John Waters: Interviews

Demented at Heart

139 Demented at Heart Jamie Painter Young / 2000 From Back Stage West, August 3, 2000. Used with permission of e5 Global Media, LLC. Whether you love or hate his films, John Waters is an undeniable original , a filmmaker who continually surprises, and sometimes shocks, his audiences. The Baltimore, Maryland, native has been finding ways to subvert our expectations of what an entertaining movie is ever since, with Female Trouble, Desperate Living, Polyester, Hairspray, Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, Pecker , and now Cecil B. Demented, his comedic spoof of both Hollywood and independent filmmaking. The film stars Melanie Griffith as a cheesecake movie star kidnapped by the Sprocket Holes, a gang of terrorists on a crazed mission to reinvent cinema. The film also features Alicia Witt, Patricia Hearst (who has appeared in all of his movies since Cry-Baby), and Stephen Dorff in the title role, a name once coined by a critic to describe Waters. Just as Woody Allen, one of Waters’ heroes, sets and shoots nearly all of his films in New York, Waters uses his Baltimore backdrop for all of his pictures, which also include the early underground movies Multiple Maniacs, Mondo Trasho, Roman Candles, and his first film, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket. These early gems featured Waters’ loyal acting troupe, many of whom are no longer with us today (Divine, David Lochary, Edith Massey, and Cookie Mueller all passed away). Only old-timers Mink Stole and Mary Vivian Pearce continue to crop up in Waters’ more recent movies. In the interview that follows, this maverick artist tells Back Stage West how he believes he has evolved from a “dictator” of socially unredeeming films to a more focused director who knows now how to communicate with actors and who has worthwhile, albeit offbeat, lessons for the 140 john waters: inter views masses. Though one doesn’t tend to associate the word “subtlety” with him or his work, the outlandish Waters argues that he has veered toward a more refined style, particularly when it comes to the acting in his movies . Still, his subversive nature always seeps through, and his latest work is no exception. JY: Is there such thing as a “John Waters actor” or “acting style”? JW: No, there isn’t. It was very different when I started out. Certainly, the acting style for this movie and the acting style for Pink Flamingos are very, very different. Purposely, in Pink Flamingos, it was over the top, totally loud, screaming, psycho time. I very much try not to do that now. My direction to anybody now is, “Bring it down.” Over the years, you have to change what you’re doing— reinvent it a little bit. And the way to reinvent it was that it seemed finally more shocking and more surprising to have actors saying the words as if they believed every word of it, rather than hitting you over the head with the dialogue. And I’m not saying I don’t like my early films. For the acting style in [Cecil B. Demented], I told them to play it as if they believed every word of it, and that has been my direction ever since Hairspray—to never wink at the audience. Even the most ludicrous dialogue or action. Like when Stephen [Dorff] licked the Panavision camera , I told him, “Don’t do it campily. Do it like you are turned on by the camera.” And I think my dialogue that I write comes out, now, funnier that way. I think in the old days when my films were made primitively, which means badly, basically, I didn’t know what I was doing technically. They looked like documentaries. They looked like Blair Witch, without knowing it. So it worked for that. People believed we were those characters, that we lived in a trailer, and that we ate dog shit. That’s how it’s changed over the years. JY: Have you worked consistently with the same casting directors? JW: From the very beginning I’ve worked with Pat Moran. She just got her second Emmy nomination for The Corner. She lives in Baltimore. She cast Homicide. I’ve worked with her forever. But the last two movies I’ve also worked with Kerry Barden, who works in New York. So I work with Pat in Baltimore and Kerry in New York. Those are the two. They both know exactly what I’m looking for. I know in one second when actors come in if...