Four Actor Aces on “King Jack”

Playing in Theaters

Four Actor Aces on King Jack

(from Sag Harbor Express June 16, 1916)

Jack and Ben hide under a car in “King Jack.”

King Jack fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor. A year after it received the Tribeca Film Festival’s Audience Award as the most popular narrative film in 2015, Tisch-graduate Felix Thompson’s tough-but-affectionate ode to boyhood opened at the Cinema Village in New York City last week to critical acclaim. I hope it comes our way. Thompson’s first feature takes place in a small, past-its-prime town in upstate New York, where troubled, fifteen-year-old Jack (a winning performance by Charlie Plummer) tries to get through a summer weekend despite having no friends or good role models. He has a critical older brother Tom (Christian Madsen) and a loving but oblivious mother who is busy working and tells him to look after his younger cousin Ben (Cory Nichols is instantly likable). He also is being hounded by bully Shane (Danny Flaherty, now a regular on TV’s The Americans) and his thuggish friends, while chasing after an elite girl who doesn’t like him–and not noticing that the much cooler Holly (Chloe Levine) is interested in him. There will be trouble. That’s essentially the synopsis I included in my introduction to an interview I did with Thompson a week before he received the TFF’s $25,000 prize in April ’15. (http://sagharboronline.com/felix-thompsons-king-jack-is-crowned-tffs-favorite-film/) Minutes later I did the following one-on-four with the young male leads of King Jack: Charlie Plummer, Cory Nichols, Danny Flaherty and Christian Madsen. I liked these guys!

Danny Peary: Charlie, you already had other credits, but it must have been exciting being cast as the title character of a feature film.

Charlie Plummer: I was kind of surprised they cast someone my age, 15, instead of going with someone who’s 18, but I think it really added to the film to have people that age who are going through the experience of learning to deal with problems on their own and not necessarily relying on their parents or someone who’s an actual adult.

DP: Your writer-director Felix Thompson and I talked about how he could have made Ben and Jack the same age in the movie. Would that have made sense?

Cory Nichols: I think it adds to the story for Ben to be a younger cousin. I think it works better if Jack begins to realize that he has to care for other people.

DP: I agree it works better, too, because Jack understands that his older brother, Tom, hasn’t been taking care of him.

CP: I think that in the relationship between Jack and Ben, a lot of the time Ben’s much more mature, which makes it more effective, but Jack thinks of himself as being much more mature. I think he really learns in the process of the entire film that it’s not so much about your age but who you are as a person.

DP: In the 1970s, I was an extra in a film and there was a scene on a riverboat. During our breaks, all the extras who played the elegant, first-class passengers went off by themselves and stayed apart from us who played the riffraff. What about you between scenes with the mean guys and the good guys?

Christian Madsen (tongue-in-cheek): It’s the same thing, we went our separate ways. I think we lucked out because when you make an indie film there are situations where you can’t escape, you have to be in close quarters with each other. On those days when I was on set, our hangout spot was in a small room on the second floor of the house that was the family’s house in the movie. So if you wanted to go anywhere, you’d have to go through mom’s kitchen, so it was like you were really living in the world of this family. So in that confined space, we all became friends.

(Left to Right) Christian Madsen, Danny Flaherty, Charlie Plummer and Cory Nichols. Danny Peary photo.

Danny Flaherty: We became very close. There was no way to escape. Every time I turned a corner I ran into Charlie and Ben!

CM: We were all staying at the same little hotel, so we had some good hangout nights.

CN: Every single night on that rundown ping-pong table.

DF: Yeah, we played ping-pong almost every night.

DP: It really was fortunate that you guys got along.

All: Yeah, very fortunate.

DP: Do you think it was just that Felix did such a good job with casting?

CP: It was that, but I think we also had very good chemistry from the start and bonded really well. We all really like sports and that was a topic. But I think we just all got along really easily. It was really wonderful.

CN: We didn’t know each other before but Felix did such a good job of bringing us all together and every time somebody new came on the set, we would all get together at the hotel, so that everyone was familiar with each other, and he’d make strangers feel like good friends.

DF: Whenever somebody came to the town, he’d take us to the diner and kind of force us to meet with him, which is really interesting, and that really helped us form relationships right away. He was really trying to get that chemistry to be real, and the tactics that he used to do that worked out very well.

DP: Did Felix use tricks to make sure your bully Shane was properly mad at Jack?

DF: No, but he would tell me little things, like, “This is the scene where you just kick the crap out of Jack.” He was pretty straight forward.

CP: Danny is just a really good actor.

CN: He’s the nicest guy and looks friggin’ scary.

DP: Charlie, Jack does some petty crimes–I am thinking of the graffiti–but his mom says to him: “You can be a good kid if you wanted to.” Did that ring true to you? Was that a major line in your thinking?

CP: I think Jack doesn’t really know what a good kid is, but part of him doesn’t really want to be what people think of as a good kid. I think he’s really trying to find himself and find out who he wants to be. Does he want to be friends with the bullies? Does he want to date this girl who’s really mean to him? Or does he want to find people like Ben, who might not be as cool as other people but is a really good friend? I think Jack is trying to figure all that out about himself by himself, and that’s a big part of the film.

DP: Danny, Shane is pretty bad the whole way through the movie? Did you want to like him and look for something good in him?

DF: My character is very troubled, and one of the reasons he picks on Jack so much is because he was picked on when he was Jack’s age by Tom. I think there is some good in him but it’s very hard to find. Everything that’s happening in that character’s life, with his single-parent situation, and his memories of his mom beating the crap out of him, he can’t be good in that way because he’s letting all his anger hold him back from being a good person.

DP: Is there hope for him?

DF: You know what–I don’t believe there is.

DP: Danny, have you known bullies and is there something about them that you latched on to?

CP: I’ve known a few bullies in my past. I think they have a lot of issues that they’re dealing with themselves and the only way they can express it is to take it out on other people around them, people that are non-threatening. Because Jack is not very threatening to Shane, who is lot bigger than him. But Shane takes it out on him because of the way he feel about his older brother Tom and what Tom did to him in the past. So he’s kind of dealing with his problems by making his problems other people’s problems. I feel that’s what bullies do a lot–they have no one to open to and talk to, so they end up taking it out on people who are weaker than them.

DP: Christian, your character has some shading to him, in that he doesn’t treat Jack well but still isn’t a totally bad guy. Do you think the relationship between him and Jack changes during the film?

CM: I don’t think that Tom has the fortune that I do in my real life of being grounded. Tom doesn’t really have a foundation there. Being from a broken family and having no father there, he comes to terms with his having to forcefully try to become the father figure of the family, which doesn’t work out because he’s just a shadow of that. He has a very small window of an opportunity to do something important in that moment of his life, helping out his brother. I don’t know if he gets it across to Jacke the way that he wants to, because the only way he knows how to explain anything is in a physical way. I think in some weird way he would just want to show Jack, “I care about you, but I don’t know how to explain it you verbally, I just know how to show you in a physical way.”

DP: Does Jack want to be friends with Tom more by the end of the movie?

CP: Oh, yeah, I think Jack really looks up to him–it’s his older brother. I think no matter what happens, he’s always going to be his older brother. However bad he treats him, he’s always going to look to him as a hero, one way or another.

CM: All brothers have a quiet understanding of each other, how to pick at each other, how to tell each other things. I have four younger brothers and I can say one thing to tick them off or say one other thing to make them smile. You just know them. I can do something in a way for my brother to know how I feel about a situation. I think there doesn’t have to be a lot of explaining between Tom and Jack. They know each other so well that if Tom does one little thing it’s going to get across to him somehow, in some way.

DP: In the movie, Tom and his mom talk about $5 being such a large amount of money. Did that resonate with you guys?

All: Absolutely.

CP: It’s definitely a family that’s really struggling financially, but also sticking together as a family. They’re kind of in separate corners, all the time, not really wanting to take about their issues and problems. They’re not necessarily really supportive of each other in that sense. But I think they are a family, and at the end of the film, they do all come together. I’m including Ben in that sense, I think they really open up to each other and that’s really beautiful.

DP: Cory, when Ben goes home, will he report back to his mother that it was a good weekend he spent with Jack?

CN: I think to his mom he will say that was a good weekend. But in the movie they don’t show the dialogue I had when Ben’s on the phone calling his dad. He was saying to his dad, “I really want to come home, I’m homesick.” He never said, “I got beat up,” because he’s just not the kind of kid who would rat anyone out, but he definitely wouldn’t hide the fact that he didn’t enjoy it. However, in front of his mom he would say he had a good time because of the bad state she is in.

DP: But when the worst is over, Ben seem to be enjoying himself.

CN: Yeah. I do think it’s hard for him to push past what he went through. But, you know, he ends up making the best out of it.

DP: Charlie, what about Jack? Felix calls this a rite-of-passage movie so can we say that what your character goes through can be seen a good thing?

CP: I definitely think it’s a hopeful story. Some is very hard to watch, but it has a really hopeful ending. I think the great thing about these two characters is that–and this is a reason the ending is happy–they become genuine friends. It’s not that, “Oh, we have to be together and we had an OK time,” but they really bond with one another during the experience they go through, and that’s unlike anything else. They go through a lot but the end product is definitely happy.

DP: Do you think you’d be friends with Jack?

CP: I don’t know. Jack is definitely a kid that is troubled and is the kind of kid a lot of us don’t really want to look at, because he’s got a lot of problems and he doesn’t really want anybody’s help. So it’s hard to go up to a kid like that and try to become friends with him, try to understand him, but I know that for me playing him, it was a really interesting process trying to get into his head. And now, after doing the project, I think I have a lot more compassion for that type of person. And a lot more understanding of what they’re going through in their daily life. So at the start of the project, no, I wouldn’t have wanted to have to deal with someone struggling so much, but now I’d absolutely want to help them.

DP: If you go with your family to see this movie, is there a moment when you’d say, “I really want you to watch me?

CM (laughing): All the moments I’m not in! For me the whole scene where Tom goes to the bully’s house and to rescue Ben for Jack was fun to shoot. We had a lot of physicality in it, we a lot of little steps we had to go over, but when we would get ready and shoot all in one, it was really a good experience to go through. It would start to rain, we’d have to tarp everything, then it would stop, we’d run back out. But it kept you on your game, because you knew you had to perform at that moment. There was a stunt guy on set who was really great, and he helped us all be more believable in that aspect and be very safe.

DF: I’m very opposite of my character in real life, so I think I’d be like, “Mom, don’t watch this, I’m very, very mean.”

CN: For me, I’d probably want my mother to watch the scene were I come in with the bat. I just love it.

DP: I like when you smile on the pitcher’s mound when you’re throwing balls for Jack to hit and he’s hopeless.

CN: You know, I was just going to say I love that, too.

CP: I’m in a lot of the film so it’s hard to pick out one moment. But I do love the “Truth or Dare” scene with two girls and Ben. I think it’s really beautiful. It’s a really all-around great film, so I can’t really pick out one thing and say “This is the best scene.” It has such a beautiful flow to it.

DP: What is it like to premiere your movie in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival?

CM: Tribeca has a good feel for this film, Just to keep it short, Felix put it the best. He called me and said, “We’re bringing the film home.” We shot it upstate, but it’s great to bring it back to our home here. All these guys are from here so they can bring their friends and family. It’s great. We’re all honored to be here.

Horstmann and Harvie Bring Bodyslam Home to Play at SIFF

Playing at Festivals

Horstmann and Harvie Bring Bodyslam Home to Play at SIFF

(from Sag Harbor Express Online May 18, 2015)

By Danny Peary

Bodyslam: Revenge of the Banana fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor.  But after its successful world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, it has moved to the west coast.  In fact, this Thursday at 9:30 p.m., John Paul Horstmann and Ryan Harvie’s uplifting, sweet-spirited wrestling documentary is playing at the very cool Seattle International Film Festival, with post-screening surprises promised.

Paul, The Banana (in background) and Lucas, The Second Banana.

I urge every Seattle movie fan–wrestling expertise is not required!–to attend the screening at the Cinema Egyptian because it is actually set in Seattle.  The directors found their story and its intriguing cast of social misfits at the Re-bar, a gay-friendly club on Howell Street, where once a month this intrepid and talented troupe of performers with outlandish monikers and wild costumes put on a raucous show that  mixes wild, over-the-top wrestling with burlesque, parody, soap opera, and even political satire–if you want to see “Senator John McCain” manhandled by Ronald McFondle, this is where to go!  In the documentary, Ronald McFondle, played by Josh Black, and Eddie Van Glam, played by Bill Bates, are the two Seattle Semi-Pro Wrestlers the directors focus on, in and out of costume.  The other main figure is Paul Richards, who wrestles as The Banana, until he is exiled for not making an effort to become part of the very tight SSP wrestling family–becoming instead an outcast among outcasts.  A woman scorned is nothing compared to a Banana out for revenge, and the spiteful Paul cleverly uses the law to shut down the SSP.  And the movie moves from the ring to the Capitol.  I saw Bodyslam at the TFF out of curiosity and it turned out to be a nice surprise, not at all what I expected and one of my favorite documentaries at the festival. Going in, I figured I’d cheer the wrestling onscreen, but I ended up sincerely rooting for the fascinating underdog characters in the movie in regard to their personal problems and for the SSP to come back from extinction.  Also, I was thankful to the directors for bringing an entirely new subculture to the screen. Who knew?  So of course, I was delighted to be able to have this conversation with Horstmann, Harvie, Black, and Bates.  The wrestlers even let me try on their championship belt!

John Paul Horstmann, Josh Black/Ronald McFondle, Bill Bates/Eddie Van Glam and Ryan Harvie.

Danny Peary: Ryan and John, in your Directors Statement, you say that for your film to work it “had to be funny as hell.”  For me, it’s the poignancy of your film that comes across more than the hilarity.  There is humor but it comes from your characters, who are funny but are just as often serious.  So I’m wondering if you still tell people first thing that this is a funny movie.

John Paul Horstmann: That Directors Statement was written a while ago, before we realized Bodyslam would turn out to be a much more serious film than we expected it be. It really surprised us that once we started cutting the scenes together, we kept finding these poignant moments and we exploded them and we explored them and found more heart than in the jokes.  So you hit on something. I always think that in humor there’s a lot of pain and consequence, and I really like the juxtaposition of the two.

Ryan Harvie: Yeah, I think this movie is funny-serious.  It’s about family, and family is always funny.

DP: Tell me about the tone of the movie.  How did you structure it so you always keep it bit humorous even when the characters are talking about sad things?

JPH: We used humor as a hook, and we placed all the interesting stuff underneath it.

RH: No one wants to be depressed for eighty minutes, so we  structured the film so that there is always something else going on when it’s too serious.  For example, when Paul is telling a sad story, you’re seeing on the screen the wrestling he watched as a child and there’s a feeling of nostalgia and happiness.  So while you’re getting some sad information and learning about all these people, you’re not depressed for the whole movie.

JPH: You get inside the person, then you understand him, then you develop great empathy, and then you feel a lot better than you would if he were just to look into the camera and deliver a long speech about how he was once abused or something else like that.

DP: Ryan, I read that the origin of your documentary is that you were told about the wrestling show in Seattle by a college friend who wrestles in it as the Second Banana.  Where were you at the time?

RH: I was in Los Angeles and my friend Lucas and I met up for drinks when he came down from Seattle for a video game conference. He started telling me about this wrestling show he was in, saying “I dress like a banana and other guys dress in zany costumes and there’s all this crazy stuff.”  And I was enthralled. It seemed amazing so I told John Paul about it and we both became obsessed with the idea.  So we went up to Seattle, where we’d never been, and started shooting, and from watching the wrestling show, meeting these guys, and seeing their dynamics behind the stage, we realized, “There’s something here, something beyond these wrestling characters.”

DP: Bill, or Eddie Van Glam, when you guys found out that Ryan and John were making a movie about you, did you say, “Why are they doing this?” Or were you saying, “This is a really good idea!”?

Bill Bates: When they first approached us, we didn’t quite know what to make of it.  They were saying, “We want to tell your story.” And we were like, “Cool, if that happens, great!  If anything we’ll have footage of our shows.”

DP: At the beginning, was the idea for you to tell your stories or just for them to see the show you put on?

Josh Black: I think at first they came to the show just to check it out.  They’d heard about our shows and what we do, and they just wanted to see it for themselves and get a feel for it and see what we were about.  The story kind of evolved after the fact.

DP: Do these shows take place at a gay club?

JB: They take place at the Re-bar, and in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was very much a gay club.  They still have gay dance nights and house nights, and they have the Dina Martina Drag Show, and a lot of theater.

DP: Are any of the performers in the drag shows also wrestlers?

JB: No, I don’t think any of the drag people have ever wrestled, but Ronald McFondle does a lot of drag shows. McFondle’s “mother” is Jackie Hell, who is a local drag queen, and she has come out to the ring with me a couple of times to be McFondle’s manager.

DP: How many SSP wrestlers are there?

BB: Right now it’s about 22 guys.

DP: Who writes the scripts for the shows?

JB: It’s not one person who writes all the scripts.  Everyone gets to tell their own little stories, and one person—which was me for a long time—must oversee those stories and make sure everything fits. It’s a three-ring circus, and you want comedy and violence and physicality, and technical wrestling.  Also you need to make sure everyone’s doing their own things, but you want to make sure you’re not doing the same things all night long.

DP: Are the storylines like soap operas, as they are in the WWE?

JB: The most ridiculous soap operas ever.

DP: Does the audience care who wins?

JB: I’ve been champion a few times but I lose a lot, too.  The audience understands we’re telling stories that last six months to a year, so match by match they’re not too much concerned with who wins, because they know we’re telling this story.  When it comes to the final match of the feud between characters, then you have them invested in the outcome.

BB: We have season finales…

JB:  We have shows once a month.  People come back, they come early and grab front-row seats and load up on beer cans.

DP: Which they used to throw at the wrestlers.

BB: A lot of people bring their friends, and once they’ve seen it, they tell their friends.  This past Saturday we were standing room only.

DP: Did you guys have a mission statement when you started out?

JB: Not really.  We started in 2003, with us wrestling for fun between girls at burlesque shows.  It all grew so organically. And then all of a sudden we’re selling out the Re-bar every month.

DP: Are you becoming better wrestlers as the years go by?

JB: Yeah. Well, when we started we didn’t have a lot of physicality, and it was really goofy and theatrical. There was a lot of rolling around and slap-fights, like The Three Stooges. We now have a ring, and we’re a lot of closer to actual wrestlers than when we started.

DP: Are you curious about how you’d do in the ring with professionals?

JB: I’ve done some indie stuff, some more traditional wrestling.  It’s not an aspiration for me to wrestle professionally for a living, but it’s a fun thing to do once in a while.

DP: I grew up watching wrestling. Did you guys?

JB: When I was a kid, wrestling was on Saturday mornings, and my grandpa and I would fight about it all the time, because he was an NWA guy who loved Ric Flair and I loved “Macho Man” Randy Savage, who was in the WWF.  He hated the pageantry and he still thought it was real and believed NWA was more raw and realer.  All that WWF stuff he couldn’t stand–he thought the wrestlers were clowns–so we argued about it all day long.

DP: Did you know wrestling was fake as a kid?

JB: My mom was at the screening the other night, and she told me that when I was 8, I used to just scream at her when she told me it was fake. I didn’t believe it for a second.  By the time I was a teen I obviously knew.

DP: What about you, Bill? You’re not a huge guy but growing up did you have aspirations to be a wrestler?

BB:  I originally did. I found out about wrestling when I was 9 years old, I saw a magazine with Papa Shango on the cover, and it was so amazing because it was like a real live-action comic book and there were these over-the-top characters, and they were real–I could touch them physically if I went to the show. So I fell in love with the theatrics of it and the storylines, and then as I got older I appreciated the athleticism and the drama that it provided. I remember being a junior in high school, and thinking, “You know, I could actually pursue this. If I go to the gym and start eating right and look into it, I could actually do it.” My family did everything in their power to make sure I didn’t do it.  My mother died when I was 22 and I had lost my family by then so I just dove straight into work because that’s all I had and I had only me to take care of.  Then when I was 25, a friend said, “Hey, there’s this wrestling show I heard about.  I’m not a wrestling fan but I know you are so do you want to go?”  “Yeah!  If there’s live wrestling in Seattle, I want to experience this!”

DP: Ryan, after you met the SSP wrestlers, did you think that 100% of these men had troubled lives before they found this home and makeshift family?

RH: Some guys did and some guys didn’t.

DP: I am not asking insultingly, but was anyone completely together?

RH: The Second Banana had a troubled history, and so did some other guys, but the way the organization is, with its open-door policy that lets everyone in, if you’re looking for a family, then you have found the place to have it.

JPH: A lot of the guys say they don’t have anybody else, except for the other wrestlers.

JB: A lot of the wrestlers are people like me. I didn’t have a horrible past, I just wanted to get out of North Dakota because it was too small for me.  All my family is back there and when I moved out here I was all by myself. A lot of us are just transplants from the Midwest who didn’t have anyone in Seattle. And we found each other.

DP: Ryan, do you see the bonding theme, the brotherhood among the wrestlers, as being the main thrust of your film?

RH: It comes across in their shows and hopefully in our footage that they love each other beyond anything else, and that I think is a really beautiful thing.

DP: The wrestlers in the movie have become a family, but do any still have strong connections to their own families?

BB: My dad is my best friend, I love my father, but there’s no way in hell I’m moving to Atlanta. He finally came to a show and he saw what I built and what I have with these guys.  My dad’s actually in the movie, in the front row at a show. He had a blast, and he “got it”—finally when he saw the show and he met everybody, he was like, “OK, I’m not going to ask you to move to Atlanta, because I get it.” Because he knows I love him with all my heart.

DP: Was he impressed by how athletic you are?

BB: Yes and no, because I had always tried my hand at various sports.  I just didn’t really keep to one sport to see how good I could be.  I was like, “I tried it, so it’s time to move on.” But I always loved wrestling, so for him to see me wrestle for the first time was very special.  He he finally got to see me live my dream.

DP: In the Directors’ Statement, you say, “Basically this film is about truth in even the most ridiculous moments.”  Please elaborate.

JPH:  As we also say in our statement, there is beauty even in the most ugly or ridiculous moments and the most banal situations can have deeply interesting subtexts.  Even though we may chuckle at our characters’ eccentricities, we can also identify with their situations.

RH: The truth always comes through. When someone totally believes in what they are doing, whether it’s jumping off a ladder or rubbing clown paint on themselves, that is who they are and it’s their true self that shines through in this film. What I found is that these characters live such interesting lives and are so compelling that you can identify with their situations and feelings even if you don’t dress up like a clown and bodyslam people. There are universal concepts that everyone experiences.

DP: The story takes a really weird turn when Paul, the original Banana, is let go and gets his revenge by alerting the authorities about minor code infractions at the wrestling shows.  The result is your show is shut down and the wrestling stops.  Josh, after testifying before a surprisingly sympathetic legislative panel, is SSP wrestling functioning in the same way as before at the Re-bar?

JB: Well, if we don’t charge for admission or require a cover charge, we are allowed to do the show.  So right now we’re doing that and basically paying out of pocket.  But I’m working with the Department of Licensing, and we’re co-authoring a bill to change the laws that need to be changed, hopefully by 2016.

DP: You have always been billed as semi-pros, so were you getting paid before the shutdown?

JB: Before we were shut down we had a cover charge.  Mainly it would be to pay the bar tab for all of us to drink after the show, and to promote the show with handbills and posters.  Also it paid for making costumes.

RH: You guys didn’t take a salary.  You put your money back into it.

JB:  None of us ever walked away with cash. We do a lot of charity stuff, too.

BB: Donations to homeless shelters.  If we have anything extra.

DP: Let’s talk about Paul, The Banana. He was a really quiet guy yet John Paul and Ryan you were able to befriend him enough so that he was honest with you in the film.

RH: We had to earn his trust.  He opened up as a villain just not so emotionally.

JPH: It took almost two years before he opened up. One day, he was on the steps of his house, where you see him in the film, and he just randomly started talking.

DP: Was most of that interview in which he spoke about mother filmed in one day?

JPH: We were interviewing him for a whole day, asking about his house, and then he came out onto the steps, and we turned the camera around.

RH: He’d been rebuilding the house by himself, and we said, “Just show us what you’ve been doing,” and then he started talking about how his mother died on the front porch that he was repairing. It was like a valve opened up and we were very happy he felt comfortable and honest with us.

DP: When watching the movie, Josh, were you hearing Paul’s story for the first time?

JB: Yeah.  I had no idea about his past and his mother and all that. He really never said anything much to us except for hello and yes and no, and often he just nodded his head. He never opened up to us.  He tried to hang out with us but he’d come to the bar and stand awkwardly to the side. We tried to pull conversation out of him, but he just never opened up with us. I think it’s because he didn’t like that we drink and whatever. So when trying to get him to open up to us when we were all at a bar, we had no idea that drinking bothered him so much. And that was probably a big barrier to him getting closer to us.

BB: It really felt like he was always passing judgment on us.

JB: I’m the type who if I’m busting your balls is saying, “I like you.” But I think he took a lot of the in-jest, busting balls things I said as Josh being an asshole.

BB: I wasn’t the nicest guy back in the day, either.

DP: Ryan, if the wrestlers admit that they blew it with this guy, what do you think Paul’s reaction would be if they asked him to return to the show?

RH: I actually don’t know what Paul would say. I think he would love to wrestle again, but the thing I’ve learned about wrestling is that it’s about trust, and when that trust is broken, it’s hard to rebuild that back.  He would have to rebuild that trust.

BB: Wrestling is about trusting your opponent to protect you and about protecting each other.  And without that trust, you don’t know if someone is going to get hurt…

DP: Is the anger you have toward Paul too much ever to overcome?

JB:  I haven’t seen him since he walked out of that last show, but on a personal level I’d love to shake his hand and bury the hatchet. I don’t want to hold hate and grudges. As far as being back in the show, what stands in the way is the trust issue and not knowing if someone could be hurt.  I don’t think I could ever let him back in to perform, but I’d love to be OK with him.

BB: If he ever wanted to come to a show– like Josh, I’d love to just bury the hatchet, shake hands, and apologize for anything I ever said to him.

DP: Would you want an apology from him, too?

BB: Yeah, I think he definitely owes us one, too.

DP: If you watch westerns or war movies, it’s usually about an outsider coming in and eventually learning how to conform to the group. The rare exception is when the group conforms to the guy. Looking back, did you give Paul what he needed, or was he a hopeless case?

JB: We gave him a million opportunities to talk to us, he just doesn’t talk. Communication is key in any relationship but there was no communication with him. He thought I was bullshitting about taking the banana suit off him.  I loved what he was doing as a heel, and with his wrestling, but it just didn’t work with that Banana suit on.  If we just gave him cheap shades, a vest, and the blazer, he could have acted the way he wanted to as the Banana and he would have been an awesome heel.  But the character of the Banana wasn’t supposed to be a heel.  Paul wouldn’t listen to us about this, so we had to tell him to leave.

RH: For me, this movie is all about family, and a guy who’s looking for a family, Paul, who finds a family and doesn’t know what to do once he has that family.

DP: So he blows his opportunity and loses his family.  Poor guy.

Continuing the "Battle in Seattle"

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Continuing the "Battle in Seattle"

(from brinkzine.com 9/19/08)

So you've seen "The Dark Night" thirty-five times and still haven't figured out that Heath Ledger's Joker sounds like an effete character created by Al Franken. It's time to be more adventurous with your moviegoing and instead of making a beeline to another megahit, check out one of the independent films that needs support to stay in theaters. You may hate them, but I'll still recommend two controversial films that I think have been underestimated by most critics: "Towelhead" and "Hounddog," featuring terrific and brave performances by young actresses, Summer Bishil and Dakota Fanning. Another sure-to-be controversial film opens Friday and though it has some flaws, I'd like everyone to go see it because it's well-intentioned, makes powerful political points, and even dares have left-wing extremists as heroes. Stuart Townsend's ambitious "The Battle in Seattle" is about the successful five-day protest by an international assemblage of environmentalists, anarchists, labor, consumer advocates, human-rights groups, and pacifists to shut down the World Trade Organization convention in 1999. It turned into a full-scale riot when the Seattle police became aggressive, and a state of emergency was declared. The protest was barely covered by America's media and the fact that it succeeded was ignored. No American filmmaker would dare turn that event into a movie, but Irish actor Stuart Townsend spent six years trying to bring it to the screen as his first directorial effort. Townsend: "I went on the Internet and read about the event and thought it was incredible. The film is like my personal journey. I wanted people to experience what I experienced the first time I saw footage of that colorful, creative protest. I was just blown away. When I saw the riots I said, "This is America?" I couldn't believe it. Protesters in Seattle were ahead of the curve fighting against an economic system that has brought us today's financial crisis, that has brought us the world's food riots. Unfortunately, I don't think people are going to see the connection. I hope the film helps them connect the dots." Townsend assembled a super cast, headed by his partner Charlize Theron (an actress who always has had remarkable integrity), Martin Henderson, Woody Harrelson, a personal favorite Michelle Rodriguez, Andre Benjamin (of Outkast), and Connie Nielsen. Some of them were politicized by the experience; others simply say they were educated about the event and the issues and hope the film does the same to viewers. But first potential viewers have to see the movie, which is why Townsend and several members of his battle in seattle cast were in New York this week to publicize their film. I was able to ask a few questions to Michelle Rodriguez, Martin Henderson, Charlize Theron, and Stuart Townsend. All nice, passionate people.

Danny Peary: Michelle, you say you have a collection of documentaries about the world situation. You don't mention watching narrative films. So did you recognize that this is the first America-set fictional film of any consequence that has radicals who are heroes?
Michelle Rodriguez: Right on! What I was aware of upon reading the script is that for the first time I felt like every perspective that I could think of regarding the fight for human rights or a human belief system is covered. I felt that even if I were an extra I would have loved to be part of this film. I did it because I believe in it. There is something about the protester I play that is so human and she reminded me of what I love about this country. I've traveled to many different countries in my little ten years of being in this business and had this opportunity to educate myself on various perspectives of how the world looks at America. People around the world are having trouble trusting the powers that be, which is why people like movies with vigilantes or rebels who fight back. Being a citizen of this country I've also gotten to see what some of the benefits are to being a woman here. There are a lot of things I take pride in and a lot of things I kind of reject. One of the things I love is the ability to speak and be heard. And sometimes it takes radicals to wake people up. Because if they're not making noise, the media is not going to cover an event. It's really sad. Only when people stand up and dare make fools of themselves in front of the media will people who are more concerned with what I wear going actually listen. I didn't know anything about what took place in Seattle in 1999 from the news. The news didn't inform me about World Trade Organization talks in Seattle, with 30,000 people battling in the streets for their rights as humans. It's just amazing that it was ignored that way.
DP: Your character Lou is really passionate, which is probably why you were attracted to her. But was it you who made her that passionate?
MR: Oh, no. She was written that way for sure. But I just added a little element of heart to her. Stuart and I had some dialogues and we changed a couple of things and I gave her a little heart. Sometimes the anger or emotion is so overwhelming that you don't really understand why the character is doing something. I thought it was incredibly important that we at least get through to the audience that there is a reason for her actions, rather than what may seem to be insanity.

Danny Peary: Martin, you play Lou's radical lover. How similar are you to Jay?
Martin Henderson: I see him as being motivated politically by the issues that he cares about and emotionally by the death of his brother. I'm a pretty mild person but if I care about something enough or certain lines are crossed, I can get riled up and very emotional. I identify with his wanting to fight back against something that is wrong. But I'm not an activist in the way these characters are. The real people Jay was based on are true front-line heroes. I met a few of them. Jay is more of a leader than anyone really was, because they didn't want to have leaders the police would target. I asked them why they did what they did. Stuart Townsend jokes that he cast me because I turned up with a full beard and long hair and I was the only actor there he believed could be up a tree. As an actor, it was a joy to work on something that matters and that has relevance today. We're in a world where we're increasingly affected by the issues that this movie calls attention to.

Danny Peary: Charlize, you say it's a bad-ass movie made for $1. 50 that could easily be a blockbuster directed by Jerry Bruckheimer. But despite what you say, I do think it's foremost a political film. Coming from South Africa, what do you think is the effect of street protests?
Charlize Theron: I think it's amazing that we say the government works for us, then forget that. Then you watch over a million people protest this war in Iraq and realize the governments don't go, "Wait a minute, we work for these people." Those protests were world wide and somewhat magical to watch. You can't ignore those images of so many people standing together. A lot of the successful tactics used in Seattle in 1999 and elsewhere since are still proving to be effective. Protesting is different from what people think it is-they see it as a "hippie" movement of Love, Peace, and War, and getting high and walking through the streets naked. But today's protesters really understand their rights and understand government and what their effect can be on government. I'm always impressed when I see protests, no matter what country they're in. Always. You should know that I'm not trying to deny that this is a political film. I think life is politics and I think we forget that. When we do movies like "In the Valley of Elah" that are considered "political," people run away so fast. What they don't realize is that this is life on the screen. It's real. The brain has to get rewired-we can't stop making these movies because people don't want to see them. We just have to start marketing them and talking about them differently. We can tell people that they aren't going to get preached at and they are going to have a wild ride and see some amazing characters and maybe learn something about the world they live in without being hit in the head with a hammer.
DP: I say it's political because most films will just say "war is bad," which everyone agrees with and isn't controversial or brave, but Battle in Seattle has specific, real targets, including the WTO, the police, and our media. That's brave.
CT: I'm so glad you think that. Thank you!
DP: Are you promoting this film and traveling with Stuart?
CT: We have been traveling nonstop. We screened it at both conventions and we've taken it to tons of film festivals. This has been a six-month endeavor. An interesting thing about Stuart is that he chose to distribute the film himself and has single-handedly, obsessively, been working on an amazing grassroots campaign, which is the only way to spread the word when you have no money for publicity. So you have to travel and you have to do tiny screenings.

And the amazing thing is that everywhere we've gone, the audience has had an overwhelming emotional reaction. You know those people are going to leave the theater and spread the word. That's the best marketing you can hope for.
DP: When you screened the film in Seattle, what was the reaction?
CT: It couldn't have been better. One person came up and said there were five important things that I remember about what happened in 1999, and your movie had all five things in it. That was so great to hear.

DP: Stuart, I'm sure nobody was racing you to get their movie about the 1999 WTO protest out first. No American director would make this film. They don't make political movies.
Stuart Townsend: Right, nobody was thinking about this idea for a film. I'm surprised no one has made a film about Kent State, either. The market place is difficult for such films. We don't have money for publicity, that's why we're hoping for word-of-mouth.
DP: In the production notes it says you were inspired by one of my favorite films, Haskell Wexler's "Medium Cool," a political film set at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. "Medium Cool" was about how reporters can't stay detached when they see injustice, and that's what happens in your film with the Connie Nielsen's television reporter.
ST: Yes, there's that element in both films. We actually have footage from "Medium Cool" in the movie. And Haskell Wexler is in the movie. He's eighty something and came up for a day. It was minus 2 degrees and he didn't even bring a jacket. We gave him one but he's a robust man and didn't need it. The inspiration was his camerawork. I loved the immediacy in that film and the soft focus of certain things. He was smart enough to know that somehow he was going to be able to put actors into the real riot. That is why it was such a novel film. I love his cinematography. "The Battle of Algiers" is another film with incredible camerawork that inspired me.
DP: You say the Seattle police isn't your villain, but I think what the police do in the riot scenes is the touchiest thing in the movie. Middle-class Americans will be shocked that police do act like that when there is a protest. Did you include Woody Harrelson's sensitive policeman to give balance?
ST: I feel like the riot footage villainizes them enough. It was real, I didn't make it up, that's what they did, and it's up there on the screen for people to judge for themselves. But I wanted to give them a voice, Woody Harrelson's character, because I had read about them. They were human beings, but they were unprepared, untrained.

It's hard to believe but some of them were scared with thousands of people approaching them. Some of them weren't taken care of properly-they didn't eat, they didn't sleep much although they worked for several days on end, they didn't get bathroom breaks. It doesn't justify what they did, but at least that helps you relate to them.
DP: You want to promote the film to get everyone to see it, so are you trying to downplay that it is a political film?
ST: It is political, but I'm trying to hide that fact in "entertainment language."
DP: At the recent Republican Convention, they isolated the protesters, just like in China during the Olympics.
ST: I was there. We screened the movie and then I walked out to what was basically my movie in real life. There were five hundred riot police and a thousand protesters pushed aside so they couldn't be effective. It was like they had been put in a cage.
DP: I know you're publicizing "The Battle in Seattle" on the Internet, just like the protest in 1999 was the first protest organized over the Internet. And Charlize says you're taking it all around the country.
ST: I recently showed it at USC in Los Angeles. And the kids really loved it and came up afterwards to talk. One girl with a skateboard, who was really sensitive and in tears, came up and said, "Thank you for making the movie." That really hit me. It was a genuine thank you. I felt that all of my six years of work on the film was worth it.

Talkin' About "Rachel Getting Married"

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Talkin' About "Rachel Getting Married"

(from brinkzine.com 10/2/08)

Ann Hathaway

There's already Oscar buzz about Anne Hathaway for her raw, nervy performance as a guilt-ridden young ex-model who leaves rehab to attend her "saintly" sister's nuptials in "Rachel Getting Married." Hathaway, who has chosen roles as judiciously as anyone since "The Princess Diaries," and already deserved a Best Actress nomination along with Meryl Streep for "The Devil Wears Prada," steals scenes, just as her sometimes sympathetic, sometimes selfish Kym dominates settings. But she's not the only one involved with this winning film who should be singled out for praise. Equally award-worthy are Debra Winger (we've missed her!) and secret-treasure Bill Irwin as Kym and Rachel's divorced parents, Abby and Paul; and, in the title role, lovely stage and television actress Rosemarie DeWitt (Midge on AMC's "Mad Men"), who more than holds her own with Hathaway in both volatile and tender scenes. The script was written by Jenny Lumet, whose father, Sidney Lumet, sent it to Jonathan Demme. Apparently Demme loved that for her first screenplay, Lumet didn't know enough to follow the rules. It's good to welcome back Demme to narrative films, after a few years of directing only political and music documentaries. By employing a hand-held camera and refusing to set up shots, eschewing rehearsed scenes, allowing improvisation, casting many nonprofessional actors, and having musicians playing nonstop both in and out of the frame, he has made an anti-Hollywood film that's part documentary, part home movie, part guerilla art. On Monday, Lumet, Hathaway, DeWitt, and Demme were in town promoting their film in anticipation of this Friday's release. I had the chance to ask questions of each.
Danny Peary: Jenny, I think you wrote about a distinctly modern American family. It doesn't have the epic figures of classic tragedy.
Jenny Lumet: I think so, too. They're so familiar not so much with psycho-babble but with the psych vocabulary. That's what's really American to me.
DP: I could see this film as a short story. Did you write this as a script or in another form first?
JL: As a script. I don't know how to write in any other form. I love the short story form. It's interesting that you see the connection because I LOVE that form. I've been working really hard to learn how to write short stories, and I can't write them.
DP: If you have a sister, talk about how that played into writing about sisters Rachel and Kym.
JL: I do have a sister. There's a very romanticized thing that goes on in movies with brothers, even guys who aren't really brothers, but "brothers in blue," "blood brothers," that kind of thing. But I think the sister connection is so interesting and not really explored in movies. If it is explored, it's usually sisters being interested in the same guy. But the real thing is powerful stuff. Sisters, all siblings in fact, have as much impact on each other as their parents do. The relationship between Rachel and Kym is so tight but it's difficult because it's so much about what happened in the past. I was going to write a story and I thought, "What's the worst freaking thing that can happen in a family other than everyone dying of ebola virus?" The baby dies. Who's fault is it? Somebody in the family. How does each person respond to that? I think the sibling stuff is more fraught and weird than parent-child stuff. I'm a parent and I think parents will inevitably forgive and love their children and see them through anything. With siblings, I don't think you necessarily have to; it's a matter of choice. Maybe I'm wrong. Certainly the absence of their mother, Abby, speaks volumes. Look what happens when Abby and Kym are alone for five minutes. They go straight to hell.

DP; In the production notes, Jonathan says one reason he liked your script is that he didn't feel forced to like Kym, Rachel, or the other characters (which led him to cast likeable actors to balance that out). Did you want that kind of reaction from audiences?
JL: Seeing that this is my first produced screenplay, any reaction is totally amazing. I was on every character's side and thought that they all were speaking their own truths, but I didn't necessarily like them. I don't think people are likeable all the time. They are inconsistent and conflicted. In fact, I pilfered from my own friends and family and they all can be nutcases at times. It was just really important to me that nobody would be full of shit. I tried really hard not to write anyone with dishonesty.
DP: Were you on the set?
JL: No, I wasn't allowed. It would have been cool, but I had great trust in the people making the film. It worked out good.

DP: Anne, why do you think Kym became an addict?
Anne Hathaway: I think addiction is a disease and is genetic. So I can't tell you why until the day they figure out why people have this disease. But I can tell you how her problem got exacerbated. Growing up in suburban Connecticut, she was a girl who grew up in a household that was probably permissive. She saw people drinking and smoking, and occasionally smelled weed coming up from downstairs. She probably started drinking and smoking cigarettes at twelve or thirteen, and I'm sure somebody brought some weed over one time and she tried it and liked it; and maybe when she was fourteen someone had gotten some cocaine and she tried that and really liked that and wanted to do more and more and more, and it got worse. And she was modeling at the time, so she had easy access and a lot of time away from her family. She is an extreme person so she always would want to go faster and faster and faster. By the time she was sixteen and babysitting her little brother, it was a full-blown heroin addiction.
DP: Was her family a cause of it?
AH: I don't believe anyone causes addiction; it's a disease.
DP: If not the cause, do you think they impacted on it?
AH (laughing): What do you want me to say?
DP: I think the more we see the mother, the more we can tell that there is something the mother is not providing the daughter.
AH: You see how open and gregarious and loving Kym's father Paul is. I'm sure Abby was always a little held-back, but I think she probably had her wild moments, too. You'd have to ask Debra Winger about Abby, but my take on her is that after her son died, she had to distance herself from being a mother. It was just too painful. She's trying to be a mother the best she can but she's also trying to protect herself. Based on what you see in the movie, we don't know how much impact she had. I don't want to blame Kym's parents. Obviously they were a part of it because she was a kid and they were adults, but it's a complicated issue and blame doesn't do much. So it doesn't really matter to me whether the parents were part of the problem at the beginning. However, I do think it was really difficult for Kym and she blames herself so much for the death of her brother. As she was going through facilities and getting help and going to meetings and talking about it, people started asking her, "Where were your parents back then? Why were they leaving a drug addict alone with their son?" She would say, "No, no, no, you don't understand. I did this and that and this." This time it's different. The reason her coming home from rehab for the wedding is different-and the reason the story takes place at this exact moment in Kym's life-is that for the first time in her life Kym has accepted the view that "I was the one driving the car, but I wasn't the one who put myself in that position. I took the drugs, I shouldn't have taken the drugs, and I wish every day that I had not taken the drugs, but my family does have complicity in this. And I need them at some point to acknowledge that. I need to insist on that." Is that an answer?
DP: That's it.

DP: Rosemarie, when you auditioned for "Rachel Getting Married," did you do sister scenes?
Rosemarie DeWitt: I did. My first audition was on tape. I think Jonathan watched it. Then I had a five-minute meeting with him. Then we went to his apartment and he held a camera and shot Annie and me doing four or five scenes from the movie. She had been cast a year earlier but this was her first real contact with it. She was just trying on the part and was working at an exciting level right from day one. She was right on top of me. It's the best way to audition when the other person is like that.
DP: Was there an instant that day when it clicked and you understood the relationship between Rachel and Kym?
RD: Yeah. There was a moment that wasn't even in the script. We were trying to make it work with whatever we had in Jonathan's apartment. Annie was putting on a necklace and it was just the way our bodies were wrapping around each other and we were intertwined and I thought, "This feels right. This is good." This feels like she could be my sister."
DP: Rachel has a lot of anger toward Kym. But she's a happy bride and Kym is a recovering drug addict, so is she jealous of her anyway?
RD: Oh, yeah.

I guess Rachel and Kym are a great example of what I understand sibling rivalry to be, having had four half-sisters I didn't grow up with. The jealousy and rivalry is so primal, especially in the family dynamic. I'm sure jealousy factored into where she chose to excel and develop herself. "If she's the one with the beauty, I'll be the one with the brains." I was so embarrassed by how I had to tap into her jealousy and I remember really wanting to tell Jonathan that I wasn't like that. She could try to rise above it and say, "Well, it's my wedding day," but there's also the feeling that she wants to be seen. "Everyone's looking over there at Kym, but I'm the one with the white dress on!"
DP: She's jealous of the attention Kym gets, but is she also jealous that Kym seems to get away with things Rachel wouldn't dare do?
RD: Yeah. I think Rachel's jealous of all of it. Jonathan was telling a story earlier today, making fun of me, about how at the wrap party I was drinking beer and really wanted to defend myself to him, "Jonathan, I'm not Rachel!" Kym could do things to excess, but not Rachel. You can cover jealousy better when you go out in the world. Maybe in your job your coworker will get all the accolades for something you contributed to, and you'll say, "Well, I'm an adult" and keep silent. But at home you can't do it. When you walk in you may say, "I'm not going to fight with my sister," and at dinner you are screaming at each other and later nobody's speaking. They're so similar that it's painful to coexist.

DP: Jonathan, I was struck by similar elements in this film and "Ordinary People." Can you compare the mothers played by Debra Winger and Mary Tyler Moore?
Jonathan Demme: I have heard that reference once or twice, but until then it had never occurred to me. I can compare my reaction to the two mothers. I know I was very judgmental about Mary Tyler Moore's character. I think I hated her for her coldness and how oblivious she was to the pain she was causing. Therefore I thought it was an extraordinarily bold acting choice for her and for Robert Redford who cast her. That was cold, that was stark. My reaction to Debra's Abby is that I'm very moved. When she says her goodnights and can't bear to be hugged by her daughters, I feel so bad for her. Rachel has dealt with the tragedy of her brother's death by moving on, Paul has dealt with it by trying endlessly to rekindle the love and somehow make up for the pain and suffering that will never go away. For a time, Kym dealt with it by getting wasted even more than she had beforehand. Abby dealt with it by closing up and creating a simpler, streamlined life. She denies it all and it's devastating how Abby can charmingly not deal with anything. [SPOILER ALERT] It's frustrating to all of us watching the film that there is no closure because we feel we earned a rapprochement between Kym and Abby. And at the end of the movie, there's hope for everyone else--even Kym has the strength to go on-but Abby's the one who is tragic to me. Debra told me, "Jonathan, I know what it's supposed to be, but I just feel so much for Kym now that I want to..." I said, "No, now you mustn't." I think it's perceptible what Debra was dealing with when filming those scenes.[SPOILER OVER]
DP: When Kym walks into the rehab meeting, she knocks over a bunch of chairs. That made me think of Daffy Duck, particularly since I'm sure you watched the old Warner Bros. cartoons in which Bugs Bunny was already stationed within the frame but Daffy always walked into it and things went amok. You repeatedly have Kym in doorways and walking forward, so were you thinking differently in those scenes and the ones where she's already established in a room?
JD (laughing): It wasn't a conscious thing, but I love that you saw that and love that we got that. Kym does have impact whenever she walks into a room. She changes a room, because she's a hand grenade and such a pain in the butt. She IS Daffy Duck!