Even though Bret Easton Ellis has written so many brilliant and disturbing novels such as Glamorama, American Psycho and Less than Zero hes been coming off so strange on his recent press tour. But hes is a lot cooler than what I expected him. After reading Lunar Park, then perusing his recent press and even reading the press materials that the book publicity people sent along, I expected a stoned intellectual lunatic that would take one question and then talk for 45 minutes. But we had a great and very honest conversation that encompassed a good chunk of his career, the films made from his work and even his extensive therapy sessions.
Lunar Park is the most personal and revealing book of Ellis career because it is about a version of himself. A drug crazed asshole version but one that seems like it would be fun to hang out and snort coke off of Ione Skyes tits.
Buy Lunar Park
Daniel Robert Epstein: Whats going on today?
Bret Easton Ellis: Whats going on is I just got off the phone doing a pre-interview for The Today Show. Now Im eating yogurt and Im standing around thinking, I know my internist is on vacation but I really need my Zyrtec prescription because my allergies are killing me. But Im feeling too lazy to god get the prescription so Im taking Claritin instead.
DRE: When are you doing The Today Show?
BEE: Thats being done on Wednesday the 17th.
DRE: For an author you know your schedule pretty well.
BEE: I have been forced to learn it. I literally have received three or four phone calls this morning reminding me of everything that I must do.
DRE: What are they worried about?
BEE: The head guy at Random House, Paul Bogaards, called me very early today because he had seen this Time Magazine profile that came out and he wasnt pleased. I had gotten an email from a friend, who had seen it last night online, and they thought it was great. I read it and I thought Oh yeah, its pretty good! But the PR people at Knopf are not happy. He thought I was being too coy. Its not that I wasnt being real. Ive got to stop this whole shtick of telling the interviewer I guess I like you so I can be honest with you today. But I really wasnt doing that. I always have been nice to interviewers. Ive never been grouchy or mean. Ive always been real and sincere. Ive known my publicist since he was a young editorial assistant and was passing out in snow banks in front of Manhattan brownstones 20 years ago. Now for some reason he thinks Im coming across as not very sincere, which bothers me. I dont know why Paul is thinking that.
DRE: But isnt coy the thing youre doing now?
BEE: Well you know what? I did have this whole sort of performance planned when I was about to embark on this tour. I was going to do it in character as the Bret Easton Ellis of the book. About two interviews in, it became exhausting. Im not an actor, I cant do it. It wasnt fun either. It was having to maintain a pose with a journalist who wanted genuine answers to genuine questions and it didnt work out. There have been very few things written about me that havent been true or that Ive had a problem with. Ive never read a profile and said Lies, lies! What in the hell is this person saying? I mean Ive been upset about profiles because I dont like the way I come off. But thered been nothing in it that I can point to and say Well that wasnt said or I didnt do that. It could be taken out of context and it can all be the events of that day or those hours are obviously going to be filtered down through the sensibility of that journalist. So youre going to come out on his side of the fence and you might not recognize that person but thats how he sees you and you just have to accept that.
DRE: I try to make them as honest as possible.
BEE: That also can backfire, so either way youre screwed. You can either be too honest which might not translate well in print. Quite honestly I just dont know what the answer is. If you can tell me, I would appreciate it.
DRE: I always say just be as honest as possible. Sometimes people usually try to answer the question without usually answering the question.
BEE: Thats a waste of time.
DRE: A lot of actors do that. They like to say nothing in the guise of answering of a question.
BEE: Thats because most actors arent very smart and theyre very suspicious. Also because of the nature of their business, which is constant rejection, theyre haunted souls. Most of them havent graduated high school. Theyre not very smart people. I have a lot of friends who are actors, but come on, lets get honest here.
DRE: I think they know theyre not that smart either.
BEE: Thats also where a lot of the insecurity comes from and thats also why you see them wearing fake glasses at political rallies and stuff.
DRE: What do you know about SuicideGirls?
BEE: I went to the site once and they have their little profiles and stuff. Saying what they like and dont like. Recently I was told they love me.
DRE: They love you like crazy.
Im sure at your readings youve seen a lot of younger people. Im sure youve met the punk girls and all that kind of stuff.
BEE: Yes. Theyre part of my audience.
DRE: Did you ever expect to hit that kind of audience?
BEE: I never expected to hit any kind of audience. I literally was a musician in college. I thought I was going to be in a rock band. I swear to God that was my future. I wrote songs and played a band, that was what I was going to do. I wrote books on the side. I had Less Than Zero but I hadnt planned on getting it published.
DRE: How about once the career started happening and you had your very first successful book, when did you find out that those people were connecting to your work?
BEE: First, through the publication of my five books the culture has changed tremendously. In 1985 I dont think I even knew a single person with a tattoo and anybody who did have a tattoo was considered really dubious material. Thats not true now. The cultures completely different now. In 1985 my audience was a lot of 80s girls with their collars up and wearing a lot of pink and green preppy stuff. Then in the 90s it was much more cool and streamlined. Now I dont know because I havent given a reading in seven years.
DRE: Really?
BEE: Yeah, the last book I had out came out at the end of 1998 so its been years since Ive even been out in public to read anything to anybody. When this tour kicks off I will see pretty much a new audience.
DRE: Did you not read it because you were too much like the Bret Easton Ellis in the book?
BEE: [laughs] Well the Bret Easton Ellis in the book would have said yes and that I was bitten by a bird doll and was walking with a cane and I really didnt want to talk about anything. No, its just I dont like to do them. Im not particularly comfortable with reading out loud. I dont necessarily think its my thing. I always get very frustrated at other authors readings because I always think No they shouldnt read it that way, they should read it this way. Then when Im up there I get very self-conscious.
When I am promoting a book I do the readings because its part of the contract. But Im offered to read a lot in between books but I just cant do it.
DRE: I recently spoke to the actor Bruce Campbell. His first book was an autobiography and now in his latest [Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way] he kind of pretended hes in an A-list movie with Richard Gere. I asked him how much of this book was true and he said 70 percent and If it didnt happen to me it happened to someone I knew. Now Im posing the same question to you, how much of the book is true?
BEE: Uh, half. Maybe sixty percent if you take out some of the more outrageous elements in it. If I look at the dynamics of the key relationships in the book. The relationship between Bret and Jane, Bret and the shrinks, the father and the son, the publishing business stuff, the party throwing. Theres a lot of stuff that is pretty close and then you have some of the more nightmarish stuff that can only be attributed to my fantasy life, my dreams and stuff. I cant call it an autobiographical novel, but it is in the end it is because all novels are autobiographical because they show the reader where that writer was during that period in his life.
DRE: When I first read the first chapter I thought it was a real introduction to the book. .
BEE: The first chapter is an introduction. It sets up why Bret is where he is and why the rest of the book is going to happen. That was always part of the structure of the book. I was not necessarily the narrator when I first started thinking about this book in 1989. It was a fictional narrator, but as the years went on and certain things started happening to me my response to the material started getting more complicated so Bret Ellis became the narrator of this book.
DRE: Are you in therapy or anything like that?
BEE: I was.
DRE: But not anymore?
BEE: Im going to go back into it. Ive got an appointment a week from today at two oclock.
DRE: Is it a coincidence that its coinciding with the release of the book?
BEE: It is no coincidence at all that it is coinciding with the release of the book. No coincidence to that whatsoever. But yes, I have been in therapy on and off ever since I was a kid. It really hasnt been helping much.
DRE: Are you seeing a new psychiatrist?
BEE: No, it is Dr. Kim, the shrink that Ive had for many years.
DRE: What do you guys talk about? Do you just drop off the books, give it a few and then come back in?
BEE: I dont know if shes read [Lunar Park] yet. I have been living in LA for about a year and a half so this will be the first time Ive seen her in a long time. She knew about it and we talked about it sometimes in therapy so Monday will be pretty interesting.
DRE: What kind of stuff do you talk about with her?
BEE: One of the most interesting things is that for one year we did dream therapy. I kept a dream journal for about eight or nine months.
DRE: Wait, is this a licensed psychiatrist?
BEE: [laughs] Yeah. It was one of the most amazing things Ive ever done. You really have to make an effort. When you wake up you really have to have that pad by the bed and you really have to scribble down immediately what you just dreamt. I did this for about a year and I would type the dreams up and I would go into Dr. Kims and we would start discussing what the dream meant and it really did make clear where certain anxieties were coming from and what I was thinking about subconsciously. It was amazing; you live an entire life in your unconscious. An entire life with the same characters and landscapes. It read like a novel. It was one of the most mind blowing things Ive ever done.
Wed meet every Tuesday and I would come in with a dream. I would type it out and we would read it together. We would go Why is this person back in your dreams now? Why are you back in Nevada? Remember you were roaming around Nevada and you kept going back to that one hill. Then she would ask me Whats been going on this past week thats brought you back there? Why are you back at your fathers high school?
DRE: Thats so bizarre. Would you ever publish it?
BEE: No. Its too dirty.
DRE: Too dirty for you?
BEE: Yes, its too dirty even for me.
DRE: Wow! Now I want to see it.
BEE: The dream journals will never be published. Im going to destroy them. Dr. Kim probably has them on file because I made copies for her.
DRE: But Lunar Park didnt come out of you being in therapy though.
BEE: No, Lunar Park came out of wanting to write a Stephen King novel. In 1989, I wanted to write two genre novels. I wanted to write a Stephen King novel and a Robert Ludlum novel. I loved those genres and those writers. For some reason I didnt think I could pull off the Stephen King book but I thought I could pull off the international espionage thriller. So I spent the next eight years working on Glamorama and during those eight years I kept up an outline on Lunar Park. Then by the time I was finished promoting Glamorama it was time to sit down to write Lunar Park. Im glad I waited.
DRE: Was Lunar Park therapeutic for you?
BEE: It was incredibly therapeutic. I felt I resolved so many issues with my Dad, which is strange. He was a big part of a lot of problems I had. He died very suddenly so it was unresolved. We hadnt spoken much before he died. Now in talking with a lot of friends my age who had similar problems that I did with their dads they say Listen, they mellow out. They get tired and become nicer. That just makes me sad because I didnt have that kind of resolution with my father and so I think writing a book like this helped a lot. It exorcised some demons. Thats not why I wrote it, but in the end I guess thats what I got out of it.
DRE: Would you show your future kids Lunar Park?
BEE: I dont know if I could help it. I mean it would be there.
DRE: But would you be like, this was for you?
BEE: Gee I never thought of it that way. I dont know.
DRE: Nobodys ever mentioned that to you? Thats so funny.
BEE: No, people are afraid of me. You dont understand.
But I dont know if I want to be having kids. Thats a whole other issue. You can never say never. I had the male biological clock thing going in my early to mid thirties that completely took me by surprise. I didnt expect it to happen at all. Where you start looking at kids and wanting kids and thinking Oh yeah I can do this, I want to do this. Then it let up, maybe it will come back.
DRE: Do you ever watch the show Curb Your Enthusiasm?
BEE: Yes.
DRE: Ok, whats interesting about that show is what kind of problems a person has when money isnt an issue. All sorts of problems for him go away and then he has to create a whole new set of problems for himself. What kind of things do you worry and think about on a day to day basis?
BEE: I do not have Larry David money.
DRE: Well hes got like half a billion dollars.
Do you have the money that the Bret Easton Ellis in Lunar Park is boasting of?
BEE: Yeah, but considering the economics of book publishing, far less than you might think. Also I think far less than what people assume in terms of sales of books and the notoriety of books. Booksellers take 45 percent, publishers take 45 percent, youre left with ten percent, taxes and agent fees. It is not a ton of money. I have enough money where I can live comfortably but I dont have any fuck you money.
I would have fuck you money if my Dad had managed his assets a little better and was not five million dollars in debt when he died. He left us with nothing and my Mom was almost penniless. But I dont have expensive taste and Im pretty simple about what I have to have. Curb Your Enthusiasm is sort of about the freedom that money brings but then that freedom just makes him more neurotic. Thats a peculiarly American trait.
DRE: Yes, thats true. The Saudis would just buy a gold palace.
BEE: Thats true too.
Do I find myself getting into more trouble when Im not working on a project? Definitely. Do I find myself fucking up a little bit more when Im not focused on a book or inspired by something? Yeah, I see my life getting more complicated. The drama queen in me comes out and starts fucking things up so on that level I can definitely relate to the show. There was always part of Seinfeld too. That always seems to sort of be a theme where people need more to do. But its like that old thing, once you have enough food, once you have shelter, once you find out youre not dying then you want more. Then once you have all of that then you want more and more and more. Its just a peculiarly human trait.
DRE: I talk to a lot of authors and filmmakers and things like that and whenever you talk to them about the themes in their work theyre like I just do what I do. But I felt you definitely examined your themes in Lunar Park.
BEE: A reoccurring theme that I can find that links book to book to book; My God I cant do it. Thats so weird! What is it about the artist that they cant locate that and tell people? I dont know what it is. Its like this wall in a way. Youd think you could do it.
DRE: I think David Lynch said if he tried to examine it might would go away.
BEE: Yeah, I hear that theory a lot but thats not my problem here. Artists always feel that they should never see shrinks or go to therapy because they feel that theyll talk out all their neuroses and therefore they would not have their art. Im just not a believer in that. I think it actually helps.
DRE: Did you see this new DVD for American Psycho?
BEE: I was sent a copy of it.
DRE: Were you involved in the movie at all?
BEE: No, I was not involved in the movie at all. But I liked it.
DRE: It has garnered such a huge following. Does it boggle you that it has become such a huge thing?
BEE: Yes, it actually does. I run into a lot of readers who are college students and have no idea the controversy that the book generated when it came out. If you had asked me within the three days of Simon and Schuster dropping the book and Random House picking it up. if that would be the end result I would have walked away from you and not been your friend. I would have said Youre being really fucked up; youre being really mean right now. Do you really need to rub it in? It is a shock.
DRE: Have you seen the Patrick Bateman Talking Action Figure?
BEE: I read about it and saw a picture. It looks like Christian Bale. Now for a lot of people Christian Bale is Patrick Bateman. Though I have to tell you I never had a guy in my head while I was writing American Psycho. He always seemed to be this faceless guy. Now that Christian Bale did so good in the movie. I was really afraid that everybodys going to read the book and see Patrick Bateman as Christian Bale. Yet when I reread the book a couple of years ago I didnt picture anybody.
DRE: Is Roger Avary still doing the Glamorama movie?
BEE: He has the rights now for the rest of his and my life. So its up to Roger. Roger made a bunch of money from this Beowulf script that he sold and with that money he came to me and just made me an offer I could not refuse. Since I loved Rules of Attraction I said great. Hes written a real spellbinding script for Glamorama. I think the problem is that its an expensive movie to make and I think its topic, which is Americans committing terrorism abroad, makes it not a very popular movie in development right now. I dont know whats going to happen. Roger keeps saying hes going to do it. He keeps showing me storyboards for some of the big set pieces.
DRE: Did you go to the sets of any of your movies?
BEE: I did not go to the set for Less Than Zero because I was actually in college in New England at the time and they were shooting in LA. Then for American Psycho I did go to the set when they were shooting the interiors in Toronto just because it was publicity for Glamorama. Ive been on film sets before and its so horrible to hear people say its boring but it sort of was. The interior of the restaurant didnt quite look like what I thought and it was cold. Then the other time I met up with the American Psycho crew it was purely by accident. They were shooting exteriors and I had just left a restaurant with some friends and in the distance were all of these arc lights and this film crew. Then the closer we got we actually saw Christian Bale get out of a limousine. We went over and actually hung out on the set for a while.
DRE: Thats hysterical.
BEE: Then on Rules of Attraction I didnt go on the set at all even though Roger tried to get me into the movie. He begged me to do a role. I knew that there was no way in hell that I was going to do it.
DRE: Any special reason?
BEE: Well in the novel Rules of Attraction youre first introduced to Patrick Bateman. Hes the brother of Sean Bateman, whos the main character of Rules of Attraction and Sean has to go to New York because his fathers dying and he meets his brother in the hospital. Then we see that his brother is some sort of vicious Wall Street guy. So Roger wanted to shoot that scene and so he had gone to Christian Bale to reprise his role as Patrick Bateman. Christian said that he didnt want to do it. Then Roger asked me to play him. I thought it was such a terrible and gimmicky idea. He begged and begged and begged but I never did it. They finally got Casper Van Diem to do it. Then Roger cut the two scenes entirely.
DRE: I bet you didnt see American Psycho 2.
BEE: Yeah I did.
DRE: What did you think of it?
BEE: I guess I understand why it was made. Lions Gate had made a profit on American Psycho so I guess they thought they could make more money. It didnt particularly piss me off but I dont think its a good movie. I really dont care that they made it, but my only problem is that the money situation wasnt cool in terms of them owning the rights and using the name Patrick Bateman. But in the end it had nothing to do with Patrick Bateman or with American Psycho or with Bret Easton Ellis. It was just a title being used to sell a kind of dumb campus slasher movie.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Lunar Park is the most personal and revealing book of Ellis career because it is about a version of himself. A drug crazed asshole version but one that seems like it would be fun to hang out and snort coke off of Ione Skyes tits.
Buy Lunar Park
Daniel Robert Epstein: Whats going on today?
Bret Easton Ellis: Whats going on is I just got off the phone doing a pre-interview for The Today Show. Now Im eating yogurt and Im standing around thinking, I know my internist is on vacation but I really need my Zyrtec prescription because my allergies are killing me. But Im feeling too lazy to god get the prescription so Im taking Claritin instead.
DRE: When are you doing The Today Show?
BEE: Thats being done on Wednesday the 17th.
DRE: For an author you know your schedule pretty well.
BEE: I have been forced to learn it. I literally have received three or four phone calls this morning reminding me of everything that I must do.
DRE: What are they worried about?
BEE: The head guy at Random House, Paul Bogaards, called me very early today because he had seen this Time Magazine profile that came out and he wasnt pleased. I had gotten an email from a friend, who had seen it last night online, and they thought it was great. I read it and I thought Oh yeah, its pretty good! But the PR people at Knopf are not happy. He thought I was being too coy. Its not that I wasnt being real. Ive got to stop this whole shtick of telling the interviewer I guess I like you so I can be honest with you today. But I really wasnt doing that. I always have been nice to interviewers. Ive never been grouchy or mean. Ive always been real and sincere. Ive known my publicist since he was a young editorial assistant and was passing out in snow banks in front of Manhattan brownstones 20 years ago. Now for some reason he thinks Im coming across as not very sincere, which bothers me. I dont know why Paul is thinking that.
DRE: But isnt coy the thing youre doing now?
BEE: Well you know what? I did have this whole sort of performance planned when I was about to embark on this tour. I was going to do it in character as the Bret Easton Ellis of the book. About two interviews in, it became exhausting. Im not an actor, I cant do it. It wasnt fun either. It was having to maintain a pose with a journalist who wanted genuine answers to genuine questions and it didnt work out. There have been very few things written about me that havent been true or that Ive had a problem with. Ive never read a profile and said Lies, lies! What in the hell is this person saying? I mean Ive been upset about profiles because I dont like the way I come off. But thered been nothing in it that I can point to and say Well that wasnt said or I didnt do that. It could be taken out of context and it can all be the events of that day or those hours are obviously going to be filtered down through the sensibility of that journalist. So youre going to come out on his side of the fence and you might not recognize that person but thats how he sees you and you just have to accept that.
DRE: I try to make them as honest as possible.
BEE: That also can backfire, so either way youre screwed. You can either be too honest which might not translate well in print. Quite honestly I just dont know what the answer is. If you can tell me, I would appreciate it.
DRE: I always say just be as honest as possible. Sometimes people usually try to answer the question without usually answering the question.
BEE: Thats a waste of time.
DRE: A lot of actors do that. They like to say nothing in the guise of answering of a question.
BEE: Thats because most actors arent very smart and theyre very suspicious. Also because of the nature of their business, which is constant rejection, theyre haunted souls. Most of them havent graduated high school. Theyre not very smart people. I have a lot of friends who are actors, but come on, lets get honest here.
DRE: I think they know theyre not that smart either.
BEE: Thats also where a lot of the insecurity comes from and thats also why you see them wearing fake glasses at political rallies and stuff.
DRE: What do you know about SuicideGirls?
BEE: I went to the site once and they have their little profiles and stuff. Saying what they like and dont like. Recently I was told they love me.
DRE: They love you like crazy.
Im sure at your readings youve seen a lot of younger people. Im sure youve met the punk girls and all that kind of stuff.
BEE: Yes. Theyre part of my audience.
DRE: Did you ever expect to hit that kind of audience?
BEE: I never expected to hit any kind of audience. I literally was a musician in college. I thought I was going to be in a rock band. I swear to God that was my future. I wrote songs and played a band, that was what I was going to do. I wrote books on the side. I had Less Than Zero but I hadnt planned on getting it published.
DRE: How about once the career started happening and you had your very first successful book, when did you find out that those people were connecting to your work?
BEE: First, through the publication of my five books the culture has changed tremendously. In 1985 I dont think I even knew a single person with a tattoo and anybody who did have a tattoo was considered really dubious material. Thats not true now. The cultures completely different now. In 1985 my audience was a lot of 80s girls with their collars up and wearing a lot of pink and green preppy stuff. Then in the 90s it was much more cool and streamlined. Now I dont know because I havent given a reading in seven years.
DRE: Really?
BEE: Yeah, the last book I had out came out at the end of 1998 so its been years since Ive even been out in public to read anything to anybody. When this tour kicks off I will see pretty much a new audience.
DRE: Did you not read it because you were too much like the Bret Easton Ellis in the book?
BEE: [laughs] Well the Bret Easton Ellis in the book would have said yes and that I was bitten by a bird doll and was walking with a cane and I really didnt want to talk about anything. No, its just I dont like to do them. Im not particularly comfortable with reading out loud. I dont necessarily think its my thing. I always get very frustrated at other authors readings because I always think No they shouldnt read it that way, they should read it this way. Then when Im up there I get very self-conscious.
When I am promoting a book I do the readings because its part of the contract. But Im offered to read a lot in between books but I just cant do it.
DRE: I recently spoke to the actor Bruce Campbell. His first book was an autobiography and now in his latest [Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way] he kind of pretended hes in an A-list movie with Richard Gere. I asked him how much of this book was true and he said 70 percent and If it didnt happen to me it happened to someone I knew. Now Im posing the same question to you, how much of the book is true?
BEE: Uh, half. Maybe sixty percent if you take out some of the more outrageous elements in it. If I look at the dynamics of the key relationships in the book. The relationship between Bret and Jane, Bret and the shrinks, the father and the son, the publishing business stuff, the party throwing. Theres a lot of stuff that is pretty close and then you have some of the more nightmarish stuff that can only be attributed to my fantasy life, my dreams and stuff. I cant call it an autobiographical novel, but it is in the end it is because all novels are autobiographical because they show the reader where that writer was during that period in his life.
DRE: When I first read the first chapter I thought it was a real introduction to the book. .
BEE: The first chapter is an introduction. It sets up why Bret is where he is and why the rest of the book is going to happen. That was always part of the structure of the book. I was not necessarily the narrator when I first started thinking about this book in 1989. It was a fictional narrator, but as the years went on and certain things started happening to me my response to the material started getting more complicated so Bret Ellis became the narrator of this book.
DRE: Are you in therapy or anything like that?
BEE: I was.
DRE: But not anymore?
BEE: Im going to go back into it. Ive got an appointment a week from today at two oclock.
DRE: Is it a coincidence that its coinciding with the release of the book?
BEE: It is no coincidence at all that it is coinciding with the release of the book. No coincidence to that whatsoever. But yes, I have been in therapy on and off ever since I was a kid. It really hasnt been helping much.
DRE: Are you seeing a new psychiatrist?
BEE: No, it is Dr. Kim, the shrink that Ive had for many years.
DRE: What do you guys talk about? Do you just drop off the books, give it a few and then come back in?
BEE: I dont know if shes read [Lunar Park] yet. I have been living in LA for about a year and a half so this will be the first time Ive seen her in a long time. She knew about it and we talked about it sometimes in therapy so Monday will be pretty interesting.
DRE: What kind of stuff do you talk about with her?
BEE: One of the most interesting things is that for one year we did dream therapy. I kept a dream journal for about eight or nine months.
DRE: Wait, is this a licensed psychiatrist?
BEE: [laughs] Yeah. It was one of the most amazing things Ive ever done. You really have to make an effort. When you wake up you really have to have that pad by the bed and you really have to scribble down immediately what you just dreamt. I did this for about a year and I would type the dreams up and I would go into Dr. Kims and we would start discussing what the dream meant and it really did make clear where certain anxieties were coming from and what I was thinking about subconsciously. It was amazing; you live an entire life in your unconscious. An entire life with the same characters and landscapes. It read like a novel. It was one of the most mind blowing things Ive ever done.
Wed meet every Tuesday and I would come in with a dream. I would type it out and we would read it together. We would go Why is this person back in your dreams now? Why are you back in Nevada? Remember you were roaming around Nevada and you kept going back to that one hill. Then she would ask me Whats been going on this past week thats brought you back there? Why are you back at your fathers high school?
DRE: Thats so bizarre. Would you ever publish it?
BEE: No. Its too dirty.
DRE: Too dirty for you?
BEE: Yes, its too dirty even for me.
DRE: Wow! Now I want to see it.
BEE: The dream journals will never be published. Im going to destroy them. Dr. Kim probably has them on file because I made copies for her.
DRE: But Lunar Park didnt come out of you being in therapy though.
BEE: No, Lunar Park came out of wanting to write a Stephen King novel. In 1989, I wanted to write two genre novels. I wanted to write a Stephen King novel and a Robert Ludlum novel. I loved those genres and those writers. For some reason I didnt think I could pull off the Stephen King book but I thought I could pull off the international espionage thriller. So I spent the next eight years working on Glamorama and during those eight years I kept up an outline on Lunar Park. Then by the time I was finished promoting Glamorama it was time to sit down to write Lunar Park. Im glad I waited.
DRE: Was Lunar Park therapeutic for you?
BEE: It was incredibly therapeutic. I felt I resolved so many issues with my Dad, which is strange. He was a big part of a lot of problems I had. He died very suddenly so it was unresolved. We hadnt spoken much before he died. Now in talking with a lot of friends my age who had similar problems that I did with their dads they say Listen, they mellow out. They get tired and become nicer. That just makes me sad because I didnt have that kind of resolution with my father and so I think writing a book like this helped a lot. It exorcised some demons. Thats not why I wrote it, but in the end I guess thats what I got out of it.
DRE: Would you show your future kids Lunar Park?
BEE: I dont know if I could help it. I mean it would be there.
DRE: But would you be like, this was for you?
BEE: Gee I never thought of it that way. I dont know.
DRE: Nobodys ever mentioned that to you? Thats so funny.
BEE: No, people are afraid of me. You dont understand.
But I dont know if I want to be having kids. Thats a whole other issue. You can never say never. I had the male biological clock thing going in my early to mid thirties that completely took me by surprise. I didnt expect it to happen at all. Where you start looking at kids and wanting kids and thinking Oh yeah I can do this, I want to do this. Then it let up, maybe it will come back.
DRE: Do you ever watch the show Curb Your Enthusiasm?
BEE: Yes.
DRE: Ok, whats interesting about that show is what kind of problems a person has when money isnt an issue. All sorts of problems for him go away and then he has to create a whole new set of problems for himself. What kind of things do you worry and think about on a day to day basis?
BEE: I do not have Larry David money.
DRE: Well hes got like half a billion dollars.
Do you have the money that the Bret Easton Ellis in Lunar Park is boasting of?
BEE: Yeah, but considering the economics of book publishing, far less than you might think. Also I think far less than what people assume in terms of sales of books and the notoriety of books. Booksellers take 45 percent, publishers take 45 percent, youre left with ten percent, taxes and agent fees. It is not a ton of money. I have enough money where I can live comfortably but I dont have any fuck you money.
I would have fuck you money if my Dad had managed his assets a little better and was not five million dollars in debt when he died. He left us with nothing and my Mom was almost penniless. But I dont have expensive taste and Im pretty simple about what I have to have. Curb Your Enthusiasm is sort of about the freedom that money brings but then that freedom just makes him more neurotic. Thats a peculiarly American trait.
DRE: Yes, thats true. The Saudis would just buy a gold palace.
BEE: Thats true too.
Do I find myself getting into more trouble when Im not working on a project? Definitely. Do I find myself fucking up a little bit more when Im not focused on a book or inspired by something? Yeah, I see my life getting more complicated. The drama queen in me comes out and starts fucking things up so on that level I can definitely relate to the show. There was always part of Seinfeld too. That always seems to sort of be a theme where people need more to do. But its like that old thing, once you have enough food, once you have shelter, once you find out youre not dying then you want more. Then once you have all of that then you want more and more and more. Its just a peculiarly human trait.
DRE: I talk to a lot of authors and filmmakers and things like that and whenever you talk to them about the themes in their work theyre like I just do what I do. But I felt you definitely examined your themes in Lunar Park.
BEE: A reoccurring theme that I can find that links book to book to book; My God I cant do it. Thats so weird! What is it about the artist that they cant locate that and tell people? I dont know what it is. Its like this wall in a way. Youd think you could do it.
DRE: I think David Lynch said if he tried to examine it might would go away.
BEE: Yeah, I hear that theory a lot but thats not my problem here. Artists always feel that they should never see shrinks or go to therapy because they feel that theyll talk out all their neuroses and therefore they would not have their art. Im just not a believer in that. I think it actually helps.
DRE: Did you see this new DVD for American Psycho?
BEE: I was sent a copy of it.
DRE: Were you involved in the movie at all?
BEE: No, I was not involved in the movie at all. But I liked it.
DRE: It has garnered such a huge following. Does it boggle you that it has become such a huge thing?
BEE: Yes, it actually does. I run into a lot of readers who are college students and have no idea the controversy that the book generated when it came out. If you had asked me within the three days of Simon and Schuster dropping the book and Random House picking it up. if that would be the end result I would have walked away from you and not been your friend. I would have said Youre being really fucked up; youre being really mean right now. Do you really need to rub it in? It is a shock.
DRE: Have you seen the Patrick Bateman Talking Action Figure?
BEE: I read about it and saw a picture. It looks like Christian Bale. Now for a lot of people Christian Bale is Patrick Bateman. Though I have to tell you I never had a guy in my head while I was writing American Psycho. He always seemed to be this faceless guy. Now that Christian Bale did so good in the movie. I was really afraid that everybodys going to read the book and see Patrick Bateman as Christian Bale. Yet when I reread the book a couple of years ago I didnt picture anybody.
DRE: Is Roger Avary still doing the Glamorama movie?
BEE: He has the rights now for the rest of his and my life. So its up to Roger. Roger made a bunch of money from this Beowulf script that he sold and with that money he came to me and just made me an offer I could not refuse. Since I loved Rules of Attraction I said great. Hes written a real spellbinding script for Glamorama. I think the problem is that its an expensive movie to make and I think its topic, which is Americans committing terrorism abroad, makes it not a very popular movie in development right now. I dont know whats going to happen. Roger keeps saying hes going to do it. He keeps showing me storyboards for some of the big set pieces.
DRE: Did you go to the sets of any of your movies?
BEE: I did not go to the set for Less Than Zero because I was actually in college in New England at the time and they were shooting in LA. Then for American Psycho I did go to the set when they were shooting the interiors in Toronto just because it was publicity for Glamorama. Ive been on film sets before and its so horrible to hear people say its boring but it sort of was. The interior of the restaurant didnt quite look like what I thought and it was cold. Then the other time I met up with the American Psycho crew it was purely by accident. They were shooting exteriors and I had just left a restaurant with some friends and in the distance were all of these arc lights and this film crew. Then the closer we got we actually saw Christian Bale get out of a limousine. We went over and actually hung out on the set for a while.
DRE: Thats hysterical.
BEE: Then on Rules of Attraction I didnt go on the set at all even though Roger tried to get me into the movie. He begged me to do a role. I knew that there was no way in hell that I was going to do it.
DRE: Any special reason?
BEE: Well in the novel Rules of Attraction youre first introduced to Patrick Bateman. Hes the brother of Sean Bateman, whos the main character of Rules of Attraction and Sean has to go to New York because his fathers dying and he meets his brother in the hospital. Then we see that his brother is some sort of vicious Wall Street guy. So Roger wanted to shoot that scene and so he had gone to Christian Bale to reprise his role as Patrick Bateman. Christian said that he didnt want to do it. Then Roger asked me to play him. I thought it was such a terrible and gimmicky idea. He begged and begged and begged but I never did it. They finally got Casper Van Diem to do it. Then Roger cut the two scenes entirely.
DRE: I bet you didnt see American Psycho 2.
BEE: Yeah I did.
DRE: What did you think of it?
BEE: I guess I understand why it was made. Lions Gate had made a profit on American Psycho so I guess they thought they could make more money. It didnt particularly piss me off but I dont think its a good movie. I really dont care that they made it, but my only problem is that the money situation wasnt cool in terms of them owning the rights and using the name Patrick Bateman. But in the end it had nothing to do with Patrick Bateman or with American Psycho or with Bret Easton Ellis. It was just a title being used to sell a kind of dumb campus slasher movie.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
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Sorry; rusty pipes.