Before 2000, Mary Harron was best known as the director of I Shot Andy Warhol. But after taking the reins of American Psycho after Oliver Stone lost interest she turned a very harsh book into a scathing look at materialism and how one perceives their personal reality. Lions Gate Home Entertainment has just released the Uncut Killer Collector's Edition of American Psycho which has deleted scenes and a brand new commentary from Harron.
I got a chance to talk with Mary Harron from the set of the TV show Big Love about making American Psycho and her upcoming film biography of Bettie Page, The Notorious Bettie Page.
Buy the Uncut Killer Collector's Edition of American Psycho
Daniel Robert Epstein: I heard you are shooting something out in the desert today. What are you doing?
Mary Harron: Im shooting an episode of a new HBO series called Big Love.
DRE: Oh, the Mormon show! That must be fun.
MH: It is very interesting.
DRE: Did you finish the Bettie Page movie?
MH: Yes, now were just timing the print but were basically finished.
DRE: Oh, thats awesome. Howd it come out?
MH: I thought it came out very well. Im very happy with it.
DRE: How was it working with Lili [Taylor] again?
MH: It was great. That was wonderful.
DRE: When I spoke to her she seemed very excited about the movie.
MH: Yeah we had a wonderful time.
DRE: How involved were you with the new American Psycho DVD?
MH: I did a commentary and we had a lot of back and forth about it. They kept me informed which was nice because I didnt have anything to do with the first edition so it didnt have any special features. They just kind of put it out and much more care went into this.
DRE: So you didnt have anything to do with the sequel?
MH: No nothing with the sequel.
DRE: Rob Weiss, who directed the movie Amongst Friends in my hometown, is credited as producer of American Psycho. What did he do?
MH: Nothing as far as I know. I never met him. I think long time ago he was attached as director. Sometimes when someone leaves a project they give them a credit.
DRE: In the new edition of the American Psycho DVD, what went back into the cut?
MH: The cut itself is the one that was released on DVD earlier and there is about ten seconds of sex stuff in it. The new edition has a lot of those deleted scenes that we couldnt put in. Not for censorship reasons but they were just scenes that we couldnt fit into our cut. I always wanted to have those. Theres a great one with Reese Witherspoon and Christian Bale and I had this great scene with Willem Dafoe. The film was long and I had to just lose stuff that I really loved in order to make it tighter. Its not like the cut is different, its just got all these extra scenes.
Originally Justin Theroux had a whole subplot and we put it all together and realized that you just couldnt afford to follow anyone elses story. I always felt really bad about that because Justins a great actor and a really close friend of mine. Then theres this great scene with Christian and Reese in bed together and theres a great one with Samantha Mathis and Christian in bed together and it was just cut because of pacing.
Also I never did a directors commentary before so it has that.
DRE: How was doing the commentary?
MH: Fun actually. I hadnt seen the film in a long time because you see the film so often when you are getting it ready.
DRE: When you made the film you were trying to make a point like the way Bret Easton Ellis did when he wrote the book. Do they feel as relevant?
MH: Yeah it feels even more relevant now. Its sort of for the audience to decide what the point of the movies. In terms of the world its presenting, I dont think its any different and in some ways it is worse.
DRE: Just looking at this movie now in 2005 the cast is unbelievable. Josh Lucas, Justin Theroux, Reese and Christian of course.
MH: All of these people I had to fight to have in the movie. They would say whos Justin Theroux , whos Josh Lucas and of course now theyre very famous.
DRE: This movie would have cost a lot more if you tried to make it now I think.
MH: With that cast, yes. Christian himself would cost a lot more because of Batman.
DRE: Did you see Batman?
MH: I havent seen it yet, no. Have you seen it?
DRE: I saw it this past week. He was amazing and the movie is very good.
Have you seen The Machinist yet?
MH: Yes, very scary movie. Christian is great in it but he should never do that again.
DRE: I dont think he wants to.
MH: I dont think he will.
DRE: I read at one point even David Cronenberg was attached to direct American Psycho with Brad Pitt.
MH: Yeah, that was a couple years before I came on and Cronenberg decided not to do it for whatever reason.
DRE: I heard it was a big casting call for American Psycho, how did you settle on Christian?
MH: I met with a lot of people and I looked at a lot of different peoples movies. He just came in and I put him on tape and watched the tape of his audition, that was it. There was never anybody else I thought could do the role as well as he could.
DRE: What scene did you have him read for the audition?
MH: I had him do a couple of scenes. I had him do one of the monologues about the music. I think it was the Huey Lewis monologue. I had him do the scene where he killed Paul Allen.
It was really funny because he auditioned in my apartment. He was doing the axe murdering and yelling Take that you stupid bastard and all of that. With the windows open, my neighbors must have thought it was very strange with all the yelling going on and then we did one of the very quiet monologues.
DRE: Maybe the skin care monologue?
MH: Yes I think so, about nothing there, When you take off the mask theres nothing there. He was just so interesting and there so much going interior life behind his eyes.
DRE: It seems that you focused the movie more on the yuppie scum aspects.
MH: I really liked the social satire in the book and thought that was funny and very relevant so I focused on the elements that I was most interested in.
DRE: When did you realize that you wanted to do that?
MH: I read the book in 1992 when it came out in England where I was living at the time and I felt that it had been very misunderstood. It had a lot of interesting things in it and it was very funny and it didnt deserve this terrible reputation it had. I felt that a lot of people who had attacked the book never read it. I didnt read it and think oh God make a movie out of this. I just really liked it. Then it was four or five years later when somebody called me and asked me if I was interested in it. Thats when I started thinking, Wow, can you make a film of this? Is it filmable? How would you do it?
DRE: How did you sell yourself to whoever owned it?
MH: They had called me up and I just went in and I had a meeting with Ed Pressman the producer and I had an idea how to exercise the copy. They asked me about it and I just thought you could do it as a period film of the 80s and bring out the social satire.
DRE: American Psycho is so popular with certain kinds of people. Are you aware of the cult following around it?
MH: I realize it does have that because when you look at IMDB you see that a huge amount of people are into it. Its internet following is crazy.
DRE: Do you agree or disagree with the way people have interpreted it?
MH: Sometimes late night I kind of am amused so I go on and read about it and its always people who say that they hate me because I didnt make it violent enough. I just look at those debates. Some of them raise some very interesting, perceptive comments sometimes.
DRE: Why did you decide to tone down the violence?
MH: Im interested in fear and suspense and dread but Im not interested particularly in physical violence or gore. Im not a horror director in that way. Im not interested in the special effects or the really detailed presentation. Im more of a Hitchcock or a Polanski person. Keeping it off screen and just creating fear is more interesting to me.
DRE: What scenes stand out from the production of the movie?
MH: The last murder with Christie and Elizabeth, when the girls are back at his apartment late at night. That was the very last scene that we shot and it was all murder and mayhem. It was just a crazy shoot and it was just night shooting for three days. I could tell it was going to be good. It was intense, but I didnt know if I could go to that kind of place again.
DRE: You worked again with Cara Seymour who played Christie. .
MH: Yes shes got a lot to do with Bettie Page. Shes a fantastic actor.
DRE: What struck you about her?
MH: I knew her already as a stage actress. I really liked her because thought she had a very expressive face. On paper it was a small role actually but by casting a great actress, she will bring so much and you will feel those scenes so much through her. Those scenes are from her point of view and theyre all filtered through her. She ended up giving so much that I thought it was very memorable.
DRE: How difficult was it to make Toronto look like New York?
MH: A lot of those exteriors we had to shoot in New York. Im from Toronto and I kept saying to producers, Im from Toronto and this does not look like New York. All those office scenes are shot on a stage and the view outside the window is a trapped slide. So we created New York on the soundstages in Toronto. The scene where hes running in the plaza between the two big office buildings. It just looks very Wall Street, but its actually Toronto. Theres certain parts of Toronto in the business district that could pass for New York.
DRE: What did you think of Rules of Attraction?
MH: I think there were interesting things about it. I never watched the whole thing, so dont ask me about that.
DRE: How did you pick Gretchen Mol to be Bettie Page?
MH: We auditioned many people.
She was so great. It was like after I saw Christian for American Psycho. After Gretchen came in no one else would do.
DRE: You saw that much in her?
MH: Yeah, really.
DRE: Thats good because I havent seen her in a role that really blew me away.
MH: Now you will.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
I got a chance to talk with Mary Harron from the set of the TV show Big Love about making American Psycho and her upcoming film biography of Bettie Page, The Notorious Bettie Page.
Buy the Uncut Killer Collector's Edition of American Psycho
Daniel Robert Epstein: I heard you are shooting something out in the desert today. What are you doing?
Mary Harron: Im shooting an episode of a new HBO series called Big Love.
DRE: Oh, the Mormon show! That must be fun.
MH: It is very interesting.
DRE: Did you finish the Bettie Page movie?
MH: Yes, now were just timing the print but were basically finished.
DRE: Oh, thats awesome. Howd it come out?
MH: I thought it came out very well. Im very happy with it.
DRE: How was it working with Lili [Taylor] again?
MH: It was great. That was wonderful.
DRE: When I spoke to her she seemed very excited about the movie.
MH: Yeah we had a wonderful time.
DRE: How involved were you with the new American Psycho DVD?
MH: I did a commentary and we had a lot of back and forth about it. They kept me informed which was nice because I didnt have anything to do with the first edition so it didnt have any special features. They just kind of put it out and much more care went into this.
DRE: So you didnt have anything to do with the sequel?
MH: No nothing with the sequel.
DRE: Rob Weiss, who directed the movie Amongst Friends in my hometown, is credited as producer of American Psycho. What did he do?
MH: Nothing as far as I know. I never met him. I think long time ago he was attached as director. Sometimes when someone leaves a project they give them a credit.
DRE: In the new edition of the American Psycho DVD, what went back into the cut?
MH: The cut itself is the one that was released on DVD earlier and there is about ten seconds of sex stuff in it. The new edition has a lot of those deleted scenes that we couldnt put in. Not for censorship reasons but they were just scenes that we couldnt fit into our cut. I always wanted to have those. Theres a great one with Reese Witherspoon and Christian Bale and I had this great scene with Willem Dafoe. The film was long and I had to just lose stuff that I really loved in order to make it tighter. Its not like the cut is different, its just got all these extra scenes.
Originally Justin Theroux had a whole subplot and we put it all together and realized that you just couldnt afford to follow anyone elses story. I always felt really bad about that because Justins a great actor and a really close friend of mine. Then theres this great scene with Christian and Reese in bed together and theres a great one with Samantha Mathis and Christian in bed together and it was just cut because of pacing.
Also I never did a directors commentary before so it has that.
DRE: How was doing the commentary?
MH: Fun actually. I hadnt seen the film in a long time because you see the film so often when you are getting it ready.
DRE: When you made the film you were trying to make a point like the way Bret Easton Ellis did when he wrote the book. Do they feel as relevant?
MH: Yeah it feels even more relevant now. Its sort of for the audience to decide what the point of the movies. In terms of the world its presenting, I dont think its any different and in some ways it is worse.
DRE: Just looking at this movie now in 2005 the cast is unbelievable. Josh Lucas, Justin Theroux, Reese and Christian of course.
MH: All of these people I had to fight to have in the movie. They would say whos Justin Theroux , whos Josh Lucas and of course now theyre very famous.
DRE: This movie would have cost a lot more if you tried to make it now I think.
MH: With that cast, yes. Christian himself would cost a lot more because of Batman.
DRE: Did you see Batman?
MH: I havent seen it yet, no. Have you seen it?
DRE: I saw it this past week. He was amazing and the movie is very good.
Have you seen The Machinist yet?
MH: Yes, very scary movie. Christian is great in it but he should never do that again.
DRE: I dont think he wants to.
MH: I dont think he will.
DRE: I read at one point even David Cronenberg was attached to direct American Psycho with Brad Pitt.
MH: Yeah, that was a couple years before I came on and Cronenberg decided not to do it for whatever reason.
DRE: I heard it was a big casting call for American Psycho, how did you settle on Christian?
MH: I met with a lot of people and I looked at a lot of different peoples movies. He just came in and I put him on tape and watched the tape of his audition, that was it. There was never anybody else I thought could do the role as well as he could.
DRE: What scene did you have him read for the audition?
MH: I had him do a couple of scenes. I had him do one of the monologues about the music. I think it was the Huey Lewis monologue. I had him do the scene where he killed Paul Allen.
It was really funny because he auditioned in my apartment. He was doing the axe murdering and yelling Take that you stupid bastard and all of that. With the windows open, my neighbors must have thought it was very strange with all the yelling going on and then we did one of the very quiet monologues.
DRE: Maybe the skin care monologue?
MH: Yes I think so, about nothing there, When you take off the mask theres nothing there. He was just so interesting and there so much going interior life behind his eyes.
DRE: It seems that you focused the movie more on the yuppie scum aspects.
MH: I really liked the social satire in the book and thought that was funny and very relevant so I focused on the elements that I was most interested in.
DRE: When did you realize that you wanted to do that?
MH: I read the book in 1992 when it came out in England where I was living at the time and I felt that it had been very misunderstood. It had a lot of interesting things in it and it was very funny and it didnt deserve this terrible reputation it had. I felt that a lot of people who had attacked the book never read it. I didnt read it and think oh God make a movie out of this. I just really liked it. Then it was four or five years later when somebody called me and asked me if I was interested in it. Thats when I started thinking, Wow, can you make a film of this? Is it filmable? How would you do it?
DRE: How did you sell yourself to whoever owned it?
MH: They had called me up and I just went in and I had a meeting with Ed Pressman the producer and I had an idea how to exercise the copy. They asked me about it and I just thought you could do it as a period film of the 80s and bring out the social satire.
DRE: American Psycho is so popular with certain kinds of people. Are you aware of the cult following around it?
MH: I realize it does have that because when you look at IMDB you see that a huge amount of people are into it. Its internet following is crazy.
DRE: Do you agree or disagree with the way people have interpreted it?
MH: Sometimes late night I kind of am amused so I go on and read about it and its always people who say that they hate me because I didnt make it violent enough. I just look at those debates. Some of them raise some very interesting, perceptive comments sometimes.
DRE: Why did you decide to tone down the violence?
MH: Im interested in fear and suspense and dread but Im not interested particularly in physical violence or gore. Im not a horror director in that way. Im not interested in the special effects or the really detailed presentation. Im more of a Hitchcock or a Polanski person. Keeping it off screen and just creating fear is more interesting to me.
DRE: What scenes stand out from the production of the movie?
MH: The last murder with Christie and Elizabeth, when the girls are back at his apartment late at night. That was the very last scene that we shot and it was all murder and mayhem. It was just a crazy shoot and it was just night shooting for three days. I could tell it was going to be good. It was intense, but I didnt know if I could go to that kind of place again.
DRE: You worked again with Cara Seymour who played Christie. .
MH: Yes shes got a lot to do with Bettie Page. Shes a fantastic actor.
DRE: What struck you about her?
MH: I knew her already as a stage actress. I really liked her because thought she had a very expressive face. On paper it was a small role actually but by casting a great actress, she will bring so much and you will feel those scenes so much through her. Those scenes are from her point of view and theyre all filtered through her. She ended up giving so much that I thought it was very memorable.
DRE: How difficult was it to make Toronto look like New York?
MH: A lot of those exteriors we had to shoot in New York. Im from Toronto and I kept saying to producers, Im from Toronto and this does not look like New York. All those office scenes are shot on a stage and the view outside the window is a trapped slide. So we created New York on the soundstages in Toronto. The scene where hes running in the plaza between the two big office buildings. It just looks very Wall Street, but its actually Toronto. Theres certain parts of Toronto in the business district that could pass for New York.
DRE: What did you think of Rules of Attraction?
MH: I think there were interesting things about it. I never watched the whole thing, so dont ask me about that.
DRE: How did you pick Gretchen Mol to be Bettie Page?
MH: We auditioned many people.
She was so great. It was like after I saw Christian for American Psycho. After Gretchen came in no one else would do.
DRE: You saw that much in her?
MH: Yeah, really.
DRE: Thats good because I havent seen her in a role that really blew me away.
MH: Now you will.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 17 of 17 COMMENTS
Jordan said:
i didn't appreciate the fim, because i appreciated the novel, which, from what i've read of the film's director in the past, she did not. why make a film based on a novel you don't respect? it won't come out as anything but crap
It appears you didn't read the interview either. Otherwise, you might have stumbled across this little gem:
I read the book in 1992 when it came out in England where I was living at the time and I felt that it had been very misunderstood. It had a lot of interesting things in it and it was very funny and it didnt deserve this terrible reputation it had. I felt that a lot of people who had attacked the book never read it. I didnt read it and think oh God make a movie out of this. I just really liked it.
PAPAGOITE said:
The work"American Psycho" in any form is simply pornography in its worst sense. When will this country get over its Puritan heritage enough to realize that sex is not obscene - VIOLENCE is?
Graphic descriptions of skinning a human being alive - Art? You can self-diagnose whether you have any grounding in reality left at all by answering that question. Camus did not just mean we should not literally "side with the executioners" - we should not in any way glorify or validate them, either.
Any creative effort that incorporates such material is morally, aesthetically, and humanly bankrupt. Any "artist" who needs to include such material to make a creation "work" should try to find another line of endeavor. Of course, I do not believe in banning such things - just shunning them.
Violence is part of life, but like other forms of evil, is BANAL. The Greeks understood this well, and had the violence and gore happen OFFSTAGE, so as not to distract from the point of the story. Too often in Hollywood and elsewhere these days, violence and gore ARE the point of the story. THAT is obscenity.
Hunh, that sounds oddly like the criticism levelled at the movie by people who haven't read the book... 'Cause if you'd read and really understood the book you'd see that it's not about violence for the sake of violence at all. Not to say that reading it didn't make me feel well, uneasy, at times. It did, that's exactly why it was used as it was. Read the book, then feel free to come back and lecture us about the pornography of violence.
Thanks.