For my generation of twentysomething women, watching Heathers for the first time was a religious experience. Too young to see the dark comedy in theaters but old enough to own it on videotape, we watched it over and over, transfixed, until smoke poured from our VHS machines. Heathers was a sanctuary for our lurid fantasies and "dear diary" confessions about the horrors of high school... the surreal power play that erupts when your best friend becomes your worst enemy, and your worst enemy your best friend. We worshipped Winona Ryder's poetic angst, we prayed that someday we'd meet our own Christian Slater, and we hollered an amen every time one of those nasty popular kids ended up with a toe tag.
Nearly 20 years after he penned the classic line "well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw, Heathers screenwriter Daniel Waters has returned to dark comedy (and Winona Ryder) with Sex and Death 101 -- a film about a seemingly perfect guy whose life falls apart when he receives a mysterious email listing the names of all the women he has, and will ever, have sex with before he dies. Email in hand, Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) hurls himself into an existential mid-life crisis where his only allies are three oracles (one, a hilariously irreverent Patton Oswalt) and his greatest fear is a woman named Death Nell (Ryder), a femme fatale who puts sexually deviant men into post-coital comas.
Sex and Death 101 had its theatrical release in February 2008 and arrives on DVD July 1. SuicideGirls caught up with Daniel Waters, who wrote and directed the film, to chat about perfect couples, deadly sins, and rebellious male heterosexual cinema.
Erin Broadley: You live in Orson Welles old house, right? I
heard theres some masking tape on the floor where he died.
Daniel Waters: Ah, occasionally for parties I pull out that trick.
EB: Is it in the shape of a body?
DW: Occasionally Ill go that far. When Im lazy I just print out a sign that says, Orson Welles died here. Usually by the time the party gets going, people are drunkenly taking pictures of themselves in the spot and holding mini sances.
EB: Well, you know how to entertain your guests. Its a lot better than fondue, thats for sure.
DW: I recommend a legendary celebrity dying in your home. Its a good conversation starter.
EB: So Sex and Death 101 comes out on DVD July 1st.
DW: Yeah, Im hoping [it goes well]. The thing is, even my early film Heathers, people saw in the theaters but it was really mostly discovered in a [VHS] afterlife after the theatrical
EB: I watched the first half of Sex and Death last week and just this morning finished it. The last 15 minutes of this film really took me by surprise. It was a whole different emotion than I thought I was going to feel.
DW: Yeah, its interesting that you watched it in two parts because I feel like they almost are two different movies. When I talk to women about it Im always saying, Hey that first 20 minutes, dont panic, because the basic premise of the movie could go so many different ways. Initially it was my duty to almost embrace the crassness of the idea but then, hoping the viewer hangs with me, I try to dig a lot deeper.
EB: A lot of it was wanting to get to know the Death Nell character more. I had so many questions so when she actually starts talking that whole part about the princess costumes it has that delicate balance, where youre laughing but you want to cry.
DW: People get thrown off any time you try to change the tone of the film. They get freaked out like Im doing something wrong, but that was my intention. [Its not] your usual femme fatale character It was definitely a fortuitous piece of casting because Winona brings her own spooky unpredictable baggage to Death Nell that throws the viewer off even more. And then she reveals herself to being a human being, much like Winona revealing herself to be a human being
EB: Right. Winona is someone a lot of people have emotional baggage with, personally. Having grown up with her on the screen, the attachment to her characters, and then of course, these days knowing everybodys dirty laundry. Youve said that all of her little quirks dovetailed into the role of Nell perfectly, and that another actress would have just forced it, you know?
DW: Yeah, she does have a natural connection. She doesnt know how eccentric she is.
EB: Do you find the roles you write shape the actors or the other way around?
DW: I write very distinct dialog, which can scare people away. I think that its what they bring to it, improving on it without necessarily changing lines. Winonas a great example even with Heathers I wrote the character much darker, cynical and much closer to the Christian Slater character, like someone whos enjoying killing people. Winona brought this wobbly unsure humanity to it that helped the audience relate better. I always said she put a lot more emotion into the role than I did as a writer.
EB: I reread part of the Heathers script because I was curious how much dialog was changed and it was amazing to realize how much of Christian Slaters persona as an actor was actually shaped by this script.
DW: I think he had a Jack Nicholson fixation going in but no one writes teenage Jack Nicholson roles. I think when he saw that this role had a dark Jack Nicholson humor to it, he really went for it. I was surprised how much I liked Christian. I think he got dismissed as, Oh hes just doing Jack Nicholson, but that pretty much is him. I was appreciative.
Theres a part in Sex and Death 101 that I love, that was all Winona, where it gets a little too serious and Simon asks the question, Did he hit you? She goes, Aw. That totally wasnt in the script. Shes written so beyond a Lifetime movie of the week that when he asks a Lifetime movie question its just, Oh, youre so cute.
EB: Whats your working relationship like with Winona at this point? Did she audition for the role?
DW: I thought it was a great idea from the beginning because she hadnt done anything in a while. What I like about her is, to me shes the last connection with the old-time, great screen actresses like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Shes one of the few people who got to hang out with these people. I mean, she had dinner with Audrey Hepburn and hung out with Katherine Hepburn. If Lindsay Lohan had dinner with Katherine Hepburn shed throw up on her lap. Winona is the last torch being passed when female movie stars had that larger than life quality.
EB: Its interesting that you bring up Lindsay Lohan considering the Mean Girls connection to Heathers.
DW: Well, you know my brother directed Mean Girls?
EB: Yeah, exactly. Thats why I think its interesting to compare the two actresses in those respective roles.
DW: Yes, well Lindsay was quite good in that movie. Shes very good when she works with my brother, actually. My brother still is clueless about how much Heathers is Mean Girls. But what I like about Mean Girls and some other movies is that they give Heathers more hardcore street cred.
EB: I remember you said, Theyre New Order, and Im Joy Division.
DW: Yeah, thats the way me and my brother describe ourselves. New Orders not bad but Id rather be Joy Division.
EB: You also described Sex and Death 101 as Roman Polanski directing Seinfeld.
DW: Heres my problem: Im naturally inclined to do something dark but at the same time, unfortunately, I have this desperate compulsion to make sure people are laughing at all times. It throws people off. Im trying to make something dark and lurid and interesting -- and you especially get that in the last 15 minutes of this movie -- but at the same time, can I have a moment where shes Julie Andrews from The Sound Of Music but blood spits out of her mouth? I need to have a joke in there somewhere.
EB: The Sound of Music if the Nazis had won. [Laughs]
DW: Yeah, but for some people, youve got to either be a dark and twisted movie or a comedy that makes everybody laugh. My tombstone is going to read, He couldnt decide whether it was a comedy or tragedy. I dont even separate it in my mind as a duality. Everything like that is interconnected so I just try and examine the whole mutant combination from the get-go. I think a lot of this movie was criticized for what I said, a mixture of tones. To me, every day has these wild swings of humor and darkness thinking about somebody with love and then thinking something terrible about the same person. Its the natural flow of life you can go from euphoria to complete despair in 12 seconds.
EB: Another thing youve said before is that theres so many movies about boobs that have nothing to do with actual sex.
DW: Yeah. Or independent films where nobody seems to actually enjoy sexuality. Or romantic comedies, which I think are just ridiculously asexual. Theres a part in the end where Simon goes, Im not going to have a dramatic goodbye on a train platform, Im not going to run after a cab, Im not going to stop a wedding.
EB: [Laughs] Finally, because if it was my movie and some guy came chasing after a cab, the cab driver would probably run him over and crush his skull
DW: [Laughs] He gets dragged all the way to the airport.
EB: Seriously. And then the girls like, He never came
DW: [Laughs] Thats great.
EB: I read that you make all your friends rate their deadly sins in order of importance.
DW: Now, where did you hear that!? Have I ever told anybody that?
EB: Im reading your mind.
DW: How bizarre. Thats so funny, I dont think Ive ever seen that printed anywhere.
EB: I didnt steal your trashcan, I promise. I read it online.
DW: [Laughs] I think you definitely learn a lot, especially if everybodys honest [about their deadly sins]. Usually people are surprisingly honest.
EB: You said that sloth is your number one, even before lust.
DW: Yes. Sloth is a biggie. I find that the tougher you make it to get out of bed, then youre raising the bar for your actual activities. Especially in writing.
EB: One thing about your scripts, you really craft sentences and build characters through the detail in your dialog.
DW: That definitely ties into the sloth thing. That the more you cook it, the more you keep the pot stirred and simmering, then the more stuff is going to come to you. Certainly Ive been accused of overwriting and theres something definitely true about that. Because thats the way I write the interesting piece of dialog or that interesting detail, that comes first, and then Ive got to build a plot around it. Thats what makes it interesting. Screenwriting books teach you about structure. And teaching about structure is like a book about horseback riding where they say the first thing you have to do is get a horse. Well, yeah, of course you need a horse. Of course you need structure. But what really makes something different is the details. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who were never supposed to be writers in the filmmaking business that now are being taught how to. I feel like weve got a lot of math students writing scripts now. The sparkle of the film industry attracts people that dont necessarily know how creativity works.
EB: For Sex and Death, you told IFC that people in the world of independent film like originality as long as its originality theyre comfortable and familiar with.
DW: Yeah, thats what kills me. I think even originality has become its own corporation. Like Applebees or something, with its own mission statement and its own uniforms. I think somehow independent film became just another Little League team. They have their own rules and regulations so when you do something completely off the menu, like I said before, youre accused of doing something wrong. You can do all sorts of things as long as its under a category that people recognize. If you try and mix categories or try and create your own category, theyre going to think, Well wait a minute, he obviously was trying to do this category and missed.
EB: How was it working with Patton Oswalt?
DW: Hes amazing. There are these things called writers roundtables where bigger budget movies will have a script come in and the producer will hire 10 writers to come in for the day to go through the script and make anything funnier and better. I met Patton through doing these. So you have 10 people who think theyre the funniest writers in the world, and then you have Patton Oswalt its like Michael Jordon, just pass him the ball. Hes just so funny. Hes incredibly silly, but at the same time hes got a real intellectual side to him, which is the tone of most of what Ive written. I knew hed be perfect.
EB: What would you say the female equivalent of male machismo is?
DW: God is there an equivalent? I find now more than ever that male machismo is such a construct. Its not holding up the way it used to. A lot of what I like about movies in the 70s is that they were honest about sexuality, more than movies today, but at the same time it was still intellectual. Theres a great book by Susan Faludi called Stiffed that has a great line about how die-hard feminists and macho men believe the same myth: that the men are still in control. Its just not true anymore. Even though [Simon Bakers character] has a list, hes still not in control. Its only by giving up the machismo and giving up this sense of control that he can find some sort of Zen enlightenment. This movie is as close as I came to rebellious male heterosexual cinema. [Laughs]
EB: At the end of this film, I love the throwback to Heathers when Winona is furiously scribbling in her journal and she tosses the pencil, which then kills her abusive husband.
DW: Definitely. I think the fact that both her and Simon made people break their necks to me the perfect couple is two people who are broken in the right way. Like two broken coke bottles, they fit together.
EB: I told an ex once that true love is finding someone who is weird in the exact same way that you are.
DW: Yeah, exactly.
EB: He didnt get it.
DW: [Laughs]
Sex and Death 101 comes out on DVD July 1. For more information go to www.sexanddeath101movie.com.
Nearly 20 years after he penned the classic line "well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw, Heathers screenwriter Daniel Waters has returned to dark comedy (and Winona Ryder) with Sex and Death 101 -- a film about a seemingly perfect guy whose life falls apart when he receives a mysterious email listing the names of all the women he has, and will ever, have sex with before he dies. Email in hand, Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) hurls himself into an existential mid-life crisis where his only allies are three oracles (one, a hilariously irreverent Patton Oswalt) and his greatest fear is a woman named Death Nell (Ryder), a femme fatale who puts sexually deviant men into post-coital comas.
Sex and Death 101 had its theatrical release in February 2008 and arrives on DVD July 1. SuicideGirls caught up with Daniel Waters, who wrote and directed the film, to chat about perfect couples, deadly sins, and rebellious male heterosexual cinema.
Erin Broadley: You live in Orson Welles old house, right? I
heard theres some masking tape on the floor where he died.
Daniel Waters: Ah, occasionally for parties I pull out that trick.
EB: Is it in the shape of a body?
DW: Occasionally Ill go that far. When Im lazy I just print out a sign that says, Orson Welles died here. Usually by the time the party gets going, people are drunkenly taking pictures of themselves in the spot and holding mini sances.
EB: Well, you know how to entertain your guests. Its a lot better than fondue, thats for sure.
DW: I recommend a legendary celebrity dying in your home. Its a good conversation starter.
EB: So Sex and Death 101 comes out on DVD July 1st.
DW: Yeah, Im hoping [it goes well]. The thing is, even my early film Heathers, people saw in the theaters but it was really mostly discovered in a [VHS] afterlife after the theatrical
EB: I watched the first half of Sex and Death last week and just this morning finished it. The last 15 minutes of this film really took me by surprise. It was a whole different emotion than I thought I was going to feel.
DW: Yeah, its interesting that you watched it in two parts because I feel like they almost are two different movies. When I talk to women about it Im always saying, Hey that first 20 minutes, dont panic, because the basic premise of the movie could go so many different ways. Initially it was my duty to almost embrace the crassness of the idea but then, hoping the viewer hangs with me, I try to dig a lot deeper.
EB: A lot of it was wanting to get to know the Death Nell character more. I had so many questions so when she actually starts talking that whole part about the princess costumes it has that delicate balance, where youre laughing but you want to cry.
DW: People get thrown off any time you try to change the tone of the film. They get freaked out like Im doing something wrong, but that was my intention. [Its not] your usual femme fatale character It was definitely a fortuitous piece of casting because Winona brings her own spooky unpredictable baggage to Death Nell that throws the viewer off even more. And then she reveals herself to being a human being, much like Winona revealing herself to be a human being
EB: Right. Winona is someone a lot of people have emotional baggage with, personally. Having grown up with her on the screen, the attachment to her characters, and then of course, these days knowing everybodys dirty laundry. Youve said that all of her little quirks dovetailed into the role of Nell perfectly, and that another actress would have just forced it, you know?
DW: Yeah, she does have a natural connection. She doesnt know how eccentric she is.
EB: Do you find the roles you write shape the actors or the other way around?
DW: I write very distinct dialog, which can scare people away. I think that its what they bring to it, improving on it without necessarily changing lines. Winonas a great example even with Heathers I wrote the character much darker, cynical and much closer to the Christian Slater character, like someone whos enjoying killing people. Winona brought this wobbly unsure humanity to it that helped the audience relate better. I always said she put a lot more emotion into the role than I did as a writer.
EB: I reread part of the Heathers script because I was curious how much dialog was changed and it was amazing to realize how much of Christian Slaters persona as an actor was actually shaped by this script.
DW: I think he had a Jack Nicholson fixation going in but no one writes teenage Jack Nicholson roles. I think when he saw that this role had a dark Jack Nicholson humor to it, he really went for it. I was surprised how much I liked Christian. I think he got dismissed as, Oh hes just doing Jack Nicholson, but that pretty much is him. I was appreciative.
Theres a part in Sex and Death 101 that I love, that was all Winona, where it gets a little too serious and Simon asks the question, Did he hit you? She goes, Aw. That totally wasnt in the script. Shes written so beyond a Lifetime movie of the week that when he asks a Lifetime movie question its just, Oh, youre so cute.
EB: Whats your working relationship like with Winona at this point? Did she audition for the role?
DW: I thought it was a great idea from the beginning because she hadnt done anything in a while. What I like about her is, to me shes the last connection with the old-time, great screen actresses like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Shes one of the few people who got to hang out with these people. I mean, she had dinner with Audrey Hepburn and hung out with Katherine Hepburn. If Lindsay Lohan had dinner with Katherine Hepburn shed throw up on her lap. Winona is the last torch being passed when female movie stars had that larger than life quality.
EB: Its interesting that you bring up Lindsay Lohan considering the Mean Girls connection to Heathers.
DW: Well, you know my brother directed Mean Girls?
EB: Yeah, exactly. Thats why I think its interesting to compare the two actresses in those respective roles.
DW: Yes, well Lindsay was quite good in that movie. Shes very good when she works with my brother, actually. My brother still is clueless about how much Heathers is Mean Girls. But what I like about Mean Girls and some other movies is that they give Heathers more hardcore street cred.
EB: I remember you said, Theyre New Order, and Im Joy Division.
DW: Yeah, thats the way me and my brother describe ourselves. New Orders not bad but Id rather be Joy Division.
EB: You also described Sex and Death 101 as Roman Polanski directing Seinfeld.
DW: Heres my problem: Im naturally inclined to do something dark but at the same time, unfortunately, I have this desperate compulsion to make sure people are laughing at all times. It throws people off. Im trying to make something dark and lurid and interesting -- and you especially get that in the last 15 minutes of this movie -- but at the same time, can I have a moment where shes Julie Andrews from The Sound Of Music but blood spits out of her mouth? I need to have a joke in there somewhere.
EB: The Sound of Music if the Nazis had won. [Laughs]
DW: Yeah, but for some people, youve got to either be a dark and twisted movie or a comedy that makes everybody laugh. My tombstone is going to read, He couldnt decide whether it was a comedy or tragedy. I dont even separate it in my mind as a duality. Everything like that is interconnected so I just try and examine the whole mutant combination from the get-go. I think a lot of this movie was criticized for what I said, a mixture of tones. To me, every day has these wild swings of humor and darkness thinking about somebody with love and then thinking something terrible about the same person. Its the natural flow of life you can go from euphoria to complete despair in 12 seconds.
EB: Another thing youve said before is that theres so many movies about boobs that have nothing to do with actual sex.
DW: Yeah. Or independent films where nobody seems to actually enjoy sexuality. Or romantic comedies, which I think are just ridiculously asexual. Theres a part in the end where Simon goes, Im not going to have a dramatic goodbye on a train platform, Im not going to run after a cab, Im not going to stop a wedding.
EB: [Laughs] Finally, because if it was my movie and some guy came chasing after a cab, the cab driver would probably run him over and crush his skull
DW: [Laughs] He gets dragged all the way to the airport.
EB: Seriously. And then the girls like, He never came
DW: [Laughs] Thats great.
EB: I read that you make all your friends rate their deadly sins in order of importance.
DW: Now, where did you hear that!? Have I ever told anybody that?
EB: Im reading your mind.
DW: How bizarre. Thats so funny, I dont think Ive ever seen that printed anywhere.
EB: I didnt steal your trashcan, I promise. I read it online.
DW: [Laughs] I think you definitely learn a lot, especially if everybodys honest [about their deadly sins]. Usually people are surprisingly honest.
EB: You said that sloth is your number one, even before lust.
DW: Yes. Sloth is a biggie. I find that the tougher you make it to get out of bed, then youre raising the bar for your actual activities. Especially in writing.
EB: One thing about your scripts, you really craft sentences and build characters through the detail in your dialog.
DW: That definitely ties into the sloth thing. That the more you cook it, the more you keep the pot stirred and simmering, then the more stuff is going to come to you. Certainly Ive been accused of overwriting and theres something definitely true about that. Because thats the way I write the interesting piece of dialog or that interesting detail, that comes first, and then Ive got to build a plot around it. Thats what makes it interesting. Screenwriting books teach you about structure. And teaching about structure is like a book about horseback riding where they say the first thing you have to do is get a horse. Well, yeah, of course you need a horse. Of course you need structure. But what really makes something different is the details. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who were never supposed to be writers in the filmmaking business that now are being taught how to. I feel like weve got a lot of math students writing scripts now. The sparkle of the film industry attracts people that dont necessarily know how creativity works.
EB: For Sex and Death, you told IFC that people in the world of independent film like originality as long as its originality theyre comfortable and familiar with.
DW: Yeah, thats what kills me. I think even originality has become its own corporation. Like Applebees or something, with its own mission statement and its own uniforms. I think somehow independent film became just another Little League team. They have their own rules and regulations so when you do something completely off the menu, like I said before, youre accused of doing something wrong. You can do all sorts of things as long as its under a category that people recognize. If you try and mix categories or try and create your own category, theyre going to think, Well wait a minute, he obviously was trying to do this category and missed.
EB: How was it working with Patton Oswalt?
DW: Hes amazing. There are these things called writers roundtables where bigger budget movies will have a script come in and the producer will hire 10 writers to come in for the day to go through the script and make anything funnier and better. I met Patton through doing these. So you have 10 people who think theyre the funniest writers in the world, and then you have Patton Oswalt its like Michael Jordon, just pass him the ball. Hes just so funny. Hes incredibly silly, but at the same time hes got a real intellectual side to him, which is the tone of most of what Ive written. I knew hed be perfect.
EB: What would you say the female equivalent of male machismo is?
DW: God is there an equivalent? I find now more than ever that male machismo is such a construct. Its not holding up the way it used to. A lot of what I like about movies in the 70s is that they were honest about sexuality, more than movies today, but at the same time it was still intellectual. Theres a great book by Susan Faludi called Stiffed that has a great line about how die-hard feminists and macho men believe the same myth: that the men are still in control. Its just not true anymore. Even though [Simon Bakers character] has a list, hes still not in control. Its only by giving up the machismo and giving up this sense of control that he can find some sort of Zen enlightenment. This movie is as close as I came to rebellious male heterosexual cinema. [Laughs]
EB: At the end of this film, I love the throwback to Heathers when Winona is furiously scribbling in her journal and she tosses the pencil, which then kills her abusive husband.
DW: Definitely. I think the fact that both her and Simon made people break their necks to me the perfect couple is two people who are broken in the right way. Like two broken coke bottles, they fit together.
EB: I told an ex once that true love is finding someone who is weird in the exact same way that you are.
DW: Yeah, exactly.
EB: He didnt get it.
DW: [Laughs]
Sex and Death 101 comes out on DVD July 1. For more information go to www.sexanddeath101movie.com.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
Anguz said:
The movie sounds cool, though I was a little disappointed (read annoyed) when you pulled the equivalent of saying "I love that you find out Bruce Willis is dead at the end" when you talked about Winona's character killing her husband.
hardly. it is a peripheral detail. watch the film, i didn't spoil anything.