anderswolleck

John Waters is the legendary director of Pink Flamingos, Hairspray and Cecil B. DeMented. His latest film is the NC-17 rated A Dirty Shame which pits a sex crazed cult versus the upright neuters in Baltimore.

Check out the official website for A Dirty Shame

Daniel Robert Epstein: Did you pick Selma because she is the skinniest person that you could put gigantic boobs on?

John Waters: No, I never even thought of her as skinny. I just thought of her as being a really good comedian and a really funny actress. Also she is someone who obviously chooses unpredictable roles and doesnt let herself get pigeon-holed as the ingnue. This definitely isnt an ingnue part.

DRE: This is one of the biggest sight gags youve had in a while.

JW: She pulls it off. I think after a while she still looks pretty with them and I think you believe her in them. She doesnt even get upstaged which is really hard.

DRE: Did you ever talk to any of the women that really do have breasts that large?

JW: Yeah! I know a couple of women that have them, I would just try to imagine, what do they wear when they go to the dentist? See thats what this led to. I get it when theyre strippers, but what about when they have to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles. What outfits do they wear? Thats what I think is the funniest, when she goes to the sex addict meeting, when she wears the little Laura Ashley dress. If you have them but you want to be a neuter, its hard to find the proper outfits.

There are people who are really into that fetish. You know, the bigger the better. I just asked them to be bigger than her head. I think Juggs is the magazine that has the biggest. I have a subscription to Adult Video News which has ads for that. Zena Fulsom is the one that I remember, so its sort of based on her. She was an English porn star that had these tits that were obviously fake but I couldnt really figure out how they did them. These werent that cheap, but they looked cheap.

DRE: Ursula Udders aside, compared to some of your movies in the past, this is a movie which has normal looking people in it. I mean normal as in compared to any other Hollywood film weve seen. Could you talk a bit about that?

JW: Tracey Ullman looks like a normal person in this and in order for it to be funny and to be a compulsive sexual lunatic, it has to be real life, real America. This wasnt supposed to be sexy; it was supposed to be funny that somebody that was normal all of a sudden had no mental brakes in their sex life. So it would be like if you went home and suddenly your mother said "I fucked the whole neighborhood" and then if she could come back and shed realize what shed done. There was comedy in that. But it had to look like real life. It had to be real people and Ive already said theres no such thing as an extra in a John Waters movie. The extras look like real people and in LA the extras look like sitcom stars.

DRE: Could you ever imagine actually making a movie outside of Baltimore?

JW: Ive done reshoots outside of Baltimore. I could do it, you just yell Action! But I dont think theres any reason to. Baltimore is a supporting player in the movies and no one is clamoring for me to go somewhere else. So no, I hope not, we have a great film commissioner that tells people you know, you have to let him put an anus in your tree on your front lawn, and they say "okay" [laughs].

DRE: So this, Cecil B. DeMented, Hairspray, and Crybaby all have two groups against one another that each have names for the other that are completely new.

JW: I make war movies.

DRE: Do you feel that youre part of a group which is against everybody else?

JW: No, I can see both sides of the story. Basically I think people should be free to do what they want but I think adult babies are creepy.

DRE: You, of all people, think adult babies are weird?

JW: Yes, but I dont think we should beat them up. I think people come out of a lot of closets, I think the adult baby closet is a tough one to come out of. If I know anyone that is one, I hope they dont tell me.

I think its a thin line, when are we slack in our liberal behavior? Such as when we dont join a march for floor lickers? When can tolerance go too far?

DRE: What is your favorite fetish?

JW: In the movie, the funniest one to me is nasophilia, the dirt-licking. I really like the actor James Ransone. Its all a sight gag really. I only pick funny ones. I didnt pick mean ones like fisting or things against women. This is a comedy; its a sex education comedy. But even a few times, I dont tell you what they mean. You will have to figure out what plate jobs are.

DRE: How did Tracey Ullman get involved with this movie?

JW: Same way every movie is made. My agent at CAA called her agent, then we had a "meeting" as they say and it went very well. She said she never gets to be controversial. Right now shes doing Once Upon a Mattress for television with Carol Burnett. My fathers brothers wifes brother wrote Once Upon a Mattress, so that was weird.

DRE: Did you always have her in mind?

JW: No, I didnt. It was suggested to me early and I thought, what a great idea, because she sends the perfect message for this movie. Yes, its about sex, but by having Tracey Ullman starring in it right away you know its a comedy. Her daughter was on the set, the day of the hokey pokey scene and her young son was there a lot and he bonded with Johnny Knoxville.

DRE: In a way, is it harder now to make a movie this outrageous than it might have been before 1972?

JW: Im just trying to make a funny movie. I think its a sweet movie in a way, I dont think theres anything hateful about this movie. Even the shit eating shit Pink Flamingos, that was a publicity stunt, but a humorous publicity stunt. People laughed as they gagged. I never tried to top that and I think it led to Johnny Knoxvilles Jackass, which was very similar in spirit to that. Im trying to surprise you, trying to make you laugh at things that you might not think are so funny in real life. Shock is easy to do but its hard to be witty about it. Hopefully thats what Im attempting.

DRE: Its still the first time Ive ever gone to a movie and gotten a full facial at the end.

JW: That was something where we thought it needed one good beat at the end. I do chuckle at thinking of the MPAAs face when thats the last image I gave them. In the appeals they said it was unanimously on the first round, NC-17. There was no debate. Even though a few reviews weve gotten so far like in Variety and Rolling Stone, have questioned that, saying it seems a bit strict. I asked what I could cut and they said they stopped taking notes.

DRE: I saw that you spoke at a digital video conference. Are you thinking about doing a film on video?

JW: No, Im actually thinking not because that just means they want me to make it cheaper. Im thinking in Technicolor. I used a lot of optical effects in this movie which I hadnt used before.

DRE: Waylon Smithers from The Simpsons is coming out!

JW: Oh I knew that. Thats good.

DRE: So are you guys going to get together?

JW: Maybe, Im not telling! [laughs]

DRE: If Kerry and Bush got bopped on the head, have you thought about what their fetishes would be?

JW: Well it seems to me it would be the opposite. People ask me what would I be and I guess I would be a heterosexual womanizer [laughs]. If you go along with the logic of the script, you become rabidly sexually the opposite way. So I guess Bush would be picking up dangerous hidden missiles with his anus? Kerry, would be a splosher with ketchup. I mean thats just too easy.

DRE: The film is certainly well-timed in terms of the ongoing effort to try and legislate morality. Was that in your head?

JW: Maybe subconsciously. In this election theyre both Neuters though one is more of a neuter than the other. Certainly the whole Janet Jackson nonsense was way after this movie was even shot. Cecil B. DeMented was about terrorism and then 9/11 happened. Jeane Dixon Im not.

DRE: Did any of the actors have problems with the dialogue or what theyd have to do?

JW: Tracey was uptight about saying an "arse-opener". I said why? It shocked me, of all the things in the movie. I think arse is really offensive in England, way more than it is here, the same way people say cunt in England all the time and its not bad like it is here. Its just different versions of whats ruder than not.

Suzanne Shepherd [Big Ethel] was horrified by the whole thing. She got the part the day before and she was just horrified. She read the script on the way down on the train and was sobbing. Then she came to the rehearsal that afternoon and was totally won over, thought it was funny and everything, and by the end of the day she was a cult member. But it took us 24 hours to brainwash her a little. I think she had to hear us, and when she got to the rehearsal, Selma was just saying the rudest thing to her. Shes like "Ive never heard of any of these things, what is this?" but later she realized that some of her friends were bears.

DRE: Theres a great older quote that you had where you said if you ever had a million dollars to make a movie, you would make everything fake. Was Hairspray that movie?

JW: No, I never made it. That would mean a movie that would be totally filmed in a studio, where every single thing was fake. Like the Chucky movie I was in, everything was fake, because you have to build everything up ten feet up so they can work Chucky and family underneath, so nothing can be on location when Chucky is in the scene.

DRE: What character do you play in the new Chucky movie?

JW: I play a paparazzi, the new villain in every movie. My death scene took two days to shoot. I love Chucky, I campaigned for the part and I got cast.

DRE: Has Hairspray the Broadway musical changed your life?

JW: Its changed my life; I have like a passive income. Everything changes my life. Everything I put out in some way, successful or not, changes my life. Crybaby is coming out now as a musical. My mother finally can say she loved it without lying. It changed my life certainly. When Hairspray won all the Tonys that night, I thought anything can happen; now I finally can start wearing an ascot [laughs].

DRE: Are you still attending public trials to get story ideas?

JW: No I dont, because basically they recognize me now and then the jury will take it out on the defendant if they dont like my movie, or the defendant panics and thinks Im making a movie about it, so I dont go anymore. I would have gone to John Walker Lindh, thats the one I wanted to go to the most.

DRE: Do you still hit the Baltimore social scene?

JW: Yeah, that bar in the movie, The Holiday House, is where Ive hung out for the past 12 years. Will I be able to go there now that the movie is open? Who knows. In Baltimore I find new places to hang out, find a bar and meet the people.

DRE: Why do you think movies with sex and nudity get NC-17 and are always labeled, and movies with graphic violence like Passion Of The Christ or horror movies get R ratings?

JW: Because we as Americans love violence and hate sex. Its perfectly obvious that its true. And in Europe, they love sex and hate violence. Its frustrating dealing with the MPAA. They werent horrible to deal with, but liberal censors are scary. The newspaper ad, with Selmas breasts, the east and west coast the newspapers were running those ads, middle America the breasts were smaller, and in Utah theyre even smaller. Im not making that up. We have to get acceptance around the country, breast acceptance. And I dont get it because in
Utah you used to be able to have six wives. [laughs]

DRE: With the R ratings now I guess you have to be 17 now anyway.

JW: I just hope that if youre going to sneak into a mall to see my NC-17 movie, please pick another independent film. Dont give my money that youre going to see to Disney or somebody that wont distribute NC-17 movies. Sneak in and at least pay a distributor that will release an NC-17 movie.

DRE: Can I ask what the first film youve ever seen is and what kind of impression it left on you?

JW: The first film I ever saw was Walt Disneys Cinderella, and the stepmother I loved. Ive talked about this before but the music when she enters a room, I am obsessed with that. I used to have it on my answering machine. Every time I walk into a room, I want to hear that.

DRE: Chris Isaak almost looks scarily normal.

JW: Hes no neuter. I promise you. But at the same time, I think it was a role that he had never played before. Hed never played the uptight husband and I think hes the straight man in this movie. Hes trying to understand, but doesnt.

DRE: Would you consider yourself a pervert, if someone asked you?

JW: Yes but its not an insult. I dont write out on my tax forms, Job: Pervert. Although it sort of is my job description [laughs]. I have to be one everyday at work.

DRE: Do you have enthusiasm that might be considered a fetish?

JW: If enthusiasm is a fetish, then I have one. I jump out of bed. I get dumber as the day goes along, but I jump out of bed to go to work every day. I enjoy what I do for a living. If I was going to share a sexual fetish, it would be in a book where I got the money, not you [laughs].

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck