Douglas Coupland

Yeah, I think so many people have had so many bad experiences in movies that there is a cynicism about the culture, which I didn’t encounter. I think it was because it was their first production and they actually consulted me on a few things, as a courtesy I think more than anything else.

I decided that since I’m not a director nor do I want to be one, I have to trust these people or I would go crazy. It’s like getting a book translated, I don’t speak Norwegian, so we look at a list of books the translator’s has done and go, “He’ll probably get me too.” Otherwise you turn into a control monster, which I think if you’ve been doing this for a long time you can see how people can become that.

Well I’m not supposed to say this, but I don’t remember writing it.

Yeah I did [laughs]. Since then, we’re doing a TV series now based on JPod. It is going to broadcast in January 2008. It’s 13 hour long episodes and it got picked up so it is real. We’re on episode six now. One hour shows are in this weird netherworld between half hour and features. You break an episode, that takes two afternoons and then I always get first draft and then I go to another city like Portland or Calgary or something and I lock myself into a hotel with room service coffee and just work during the day. It takes two to two and a half days to do that first pass and then after that there’s notes and everything else. But the scripts themselves are just people talking with a few art direction cues thrown in. I think if I over thought it too much I’d be like a millipede that was unable to walk.

I’ve taken a year off writing books. Then this TV thing came up after that so it was a happy coincidence. Everyone else goes up to an office and goes to meetings and I just stay at home. It was starting to make me crazy. I wanted to have something social going on.

I’ve seen the movie four times.

Actually no, they haven’t and still won’t send me a DVD. They’re so worried about YouTube and all that shit.

I promised I wouldn’t put it up on YouTube. They’re like, “No.”

But back to your question, the first time you see it it’s just like completely disembodying. The second time you see it you’re more objective, “Okay that was a bit slow, that was good, that was whatever.” The third time, I was like, “I’ve seen this already.” The fourth time is like, “Oh I can’t watch this anymore.” It’ll probably be another year or two before I look at it again.

Yeah, pretty much. In a lot of the scenes, like the whale scene, they just nailed it. I never learned about actors making choices. When you’re casting they will say stuff like “So and so is good but they make bad choices.” So they’re out. I didn’t know what that meant and then I saw the actors making good choices and I was like, “Okay, I can see how it could go horribly wrong.” There’s this one scene under the tree when Granny [played by Chiu-Lin Tam] falls asleep. It was a really romantic scene and fortunately Paul and Steph had chemistry. I realize now that’s just luck. You can put two stars together and it’s just like blah. So the chemistry was good, I lucked out.

This story isn’t really that family-centric. Whereas JPod really is about this is a catastrophically fucked up family, but in a really entertaining way. There are lots of screwed up families that come down the pipe. Don’t worry about that.

My intention was to write a movie that could film in Vancouver for nothing. That was guiding principle number one because they had no money.

Right and also 52 percent of people in Vancouver speak Chinese at home. It is also post-industrial, we don’t make anything there anymore.

Pretty much. In a weird, accidental way the future of North American civic culture is that if you don’t make anything anymore, what do you do with your free time? I get The New York Times everyday in Canada and I read stuff everyday like, “In Gary Indiana, they closed the old Jiffy Pop Oven factory” or in Virginia the last coal mine was shut down and yet Charlottesburg or whatever is making a go of it. Usually it’s call centers and if you don’t have call centers then they have a meth problem. It’s a happy coincidence that I’m from Vancouver and the movie had to be set there because there is something about the city which is strange and weird and worth writing about.

No one smokes pot in Vancouver. You’d have to be a loser to smoke pot. Back in 1997 I was downtown and these punk rock kids had a book of mine and they were like, “Hey, can you sign this, Doug?” Then they gave me three little pot seeds. So I took them home and I put them in the planter on the back deck and watered them. But they weren’t thriving. A friend of mine stayed over at my house and said, “We should put them with these other plants. Pot plants like to be with other plants.” So I put them down by this maple tree and I came back and the plants were like Cousin It. They were massive and dripping with THC. It was like, “Holy shit.” I cut them down and I knew enough to hang them upside down in the garage. Then I thought, “Who do I know who smokes pot?” So I found a friend Jamie but he said, “Oh I stopped like last year.” It was ten pounds of killer bud! I couldn’t find one person so I went to my parents’ place and burned it in the fireplace.

[laughs] I think down in the States pot is a bigger deal than it is in Canada. There’s no immorality or giggles, it’s just like growing carrots. It’s the biggest industry in BC. Especially in my parents’ neighborhood where half the houses are grow ops. My mom didn’t believe me when I told her that so we took her for a walk through the neighborhood and said, “That one and that one and that one.” She’s like, “This explains why we don’t get trick-or-treaters anymore.”

Oh no, I only like people my own age. How old are you?

Oh, I got to go.

Let me tell you this, I’m always very careful in my own head now to make distinctions between observations that are universal and things that are idiosyncratic to Doug. When I start looking at things as universal, well, do you remember growing up with little insert cards in magazine that ask your age like 9-15 and 16-21. I always thought those were arbitrary but they’re not. There’s a reason they have that age and not another age because you’re programmed like an odometer to go through specific changes in your life at certain ages regardless of who you are or where you are or what your situation is. Your 20’s are almost universally horrible and if you’re 30-35 you’re very lucky, it’s the best five years of your life so enjoy it. Then at 36 it’s like some other evil thing kicks in and you’re going to go through God knows what. Again, it’s universal. I’m interested in 29 to 30 because everyone went through it and that’s the age where your choices stick. You don’t get a get out of jail free card anymore. If you take a job you’re probably going to have it for a long time. At 25 you know you’re not going to be a rock star. It’s a universal because if you’ve been there, everyone knows what it’s about because they’ve been there too.

Do you remember growing up when you were told, like, “In your career you’ll have five or six mini-careers.” I think that people looked at that and thought, “Oh God I don’t want five careers, just give me a million dollars now.” That’s maybe part of it because I think that everybody just gets future fatigue. I graduated from art school in 1984. The people I knew then who are happy now don’t make much money but they are doing something interesting. You’re 32 and you’re writing which I suspect means you like writing. I don’t know what’s going to happen in your future. No one knows, but you’re probably going to enjoy it more than someone who you went to school with, who is doing something that makes a lot of money but isn’t doing what they enjoy doing.

Wish I was richer [laughs].

Anyone who is creative who reads their press, good or bad, get caught in this weird Courtney Love downward spiral of self-awareness and they stop doing work. I honestly wonder about people who write one book and never write another book again. There’s a lot of that. What tripped them up? What did they do that scared them away or made them dissatisfied or unable to do another one?

Well thank you. Everyone has what if’s in their lives. One of the things that is programmed into us, send me a postcard when it happens to you, is that around 39 or 40 there are regrets. Right now it’s just another word but you’ll look back on your life about that phone call you shouldn’t have made or that party you should have gone to or whatever. It goes from something small to something nasty that will haunt you for the rest of your life like some old southern gothic movie. I’ve got a few. Some are haunting, but all in all I think the reason I’m able to do what I do on a continual basis is that I’m pretty honest about what’s interesting to me. I never do it because it sounds like a good idea as opposed to being something that I really feel.

All Families are Psychotic was optioned by Noam Murro and Biscuit Filmworks. I think Noam is still working on it. He’s doing it, I don’t think I could ever adapt something of my own because it would be too much like going back in time, says he who is doing a TV series based on JPod .

God no. You have to get up early. You have to be able to give directions and I’m the world’s most impatient person when it comes to things like that. Like, “Do your fucking job. Act!” Within five minutes I’d have the whole production shut down. A friend of mine was pregnant so I filled in teaching for her at the art school for half a semester. Now I have this whole new appreciation for teachers. The only time students really raise their hand is to say stuff like, “Will we be graded on attendance?” and I’m like “Ugh!” Once a week I have to sit there and keep 22 little brats preoccupied. Finally near the end of it, I felt like if I could put a name to their face or a face to their name, they got a B. If they were there for the whole semester and I couldn’t picture their name or face then they have not been involved enough.

That was a series that we had the idea for two summers ago. But things just moved on.

They’re bidding right now.

I think all channels are niche now. It would be fine for the SciFi Channel. I think it would be a good fit for Showtime.

Oh absolutely. It’s already all in my head now. I don’t talk about the book until it’s done. That’s hubris and I’m very superstitious about that. I noticed people don’t like taking holidays, because it implies you have something to take a holiday from. I’m only two months in and I’m enjoying it.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck