. Honestly. Some people wait months, some people wait days, but as long as you don’t do it on the first date, then you have a chance to talk. That took me a long time to learn. Like a long time to learn. I was just like, “Want to have sex? Okay, let’s have sex. I want it, you want it, why wait?” But, honestly, you need to wait a little bit. We happened to have to wait for a month, just because of circumstances, but we made out all over the place, all over the country, and then when we finally got together, it was on.

NP: That’s awesome. Because you never get the making out bit of life back if you jump straight in the sack. Making out in itself is so awesome, and then you have all of the anticipation of more.

CC: That feeling, that tingly feeling when somebody touches you and kisses you is the most incredible feeling you can ever get. And it’s fleeting, so you really have to make it last as long as you can.

NP: It really, really is, that make-out moment is fleeting. I always think it’s like watching one of those TV shows like Moonlighting, where once Bruce Willis and Cybill Sheppard got together it kind of jumped the shark.

CC: I love your Moonlighting reference. 100% yes. Once you have sex you jump the shark.

NP: You either jump the shark or you get married.

CC: Yeah and then you get married. I mean, we still got the goods going on in our house but it’s definitely different. The lucky part is he goes on tour for a little while and so you get a little bit of it back because you don’t see him for three weeks etc.

NP: Right. You get the anticipation of seeing him all over again.

CC: Mmmm.

NP: So, we have actually some questions from the internets because the internets were very excited when they heard that we were going to be chatting to you today.

CC: Awesome.

NP: I know you’ve kind of answered this, but for the benefit of @CrashDiamond_23 and @Kiri_Kutthroat, who both had similar questions, do you prefer the rock stuff from Morningwood or the retro solo stuff?

CC: I prefer this stuff. I mean, it’s different singing-wise. I like to sing this more. I can’t forget everything I learned; I performed for 10 years with my old band so I grew up as a rock performer, so to me this is sort of rock & soul. I want to bring the energy and excitement of a rock show to a retro-soul show. I think a lot of those old performers that you love, like Tina Turner and James Brown, had this guttural thing that you didn’t know what was going to happen and it was very rock & roll. Tina Turner could sing rock and soul and anything she wanted, but it still always had that grit to it. So I think I’ll always have that rock in me, my voice is a very rock voice, and when you bring that to classic music, it always gets a little bit of that rock tinge.

NP: The second question is from @ToBeQuiteFrank who wants to know what advice you would give to girls/teenagers about fame and the pressure to be famous in today's society?

CC: Oh, I don’t know, I’m not famous.

NP: But you’ve had hit songs.

CC: Mild success, but I don’t think I’m in the place where I have to really worry about the pressures of fame. I worry about the pressures of paying my mortgage and things like that. I have very everyday problems. I’m not a person who’s out to chase the dragon of fame. I don’t want to be famous. Unfortunately I’ve chosen a profession where fame is a measure of your career success. I’m not in it for fame. I’m in it to support myself and do what I love…I have been fortunate enough where I don’t have to really check myself all the time. I always say as long as I can still go get my eyebrows waxed at the outdoor kiosk in the mall and sometimes pick my nose in my car, then I know that I’m not at [an uncomfortable] level of fame. I don’t want to get above that level of fame where I can’t do those things….I know people who are really famous who have to go places with body guards and hide where they live and things like that and protect their kids. That’s sad. I feel bad. They can’t post pictures of stuff and that’s really scary. I hope I never get to that point. But I know they’re also at that point because there’s a flip side – it’s really a double-edged sword. They also have huge houses and can afford cars and do whatever they want. They pay for the other side of that…I don’t get all those perks. There’s perks and downsides to it.

NP: Last question from the internet: If you had a child, what would you name it?

CC: That is a secret. I know it. If it’s a boy or a girl, we know our names, our friends know the answer to that because we just had to put dibs on them, but that’s not for the internet to know. Dammit you saucy little internet, you’re not going to get that answer.

NP: That would be @Noelle_Horn who’s going to be very unhappy with that answer.

CC: Oh no @Noelle_Horn, you’re just going to have to wait until James puts a baby in me at some point down the line when I’m good and ready, and then you’ll find out.

NP: So, that’s already in the plans and on the cards.

CC: We plan on having kids, but not any time in the very near future. I’ve got to go to Vegas. I’ve got shit to do.

If I didn’t know better I would think David Lynch was Italian. He uses his hands to describe ideas more than anyone I have ever met. It’s fascinating to watch this man communicate. He pulls out the cigarette pack, the lighter, moves the ashtray, lights the cigarette, puts the pack away the and then,... more

If I didn’t know better I would think David Lynch was Italian. He uses his hands to describe ideas more than anyone I have ever met. It’s fascinating to watch this man communicate. He pulls out the cigarette pack, the lighter, moves the ashtray, lights the cigarette, puts the pack away the and then, once his hands are free, resumes emphasizing his words with enigmatic gestures. Lynch, a four-time Oscar nominee, remains one of the most enigmatic American filmmakers. He first entered the feature world with Eraserhead, which was a five-year journey. Since then he’s directed the film adaptation of Dune, Blue Velvet, co-created the cult television series Twin Peaks and directed many other features. His latest picture, Inland Empire, is the first feature he has shot on video. He's even taking a stab at self-distribution. Inland Empire was another five year journey from start to finish, and once again Lynch is working with old friends and collaborators such as Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton and perhaps his most talented muse, Laura Dern. Dern plays an actor who, after a long dry spell, lands a coveted role in a big film. While filming, Dern's character and the other actors are told that the film is actually a remake of another picture that was never completed for mysterious reasons. Along the way Dern plays two other characters and seems to segue from reality to fantasy without any warning. In other words, Inland Empire is classic Lynch.

Check out the official website for Inland Empire

Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello David, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve been a fan of yours since I saw The Elephant Man as a kid.

David Lynch: Did it freak you out?

DRE: Yes, it did.

DL: Doggone.

DRE: Isn’t that what you wanted to do?

DL: No [laughs] but it’s tough for a little kid. I remember someone telling me they saw The Elephant Man when they were eight. I think it was a little too much.

DRE: I might have seen it when I was nine or ten.

DL: Uh-huh.

DRE: I had nightmares about your elephant scene.

DL: Right, sure.

DRE: It was very scary. Elephants were friendly when I was a kid.

DL: Uh-huh [laughs].

DRE: I look at Inland Empire as more of an art piece than a feature film. Do you see it that way?

DL: No I don’t but I’ve heard people say something like that.

DRE: Do you see a narrative in it?

DL: Yes.

DRE: How many times do I have to see it until I discover the narrative?

DL: You’d only have to see it once. Well, you might have to see it a couple times, but it’s there.

DRE: It reminded me of that old quote of yours from when you first got into film, where you said that you wanted to see the pictures move. Inland Empire feels like you are using the paintbrush to go in many directions. Is that more of an editing process or are you already thinking about this stuff when you’re shooting?

DL: It is weird. It is all from ideas and then the ideas tell you everything. But you get to a point where the ideas are gathered and now you’re getting close to a whole thing, a sequence is indicated pretty clearly. Then there’s a point where for the sake of the whole, another thing happens. When you finally see the whole thing and react to that you see that there’s much more work to be done and then there’s sometimes rearrangements and deletions, maybe even something new that you never thought you were going to use. So it’s a process but driven by the ideas.

DRE: Watching Inland Empire is a harrowing experience for the viewer. Is creating it as harrowing?

DL: When you get an idea it’s like seeing it in a movie so it’s not so much as harrowing, it’s like thrilling. It fires you up because then you know what you’re going to do. You get an idea, you love the idea and you love the way cinema is able to translate that idea. Those things are what drive the boat for me. It’s not so harrowing, but if you get a fragment of a whole, that’s usually the way it happens. Starts with fragments, then an unknown thing opens up and that’s sometimes harrowing, but beautifully harrowing because you don’t know what’s there and you want to know.

DRE: Is it true that you were writing scenes right before you shot them?

DL: No, not right before I shot them, I’d write them before I shot them but not necessarily right before [laughs]. Now a couple of times I wrote them the day before, because I was in a place where I had to take advantage of an idea that was there. It was like a blurred, veiled inkling and then this thing happens and you focus on it and it comes into focus and you see it and you write it down. I was in places where I needed to do something there because I’d be leaving.

DRE: The scene where the prostitutes do the song and dance number to The Loco-Motion reminded me of Lost Highway where in the middle of the movie Robert Loggia freaks on the guy on the highway and also the Naomi Watts audition scene in Mulholland Drive. These are very impressive, in-your-face scenes. Do those things liven it up for you or is that all just part of the process?

DL: It’s part of the process. Different scenes do different things and when you’ve got nine girls dancing to The Loco-Motion or something like that, it’s got to be in the liveliness department.

DRE: Does a scene like that energize the movie?

DL: No, it’s not like you say, “Oh, I need something here.” The idea came along for it. It is not that I feel I need something and then would make something to fill that need. The idea is what’s doing it.

DRE: A few years ago I interviewed David Cronenberg. Now, I’m not comparing the two of you.

DL: Good.

DRE: Too many people do that. I asked him if he puts certain things in his movies to tweak the audience and he told me that if he were to do that it would be more like he was tweaking himself. That seems to jibe with what you were saying with just putting something in a film.

DL: Yes, that would be a real false note and I feel like if you’re true to the ideas and you work on it until you realize those ideas and they feel correct based on the idea, then they have a chance of feeling correct for others. Even if you’re going on a intuitive feel, if you’re true to those ideals, sometimes they’ve got these harmonics, if you dick with them, you might ruin the harmonics. They would be bad things and people would start smelling a rat. You may not even understand those harmonics, but somebody out there might and it’s true on that level and it’s true on the harmonic levels. So you’ve got to be real careful.

DRE: Are the harmonics ever not correct?

DL: No, they have to be. If the notes, the chords are correct, the harmonics are going to be correct. But you may not understand the beauty of the harmonics but somebody else might. If you’ve been true to these notes, they’ve got a chance to appreciate some other thing. On Eraserhead, I don’t remember what it was but I had the feeling that I appreciated some other level of it later, but I wasn’t even aware of it when I did it. It’s that thing.

DRE: Your past films are so recognizable and famous for having great, lush cinematography and beautiful colors. Even though Inland Empire does have those things, it is in a much different way.

DL: It was because I was shooting DV so the quality isn’t film quality. But it is it’s own quality. For projection in theaters it needs to go to film, so you’ve got a certain quality resolution DV up-res-ed to Hi Def and then put on film. All these processes are opportunities to me. They keep adding something that’s really magical and beautiful.

DRE: Besides it being shot on video did you try to shoot it the way you did your other films?

DL: I sometimes put it on the tripod and light it but sometimes it’s floating. Something happened because I’m holding the camera more on this and when you hold the camera you find yourself moving based on the feeling you’re getting from the scene and I think that’s a secretive act. You’re looking and listening and you are just doing things that you wouldn’t do if you had an operator. You wouldn’t be able to tell him in time. It’s more like you’re in there and you’re doing things that you couldn’t have done before.

DRE: Did the idea of the movie come before the idea of self-distributing it?

DL: Oh yeah. People would tell me that I’ve got a three hour picture that no one understands. [laughs] But I long for the 14 year old girls in the Midwest to fall in love with Inland Empire and embrace it. That would be so cool. I don’t see why it couldn’t happen but there’s a whole bunch of things happening and I don’t know all of it at all. It’s a feeling that the studios are just following the music industry. The music industry used to be a big advantage to artists and then those advantages started going down and down and down. To the point where they say, Jack give me your final album and maybe we’ll distribute it. They’re going down low enough so that you say, “Well wait a minute. I’m going to do the same amount of work, take this advance and that’s the last nickel I’m ever going to see.” You don’t see another nickel even if your film is doing good. How depressing is that? So I’d rather go a different route and take my chances. It’s a little bit thrilling to do it. It is a large amount of work but I’m getting to meet the people. I’m getting to meet the theater owners and I’m taking a hair more responsibility than in the past. I think it’s the way of the future.

DRE: I saw the video of you with the cow in Los Angeles on Youtube, are ventures like that something you want to be a part of?

DL: It is what’s just going to happen, but for me, I’m still hanging on to the theatrical experience as the best. But it won’t be too long before there won’t be any DVDs. We will be downloading our films and what you do with it is up to you but I would recommend squirting it on a big wall with speakers in a dark room and seeing it all the way through. Kill the phones so you have that experience and you can go into another world. But a lot of people are going to see it on their phones and their computers but in my book they won’t have seen the film.

DRE: Was it very important to have actors you’ve worked with before like Laura [Dern] and Justin [Theroux] in the main roles?

DL: What’s important is to get the right actors for the roles. If you’ve already worked with them, you’ve already developed a shorthand and you’re friends but that is not the reason to cast them. But when they marry to the part and you’ve got that added bonus, it’s beautiful. Laura is in a film that’s considered somewhat strange, but she has given a performance that will rival anything done this year so I hope she fares very well. The danger is that it will take a while to filter into the culture and miss an award but I think she’ll be remembered for her role.

DRE: It is interesting how self-referential the film is. Much of it takes place on a film set, part of the movie is about a director working with actors, part of the movie was shot in Poland and there’s a Polish character in the movie. Do you like putting what’s happening to you right into your movies?

DL: I also went to New York City but no ideas came in New York. You see what I mean? It’s the ideas coming and how one relates to another. You never know what’s going to trigger them or when they’re going to come. When they come along, then you focus on those and that focus and desire for more brings more in time. So the thing starts growing, you don’t know where it’s going, it just starts growing. A whole thing comes from Poland and from Hollywood. Now if I hadn’t gone to Poland, I don’t think I’d have gotten the Polish idea, but something was happening there. But I’ve gone to other places where something’s happening but the ideas didn’t come.

DRE: What is it you like so much about Los Angeles?

DL: I love the light. I love the feeling. It comes, I think, from the light, maybe more than that. But in LA I get the feeling of all possibilities. A freeing feeling of all possibilities can be gotten.

DRE: You started the short film Rabbits before you finished Inland Empire, did you always intend to put it into Inland?

DL: It started something happening. One thing leads to another, that’s the beautiful thing about the world. So some things you do and that’s it. Some things lead to more and more and more.

DRE: I believe you had some non-professional actors in Inland Empire.

DL: Well there were Polish actors, American actors, professionals and some surprises.

DRE: And regular people?

DL: Regular people, yeah.

DRE: What does putting regular people into your movie do for you?

DL: Everybody’s an actor and they might be bad, but there’s an actor in everybody. So sometimes you meet someone and see that their face would work. If they’re right for that thing, then that’s what you got to do.

DRE: Would you ever work for a studio again?

DL: Well, I haven’t ever worked with a studio, really. But it is like asking, would you ever poke a knife through your chest? Maybe, but I don’t think so.

DRE: Are you already doing things for your next project?

DL: No, I’ve got to do this distribution. But I’m longing for the day to start focusing on catching ideas. Maybe I’ll catch them during the distribution thing. I’ve got some ideas for the next one but a lot more has to come.

DRE: I heard a rumor about more Twin Peaks.

DL: No, somebody asked me about that the other night. I don’t know where that rumor is coming from.

DL: Is there material there for a special edition DVD of The Elephant Man?

DL: I don’t think so.

DRE: What do you think about the rise of Eli Roth?

DL: Oh, Eli’s my buddy. I haven’t talked to him in a long time. Eli is a go-getter and he’s smart and a good guy. So everybody’s got their own voice but Eli, I guess, is making it happen.

DRE: Do you watch many movies?

DL: No. I don’t have time. I’ve got to work.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

Brom is one of the most respected and acclaimed fantasy artists of his generation. He started his career as a fantasy artist at TSR working on Dungeons and Dragons projects and was the lead visual designer behind the Dark Sun world. He’s painted dozens of book covers for Michael Moorcock, R.A. Salvatore... more

Brom is one of the most respected and acclaimed fantasy artists of his generation. He started his career as a fantasy artist at TSR working on Dungeons and Dragons projects and was the lead visual designer behind the Dark Sun world. He’s painted dozens of book covers for Michael Moorcock, R.A. Salvatore and many others and worked as a designer for movies and video games. Brom has also written a number of books including “The Plucker,” “The Devil’s Rose,” and “The Child Thief,” a retelling of the Peter Pan story. Two books collecting his artwork have been published, and next year will see the release of a major career retrospective from Flesk Publications.

His newest book is “Krampus, the Yule Lord,” a particularly dark and twisted holiday tale about Santa Claus’ enemy set in contemporary West Virginia. It’s brutal and dark but it’s also about the power of art and the meaning of hope. It’s a great antithesis to a saccharine holiday. We spoke with him from his home in the Pacific Northwest.


ALEX DUEBEN: I really enjoyed Krampus and not sure what that says about my holiday spirit

BROM: [laughs] It just shows that you’re a traditionalist. You love the true spirit of Christmas.

AD: Where did this book start for you?

B: It goes back to postcards. My wife collected these Krampus postcards. I knew nothing about him. He was just this creepy, cool Christmas demon that’s running around putting naughty kids in sacks and spanking the bottoms of buxom women. What a great guy. [laughs] When I started digging into it, the first thing you find out is the fact that people actually celebrate Krampus at Christmas. That in itself is very shocking because maybe I’ve been raised in a bubble thinking that Santa Claus is what we’re used to this traditional North American Santa Claus and it’s bizarre to learn there are so many variations [of Christmas] in European countries.

AD: The character of Krampus and how he’s portrayed seems to straddle line between satyr and demon.

B: Exactly. When I started digging in more I discovered this current mythology and celebrations going on in European countries. There are so many variations. In some he is Santa’s sidekick. In others he has his own role. He’s changed over time. The farther I dug back, Christmas traditions come from Yule and the pagans and like you were mentioning, originally Krampus was another one of these horned nature spirits that so many early primitive European tribes worshipped. The earliest thing I could find was the yule goat which makes a lot of sense that the yule goat would turn into Krampus because Krampus is very much a goat-like, horned deity type of fellow. You see a lot of that imagery when you start digging into pagan mythology. What’s interesting is those characters are kindly to humans. They’re benevolent. They were spirits that helped women to be fertile, the lands to be fertile and when the church came through instead of just trying to do away with all the old traditions they usurped them and took these characters and turned them into the bad guys and demonized these originally positive nature spirits.

AD: You wrote about this in the book’s afterword but you tied Santa and Krampus into Norse mythology.

B: When you start digging, in every region the mythology is a little different and they all have their own versions and different names even though a lot of the creatures are similar. Again, going back to Yule, both Krampus and Santa Claus come out of very similar roots. Krampus came first and then Santa. In some countries and cultures, Santa and Krampus are very similar–even in early America the Pennsylvania Dutch and some of the German communities have a variation of Krampus and Santa sort of combined together where you have a being that essentially rewards good children and punishes bad children–and people, for that matter.

AD: Are you a big fan of Norse mythology?

B: I love all mythology and folktales and folklore. For the most part I’ve been more focused on American folktales, but it seems to be that a lot of the writing that I do ends up tying into European mythologies. I’m fascinated by all mythologies and the farther back you dig they have a lot of very similar archetypes.

AD: You mentioned American folktales. Most of Krampus is set in West Virginia and Hank Williams is referenced early on. I couldn’t help but feel there’s a Hank Williams spirit to the book.

B: [laughs] Part of that is that as writer you have to write what you relate to. So much of this is European based and I wanted to set it in rural America because that’s something I understand and the contrast is fascinating. I have a love of early country music and that ties into the folktales. And I think by putting it in a setting, that I could make realistic, I hoped it would make the fantastic elements more real.

AD: The book also touches on the idea that just as people and cultures have a lifespan, so does mythology. The archetypes remain, but the figure die out and are replaced.

B: And that was part of the fun. The fact that Krampus lost touch with humanity and him trying to make sense of what has become and what man worships now, whether it’s the moving picture screens or the drugs that have taken over certain parts of culture, was both tragic and humorous.

AD: I did start laughing at the image of all the children putting their shoes out for Krampus to leave them gold coins.

B: I’m hoping it will catch on for real. Krampus is fascinating. The roots are there in yule tradition. Every year he seems to become a little more popular so I’m hoping he does catch on. It would be fun if Christmases were not only celebrating Santa Claus but we’d have our little glowing Krampuses out front as well.

AD: You’re an illustrator and you drew a few illustrations for the book. I’m curious and curious whether part of you wants to write a book without illustrations or whether you want to draw every scene and every page?

B: I’ve always considered myself a storyteller with pictures or words. When I was young, I did both–I drew the pictures, wrote the stories, got the stapler out and made little books. Thanks to technology, I can sit in my room and paint paintings and write stories on the word processor and put it all together in the computer and still make books. I feel like I’m doing the same thing I’ve done since I was a young child.

Back to your question about illustrating, I’m obviously very visually driven. As I’m writing I’m seeing every scene and I would love to bring them to life. It would be fun to of course turn this into a film and bring all the visions to life, but it’s sort of organic the way it develops. I often see the images first–the characters and the visual ideas of them. That’s how I’ll explore them. I’ll get out the sketchbook and start trying to visualize them and often that process helps me visualize them in the prose, as well. Then the two go back and forth. I’ll discover something in the prose that ends up in the painting and then when I flesh them out in the painting I’ll discover more about the characters. The two really support each other. Just from a creative point of view, I find as I get older that if I do too much of any one thing, I tend to get a bit burnt out. It’s really nice to be able to write for three months and then paint for a month or two and then go back to the writing and back and forth. It keeps both creative disciplines fresh and keeps me interested.

AD: Next year there’s an art book of your work coming out from Flesk Publishing. How did that happen?

B: I’ve done two other art books in my career. I’ve been very fortunate; there seems to be a solid audience for my work. Lately I’ve been so focused on my books and on various projects that I just haven’t had a chance to put together one. I had enough new work that it was time to put out a new one. Also the technology has changed and I can get better reproductions now. That was exciting to be able to take the best of my older work and get new scans and color corrections. I’m looking forward to being able to present those maybe a little truer to how the originals look. This is a much more ambitious book so it should also give me a chance to do some close ups of the paintings and explore the process. My previous art books had been pretty much just painting plates and not much text. This is going to be 90% images as well but I do hope to go a bit into the creative process and how I got to where I am as well as the technical process.

AD: And this is going to a selection of work from throughout your career?

B: This is a retrospective. It’s the best of my older work–about half of it is from previously published anthologies and other places, and the rest is my newer work. There’s sketches and concept work. I’m hoping to make this the definitive collection of my work to date.

AD: You started your career working at TSR, which has a great tradition of artists, and you did a lot of the design work on Dark Sun. What was that experience like?

B: It was amazing. I’d always done fantasy and horror [art] and when I graduated from art school I was around twenty years old and I went into commercial art because that was the only place I could get work. At first I was happy just to be doing art for a living. I felt very privileged to be able to do that, but after about three or four years of that I was really getting burnt out. I was doing photorealistic product renderings and you can imagine how creatively stagnating that felt. I had all these monsters that needed to get out. I put together a portfolio and started going to conventions trying to get work and I got some early covers that didn’t pay hardly anything at all, but I was so happy doing them. I knew I was going down the right path. I’d submitted some stuff to TSR and they were looking for a staff artist. I came up for an interview and they weren’t interested. They said we’ve got ten other people we’re looking at before you. I felt dejected. We were going to move and that day we were going to get in the U-haul and drive to New Jersey when the phone rang. Apparently the other ten people weren’t interested in moving to the small town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin so the job was mine if I wanted it.

But to answer your question, I was twenty four years old and I went from a commercial artist doing product renderings, struggling to do any sort of fantastical work, to all of a sudden I’m a full time fantasy artists. At that time Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, Fred Fields were on staff. Keith Parkinson and Larry Elmore were in the area. Suddenly I had all these talented, knowledgable artists at my disposable. It was this incredible learning curve to just know the right sets of paints and techniques. The point of your question, how it felt, for at least the first year I would go in early before other people. They had these flat files and I would just look at all the artwork. This was all my hopes and dreams since I was six years old and suddenly I was there I was doing it. I was amongst people that I highly respected. It was really magical.

AD: So your time there was more important as far as your education than what you learned in art school.

B: By far. Art schools in the eighties were horrible. [laughs] There were some exceptions, but for the most part you had two choices, you learned very arty farty non-representational art or you learned graphic design. It was so hard to learn basic painting skills, basic figure and anatomy. All that I had to learn on my own. And then when I got to TSR it was that’s where I learned all the basic techniques of oil painting because I had these top professional oil painters around me.

AD: I keep hearing stories over the years about art school over decades and I hear so few good stories.

B: [laughs] It is changing so rapidly just over the past couple years. There’s a real renaissance going on both in art schools and in galleries because suddenly there’s an audience for representational art. I credit a lot of that to the gaming community because there’s these companies that employ large amounts of artists to create these games and that community is supporting and appreciating the aesthetics of traditional painting skills. Because of that, there’s a demand to learn those skill sets as well so there are a lot of schools now that are getting better and there are a lot of private teaching workshops for a week or two weeks where you work with artists that you really admire.

AD: Who are the artists that have really influenced you?

B: You have to first give credit to Frank Frazetta because he’s the one that opened my eyes to the possibilities. I think so many people, especially from my generation, wanted to be Frank Frazetta. He was a huge influence. Richard Corben was a big influence. I liked all the guys from the Studio crew, meaning Bernie Wrightson, Jeff Jones and Michael Kaluta. Those guys were a big inspiration. Moebius.

Outside of the genre art, as I started to get into high school, I really came to appreciate the traditional American illustrators. There’s no better draftsman than Norman Rockwell. He is the guy who told stories with pictures. You can read so much story into every one of his paintings. It’s fantastic. Wyeth. Pyle. Those guys were very inspiring. Then when I got out of school I started to become infatuated with the pre-Rafaelites and a lot of the turn of the century aesthetics such as Waterhouse and Mucha and Sargent, Winston Abbey. So many amazing artists right around the turn of the century. It’s sad that so much of that tradition and skill set was lost when the fine art movement took over.

AD: You mentioning those artists, I think that’s why your book seems like a good fit at Flesk Publications, because you’re part of this tradition and the other contemporary artists published there also have similar influences.

B: Yeah the same influences and aesthetics. John only publishes books from artists he likes. I think that makes his imprint wonderful because there is this cohesiveness there. Even though the artists are often from completely different genres, there is that common thread of quality craftsmanship and a classic aesthetic.

AD: You worked on a lot of covers for some great fantasy artists including Michael Moorcock, R.A. Salvatore, Terry Brooks and many others. Do you have any favorites?

B: The art and the literature that you read when you’re younger in your teens and high school years that’s the stuff that always makes the greatest impression. Elric was my favorite in high school and junior high school. I drew hundreds of pictures of Elric in my sketchbooks, so when I got to do the cover for the Elric anthology for White Wolf that was one of those life long goal moments. It was so thrilling and such a high to be able to be a part of that. I appreciate any of the authors that I’ve worked for. I like all those guys. Unfortunately a lot of the times you don’t even get to read the material. You sometimes just get a synopsis or a few key chapters to look over to do the paintings from, so it’s some of it is kind of removed. Like with the Terry Brooks stuff, in a perfect world you would get this finished novel and you would read it and try to digest it down to its essence and create that cover but unfortunately a lot of the time it’s, we need this in two weeks, here’s a couple pages.

AD: I can see that being maddening. You mentioned Elric, are there any characters or books you’d like to illustrate given the chance?

B: Again I think it goes back to the books I read in my youth. Robert E. Howard and Burroughs. Any of the Conan stuff. Michael Moorcock’s Elric or Corum or any of his characters. John Carter of Mars. A lot of the early Stephen King I would love to do something with. Even though those aren’t as visual, it would be fun to feel like you have somehow participated in the literature that inspired you.

AD: What else are you in midst of? Are you working on another novel?

B: I am. Right now I’m completely focused on getting this latest art book out. That will probably take until March to get the new paintings done and everything put together. After that I am contracted to do another novel with Harper Collins. I have three or four ideas that I like. I’m having a hard time deciding between them, so I hope that by the time March rolls around I’ll know which one of those I want to pursue. That will be another novel like Krampus or The Child Thief, a prose novel with paintings or drawings interspersed within the book. Beyond that I’m hoping to set aside some time to do some exploratory painting. As you get older it’s easy to get burnt out and what keeps things fresh and interesting is to be able to experiment and explore. I’ve got a bunch of ideas brewing and I’m hoping to set aside three months to just let my muse go where it will and see what comes out of that. Hopefully it will be something people find interesting.

AD: I did want to bring up your previous book The Child Thief briefly because I enjoyed your take on Peter Pan as a villain.

B: When you read the original James Barrie version–not the Disney version–it is very dark. It’s not even so much good guy/bad guy; Peter’s very much an amoral character. He thinks he’s doing good and right, but when you look at it from another point of view, it’s pretty bad. He’s seducing these kids away from their families and homes and he’s taking them to an island and he’s teaching them to kill. And he’s teaching them to kill humans. You can have this lyrical prose where they’re pirates but in that original book they’re having a body count contest and these are nine and ten year olds basically trying to see how many men they can kill. The minute I started thinking about real life and this ten year old kid cutting down pirates with a sword and having a body count, Peter Pan seems very much a demon. Another thing in the book that’s very creepy is in the original Peter Pan and when the Lostboys started to grow up, which was against the rules, Peter thinned them out. The book never says exactly how he thins them out or what exactly happens, but it’s very sinister. That material alone was inspiration. That’s what I like to do with most of my novels, take something that is often handled in a more fantastical way and try to make it as gritty and real as possible. What would this really feel like? What would this experience really be like? That’s what gets me excited about writing.

David Mamet is one of the greatest writers who ever lived. He’s had success in every medium he’s worked in from theater to film and in the past year in television with The Unit, which he co-created with Shawn Ryan. The show has become a ratings success for CBS. But what people love the most about Mamet... more

David Mamet is one of the greatest writers who ever lived. He’s had success in every medium he’s worked in from theater to film and in the past year in television with The Unit, which he co-created with Shawn Ryan. The show has become a ratings success for CBS. But what people love the most about Mamet is his wit, his hilarious cynicism and his ability to teach. That teaching gene has been put on display with Mamet’s acting classes, his book On Directing Film and now his new book, Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business. Due to the nature of making studio films and mainstream television Mamet has been steeped in the business end of Hollywood for many years now. With Bambi vs. Godzilla he uses the classic 1960’s cartoon short as a metaphor for how Hollywood treats its denizens.

Buy Bambi vs. Godzilla

Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you working on today?

David Mamet: I’m working on about eight things. I think mainly I’m working on revising a television script for my TV show.

DRE: The Unit has obviously taken off and it’s going to be around for a little while. You’ve never had your own show on before. How has that experience been for you?

DM: It’s a lot of fun. It’s like making a movie constantly.

DRE: What’s it like working with Shawn Ryan?

DM: I’ve got a lot to learn from Shawn. He’s running two shows and he looks like he’s half asleep all the time. I’m in awe of him sometimes. I have a shitload to learn from him. He’s great. In addition to being a wonderful administrator and a terrific producer, he’s got a terrific story sense. The hardest thing about dramaturgy is of course the plot. They say anybody can write a good first act and that’s true. So a lot of times we’d be sitting around in the room and I or someone else will be jacked up and he’ll say “Instead of the guy, what if it was the girl? What if you took scene three first and put it first?” The other good part is that he loves going into the editing room, which is another form of storytelling. It is taking the finished product and saying, “Okay, I get it. My good ideas don’t make sense. I’m going to reshuffle them and make them make sense.” To answer your question, it’s great working with him.

DRE: I’m sure you’ve had the chance to make television shows before, what was it that made you say, “Now it’s time”?

DM: I don’t know. I know I had the chance to make television before. I wrote a couple episodes of Hill Street Blues back in the dark ages. That was before sound had come to television. It was silent. But it just happened. I was just mucking about. I had directed a couple of episodes of The Shield for Shawn and I just finished a movie called Spartan with Eric Haney who had written a book called Inside Delta Force, about his years in Delta Force. Shawn, Eric and I were having sushi and the idea came out of the woodwork to do a TV show based on Eric’s book so there you have it.

DRE: So everything just came together at the right time.

DM: Yeah, that’s right.

DRE: It’s interesting that this book, Bambi vs. Godzilla, has come on the heels of you directing a movie for a major movie company [Spartan for Warner Bros] and you have a show on a major television network. So you’re literally in the middle of Hollywood and you’re writing this book about Hollywood. Are those things connected or is it something you’ve been thinking about for a while?

DM: I think they’re very much connected. I’ve always counted myself really fortunate to be in show business. It was either that or crime because other than show business I don’t think I have any skills. So I’ve always loved the business and the craft end of it. As a dramatist you don’t have to spend much time with the business side of it. You write the plays, you put them on, the people come, you make some money. The people don’t come, you write another play and put that on. It’s fairly straightforward. So since getting more and more involved in Hollywood I’ve been more involved in the business side of the equation and it’s fascinating.

DRE: You’re someone that’s given a lot of respect by actors and directors, do you feel like you’re given the proper respect by the people you call out?

DM: I don’t know that I’d call them out. I certainly don’t name any names nor would I. That’s not my place. I’m not there to invite individualism. I’m there to support the system for good or ill. What I’m talking about is that show business is absolute, unfettered free market capitalism. I’ve never thought about economics before so to look at it that way has been very interesting.

DRE: Are you someone that’s been able to reconcile the idea of art as commerce?

DM: Yeah because if I don’t reconcile it for myself, my grocer ain’t going to. I’m very fortunate. I grew up in Chicago in the golden age of Chicago Theater. Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey had just written Grease in a garage. Dennis Franz and Joe Mantegna were doing work over at the Organic Theater and I was doing American Buffalo with Billy Macy and Mike Nussbaum in our little garage theater. Then John Malkovich, Gary Sinise and Laurie Metcalf came down, took over the little garage theater and they started doing all the Sam Shepherd plays. There was nothing between us and the poorhouse except putting the asses in the seats. That’s all there was. So we never drew a distinction between art and commerce. Here we were putting on plays for the fun of it, but if the people didn’t come we didn’t eat. That was a wonderful salutary experience in the essence of show business. Which is, if they didn’t laugh, it ain’t funny.

DRE: [laughs] One of the things you talk about in the book is how screenwriters will change their scripts to accommodate all the notes they get. I interviewed a big television writer named Bruce Helford last year. If I had to guess I would say he agrees with you about that. But one thing he said was, “Their notes may not be exactly what you wanted to do but you find ways to slip those notes into what you do.” What do you think about something like that?

DM: Well, I’ve had two experiences, one was notes in television and the other was notes in the movies. In television I haven’t gotten any notes. Shawn may have gotten a couple notes because he’s, quite graciously, much closer to the networks and the studio than I am. But as far as I can see we haven’t gotten many notes. The only notes that we’ve gotten are about clarity. In the movies when you’re working as a writer for hire, you get an incredible amount of notes and they’re almost always bad and stupid. The problem is, you’re getting paid to put up with stupidness and once in a while somebody has a good idea. So one is constantly wearing one’s artist’s hat and exchanging it for one’s whore hat and sometimes your head gets chafed.

DRE: Have you ever felt like a whore?

DM: I’ll tell you what my dear friend Shel Silverstein, may he rest in peace, said. I was bitching and moaning about screenwriting and he said, “Dave, I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s like you’re the greatest cabinetmaker in the world. People come to you and say I want you to make a perfect example of a Biedermeier table and we’ll pay you whatever you want. You say, okay. You work on it you’re so proud of it and they take it and they set fire to it. You say, You said you’d pay for it and you set fire to it. They say Oh no, we just wanted to do it for a movie effect. So they come back next year and say, We want you to make another one of those Biedermeier tables. We’ll pay you even more money than we paid you last year. You say, Ok, I’m a craftsman. It’s all about craft. I need the money because my girlfriend and my kids like it. So you build the Biedermeier table even better than before and they take it and set fire to it. By the third or fourth year you aren’t going to be making that table quite as well anymore because you know they’re going to fucking set fire to it.” The problem with writing movies for hire is that you’re constantly saying to yourself “What difference does it make? They’re going to ruin it anyway.” Of course you can’t say that because then you are a whore. So you say, “No, I will not go down that road. I’m going to write the best goddamn script I can.” Then they hate it. So you say, “What’s the problem?” The problem is not with the people who are paying you because what they do is perfectly clear. The problem is with yourself. Not that you’re writing a less good script, but that you know that you’re getting paid to write a script that no one is ever going to fucking understand.

DRE: A willingness to have your work destroyed, is that what it is?

DM: Destroyed, but the idea is that it ain’t your work. It’s somebody else’s. The law calls it writer for hire because that’s what you are.

DRE: How long did it take in your writing career to come up with the three questions that you write in Bambi vs. Godzilla?

DM: It’s actually Aristotle, right out of the Poetics. But it took me a long time to realize, “Duh, that’s what it’s all about.” Part of it is I’ve been working very closely with the writers on the TV show and trying to impart to them the few things that I know that might be helpful to younger writers.

DRE: I know that you’re someone that likes to have a lot of control when it comes to your work and for a television show you have to let go a bit. Is that where the team-up with Shawn comes in?

DM: Not so much with Shawn because we’re co-producers on the show. It’s like any good marriage, automatically one person’s going to do one thing and the other person is going to do the other and you help the other guy out. In a bad marriage you say “Okay, listen, I took the garbage out Wednesday, you take the garbage out Thursday.” “I fed the cat yesterday now you have to feed the cat,” In a good marriage you do it automatically, so I think we’ve got a pretty good marriage as producers. But it’s the nature of television, one cannot direct every one. When you finish your show on Monday, someone else has been prepping to shoot a new show on Tuesday so you can’t be both prepping and directing. You can’t do them all. Also, you can’t write them all. Theoretically you could, if you were younger and had a lot of chemical aid. But you would go insane if you had to write a 46 minute movie, basically half a movie, every eight days. You might be able to do it for a couple of weeks but after that you’re going to start to go insane because it’s very taxing. So when you’re doing a television show, you have to delegate responsibility to the other writers and directors.

DRE: Does one have to know the rules of Hollywood in order to break them or avoid them?

DM: The greatest document of Western Civilization in, my estimation, is Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. They put the two guys into the cage. Remember what the guy said?

DRE: Two men enter, one man leave. Right?

DM: Yeah, but what does he say after that?

DRE: I don’t remember.

DM: We know you won’t break the rules, there aren’t any.

DRE: [laughs] That’s better than what William Goldman says.

DM: Nobody knows anything. Both of those lines are spectacular.

DRE: [laughs] Is Bambi vs. Godzilla, along with your book On Directing Film, the way that you teach classes?

DM: I don’t teach classes in writing. I’ve tried. I can’t do it. I do teach classes in acting. Bill Macy and I started an acting company 21 years ago in New York called The Atlantic Theater. It’s still thriving in New York and I just started an outpost branch in LA so we’re going to be teaching acting a little bit out here. The rules for acting and the rules for writing are the same. Who wants what? What happens if I don’t get it and Why now?

DRE: I interviewed Bill Macy a few years ago and he told me that you really love actors.

DM: I adore actors.

DRE: But do you love the bad things an actor can do as well? Such as when the unnamed actor in Bambi vs. Godzilla stomps all over that car wearing combat boots.

DM: That’s not because he was an actor. It’s because he was an asshole. Many of the most successful writers in the history of the world were either actors or failed actors or in love with actors. That’s because the way you learn how to write a play is not by sitting in your chair, it’s by watching actors and especially by watching actors around an audience. It helps to try to figure out what’s the actor actually doing. What is it that the audience perceives about what the actor’s doing? I’ve been an actor, Harold Pinter was an actor and Chekhov was in love with actors. You’ve got to watch what the actor’s doing if you want to learn how to write a play.

DRE: I spoke with Stuart Gordon last year about Edmond and he mentioned about how you were willing to change the script for the movie version. It seems that the directors that direct movie adaptations of your plays are very reluctant to take out the dialogue. But when you direct there is much less dialogue.

DM: Well, you don’t need dialogue. If somebody’s making a movie out of my plays, there’s a self-regulating mechanism that regulates the rhythm of the performance and of the audience. There’s a feedback loop between the actors and the audience. In a movie that’s not true. So sometimes in a movie one has to alter the pace because the pace is the pace of the shots not the pace of the performance. Therefore sometimes you’re going to make cuts in a movie.

DRE: Have you finished Joan of Bark yet?

DM: I finished the screenplay but I didn’t shoot it. It’s sitting on the shelf.

DRE: Is that what you’re planning on doing next?

DM: I don’t know. I’ve got several of things. Sony Classics asked me to do a movie version of The Voysey Inheritance, which is a 1905 play I adapted. It’s currently on at The Atlantic Theatre in New York. I’ve got this other project I may do about the martial arts community in LA.

DRE: What would that be about?

DM: There’s this subterranean community that’s cross-pollinated between cage fighters and cops and boxers and stuntmen and Navy Seals. It’s a really interesting community. It is sort of a samurai film. It is about a guy who’s the world’s greatest fighter but he doesn’t compete. He just trains people because he says, “I’ll train you to walk out of the alley alive but I won’t train you to get points from a referee.” The movie is about how he gets seduced away from his path and becomes commercialized.

DRE: Is that something you would write as well?

DM: I wrote it already. I think I may do that in the next year or so.

DRE: Spartan and, one of my favorite films, Wag the Dog are very political, are you still interested in writing about politics?

DM: Yeah, I’ve been working on a secret play. I don’t know how good it is. But it’s a play about a political issue I think concerns us all. It’s about the President of the United States and whether or not he’s going to pardon a couple of turkeys for Thanksgiving.

DRE: Oh that’s funny. He always does it. Isn’t that bizarre?

DM: Yeah.

DRE: Have you heard of these prank phone calls where they use Al Pacino’s dialogue from Glengarry Glen Ross?

DM: Oh yeah. Do you know about the Toynbee tiles?

DRE: No, I don’t. What’s that?

DM: This is the weirdest thing that ever happened. I wrote this play [called 4 am] about a million years ago that was an homage to Larry King when he was late night talk show host on radio in the 70’s. A guy calls in and he’s talking about the film 2001 based on the writings of Arnold Toynbee. The Larry King character says, “I think you’ll find that 2001 is based on the writings of Arthur C. Clarke.” The guy says, “No, Larry. I believe that you’re wrong there. 2001 based on the writing of Arnold Toynbee tells us that all human life will be reconstituted on the planet Jupiter.” They had this rather silly conversation for ten minutes. It turns out that now you can go on the internet and look up Toynbee tiles. There are these tiles that are showing up all over the country that say in mosaic “Toynbee says all life reconstituted on Jupiter.” You can go to these links and they’ll tell you how to make these tiles and where to put them up.

DRE: Are things like the Toynbee tiles and the prank phone calls complimentary?

DM: It’s great.

I’ll tell you another weird thing. A guy sent me this in the mail. Apparently, one of the Iraqi ministers, like the minister of electricity or something like that, got kidnapped and they held him for a while. I don’t know what they did; they probably whacked him on his knuckles. He got away and the Times asked him how he escaped and he said and I quote, “I did the Chicago way.” Which is an idea that I made up for Sean Connery in The Untouchables. I thought it was nice this guy was quoting from that.

DRE: I remember reading a story about during a screening of The Untouchables you walked out during the Eisenstein homage because you didn’t write it, is that true?

DM: I don’t know if it’s true or not but I do mention the Eisenstein sequence in Bambi vs. Godzilla. I describe it as a prescient adumbration of Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables.

DRE: I believe that De Palma is supposed to direct a prequel, any interest in seeing that?

DM: No, not really but I suggested to Brian that he do a sequel and call it The Retouchables.

DRE: [laughs] Did he think that was funny?

DM: He didn’t think it was funny.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck

A.J. Focht It may have been Thanos who was teased at the end of The Avengers, but it looks like he won’t be the only threat in Avengers 2. An incarnation of the The Masters of Evil is rumored to join forces for the sequel. Perhaps Thanos will be finished off in The Guardians of the Galaxy or while leading... more

A.J. Focht

It may have been Thanos who was teased at the end of The Avengers, but it looks like he won’t be the only threat in Avengers 2. An incarnation of the The Masters of Evil is rumored to join forces for the sequel. Perhaps Thanos will be finished off in The Guardians of the Galaxy or while leading the Masters of Evil in the Avengers 2. The sequel isn’t out until 2015 so there is a lot that could change before then.

In the meantime, part of the story for Captain America: The Winter Soldier has been revealed. The second movie will feature flashbacks that shed light on the mysterious Black Widow and her relationship with the Winter Soldier. The film will be released April 2014.

The latest photos from the set of Thor: The Dark World have given the first glimpse of film villain Malekith the Accursed and his army of Dark Elves. Videos from the set shows the filming of the fight between Thor and Malekith. Thor: the Dark World is set to release November 8, 2013.

One of the original members of the Avengers might be joining the team in Iron-Man 3. Rumor has it Stephanie Szostak will be playing The Wasp. The Wasp was not only one of the original members, she was the first female on the team (sorry Black Widow fans). Iron-Man 3 releases May 3, 2013.

Shooting for Amazing Spider-Man 2 will begin in February. The film is still in the casting phase, and it looks like they are down to a shortlist of three actors for the part of Harry Osborne. Brady Crobet (Melancholia), Dane DeHaan (Chronicle), and Alden Ehrenreich (Beautiful Creatures) are left in the running. Amazing Spider-Man 2 is scheduled to release May 2014.

The Avengers might have been the top grossing movie of the year, but it’s The Dark Knight Rises that is going for the Oscars. Warner. Bros is campaigning the Academy to consider the film for 16 different categories. The Hobbit is also campaigning to be considered for 16 awards.

The season finale of the Walking Dead will introduce another fan favorite character from the comics. The current rumor is that they will be bringing in Tyreese, the former NFL linebacker. Find out for sure on December 2 when it airs.

Star Trek: Into Darkness is set for release on May 17, 2013. Zachary Quinto will be reprising the role of Spock in the film, but possibly for the last time. Quinto suggested he might leave the franchise after the upcoming film in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. He doesn’t suggest that the character is being killed off, so who could be the next Spock?

by SG's Team Agony feat. Dexter Let us answer life's questions - because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls. (image) [Dexter in Black Rose] Q: I was dating this girl that I had met at a friend's event. We started dating/seeing each other for about 2-3 months, against... more

by SG's Team Agony feat. Dexter

Let us answer life's questions - because great advice is even better when it comes from SuicideGirls.


[Dexter in Black Rose]

Q: I was dating this girl that I had met at a friend's event. We started dating/seeing each other for about 2-3 months, against my friend's wishes (we share the same mutual friend). I traveled to her, about a hour away, and slept over her place and vise versa. We really only saw each other from Saturday night into Sunday afternoon because she works 6 days a week. I know I didn't do well with texting her, I only really texted her Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to plan out if we were going to hang out and what we should do.

We did this for about 2-3 months and I thought things were going well between us, until suddenly I texted her to see if she wanted to hang out like I normally did. She told me she couldn't due to her having to be at a bridal shower for a wedding that she is part of. Then she blindsided me by saying that we shouldn't see each other anymore and that things weren't working out.

She gave me the reasons that I lived to far away, I didn't text her so she assumed that I didn't care anymore, and that the relationship was over, that we had different interests, and other BS excuses. I just asked her if she was seeing another guy, but she ignored that text. I wasn't going to be hurt if she met another guy, that's part of dating, but I just couldn't get over the reasons of why we shouldn't see each other anymore. It didn't make sense because we had been doing this for a couple months and she didn't say anything to me about there being any problems.

I also asked her why she didn't text me during the times that I didn't text her and why she assumed what she assumed and just ended everything. I just hate being lied to and eventually she told me she was seeing another guy. But I don't understand why she acted like a child and ignored me, lied, and assumed all this about me and our relationship. I liked the girl and want to try to be friends but I just can't get over how she went about things. I guess I would like your opinion on this whole situation, the girl, and what maybe I should do...

A: First of all, let's start with this; you mentioned that dating this girl was done against your mutual friend's wishes. Maybe that friend was trying to save you a whole lot of grief! This girl sounds shady, plain and simple. I can guarantee that she didn't have much of a problem with the weekend hang out/booty call with minimal strings. She obviously enjoyed it since it went on for a few months.

It seems likely to me that she met someone new, someone local probably. Having someone new is exciting, and it's pretty damn convenient if that someone new lives only ten minutes away. This gave her an excuse to start using the "lack" of text messages and the distance as an easy way out. Using excuses is much easier than admitting you fucked up. It's also much easier than telling the truth.

It's not because she didn't think YOU could handle it; it's because SHE couldn't handle it. She couldn’t handle telling the truth, or being the bad guy in the relationship, so she made up excuses.

If you can accept that she's a shady kinda girl, then it should make it easy to be just friends with her with no romantic interest. But do you really want shady friends in your circle?

Best Wishes! 


Dexter
xoxo

***

Got Problems? Let SuicideGirls’ team of Agony Aunts provide solutions. Email questions to: gotproblems@suicidegirls.com

Chantal Claret is a very satisfied pleasure seeker. The Morningwood front lady, who admits she was once “a very naughty girl,” has just released the album she's always wanted to make – The One, The Only… her solo debut – and is currently being gratified by a residency at the Hard Rock’s... more

Chantal Claret is a very satisfied pleasure seeker. The Morningwood front lady, who admits she was once “a very naughty girl,” has just released the album she's always wanted to make – The One, The Only… her solo debut – and is currently being gratified by a residency at the Hard Rock’s swanky Vinyl club in Las Vegas and by a husband (Jimmy Urine of Mndless Self Indulgence) whom she tells us is “one of the good ones.”

Her freshly minted music – which might come as quite a surprise to those used to the pop-infused rock of Morningwood – is perfect for Sin City, being a glamorous and gutsy mix of ‘60s inspired retro rock & soul.

A longtime friend of SuicideGirls, we thought is was about time we caught up with the sexy chanteuse and kick-ass woman’s woman. During the course of our conversation she shared her recipe for finding love, and spoke about the wonders of real women (with real asses) and the joy of making out.

Nicole Powers: I’m just turning the tape recorder on so everything you say can be taken down as evidence and used against you.

Chantal Claret: Although I have a fear that that’s what happens with every phone call I’m on...I have to tell you though, I met one of my best friends ever, who is still one of my best friends to this day, she used to work for SuicideGirls, and we met via phone when she interviewed me about six years ago.

NP: Oh, very cool. Who would that be?

CC: Lauren Clark [a.k.a. Auren Suicide].

NP: Oh, oh my gosh, Lauren is amazing. I love her.

CC: She’s going to be there this weekend in Las Vegas too…We actually met for the first time at a SuicideGirls event on New Year’s and she’s still one of my BFFs.

NP: Oh, I love that. SuicideGirls is awesome for bringing like-minded folks together.

CC: Yeah.

NP: So that was in the days when you were Ms. Morningwood. This album is quite the departure, but it’s a glorious departure too.

CC: Thank you so much.

NP: I’ve just been rocking out all morning to “Real Girls” – that’s everything that SuicideGirls is about in one badass phat track.

CC: I wanted to write a song for girls. There’s a lot of songs – like by Beyoncé and “I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly” – all that stuff is talking to guys, telling them about how a big girl is all right. But I wanted to write a song from a girl with a big fat ass to another girl with a big fat ass. You know, girl to girl, let’s be proud of ourselves. It’s not only for girls with big fat asses. I don’t want to exclude girls if they don’t have the natural goods, but, you know, be proud of yourself and shake your shit.

NP: But, as you say in the song, do you think “real girls get the boys”?

CC: I do. You know what, my husband loves some “tig ol’ bitties” as I call them. Even though men think they want like supermodels, that shit doesn’t keep you warm at night. I’m telling you, secretly, guys like a little bit of stuff. The good ones like that. I mean, I’ve never had a problem getting dudes and I’ve always had a little meat on the bones. So if I can do it anybody can do it.

NP: Good to know. So where did the inspiration for this album come from? Because it’s complete left of field for people that are used to hearing you as Ms. Morningwood.

CC: This is me. Morningwood was actually hard for me. That was sort of out of my comfort zone. I love rock & roll but I always say what you sing in the shower is really what you love to sing, and this is the stuff that I sing in the shower – upbeat ‘60s music, I grew up [listening to that]. Everybody gravitates towards one type of music when they’re young and they’re discovering music on their own, and the music of the ‘60s – be it girl groups or soul or British invasion or garage – that was the stuff that really I ate up. I couldn’t get enough of it. That was what I always wanted to make. Finally it got to the point where I was just like, I better shit or get off the pot, because if I don’t do exactly what I want to do somebody else is going to do it and I’m going to sit there kicking myself. Plus, you know, you have to do what you believe in whole-heartedly otherwise what the fuck is the point?

NP: You’ve got such an authentic retro vibe on this album. As a shower singer, what’s on your Top 10 list of tracks to let rip to?

CC: My go-to shower songs would probably be “A Fool In Love” by Ike and Tina, The Exciters’ “He’s Got The Power,” “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” by Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone’s “Wild Is The Wind” – there’s a lot of soulful stuff in there. “Why Keep On Breaking My Heart” by Nina Simone. I like to fancy myself as a strong black woman when I’m in the shower.

NP: Your neighbors must have a great front row seat to your shower covers concerts.

CC: I’m always so curious if they hear me, and then I’m like, they must be impressed because it sounds good. The acoustics in the shower are awesome. That’s the best place to sing. I want to record a whole record in the shower with water running and everything. That’s also where I write a lot too. Stuff comes to you in the shower and then you have to keep singing it over and over and over again while you dry yourself off so you can go record it.

NP: That’s why I loved being in London because the acoustics in the Underground are like that too, and when you were coming back from a club at stupid o’clock in the morning, you could just let it rip in those long tunnels.

CC: Are you in London?

NP: No, but I spent my college years there.

CC: Oh, I love it there. I want to sing in the tube. I love London. I miss it there. I want to go back.

NP: Well, you’re going to be in Vegas. I understand you did your first show already.

CC: Yeah, I did it in June at the Troubadour, and now I’m going to start a residency at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas, which is mind-blowing. It’s a three-month residency for ten dates and it’s all ages and free. It’s at this new club they have called Vinyl, which is a 650 person venue that they just opened. I’m their first residency and it’s pretty fucking amazing that they took a chance on me.

NP: This album, with its 60s swagger, was built for Vegas.

CC: Yeah, it feels like old Vegas. It feels like we’re bringing back the Rat Pack and all that stuff. It feels classic. It’s such an amazing concept to do. I mean, every musician’s dream is to be in one place and have people come to see you, and what better place than in Las Vegas? That’s so fucking cool. And the Hard Rock, which is the only hotel there that’s based on the idea of music….I’ve always been a Vegas-y performer in that regard. I like to entertain people. I consider myself more of an entertainer than I do necessarily a musician, and I think that’s what Vegas loves.

NP: I was chatting to Dita Von Tease about Vegas, and, you’ll appreciate this, she was mourning the loss of the Liberace Museum.

CC: Oh, yeah. I tried to go to it last time I was in Vegas. I was so beyond excited, and we got there and it was shut down. I couldn’t believe it! So I’ve never gotten to see it.

NP: What do you like to do in Vegas?

CC: I do Vegas like an 80-year old. There’s different kinds of Vegas for different people. There’s the Ghostbar and crazy Vegas, and then there’s grandma Vegas, which is the way that I usually do it. We go play 5 cent Keno, go eat an $11 buffet, and then [go to] a discount show. We do old people Vegas.

NP: That’s hilarious.

CC: I’m a mega-great Bingo player. I’m a huge fan of Bingo. I’ll go play Bingo for a couple of hours. I won like $152 at 5 cent Keno…Like 5 cents into $152 is mind-blowing. If I had been playing with dollars I’d be talking to you from my private plane that never lands. That’s the only kind of gambling I can allow, Bingo and Keno, in my mind, because otherwise I’d just lose all my money.

NP: Talking of potentially destructive but enjoyable pastimes, you have a really interesting track on the album about your father, “Pleasure Seeker.” It’s a very complex track. I’m guessing that you had quite a complex relationship with your dad.

CC: Not only did, still do. We have an interesting relationship. I’m a momma’s girl I guess you could say, so I definitely have a hard time with him. I didn’t realize how therapeutic that song was until even after I played it for him. I think the first time I really realized how intense it was was at the first show when he was there and I sang it to him. I brought him up to the front and I was like holding on to him and singing it. It felt so cathartic. It really was. Because I just heard the bad things that I was saying about him, even though I wrote what I ultimately felt, that I still do love him.

NP: Right, because you’re calling him "a lying, stealing cheater...[I’m just like him, I’m a pleasure seeker]."

CC: Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is really not very becoming. When I first played it for him, I was sick to my stomach. Honestly, I was going to poop my pants. I was so nervous. I thought this could end my relationship with my dad. I honestly did. I said, this could go either way. This could either open a dialogue or I could never talk to my dad again, I have no idea how this is going to go. I sat him down and was like, “Hey, want to hear some new music I’m writing?” He said, “Yeah,” and I was like, “I wrote this song about you” [and pressed] play. And then I just watched him listening to it and I was shaking. Afterwards he was ecstatic. He was like, “I love it! It’s amazing.” He plays it for all of his friends. He’s like, “I want to be in the video.” He loves it. Where I was seeing only that I wrote the bad stuff, he really saw the bigger picture from the first moment he heard it – that, regardless of everything, I love him. It’s a love letter. No relationship is easy, so I still do.

NP: I think that you’ve got to love someone in spite of their faults. If you’re in love with someone and in denial of them, then you’re not really in love with that person, you’re in love with your idea of them.

CC: Totally. And believe me, I see all of my dad’s faults, as are listed variously in the song. I see a tremendous amount of faults, and he saw past that, and I’m so grateful for that because honestly, this song really did make us closer which is incredible.

NP: The song also brings up that dichotomy that women have; we do love the bad boys but then there’s the reality of that too.

CC: Well, fortunately I am lucky, because I had my father as an example, I do not love bad boys. I only love nice guys. If somebody is bad to me or something, I’m out the door. I, luckily, was not blessed with that bad boy gene of going after guys who are not nice.

NP: You’ve seen the reality of it.

CC: I’ve seen what it can do to a woman and I never want that in my entire life. I was lucky enough to find one of the good ones and married that mo-fo.

NP: Awe. He sounds like an awesome dude.

CC: He’s a sweetheart and an incredible performer as well. He’s the singer of this band, Mindless Self Indulgence. He’ll be my hype man for the shows that he’s in [town for].

NP: Ah, so he’s going to be involved”

CC: Yeah, he’s does the intro on the record….so he’s going to be doing my intro in Las Vegas.

NP: That’s awesome, you get to like hang out in Las Vegas together.

CC: Yeah, but then he has to go to Europe to go on tour for a little while.

NP: You also have a couple of tracks on the album about the flip side of love, “Black Widow” and “Can’t Save Her.” Talk a bit about those.

CC: “Black Widow” is about a bitch who’s looking for money. I am not a gold digger by any means, but while I was writing it I was like, the only way I’m going to remember these details – 5’9” and five inch heels, red hair, big brown eyes – is if I make it about me. So I had to make all the details about me. That’s just about a gold digging woman, which I am not by any means. That’s the only song where I tweaked it to make it easier, honestly, to remember.

“Can’t Save Her” – that’s pretty self-referential. I write a lot about myself, I guess I’m a super narcissist. I apologize. That one is about a girl who has sowed her wild oats there and back again, and has been around the block, and is afraid of not being able to come out of that dark, dark shit. I’ve definitely been there before. I’m a happy go lucky person, but I’ve done a lot of dark, dirty shit in my life.

NP: Are you on the other side of the dark and dirty shit now?

CC: Oh, yeah. I’m the most well trained house cat in the entire world. I’m so domesticated. I just like to cook and watch TV. That was a long time ago, when I was young.

NP: Are you the total Suzy Homemaker then?

CC: Oh, it’s ridiculous. Yeah. Yesterday I made brownies and bacon and cookies and stuff like that. I’m like the Paula Dean of Los Angeles. But when everybody’s young, you go through it. You do all of your stuff. I was a naughty girl. A very naughty girl.

NP: I think that you have to get that out of your system so you can settle down and have some sort of peace of mind.

CC: Exactly. I got that all out of my system. If I hadn’t, I bet you at some point in my life I would freak out and want to do all that stuff. That’s when all of that stuff happens to people where they have their midlife crisis and they go buck wild. I’ve gone buck wild, there and back again, so I’m good. I don’t miss it, I just like to write about it.

NP: What did your buck wild days entail?

CC: Oooh! [laughs]

NP: Dare I ask?

CC: You know, hard partying ways in New York City, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of boys. I was a player. I was really a conquistadora as I like to say. If I had a bedpost and I put notches in, it would’ve been broken off because I would’ve whittled it to the bone.

NP: How did your man capture your heart?

CC: He’s incredible. I met him on tour when my band was opening for his band. I thought he was weird. I thought he was super nice. Then we ended up on a drunken evening making out in Philadelphia on a pier and then in a stairwell for about 8 hours and we talked. I honestly think the trick in finding love and somebody that you love, is somebody who makes you laugh and makes you cum. That’s my love recipe.

NP: I love that you said that you made out for 8 hours. I think making out is so underrated.

CC: It is. The other secret is not having sex on the first date. Honestly. Some people wait months, some people wait days, but as long as you don’t do it on the first date, then you have a chance to talk. That took me a long time to learn. Like a long time to learn. I was just like, “Want to have sex? Okay, let’s have sex. I want it, you want it, why wait?” But, honestly, you need to wait a little bit. We happened to have to wait for a month, just because of circumstances, but we made out all over the place, all over the country, and then when we finally got together, it was on.

NP: That’s awesome. Because you never get the making out bit of life back if you jump straight in the sack. Making out in itself is so awesome, and then you have all of the anticipation of more.

CC: That feeling, that tingly feeling when somebody touches you and kisses you is the most incredible feeling you can ever get. And it’s fleeting, so you really have to make it last as long as you can.

NP: It really, really is, that make-out moment is fleeting. I always think it’s like watching one of those TV shows like Moonlighting, where once Bruce Willis and Cybill Sheppard got together it kind of jumped the shark.

CC: I love your Moonlighting reference. 100% yes. Once you have sex you jump the shark.

NP: You either jump the shark or you get married.

CC: Yeah and then you get married. I mean, we still got the goods going on in our house but it’s definitely different. The lucky part is he goes on tour for a little while and so you get a little bit of it back because you don’t see him for three weeks etc.

NP: Right. You get the anticipation of seeing him all over again.

CC: Mmmm.

NP: So, we have actually some questions from the internets because the internets were very excited when they heard that we were going to be chatting to you today.

CC: Awesome.

NP: I know you’ve kind of answered this, but for the benefit of @CrashDiamond_23 and @Kiri_Kutthroat, who both had similar questions, do you prefer the rock stuff from Morningwood or the retro solo stuff?

CC: I prefer this stuff. I mean, it’s different singing-wise. I like to sing this more. I can’t forget everything I learned; I performed for 10 years with my old band so I grew up as a rock performer, so to me this is sort of rock & soul. I want to bring the energy and excitement of a rock show to a retro-soul show. I think a lot of those old performers that you love, like Tina Turner and James Brown, had this guttural thing that you didn’t know what was going to happen and it was very rock & roll. Tina Turner could sing rock and soul and anything she wanted, but it still always had that grit to it. So I think I’ll always have that rock in me, my voice is a very rock voice, and when you bring that to classic music, it always gets a little bit of that rock tinge.

NP: The second question is from @ToBeQuiteFrank who wants to know what advice you would give to girls/teenagers about fame and the pressure to be famous in today's society?

CC: Oh, I don’t know, I’m not famous.

NP: But you’ve had hit songs.

CC: Mild success, but I don’t think I’m in the place where I have to really worry about the pressures of fame. I worry about the pressures of paying my mortgage and things like that. I have very everyday problems. I’m not a person who’s out to chase the dragon of fame. I don’t want to be famous. Unfortunately I’ve chosen a profession where fame is a measure of your career success. I’m not in it for fame. I’m in it to support myself and do what I love…I have been fortunate enough where I don’t have to really check myself all the time. I always say as long as I can still go get my eyebrows waxed at the outdoor kiosk in the mall and sometimes pick my nose in my car, then I know that I’m not at [an uncomfortable] level of fame. I don’t want to get above that level of fame where I can’t do those things….I know people who are really famous who have to go places with body guards and hide where they live and things like that and protect their kids. That’s sad. I feel bad. They can’t post pictures of stuff and that’s really scary. I hope I never get to that point. But I know they’re also at that point because there’s a flip side – it’s really a double-edged sword. They also have huge houses and can afford cars and do whatever they want. They pay for the other side of that…I don’t get all those perks. There’s perks and downsides to it.

NP: Last question from the internet: If you had a child, what would you name it?

CC: That is a secret. I know it. If it’s a boy or a girl, we know our names, our friends know the answer to that because we just had to put dibs on them, but that’s not for the internet to know. Dammit you saucy little internet, you’re not going to get that answer.

NP: That would be @Noelle_Horn who’s going to be very unhappy with that answer.

CC: Oh no @Noelle_Horn, you’re just going to have to wait until James puts a baby in me at some point down the line when I’m good and ready, and then you’ll find out.

NP: So, that’s already in the plans and on the cards.

CC: We plan on having kids, but not any time in the very near future. I’ve got to go to Vegas. I’ve got shit to do.

If I didn’t know better I would think David Lynch was Italian. He uses his hands to describe ideas more than anyone I have ever met. It’s fascinating to watch this man communicate. He pulls out the cigarette pack, the lighter, moves the ashtray, lights the cigarette, puts the pack away the and then,... more

If I didn’t know better I would think David Lynch was Italian. He uses his hands to describe ideas more than anyone I have ever met. It’s fascinating to watch this man communicate. He pulls out the cigarette pack, the lighter, moves the ashtray, lights the cigarette, puts the pack away the and then, once his hands are free, resumes emphasizing his words with enigmatic gestures. Lynch, a four-time Oscar nominee, remains one of the most enigmatic American filmmakers. He first entered the feature world with Eraserhead, which was a five-year journey. Since then he’s directed the film adaptation of Dune, Blue Velvet, co-created the cult television series Twin Peaks and directed many other features. His latest picture, Inland Empire, is the first feature he has shot on video. He's even taking a stab at self-distribution. Inland Empire was another five year journey from start to finish, and once again Lynch is working with old friends and collaborators such as Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton and perhaps his most talented muse, Laura Dern. Dern plays an actor who, after a long dry spell, lands a coveted role in a big film. While filming, Dern's character and the other actors are told that the film is actually a remake of another picture that was never completed for mysterious reasons. Along the way Dern plays two other characters and seems to segue from reality to fantasy without any warning. In other words, Inland Empire is classic Lynch.

Check out the official website for Inland Empire

Daniel Robert Epstein: Hello David, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’ve been a fan of yours since I saw The Elephant Man as a kid.

David Lynch: Did it freak you out?

DRE: Yes, it did.

DL: Doggone.

DRE: Isn’t that what you wanted to do?

DL: No [laughs] but it’s tough for a little kid. I remember someone telling me they saw The Elephant Man when they were eight. I think it was a little too much.

DRE: I might have seen it when I was nine or ten.

DL: Uh-huh.

DRE: I had nightmares about your elephant scene.

DL: Right, sure.

DRE: It was very scary. Elephants were friendly when I was a kid.

DL: Uh-huh [laughs].

DRE: I look at Inland Empire as more of an art piece than a feature film. Do you see it that way?

DL: No I don’t but I’ve heard people say something like that.

DRE: Do you see a narrative in it?

DL: Yes.

DRE: How many times do I have to see it until I discover the narrative?

DL: You’d only have to see it once. Well, you might have to see it a couple times, but it’s there.

DRE: It reminded me of that old quote of yours from when you first got into film, where you said that you wanted to see the pictures move. Inland Empire feels like you are using the paintbrush to go in many directions. Is that more of an editing process or are you already thinking about this stuff when you’re shooting?

DL: It is weird. It is all from ideas and then the ideas tell you everything. But you get to a point where the ideas are gathered and now you’re getting close to a whole thing, a sequence is indicated pretty clearly. Then there’s a point where for the sake of the whole, another thing happens. When you finally see the whole thing and react to that you see that there’s much more work to be done and then there’s sometimes rearrangements and deletions, maybe even something new that you never thought you were going to use. So it’s a process but driven by the ideas.

DRE: Watching Inland Empire is a harrowing experience for the viewer. Is creating it as harrowing?

DL: When you get an idea it’s like seeing it in a movie so it’s not so much as harrowing, it’s like thrilling. It fires you up because then you know what you’re going to do. You get an idea, you love the idea and you love the way cinema is able to translate that idea. Those things are what drive the boat for me. It’s not so harrowing, but if you get a fragment of a whole, that’s usually the way it happens. Starts with fragments, then an unknown thing opens up and that’s sometimes harrowing, but beautifully harrowing because you don’t know what’s there and you want to know.

DRE: Is it true that you were writing scenes right before you shot them?

DL: No, not right before I shot them, I’d write them before I shot them but not necessarily right before [laughs]. Now a couple of times I wrote them the day before, because I was in a place where I had to take advantage of an idea that was there. It was like a blurred, veiled inkling and then this thing happens and you focus on it and it comes into focus and you see it and you write it down. I was in places where I needed to do something there because I’d be leaving.

DRE: The scene where the prostitutes do the song and dance number to The Loco-Motion reminded me of Lost Highway where in the middle of the movie Robert Loggia freaks on the guy on the highway and also the Naomi Watts audition scene in Mulholland Drive. These are very impressive, in-your-face scenes. Do those things liven it up for you or is that all just part of the process?

DL: It’s part of the process. Different scenes do different things and when you’ve got nine girls dancing to The Loco-Motion or something like that, it’s got to be in the liveliness department.

DRE: Does a scene like that energize the movie?

DL: No, it’s not like you say, “Oh, I need something here.” The idea came along for it. It is not that I feel I need something and then would make something to fill that need. The idea is what’s doing it.

DRE: A few years ago I interviewed David Cronenberg. Now, I’m not comparing the two of you.

DL: Good.

DRE: Too many people do that. I asked him if he puts certain things in his movies to tweak the audience and he told me that if he were to do that it would be more like he was tweaking himself. That seems to jibe with what you were saying with just putting something in a film.

DL: Yes, that would be a real false note and I feel like if you’re true to the ideas and you work on it until you realize those ideas and they feel correct based on the idea, then they have a chance of feeling correct for others. Even if you’re going on a intuitive feel, if you’re true to those ideals, sometimes they’ve got these harmonics, if you dick with them, you might ruin the harmonics. They would be bad things and people would start smelling a rat. You may not even understand those harmonics, but somebody out there might and it’s true on that level and it’s true on the harmonic levels. So you’ve got to be real careful.

DRE: Are the harmonics ever not correct?

DL: No, they have to be. If the notes, the chords are correct, the harmonics are going to be correct. But you may not understand the beauty of the harmonics but somebody else might. If you’ve been true to these notes, they’ve got a chance to appreciate some other thing. On Eraserhead, I don’t remember what it was but I had the feeling that I appreciated some other level of it later, but I wasn’t even aware of it when I did it. It’s that thing.

DRE: Your past films are so recognizable and famous for having great, lush cinematography and beautiful colors. Even though Inland Empire does have those things, it is in a much different way.

DL: It was because I was shooting DV so the quality isn’t film quality. But it is it’s own quality. For projection in theaters it needs to go to film, so you’ve got a certain quality resolution DV up-res-ed to Hi Def and then put on film. All these processes are opportunities to me. They keep adding something that’s really magical and beautiful.

DRE: Besides it being shot on video did you try to shoot it the way you did your other films?

DL: I sometimes put it on the tripod and light it but sometimes it’s floating. Something happened because I’m holding the camera more on this and when you hold the camera you find yourself moving based on the feeling you’re getting from the scene and I think that’s a secretive act. You’re looking and listening and you are just doing things that you wouldn’t do if you had an operator. You wouldn’t be able to tell him in time. It’s more like you’re in there and you’re doing things that you couldn’t have done before.

DRE: Did the idea of the movie come before the idea of self-distributing it?

DL: Oh yeah. People would tell me that I’ve got a three hour picture that no one understands. [laughs] But I long for the 14 year old girls in the Midwest to fall in love with Inland Empire and embrace it. That would be so cool. I don’t see why it couldn’t happen but there’s a whole bunch of things happening and I don’t know all of it at all. It’s a feeling that the studios are just following the music industry. The music industry used to be a big advantage to artists and then those advantages started going down and down and down. To the point where they say, Jack give me your final album and maybe we’ll distribute it. They’re going down low enough so that you say, “Well wait a minute. I’m going to do the same amount of work, take this advance and that’s the last nickel I’m ever going to see.” You don’t see another nickel even if your film is doing good. How depressing is that? So I’d rather go a different route and take my chances. It’s a little bit thrilling to do it. It is a large amount of work but I’m getting to meet the people. I’m getting to meet the theater owners and I’m taking a hair more responsibility than in the past. I think it’s the way of the future.

DRE: I saw the video of you with the cow in Los Angeles on Youtube, are ventures like that something you want to be a part of?

DL: It is what’s just going to happen, but for me, I’m still hanging on to the theatrical experience as the best. But it won’t be too long before there won’t be any DVDs. We will be downloading our films and what you do with it is up to you but I would recommend squirting it on a big wall with speakers in a dark room and seeing it all the way through. Kill the phones so you have that experience and you can go into another world. But a lot of people are going to see it on their phones and their computers but in my book they won’t have seen the film.

DRE: Was it very important to have actors you’ve worked with before like Laura [Dern] and Justin [Theroux] in the main roles?

DL: What’s important is to get the right actors for the roles. If you’ve already worked with them, you’ve already developed a shorthand and you’re friends but that is not the reason to cast them. But when they marry to the part and you’ve got that added bonus, it’s beautiful. Laura is in a film that’s considered somewhat strange, but she has given a performance that will rival anything done this year so I hope she fares very well. The danger is that it will take a while to filter into the culture and miss an award but I think she’ll be remembered for her role.

DRE: It is interesting how self-referential the film is. Much of it takes place on a film set, part of the movie is about a director working with actors, part of the movie was shot in Poland and there’s a Polish character in the movie. Do you like putting what’s happening to you right into your movies?

DL: I also went to New York City but no ideas came in New York. You see what I mean? It’s the ideas coming and how one relates to another. You never know what’s going to trigger them or when they’re going to come. When they come along, then you focus on those and that focus and desire for more brings more in time. So the thing starts growing, you don’t know where it’s going, it just starts growing. A whole thing comes from Poland and from Hollywood. Now if I hadn’t gone to Poland, I don’t think I’d have gotten the Polish idea, but something was happening there. But I’ve gone to other places where something’s happening but the ideas didn’t come.

DRE: What is it you like so much about Los Angeles?

DL: I love the light. I love the feeling. It comes, I think, from the light, maybe more than that. But in LA I get the feeling of all possibilities. A freeing feeling of all possibilities can be gotten.

DRE: You started the short film Rabbits before you finished Inland Empire, did you always intend to put it into Inland?

DL: It started something happening. One thing leads to another, that’s the beautiful thing about the world. So some things you do and that’s it. Some things lead to more and more and more.

DRE: I believe you had some non-professional actors in Inland Empire.

DL: Well there were Polish actors, American actors, professionals and some surprises.

DRE: And regular people?

DL: Regular people, yeah.

DRE: What does putting regular people into your movie do for you?

DL: Everybody’s an actor and they might be bad, but there’s an actor in everybody. So sometimes you meet someone and see that their face would work. If they’re right for that thing, then that’s what you got to do.

DRE: Would you ever work for a studio again?

DL: Well, I haven’t ever worked with a studio, really. But it is like asking, would you ever poke a knife through your chest? Maybe, but I don’t think so.

DRE: Are you already doing things for your next project?

DL: No, I’ve got to do this distribution. But I’m longing for the day to start focusing on catching ideas. Maybe I’ll catch them during the distribution thing. I’ve got some ideas for the next one but a lot more has to come.

DRE: I heard a rumor about more Twin Peaks.

DL: No, somebody asked me about that the other night. I don’t know where that rumor is coming from.

DL: Is there material there for a special edition DVD of The Elephant Man?

DL: I don’t think so.

DRE: What do you think about the rise of Eli Roth?

DL: Oh, Eli’s my buddy. I haven’t talked to him in a long time. Eli is a go-getter and he’s smart and a good guy. So everybody’s got their own voice but Eli, I guess, is making it happen.

DRE: Do you watch many movies?

DL: No. I don’t have time. I’ve got to work.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck