Dan Stevens Moves from Downton Abbey to Downtown New York

A Walk Among the Tombstones Is Playing in Theaters

Dan Stevens Moves from Downton Abbey to Downtown New York

(from Sag Harbor Express Online 9/19/14)

Dan Stevens.

It’s a big week in the makeover of Dan Stevens, who memorably played Matthew Crawley until the kind, moral and handsome aristocrat was, surprisingly, killed off onDownton Abbey in 2012.  On Wednesday there was the theatrical release of the The Guest, in which Stevens plays a creepy, dangerous villain who terrorizes a military family, and beginning Friday, viewers can see the British actor play a Brooklyn drug dealer in the brutal thriller A Walk Among the Tombstones.  This time he’s in support of Liam Neeson as Lawrence Block’s troubled unlicensed private detective Matthew Scudder.  For the Australian magazine FilmInk, I visited the set last summer when director-writer Scott Frank was filming in the city and did the following interview with Stevens.

Danny Peary: Did you have sympathetic feedback after leaving Downton Abbey?

Dan Stevens: Generally, I did. I think that there were a lot of fans who were upset, but I guess that speaks well for the character.

DP: How long before you left did you tell people you were leaving?

DS: Well, I couldn’t really tell anybody.

DP: I mean on set.

DS: Oh, they knew eight months in advance. They had plenty of time to adjust.

DP: Was it a big decision?

DS: Of course, yeah. It was a huge decision.

DP: Did it have to do with wanting to go to America?

DS: No, not specifically. I felt it was time to be going and I think it’s healthy to follow your instinct.

DP: Who do you play Walk Among the Tombstones?

DS: I play Kenny Kristo. He’s a Brooklyn drug trafficker.  I think he’s Lebanese in the book, but they changed that for the movie. He’s also a lot older. His wife is kidnapped. Because he’s a drug trafficker, he can’t pursue the kidnappers via the usual avenues. He has a brother, Peter, who is an addict and through AA knows Liam’s character, Matt Scudder, a retired cop who is a private detective and recovering alcoholic. So it’s a complex web.

DP: Does your character hire Scudder to solve the case and disappear or does he continue through the film?

DS: He comes back into it and gets involved. From my character’s perspective, it’s a pretty classic revenge trajectory.  His wife is killed early on and he really wants to get these guys. He’s really upset about what happened to her. She was killed because he won’t pay the ransom. You get the sense that they were going to kill her anyway, but they tried to get some money from him first and he tried to haggle with them a bit. He feels a huge amount of remorse about that.  We discover they’re serial killers. It’s not just a one-off that they’ve done, they’ll do this again.  I think his wife was their first but they are specifically targeting drug traffickers because they know they have money and can’t go to the cops. Which is pretty smart. But they’ve got Scudder on their tail! There’s a huge, pretty dark confrontation over a lot of things.

DP: Does your character have any thematic relevance?

DS: With my character, it’s about the choices one makes in life. Had he not decided to be a drug trafficker, his wife would have been safe. I think Matt Scudder is also faced with such quandaries, about the choices one makes in life.

DP: How much does your character interact with Scudder?

DS: Quite a lot. That’s been fun, Liam’s great. Kenny speaks to Scudder a lot on the phone through the movie but toward the end, he’s like Scudder’s sidekick.  He comes along with him. It’s this real motley crew tracking down these killers. It’s a very unconventional bunch, which is fun to see.

DP: Why did you choose to play such a character? I don’t think anybody would say, “There’s a drug dealer in this script, so let’s cast Dan Stevens.” [Similarly, it's surprising anyone would think to cast Stevens as the killer in The Guest.]

DS: No, but that’s what’s exciting. The exciting thing for an actor is to have someone like Scott Frank say, “I think you can do this!”

DP: When you read the script, what were your reactions?

DS: It was a real page-turner, like the book. There are some scripts you read and they resist you in some way, and that can be good sometimes–a challenging read can be good, because you’re part of it. Some scripts, don’t quite hold together. With this script, I wanted to get there, I wanted to see what happened next. It really kept me reading, and my character is so interesting. He’s not clear-cut. Like you say, no one’s expecting to see me play this, so I think, “So why does Scott want me to play this? What is it that he sees in the character, that he sees in me?”

DP: Did you ever come up with an answer?

DS: I guess he thought of me because he needed to find some sympathy for a character who you may not ordinarily fell sympathy for in a movie like this. Initially, it’s easy to resist feeling anything for him.  But then you suddenly see it from his perspective and you think that whatever he does for a living, what happened to his wife is pretty nasty.

DP: Did you audition?

DS: No, we just had a chat about it. I was interested because I’m a huge fan of similar kinds of movies.  We had a huge conversation about Dog Day Afternoon, Dirty Harry,  the ‘70s genre, very character-heavy.  I grew up watching those films. Scott’s very smart writer and when this genre is done well, when it’s really nailed, it’s great! For me, it was a very exciting opportunity.

DP: Before the film started, did you all sit around the table and read the script?

DS: There wasn’t a cast read-through, but I sat with Scott a lot, and we talked again a lot.

I didn’t know him before, but I’d seen The Lookout, and I’d seen Out of It and I loved that. He did a similar thing in that movie, no one’s expecting to see. We have these conversations which honestly consist of talking about other movies. So you have a shared vocabulary and we definitely had that from the beginning.

DP: And did that continue while making the film?

DS: Definitely. Our dialogue was very on-going, and I trust it’s going to shape the narrative very, very much. We don’t have to put what we’re thinking into full sentences.  He can just say, “That bit in Dirty Harry,” and I can say, “I know what you mean” and we’ll do the scene again, and it’ll be better. That’s a great relationship to have.

DP: So making this, is it an “I’m-making-a-movie”adrenaline rush!

DS: Not really, but I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to be doing. It’s very much the same as working on other sets. I’ve done a lot of TV back home in addition to Downton Abbey. There are good sets, bad sets.  This happens to be a good one. The adrenaline, it’s always there.

DP: Where does this film fit into what you want to be doing as an actor? Is it an oddity?

DS: I hope it’s not an oddity, and with all the work I do, I hope it’s part of a progression. It’s an exciting new category.  I’d love to do more movies like this.

Erin Darke Brightens the Set of "Seven Lovers"

Set visit

Erin Darke Brightens the Set of Seven Lovers

(from the Sag Harbor Express 8/7/14)

Erin Darke and director Keith Boynton, left, on the set of “Seven Lovers.”

By Danny Peary

I recently spent an enjoyable afternoon in Little Italy, in the basement party room of the restaurant Grotta Azzurra.  I wasn’t there to dine but to watch the final day of shooting of the indie Seven Lovers, the much-anticipated third feature of  writer-director Keith Boynton, and to speak to the leading lady and rising star, Erin Darke.  Last year in the acclaimed Kill Your Darlings, Darke made a big impression in the small role of the sexually-forward librarian, Gwendolyn, who has an odd, memorable encounter with the 100% gay Allen Ginsburg (played by her current boyfriend, Daniel Radcliffe.)  Darke’s screen time was too brief in Darlings, but as Laura in Seven Lovers, she is in almost every scene.  Having read the script, I know Laura is a difficult part to play, even to get one’s bearings. Boynton (the sleeper Chasing Home, the sci-fi thriller The Now, and numerous music videos, including a super current one for Alison Krauss’s “End of a Summer Storm”) can be counted on for innovation and his new film jumps back and forth between seven storylines, past and present–one for each lover of his troubled protagonist Laura—and is shot in seven different styles.  One storyline is animated. The scene I witnessed on the cramped set was in  black-and-white, like from an atmospheric forties movie.  At a dinner table, the elegantly-dressed Laura has her heart broken by the first of her seven screen lovers, Dan, when he informs her that he is married. Boynton shot the scene from different angles and each time the young actress reacted as if she were hearing Dan’s brutal words for the first time. Even the crew looked increasingly sad. Afterward, Darke brushed away the tears, slipped into something more comfortable, and was in a cheery mood as we sat outside on Mulberry Street and had this conversation.

Danny Peary: You’re from Flint, Michigan, like Michael Moore. Are you the only two from there in motion pictures?

Erin Darke: There’s one other, Evan Peters of American Horror Story, who’s from Grand Blanc, about ten minutes away.  I think we’re the three! He’s a couple of years younger than me and I don’t remember meeting him but it’s very possible we took classes together at the Flint Youth Theatre, where we both went.  They did shows and had classes and for Michigan, it was an amazing educational environment for a kid.

DP: I read that you were in a Christmas show, “Visions of Sugarplums.”

ED: Yeah, it was a blacklight Christmas show that–secretly–I think they may have ripped off from The Black Light Theatre in Prague.  Because I went to Prague later and saw one of their shows and was thinking, “Wait, this is weirdly similar.” We were all dressed in black and carrying brightly-colored props.  I had no lines so it’s still crazy when I think about it but that was when I decided I wanted to be an actor!

DP: Why do you think that was?

ED: I think for me at a young age, it was the magic of creating something and the interaction that you have with an audience.  You spend a great deal of time creating something and then you get to share it–so the audience becomes part of your performance, influencing your reactions and your energy. I often remember how the Youth Theatre was such a nurturing environment and made art and the creative process seem so cool, so warm, and so welcoming.

DP: Did you need that?

ED: I went to small private schools growing up, and then I was home-schooled from seventh grade on, so doing theater was sort of my social life as a teenager–that’s where most of my friends were. The kids there were all very creative and artistic and it was the first time I ever met gay people my age who were out and comfortable with themselves. There was something just so magical about all of that.

DP: In anyone else in your family in the theater?

ED: My dad’s a computer programmer, my mom is a nurse, and my brother works for an insurance company. There’s nothing artistic about what they do. I’m a bit of an anomaly in my family. They don’t really understand what I do or why I do it, but they’ve always been incredibly supportive.  My dad is a big kid, which makes him awesome as a dad.  He just loves the Three Stooges and Weird Al, whom I saw in concert like three times because my dad was such a fan when I was growing up.   My mother was very into the arts and she had let me try every sort of fine arts/ music/performing class growing up. I don’t know if I would be where I am now if she hadn’t always stressed the importance of creativity in life.

DP: What path did you take to become a professional actress?

ED: I went to the University of Michigan, the Flint campus. I was sixteen when I started there and it was very personal and exactly what I needed.  It certainly wouldn’t mean a lot in the movie industry, but I received a great education.  I moved to New York from Michigan and I was doing off-off Broadway plays that nobody went to for a really long time, and couldn’t figure out how to get to the next level.  I was making a living bartending and waiting tables for lots of years. Then I took an internship at a casting office, Chrystie Street Casting, to learn about the other side of the business.  They were like, “Hey, you’re great at this,” and after about six months I was working full-time for them as an assistant in casting. For a couple of directors, Lynne Ramsay and Jason Reitman, I was the reader for all of their auditions, and they were like, “I’m going to put you in my film.” That’s how I got my first couple of small roles in good big films.

Erin Darke

DP: You got cast in films through your own casting agency?

ED: Yeah, like We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lynne’s film.That was the first job I did on a film. I was doing the reading for all the auditions when Lynne put me in her film as Tilda Swinton’s assistant. I think I ended up with only one line in the film, although I had a few lines when we filmed.

DP: And what about Jason Reitman’s Young Adult, another super indie film you were in?

ED: Yeah, that was another one.  I read Charlize Theron’s part at all of the auditions during casting, which was an incredible amount of fun.  I’d been a huge fan of Jason’s so it was very exciting to be in it. It was a great movie.  I’ve been listed as being in Wolverine, but I’m not. It’s horrible that I still haven’t watched it because we spent such a long time casting it.

DP: Has acting in movies always been what you wanted to do?

ED:  Film is my dream job. I have loved film since I was a twelve-year obsessively reading Entertainment Weeklycover-to-cover in Michigan, and I’ve been lucky the last few years, since I got an agent, to get to do a lot of amazing film work.  Most is not out yet, including a film I shot last summer called Love and Mercy, a biopic of Brian Wilson in which I play his first wife. So I’ve had small parts in big movies and bigger parts in small movies for the last three or four years.

DP: The movie where you caught everyone’s attention in a minor part was Kill Your Darlings, as Gwendolyn. How were you cast?

ED: I had gotten an agent and was auditioning at other casting offices as well as Chrystie Street Casting at that point. For Kill Your Darlings I got cast off tape through Laura Rosenthal Casting.  I always like to mention the casting director because it’s such an important yet undervalued and rarely acknowledged job in the industry.  I loved working on that film.  And I loved the director, John Krokidas.

DP: What do you remember most about working with him?

ED: The first time I met John was when I went in for a costume fitting. I didn’t have a huge part in the film and I was, admittedly, a bit intimidated by the actors involved, but John immediately made me feel like a part of the cast. John is a wonderful director to work with because he loves actors. He gives you a lot of room to play and find things in the scenes, but you always know he has a vision and there is that safety net there. John is also so excited and passionate about his work that when working with him it’s impossible not to feel the same.

DP: He cast a number of actors who were on the cusp of moving forward in their movie careers. That included you and Daniel Radcliffe, who was a surprising choice to play Allen Ginsburg and turned out to be perfect in the part.

ED: Yeah, he was wonderful.  The whole cast was so talented and incredibly kind and welcoming.

DP: So where does Seven Lovers fit in for you? What are you looking for at this point?

ED: This is my first lead in a feature.  Obviously I was looking for the challenge more than anything.  Laura is in every scene but the animated sequence and one other scene, in which a man she’s interested in, Brian, does a video monologue that he will send to her. That monologue was filmed on the one day during the shoot where I got to leave early and go to an audition.  I obviously always want to work [and don't like turning down roles], but I loved Keith’s script and wanted to do it.  I thought it was really cool and unlike anything I’d ever read before.  Considering how much I read, it’s an increasingly rare feeling I get when something original. Obviously I was coming at it from an actor’s standpoint, thinking this would be unbelievable to play because I’d get to do so many different things in so many different worlds and styles. As an actor I was drawn to that. That was initially what I thought of.

DP: Did Daniel Radcliffe read the script?

ED: He didn’t read the script but he later ran lines with me, not chronologically but in the order of our shooting. So for him, Seven Lovers is this weird Memento-esque movie. He’s still trying to piece together all the storylines.

DP: Did you have to read the script a second time?

ED: The animation part, yes. I read it the first time initially before I auditioned but it’s different reading the script for an audition than reading it when I have the part. I have to really figure out what’s happening and justify it.

DP: When you read it, did you have an emotional response?  Did you think you could relate to what your character, Laura, experiences?

ED: I think everybody who’s had their heart broken for the first time can relate. For me it certainly wasn’t because of a married guy, but it’s that same general feeling. It’s the loss of innocence in a relationship, when you trust something so much and then you discover that you had no idea and have the feeling of being totally blindsided. It’s only once in your life when that happens, when you’re in a place of complete innocence and there is no guard up and the rug is pulled out from underneath you. I think I found the script weirdly relatable. I’m in a place at the moment where I’m in a happy relationship and my life has gone past where Laura’s is in the scene we’re filming today, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t so many moments and feelings that I can relate to.

DP: I read an early version of Keith Boynton’s script, and I thought it was essential for people to fall in love with Laura, as much as he does.  Reading the script, did you fall in love with her, or did you think you had to do something extra to make people fall in love with her?

ED: I try really hard to not get attached to parts you audition for because if I don’t get them it’s a really heart-breaking experience. But I fell in love with Laura.  Obviously there are some storylines of Laura’s life that I love more than other storylines, but I think all seven storylines show the process of growing up and being in relationships.  I’m sure if I looked back at myself at various times in my life, I’d think, “Oh, gosh, you should have stood up for yourself a bit more there, honey.” So I think I was immediately drawn to the different people Laura is as she’s grows up and learns about herself.  Also I was drawn to the way Keith’s different visual styles for each storyline support that. I feel there’s a strong correlation between the visual style of each one and where Laura is in her life.

DP: How does the animated sequence fit in?

ED: I feel like the animated story reveals Laura’s general relationship with herself and her viewpoint on men during that whole time.  It’s in a different world and isn’t a specific relationship in Laura’s life, but I think it’s part of the process most women go through in their search for men. As a young girl, I know there’d be the good guy there, and I’d not be interested and go for the bad guy.  It’s not until you’ve been fucked over a little bit that you’re able to recognize the beauty of what it is to have someone who just is nice to you and makes you feel good. Nice is incredibly underrated.

DP: Were you aware that the scene you shot today of the married Dan [Max von Essen] revealing his secret marriage to Laura is in black and white?

ED: I rarely look at the monitor and forget sometimes it’s in black and white. We were filming a lot of stuff at the nightclub yesterday, and  it was also all in black and white. Max was dancing and I was supposed to be there for his eye line. But I kept staring at the monitor and being distracted and mesmerized by how beautiful it was.  Then I’d look back at Max and say, “Sorry!”

DP: How long is the time frame in the film?

ED: I think it takes place over about two years, though it’s never specified how long Laura and Dan were together, or how long her relationship was with Karl, the stalker.  The scenes in the present take place about a year after she breaks up with Karl. Chronologically, Dan is the first lover, then the Stranger is her rebound after the Dan breakup we shot today, and then comes Karl, followed by Dominic the artist. You don’t see Dominic, just his sketches. And Ian, who is British, and Brian are sort of around at the same time and overlap.

DP: Brian and Ian both seem like nice-guy suitors. How are they different?

ED: I think everybody makes a list of the things they think they want in another person. Ian is very much that idealized person, fitting all of those things you might write down.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s the right person for you.  I think the beautiful thing about Brian is that he probably doesn’t fit half of Laura’s paper list, but when she’s with him she just feels good and there’s a connection.

DP: Could she have been with Brian two years before?

ED: I don’t think so–no!

DP: Since the film jumps around in time and with characters, is there a turning point in the script, for you?

ED: I think the turning point is when Laura makes a video diary for Brian and recounts everything that happened to her. I don’t think she was in denial before, but when you’ve had a really traumatic experience in your life as she has, there finally comes a moment when you are able to talk about it.  I think for a long time you talk about it from a deeply emotional place and you can share it only with your closest friends, but the moment that you can take ownership of it from a calm and collected place is when you know you’re going to be okay.  It’s a big moment. I know for Laura it is. The decision by her to share her story with Brian, whom she hasn’t known for a very long time, is pivotal.  Because she obviously has trust issues after Dan reveals he’s married and Karl turns out to be a stalker. She could never reveal her story to Dominic and that was why their relationship ended, despite the fact that he was a good guy. So her forcing herself to do this really uncomfortable thing, making the video for Brian, and really put herself out there when there’s no guarantee he won’t say, “You’re crazy!” is a very big risk.

DP: Do you think that by this time she’s stronger than ever before?

ED: I absolutely think she becomes stronger.  And I think she has become more comfortable with herself and with acknowledging what actually makes her happy.

DP: Could Erin hang out with Laura?

ED: Yeah! I have to say that now there is so much of me in her.

DP: When I read the script I thought what it needed most was the injection of a strong actress.

ED: Yeah, and I hope I’ve done that. I had an interesting conversation with Keith before we started filming.  He and I got coffee and I said, “I want to talk to you about the differences in Laura there are in all of the storylines.  He said, “I wanted to talk to you about what’s the same with her in all the storylines.” Since I am playing her in all the storylines, parts of my personality will automatically be in there, so there will be similarities whether or not I try to inject them.  That’s why it’s more interesting to me to figure out the differences and the changes and the growth.

DP: Do you sing in this movie, at the club?

ED: I do. It was terrifying. I don’t consider myself a singer; I love to sing but I don’t consider myself particularly good at it. And Laura’s supposed to be a real singer. Luckily we recorded all the songs in pre-production and for a nice week and a half I just got to concentrate on that. So yesterday it was just my singing along to playback. It’s very jazzy and cool and so much fun to film. It was like a childhood dream that I didn’t realize I had that came to fruition. But I find the act of singing in front of people so terrifying.

DP: And liberating?

ED: And liberating, yeah. It  was liberating yesterday to hear my tracks and think, “Hey,  these don’t sound horrible, so I can just have fun with this now.” That was definitely a nice feeling.

DP: I know auditions for this film took place not very long ago, so I’m amazed this is the last day of shooting.  Did you know that the shoot was going to be so quick?

ED: It has definitely been a quick shoot, but it has never felt rushed. It ended up being fortunate that some of the storylines, like the one today with Laura and Dan, are being filmed with just one set-up, because you can cover so much more material in a day when you don’t have a thousand set-ups. On some days we did fifteen pages of dialogue in one day, which was mad and crazy, particularly because almost nothing was chronological. But we had to.

DP: I would think the dialogue had to be easy to deliver for you to be able to film that many pages.

ED: When I first read the script, my favorite thing was that Keith’s dialogue was so well-written. It’s so natural, it was so easy.  I always know that when it’s easy to memorize for the auditions, it’s good dialogue. I did a couple of scenes for the audition.  One of them was the scene where Laura gives Brian her video diary, telling him she did something weird. The other was a scene with Laura and her best friend Tess, when they see Ian at the coffee shop. I also read Tess’s part in the coffee shop scene.

DP: Since the movie is about Laura and her male lovers, was it a nice change to play scenes with another actress?

ED:  Gia Crovatin, who’s playing Tess, and I were secretly soul mates.  Within the first hour of her being on set, we were making all the same horrible jokes and singing all the same terrible nineties songs.  We were saying, “I think we have to be friends.”

DP: Keith Boynton himself is an actor, so was that apparent in how he directed you?

ED: Honestly, I didn’t really know that Keith was an actor until halfway through the shoot. I wouldn’t have guessed. He talks like a director and had such a thought-out vision of the film and was very specific about what he wanted in every area of the production. I was doing a lot of things in this film that aren’t really in my comfort zone and, with such an ambitious script, that sort of specificity was very comforting. It is so much easier to just jump and throw yourself into it when you know that the person leading you has it all mapped out. Keith is also just fun to work with; it was a fun set, we laughed a lot. It was one of those projects that remind me that, even on rough and crazy days, making movies can be the best job in the world. I think we all felt pretty lucky to be a part of it.

DP: What did you get from being in this film?

ED: For me, it was a great learning experience being here every day, and I’m realizing how much I love working with a group of complete strangers and creating something together.  Again, it has reminded me about how much and why I love film. Keith and the crew were amazing and all the other actors were so wonderful…I’m really sad that it’s over.

Emily Browning Helps "God Help the Girl"

Playing in Theaters

Emily Browning Helps God Help the Girl

(from Sag Harbor Express Online 9/4/14)

(Left to right) Olly Alexander, Emily Browning and Hannah Murray.

By Danny Peary

God Help the Girl fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor.  In fact, the debut feature by Stuart Murdoch, lead singer of the Scottish cult band Belle & Sebastian, would surely attract young people to the Bay Street Theater for a change.  Meanwhile, people of all ages can see it beginning Friday in Manhattan, where it opens at the Village East at 189 2nd Ave and 12th Street, and in L.A.  It also has its DVD release that day. It’s the kind of musical where singers burst into song and dance even when they’re not performing.  If you like Murdoch’s songs–which were introduced by singers he recruited for a 2009 “God Help the Girl” album and tour–and cheery performances, as I do, Glasgow, and the candy-colored cinematography, then you might agree the film can be infectious. From the Press Notes: “When we first meet [Australian] Eve (Australian Emily Browning, from Sucker Punch and the scandalous Sleeping Beauty), she is in a bad place, fighting depression, not eating, and a long way from home.  In the hospital she begins to write; songs begin to materialize, and they become her purpose, a path forward.  James (Olly Anderson, from The Dish and the Spoon and Le Week-End) and his music student Cassie (Hannah Murray, from Skins and Game of Thrones) are English emigrants at a crossroads of their own.  James hasn’t found the right collaborators and Cassie is only beginning to stir, feeling the first inklings to write, play, and sing.  The three ex-pats converge and form a friendship through music.  With James as guide, they tour the town.  Songs continue to pour out of Eve, and the three become serious about playing together.  The question is: will music be enough to pull Eve through?  Will she sink or emerge as the singing, songwriting leader of their honest to goodness new band?”  And what will happen to them if they find success?

Emily Browning.

Last week, I did this brief interview with Browning about what she claims is the favorite film of her career.

Danny Peary: How often do you go back to Australia?

Emily Browning: Not as much as I would like to.  I live in L.A. and I get to go back only about one month every year, over Christmas. I’m from Melbourne and miss it a lot so I would like to work there more.  There just haven’t been that many opportunities recently.

DP: I was surprised to learn that not only do you know the movie Band of Outsiders [1964] but even know the French title, Bande à Part.  Not too many young actresses speak about Godard classics, so obviously you watch old movies.

EB: Yeah, I went through a big phase.  It began from a very shallow place.  I didn’t go to film school so it didn’t start there but from an obsession I had with Jean Seberg. I was like, “I have to see all her movies!” And then I moved on to Anna Karina [the star of Band of Outsiders].

DP: In your noncomedies, you’ve played women who are trapped or passive, and there has been an escape theme–Sleeping Beauty, Sucker Punch, now God Help the Girl, and soon, Shangri-La Suite, in which you play at least your third character who breaks out of a mental hospital.

EB: That’s right! But I don’t think I specifically seek out these roles.  I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to try and pigeon-hole yourself, but there are certain characters that I connect to, I suppose.  Also there are also a lot of films that I want to be a part of that I am not able to be a part of because someone else has been chosen for them. I guess it’s what people see in me, as well.  I read a script and I connect to a character and I guess I generally gravitate toward girls and women who seem like real people, and Eve seems like a real person to me.  I like that she’s kind of selfish and awful sometimes!

DP:  I was looking at the production notes in which your producer, Barry Mendel says, “I’m not expecting people to get it right away. Too many layers of subtlety are packed densely into the lyrics and songs which fly by… Hopefully it’ll be appreciated in a way that’s satisfying in ten years.” I’m sure you hope that there is a feel to the movie and to the music and lyrics that will make people relate to the film right now.

EB: I remember Stuart and Barry both saying, “We don’t care what people think about the movie today! It’ll be a cult film in ten years!” But it seemed sort of like a self-preservation technique. I’m like, “Well, it’d be nice if people liked itnow, too.”  That would be great.

DP: You don’t want to wait ten years.

EB: To be honest, I actually don’t care. It got reviewed badly in Scotland. Normally something like that would bother me, but with this film, I don’t really give a shit what people think.  I love it. And it has never happened to me before where I’ve genuinely loved a film that I’ve made and I want to keep watching it, which is really strange and not something I would normally say.  But it was such a perfect experience making it, and no one can touch that.

DP: While making certain films, actors say, “This is what filmmaking should be all about, every film should be made in this same way.”

EB: Yeah, it didn’t feel like we were making a film, really–it felt like summer camp. There was so much creative freedom. The fact that it was rushed and that we didn’t have much money just made it better in a strange way. It was like, “Quick, we have to run over to the other side of town before the sun sets!”  It’s kind of amazing to do that, it’s when you feel that you’re really lucky to be doing the job that you’re doing.

DP: Did everybody have to get along for this movie to work?

EB: I’m not sure. I generally get along with people and haven’t had many experiences where I don’t like the people I’m working with. But I’ve worked with a couple of people I wasn’t very fond of, and found you can always make it work, I think. People say you can’t fake chemistry but I think you can to a certain degree.

DP: Yes, but this movie is kind of infectious, and that comes from the actors as much as the material.  If it turned out you hated each other, I’d be shocked.

EB: Right, yeah, I think there is a special kind of energy that comes from the fact that we all really loved each other.  We still do. I’m going to be ridiculously sad tomorrow because it’s the last thing we’ll get to do together, and that’s a bummer. We were all really on the same page. Hannah and I knew each other before, actually, but she and Olly met me on the train to Glasgow, and we realized very quickly that we were all just as nervous and just as excited as one another because we were all huge Belle & Sebastian fans. I think it really helped that we all understood that world already, because it’s such a specific aesthetic that Stuart has created just with the album covers.  It’s a very specific kind of world and I think we all got it straight away.

DP:  What about his lyrics?  Obviously the title song has relevance to Eve, but what about the other songs? Were you thinking that Eve’s singing autobiographical songs?

EB: Yeah, I think so.  There’s a moment where she’s in bed with Anton [Pierre Boulanger as the rock singer she is attracted to] and he admits that he didn’t give her tape to the radio producers because he thinks her songs are baby songs and stupid.  What I love about some Belle & Sebastian songs and some of the songs in the film as well is that on the surface they might seem to be just cute little pop tunes, but if you pay attention to the lyrics, you’ll find that sometimes they’re dark and sad. It made sense to me.

DP: On the title track, which has such funny lyrics as “I love my room,” Eve is singing happily but if you listen closely she’s sad and lonely.

EB: I think Stuart writes from a female perspective really, really well. She’s talking about this boy in the song, and then she’s like, “Please, stop me there, I’m even boring myself. Stop it, you’re smarter than that.”  I get that kind of struggle.

DP: Did you ever talk to Catherine Ireton about the role, because she sang Eve’s part on the “God Help the Girl” album and on the tour?

EB: No, I’ve never met her.  I’d like to but I think I would have been too nervous at the time because her voice is so beautiful.  Once I got the part I tried to ignore the album she was on and pretend that I was doing it the first time myself.

SPOILER ALERT

DP: Stuart loves the movie Stolen Kisses, by Godard’s contemporary, François Truffaut.  He says it’s one of his benchmark movies.  In that film, at the time one person loves a second person the second person loves someone else but when that second person finally comes around, the first person’s attentions are on a new person. Love is never in synch. In this film, James is attracted to Eve while she is attracted to Anton. Is there ever a time when Eve and Ollie could connect as a couple?

EB: I don’t know if James could really handle Eve, to be honest. But there’s a moment when she says, “The time for this was ages ago,” and he says, “Maybe I didn’t fancy you then,” and she’s like, “Yes, you did.”

SPOILER ALERT END

DP: I believe Eve followed some musician from Australia to Scotland, as a groupie, and he dumped her.  Is that why she’s hospitalized and devastated when we meet her?

EB: No, I don’t think so. To be honest, my idea of Eve is that boys kind of will come and go but she’s not the kind of girl that’s pinning her hopes on anyone else.  I think she’s got her own struggle and I don’t think it’s a big thing if that happened! It’s just her personality type. I guess it’s just mental illness to a mild degree.

DP: Music is what saves her. Her writing it and performing it.

EB: I think that’s what it does. But I think there are people who think too much, and analyze everything.  I think she’s one of those people who is never going to feel settled or comfortable in their own skin.  I think the music is where she finds peace. I don’t think anyone around her affects her as much.  I think she’s self-absorbed in a way that a lot of people are, in a way that I totally understand being an actor. Bad things happen, good things happen, but at the end of the day you’re left with yourself–you’re your own biggest enemy.

DP: Her name is Eve, so do you think that’s because the film has a rebirth theme?

EB: I’ve never thought of that before…I don’t know.  Perhaps!

DP: I watched an interview you did to promote Sleeping Beauty in which you said you’re not adventurous in the real world so you try to be adventurous in your movie choices.

EB: I remember that!

DP: Was making God Help the Girl adventurous enough?

EB: Definitely.  Making a musical was a big challenge for me, and also there was so much improvisation, and that was something I’ve never really done before. I think that this might be my favorite film so far. This one and Sleeping Beauty are really my two favorites, and I like that they’re so different from each other.

DP: Where does this film fit into your master plan?

EB: I don’t have a master plan, I just kind of look for things that I’ll love. I get bored really easily and have a short attention span, so I just want to do films that will interest me…and keep me excited.

John Lithgow on Love Is Strange

Playing in Theaters

John Lithgow on Love Is Strange

(from Sag Harbor Express Online 8/21/14)

Love Is Strange fits my category Movies That Should Play in Sag Harbor.  Ira Sachs’ moving character piece opens this Friday in New York and L.A., and will expand to Long Island theaters on September 19. Sachs wrote the script with Mauricio Zacharias, his collaborator on his previous, semiautobiographical film, Keep the Lights On. That 2012 drama was about the (doomed) relationship of two young men; in this film, the gay couple, Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) has been together almost forty years and when we meet them their life is blissful.  The 48-year-old Sachs, who married painter Ben Torres in 2011, says, “I wanted to make a film about love from the very particular perspective of my own age and experience–as someone…who could for the first time imagine a long love that becomes more beautiful with time.  I was interested in exploring the different perspective each of us has at different periods of our lives: as an adolescent, in middle age and in the later chapters.  I wanted to imagine my own relationship, my young marriage, might look like in the years down the road.”  Paraphrasing the Logline: “Ben and George take advantage of New York’s new marriage laws and tie the knot after being together for 39 years.  Unfortunately, the Catholic school where George teaches does not approve and he is fired, forcing them to split up while they sell their apartment and look for cheaper housing.  George crashes with gay police officers Ted and Roberto [Cheyenne Jackson and Manny Perez], while Ben, who’s a painter,  moves in with his nephew Elliott [Darren Burrows, Sachs' Forty Shades of Blue], and his writer wife Kate [Marisa Tomei], and bunks with their teenage son Joey [Charlie Tahan]–a temporary situation that weighs heavily on all involved.”  On Monday I did the following interview with John Lithgow, fresh from performing King Lear at the Public Theater, about his new movie and a character unlike any he has played in his long and prolific screen career.  Our connection is that he had written a chapter about his childhood baseball hero, the tall and muscular Ted Kluszewski, for my 1990 anthology, Cult Baseball Players. (I had the misfortune of informing him that Big Klu had recently passed away!)  We spoke on the phone back then, but I was very happy to finally meet him in person.

Danny Peary: How does the title Love Is Strange apply to this movie?

John Lithgow: I think that to Ira, the film says that love is strange in all sorts of ways, including miraculous ways. I’ll tell you a little bit about the title. When Fred and I sing together at the gathering early in the movie, originally we, as George and Ben, were supposed to sing, “Love is Strange.”

DP: The fifties hit by Mickey and Sylvia?

JL: Yep, yep. [Lithgow hums and then we both sing!] It’s a great song, it would have been terrific. But when they went to discuss the royalties, they were told they could either have the song or they could have the title. I don’t know why but they couldn’t have both. Ira had fallen in love with that title, so they chose to keep it and picked a different song for us, “You’ve Got What it Takes,” which is better for that scene anyway.

DP: Because marriage has been legalized in New York only recently, this film actually couldn’t have been made a few years ago.

JL: No, I think not. The ignition switch for the whole story is a gay marriage, and they didn’t exist five years ago.

DP: It’s a modern story, yet it’s kind of old-fashioned.

JL: That’s the lovely thing about the film.  Same-sex marriage/marriage equality/gay marriage is a hot-button issue of our time and the legal questions have been on front pages of every newspaper, but this movie gives it a human face. It’s about two old gay men, who finally are allowed to get married. You don’t see those people very often. Now you have Ben and George and you see a wonderful and detailed portrait of a long, long relationship between two men.

DP: In the opening scene, we see they’ve settled into a sweet routine. We’re seeing them at their best, they’re almost the perfect couple at this point. Do you see them as having had rocky times in their forty years?

JL: I think you can’t have a forty-year relationship without going over a few speed bumps. And a lovely scene toward the end acknowledges that things have not always been easy for them. My parents were married 64 years when my dad died, and goodness knows they had some horrendous times. But they survived into their eighties together and had each other’s companionship at the end, and that’s an incredibly precious thing.

DP: Does getting married make a real difference to Ben and George, do you think? It could be that they’re thinking, “We’ve withstood forty years of up and downs, so this will be our present to ourselves for that.”

JL: I don’t know.  I’m sure it varies case by case. I always saw Ben and George as having lived together through forty years of gay history. They’ve seen the scourge of AIDS, and probably lost a hundred friends to that, they have seen the gradual three-steps-forward, two-steps-back process of achieving some sort of equality and emerging from second-class citizen status. The thing is, in all these years they’ve accepted the trade-off. They have somehow survived. And to them, the right and opportunity to get married is kind of a happy surprise. We can do it now, let’s do it! To me, that’s very touching. They don’t really need to, but they want to now. It has an importance, just because it’s been denied to them for so long.

DP: George says he feels guilty about getting them into a bad living situation because he got fired for having married. Does Ben secretly blame him, too?

JL: No, I don’t think so. I think they’re quite honest with each other and Ben says, No, we did this together. Why feel guilty about it? One of the things that really resonated with me when I first read the script was that their relationship seemed so real and so honest. It was so full of little ticks and quirks and irritants and discord along with the devotion and a really seasoned love. It just seemed very rich and true to a long-term relationship. You know, it’s not a highly dramatic movie. It’s a really simple story.

DP: I read in the press notes that Ira Sachs and his co-screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias were influenced by the Japanese postwar films–I’m sure Ozu’s movies–and French neorealism. Small films about family relationships. I hadn’t thought of foreign films as inspiration; the movie I thought of right off was Leo McCarey’s great 1937 filmMake Way for Tomorrow, in which an elderly, destitute married couple is separated and shuttled off to various family members.

JL: People have brought up that movie. I want to see it, I have to see it.

DP: The couple was played by Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore, two character actors who got rare leads in that movie. You and Alfred Molina have played leads in the theater but this was a rare chance to play movie leads. Was that exciting for you?

JL: Oh, it’s been very exciting. Fred and I are both excited.  I read the script and I thought, this is going to work perfectly. The two of us are perfect to cast together, and it was just heaven working with him.

DP: You’ve known him for years, so was working with him what you expected?

JL: Pretty much what I expected. He seemed so completely unselfconscious, free, and available emotionally. Fred loves work and he’s got both a wonderful sense of the seriousness of the work and also the playfulness of it.  He’s just a wonderful man.

DP: While George stays with two gay cops who throw parties every night, Ben moves in with his adult nephew Elliott, his writer wife Kate, and their teenage son, Joey.  And things get tense in the apartment.  Do you think their issues are already there and percolating or does Ben’s presence cause issues?

JL: Oh I think they’re already there.  A family unit has its own curious rules. Sometimes they’re dysfunctional rules, and sometimes they’re good healthy rules, but whichever they are, if you add another element, everything is thrown into disarray.  Uncle Ben is an imposition.  It’s the classic case of a guest hanging around too long.

DP: Talk about that terrific scene with you and Marisa Tomei, in which Kate is trying to write and Ben continues to talk to her, assuming she’s stimulated by the conversation rather than being annoyed by him.

JL: That a great scene. Perfect, perfectly written, with the structure of a wonderful comedy scene. I couldn’t wait to act it with Marisa, who is very crafty with great, smart-actress instincts.  I love that Ben as a character is very appealing and unwittingly annoying at the same time. He has a fascinating duality, and he’s quite unconscious of the fact that he’s imposing on people. Don’t we all know those people?  Who knows, maybe I’m that person myself.

DP: What’s also interesting about their conversation is the staging of it.  You’re not looking over her shoulder or even standing close to her–you’re at the other side of the frame.

JL: It was initially staged with both of us sitting on the couch.  But we were restless about it and it evolved in several ways until we had that set up. Ira is very open to just loosely let things settle into their proper places.

DP: Kate becomes more and more hostile, to Ben and also to Elliott and to Joey.  Maybe she doesn’t like Ben being able to see that life is imperfect in her home. She come across negatively, but from your point of view, is her reaction reasonable?

JL: Yeah, I think so.   There is a key, lovely, revealing little sequence when George comes into the apartment soaked with rain and he and Ben embrace.  They’ve been away from each other for so long, and it’s been torture. Ira cuts to Marisa and Darren leaning against the kitchen sink. Their married couple, Kate and Elliott, see this extraordinary emotion between the two men and walk away to give them that moment. They see the kindness of these two people, and their history. But things for them are tense and there comes a time when they can’t tolerate Ben’s presence any more. There’s a big disagreement, things are exploding with them and with Joey–and what’s Ben doing here?  So you can understand Kate losing her patience. I’ve just finished King Lear and in that King Lear arrives with his hundred knights and his oldest daughter Goneril goes fucking crazy.  It’s all so damn domestic!

DP: Joey’s slightly older friend Vlad isn’t even mentioned in the short synopses I’ve read about the film, but I think he’s important.  He connects with Ben before Joey does and let’s Ben do a painting of him, and like Ben feels hostility when he’s in the apartment.  I don’t know if there’s meant to be a parallel thing going on with Ben and George and Joey and Vlad.

JL: I’ve heard people speculate on whether there’s a gay thing going on between Joey and Eric. But I don’t think so. I think the interesting that here I’m talking about something I really don’t know about. I certainly wasn’t a party to Ira’s conversations with Eric, the young actor who played the part.  I think the unease that Joey’s dad feels is an interesting element. What is going on with those two? What Elliott feels is sort of a very deeply buried homophobia.

DP: Which is interesting, obviously, because Elliott seems to be so welcoming of Ben and George.

JL: He adores his uncle and thinks that the consummation of his uncle’s relationship is to be devoutly wished for.  And yet he’s not at ease with his own son maybe having a relationship with this other boy.

SPOILER ALERT

DP: There’s a lot of family turmoil over the French books in Joey’s room. I think Vlad may have stolen the French books, alone or with Joey, to give to Joey because Joey wants to go to France. Does that make sense?

JL: That does make sense.  That actually would answer one big dangling question–what is it with these French books? Joey does want badly to go to France.

DP: Do you think the girl with whom Joey skateboards at the end is the same girl Ben urged Joey to try to talk to? Joey cries thinking about Ben, before he rides off with the girl  So that shows Ben made a connection with him, and I think Joey being with the girl Ben encouraged him to approach could be a reason for the crying.

JL: Maybe it is.  It’s very, very touching when he cries. It’s like Joey finally realizes what Ben meant to him. He thinks Ben is this imposition sharing his room, but then there is that beautiful scene when they’re both on a bunk bed late at night.  They don’t even look at each other, but they talk about the girl and other things.

END SPOILER ALERT

DP: Joey finally puts his guard down and tells Ben intimate things he couldn’t tell his parents.

JL: And he probably wouldn’t tell Ben except they are sharing a bunk bed. Ben is an imposition yet he brings things out of people. Ira has no problem revealing these things so I can tell you there were a couple of major scenes cut.  One of them was a long scene I had with Marisa.  Ben and Kate shop for groceries and a lot of information is exchanged, including Kate confessing she’s afraid her husband is having an affair. In that scene, Ben is being kind of her counselor, offering up big opinions on life. It was the talkiest scene in the film, which is probably why it was pretty convenient to cut, but I think a great storyline was excised.

DP: Have you ever played as mild-mannered a character as Ben is at this time in his life?

JL: In Terms of Endearment, and there was a lovely little thing on television that I actually won an Emmy award for, an amazing story.  But there have been very few others. It comes from being 6’4″!

DP: Yes, you’ve played bigger-than-life, not meek or timid. Finally, talk about the theme of aging in this movie.

JL: This movie is not so much about Ben and George aging, but the relationship aging. They’re growing old together. Ben is frail–there are a couple of indications that his heart is not good.  It’s such an interesting revelation in the end, to hear that Ben was the sexually reckless one early in the relationship, because he’s now old and frail. He’s a tired old lion. Ben’s such a great character to play because when you get to be my age, most of the really great, meaty roles are in the theater. Witness King Lear.  That’s why I love theater and I won’t stop.  In movies I don’t get such lead roles at my age. It’s a curse–a very benign curse, because I work all the time–but in the many films leading up to Love is Strange, a long list of major movie stars have played my children!

Joan Rivers Really Was a Piece of Work

Find Joan Rivers Is a Piece of Work Online

Joan Rivers Really Was a Piece of Work

(from Sag Harbor Express Online 9/12/14)

Posted on 12 September 2014

Joan Rivers’ untimely, shocking death has resulted in a run on her 2012 autobiography I Hate Everyone … Starting with Me.  I hope it also calls attention to the splendid film documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work , which was made in 2010 by the terrific documentary team, Ricki Stern and Annie Sunberg.  Rivers helped promote the movie and I had a great time participating in this free-wheeling roundtable with her. At one point I asked her about her catchphrase “Can We Talk?” I wanted to know how she was able to make every audience feel like it was the only audience she opened up to.  I must say, she was able to make us feel like confidantes just by being as unfiltered as anyone in the business gets with journalists.  I imagine she conveyed intimacy at every gathering where she felt she was embraced rather than attacked. (Not long before her death, she walked off an a televised interview because she felt she was being put on the defensive.)  In light of Rivers passing, I am very grateful to have met her (and am delighted she was a good sport to pose for a picture with me), and think this roundtable, though several years old, is interesting for those who now have an insatiable appetite for everything Rivers.  I think it has special meaning now because she revealed so much about who she was.  Read the interview, and whether you were a Joan Rivers fan or not, see this fascinating movie.

Danny Peary: You’re often referred to as a pioneer. When did you stop being a pioneer? Aren’t you still in your mind a pioneer?

Joan Rivers: I never thought of myself as a pioneer. I’m always the first to talk about everything so I never think about it. I get very angry. As I say in the film: don’t give me past tense here, that’s stupid. I’m still on stage doing much more and saying much more than anyone else.

DP: Still a pioneer.

JR: If you want to call it that. Or current. My manager calls it “relevant.” I have a Southern manager; “You are rel-ev-ant.”

DP: I’ve known you most of my life but the movie gave me a whole new appreciation of you.

JR: Thank you, thank you, thank you! Q: This documentary is a sometimes an unflattering portrait of you. How do you feel about that?

JR: Truly I was the pawn. I wanted them to tell the truth and I wanted them to make the statement “Stop whining, get on with your life,” and also show how horrible age is. You’re all going to come up to that mountain and it sucks. There’s nothing like that. You cannot say you can turn this mountain around. You can’t. So that’s what I wanted to come out of the documentary, and it was their choice what went in.

Q: Are there any scenes you really loved?

JR: Yeah. One with my grandson that I love. The other was of me visiting the tough, edgy New York girl, who had been an ingénue and an artist and a photographer, and look where she’s sitting now.  In a wheelchair.  And that to me is “life sucks and you better enjoy it right now when your legs are moving. You could cross the street tomorrow and be paralyzed from the neck down and be lying there in bed.

Q: Which scenes were you uneasy about that you sort of half wanted taken out of there?

JR: Melissa was very upset with Edgar’s stuff because her father’s her father. The only thing we did remove, was when I walk past Edgar’s picture, which I do almost every day, and go “Fuck you.” I’m still angry and it’s 20 years later, but if you haven’t had suicide in your families you don’t get that. If you have had a suicide you are so upset and so angry for the rest of your life. And so Melissa said please take that part out, so that was the only one I called. I had given them carte blanche, but I said at one point art is art but I don’t want my daughter upset. So they were kind enough to remove that.

Q: With everything being so politically correct you know how to push that envelope. Two scenes I’m questioning; the one, Jackie O, when you refer to Obama as Blacky O, and then you did the thing about the Chinese person, pulling your eyes into a slant.

JR: Right. I am so not about color and race. It’s so not in my vocabulary. I looked one day at the group that works for the jewelry company and I said this is the United Nations. And it wasn’t done because I said, oh let’s get this nationality and this color, but because we picked people we liked. And we were laughing and we said someone should come here and take a picture. So it means nothing to me. You’re Chinese, you do see this in the mirror, what’s so terrible? You also have the most gorgeous women with the most beautiful hair in the world. That’s not negative. And with Mrs. Obama, I voted for them, I thought it was a great joke. Blacky O from Jackie O; what a nice association. But then when everyone at the table screams at me ” You can’t say that!,” I said “Okay, okay I’ll take it out.”  But I bet she would have laughed.

Q: Do you have any regrets about anything you’ve said or done?

JR: You know what I have regrets about? Who I didn’t sleep with.

Q: And that would be?

JR: That would be Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, I could give you a whole list of guys that tried it with me when I was married. When you meet them on a show you’ll be interviewing them and they’ll be talking to you, you’ll be talking to them. So I look back and I go, “Fuck, I should have done that!”  I regret that. Seriously what do I regret? Somebody once said you only regret things you didn’t do. I don’t regret anything I’ve done because at least I’ve done it, I’ve tried it.  Those guys–move them back in time to when they asked and they can try again!  [Laughing] You have to move me back too!

Q: Is any of the older archival footage in the movie interesting for you to watch?  Like Johnny Carson cracking up as hard as he did.

JR: I love what they found because I hadn’t seen any of that stuff. Carson was the best straight man in the business. He was the best appreciator you could have. Like it was gift  knowing I have this good joke for him and then you give it to him. He never asked for it in advance, never wanted to know what you were going to say in advance, when some of them want to know every god damn thing and then they go “Ha ha ha”–Oh, stop!  When he would lean back in his chair and laugh that was your paycheck. It made you so happy, so happy!

Q: You said seeing Carson laugh hysterically at your joke really made you happy. Aside from audience appreciation, what else makes you happy?

JR: My daughter saying it’s a good day. All the things that make us all happy. If my family is happy and my niece is going out with a great guy now and my sisters are fine, everything is fine. I’m so lucky; look at my apartment, I have great friends. I know I’m happy because I’ve been through lots of shitty times. You have to know when you’re happy.

Q: About your apartment, you’ve been trying to unload that for a long time. I’m just wondering why.

JR: I have an accountant who says to me you’re living too high and you’ve got to unload it. So I put a price on it that nobody except a stupid Russian will buy it. I’m hoping the guy that bought the Nets will buy it.

Q: When you were in Washington, the Kennedy Center Honors for George Carlin, Mark Twain Award, and you were talking about everybody having their team of writers. So is it really just you writing your material?

JR: People will send me jokes and if they’re good I’ll buy them for $20 a joke, but I’m not going home tonight and saying “let’s have a little writers meeting here because by tomorrow I need 14 jokes on being a woman gardener. I just don’t have it.

Q: Are you one of the few comics who still is a solo act like that?

JR: Well, I think a lot of stand-ups don’t have staff.  I mean look at Letterman, look at Saturday Night Live. we know that. When Obama was so funny the other night at the White House that was all Jon Stewart’s writers writing for him for months, and rightly so. But when I have to go up against these people I suddenly go “I have nobody!” and get very self-pitying.

Q: I was a little surprised to see you opening shows for Don Rickles, although you both shared the pot..                                                                                                                   JR: There are so many stupid rules in show business, and I figure whoever’s coming in is going to see my show and they’re going to have a great hour. This goes back to 10 years ago we started working together – Don wants to close the evening, so let him have the privilege and the courtesy of closing. I go down, I lay it out, and, I’m not making a joke, I’m home by 10:30. You know how great that is? I did Westbury twice this week, I was walking the dogs at 10:30, I was in bed for Saturday Night Live. And it’s a different story because we split the money.

Q: Why are Jews funny?

JR (laughing): Look at us. Have you seen my relatives? You better laugh. See people say Jews are funny. Look at the great comics; they’re not Jews. Chris Rock; I don’t think he’s got a Jewish bubala sitting there. Robin Williams, George Carlin. When you really stop and think about it.. But I think there were more Jews in the Catskills coming from that, and Jewish humor is hilarious and it’s easy to be funny when you’re Jewish. You know that.  It’s just so much fun. You know how my relatives greet me: “What happened to you?”                                                                                                                                            Q: Do you have more books in you?

JR: Oh yeah. I’d like to do another autobiography. I was so disappointed; we got great reviews on “Murder at the Academy Awards” and we thought that was going to be a series. Not one negative review, great reviews. And nobody cared.                                                                                                                                                                                                             DP: Your catchphrase “Can we talk?” Is there something really profound about that?

JR: No. It just came out of telling the truth to the audience, when the audience will gasp. When Michael Jackson died and the whole world went into mourning; I never saw any reaction like this. And I walked out and I said, “He was a druggie and a pedophile. Can we talk about this?” And that’s how it always came. “Can we talk about this? This is stupid. Everyone calm down. He’s very talented but would you let your grandson stay overnight? No? So shut up!”                                                                                                                        Q: He was not a pedophile.

JR: He was a pedophile. I saw the checks. We had the same manager. I saw the $35 million check to the guy. Maybe he didn’t penetrate but I saw a boy get a $35 million check. You don’t get a $35 million check for nothing.

Q: I know the family and he was not a pedophile.

JR: And you know something, if it’s your son and you want to leave him with Michael to have a good time, do it. You know what I’m saying? Here we go again. Do it.

Q: What do you think about gay marriage rights?

JR: Gay marriage in a second.  Gay marriage; why, are you that stupid? Which means gay divorce? You want to get married? Get married? It’s only going to cause you problems.                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Q: Don’t ask, don’t tell?

JR: Don’t ask, don’t tell is ridiculous. That’s the stupidest thing in the world. I think you say this is what I am and you have barracks. You want to divide the barracks, divide the barracks.                                                                                                                                              Q: Who pisses you off these days?

JR: Everybody.

Q: Talk to me about Sanjay Gupta.

JR: Oh, Sanjay Gupta. I hate Sanjay Gupta. Just go and read a medical book.

Q: Why do you hate him so much?

JR: Just because he’s never doing medical things. He’s always talking. I want to see him change a bandage. Brett Michaels is bitching me off because I never saw a person in intensive care with an IV in his arm, with bandages, with his bandana. Who is the doctor? It must have been Sanjay Gupta.

Q: I heard you’re glad that Brett won on Celebrity Apprentice this year?

JR: I felt terribly. I think Holly should have won. Melissa’s a good friend of hers and Melissa said that’s what she’s about. But she didn’t have a shot and she knew it. The man is coming back from the dead and risked his life to be on Celebrity Apprentice, and then risked his life again the next day to be on Regis and Kelly, and risked his life yet again to be on Today, and risked his live again to be on Fox at Five. This man is very brave.

Q: Did you get to go on The Tonight Show the year you won Celebrity Apprentice?

JR: No. They would never have me.  [She lobbied to be on Jimmy Fallon's first Tonight Show in 2004, and was thrilled to make her return.]

Q: So what’s next? Are you going to be on Dancing with the Stars?

JR: I begged them to put us on. It was going to be Melissa and me in the same costume and we would change off when it got tough.  Suddenly Melissa’s doing the turn and then I’m back dancing–and they didn’t find it amusing.

Q: One of the biggest reality TV stars these days is Heidi Montag from The Hills and that’s been sort of a backlash about that and I’m just wondering what you think.

JR: Are you straight or gay?

Q: Straight.

JR: Alright. What do you want to look at? A pretty woman. So shut up. You know what I’m saying? That’s what America’s about; beautiful women looking good. And she’s in a business where you have to be a beautiful woman. Good for her. I was very upset that I didn’t know the doctor that would do 11 procedures at one time. This really upset me.

Q: The film shows that you’re incredibly hard working.  So how do you feel about these reality television people getting instant fame?

JR: I think they’d better enjoy it. I think that a lot of them don’t that it’s five minutes of fame. And the ones that are complaining, who we always see it on the red carpet–you want to say “You stupid ass. You are a lucky person; enjoy it now because five years from now no one’s going to give a damn about you.” They’re all missing the point of how lucky they are.

Q: And your secret of longevity is?

JR: It says it in the movie: “Do anything.” I’m only an actor? Excuse me? Do what you have to do if you love the business you’re in.  I’ll do anything, as I say in the movie. And I mean it. My jewelry business; they came to me and said, “Do you want to do jewelry for QVC?” when everyone was laughing at television shopping. It was a joke–dead performers were going on there! And I said, “Sure, let’s try it. What’s so terrible?” And look what it turned into; it turned into a legacy for me.

Q: Is there anything you’ve turned down?

JR: Looking back maybe I’ve turned down a script or something that was really terrible. But very seldom.

Q: You were at the recent Miss USA pageant. What is your take on the controversy going on there?

JR: You mean because she was a pole dancer? Oh, so? Like all of us haven’t danced on a pole at one time.

Q: No, I mean that she is Arab American and people were making a fuss about that.

JR: I don’t know. I don’t think she’s a Muslim. Her mother was in a dress that was so cut down I could tell you what color her underwear was. The mother was having a good time, she was having a good time. Ladies didn’t come in burkas to congratulate her. Then I would have gotten very nervous. But they were hilarious. The girls that lost were crying and eating brownies because they knew they were out of the running. They were all in little bikinis stuffing their faces.

DP: How important is your legacy?

JR: You know something? Vincent van Gogh couldn’t afford a potato and now his paintings are going for what, $100 million. I don’t care. Truly.

DP:  In the production notes it says you’re on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame? You don’t care about that stuff?

JR: The Walk of Fame, I have my star there and I’m always saying “Clean off the dog doo.” The Walk of Fame– anybody gets that if they have a good PR person and pay for it. It’s show business.

Q: What I thought the documentary showed is that you’re a business woman, a mom, and the interesting parallels between celebrity and getting older. At the end of the day what’s most important; being a performer or your relationship with your daughter?

JR: The truth; 50-50. Melissa, so smart, nailed it. She said it’s another child.  If I really had to choose between Melissa and my career, there’s nothing to discuss, of course. But my career is my life. My daughter is on her own and she’s launched, thank god, and she’s fine and my grandson is fine, and thank you god for all of this. But what sustains me every day, I get up in the morning and I have 11 people who are getting paid to listen to me.

Q: What about your grandson going into this business? What do you think of that?

JR: How many people have you interviewed that are no longer there? It’s such a bad business. I would love him not to. If he could be the next so and so and he could do Home Alone 1, 2, and 3, and own a piece of it, then where do I put his makeup on?  So I don’t know. I want him to be Larry David; that to me is the ideal. Be a comedy writer and then go into it.

Q: Do you think maybe this wasn’t worth it all in the end? Maybe I should have just been a writer and stayed outside or on the fringe of it?

JR: No. It’s so much fun to keep doing different things. Life is such an adventure. Dilettantism is fabulous. Do a little of this, a little of that; it’s so good, all good.

Q: Would you ever do the red carpet again?

JR: Oh yeah. Let them ask me. They have asked me. What we’ve done with E!, which I love, they’re letting us do thenext day. Do you know how horrible it is to stand there and say “Audrey! You’ve never looked better!” and then the next day say, “Audrey shouldn’t have worn that dress.” It’s so horrible. So now I don’t have to say anything to anybody; we just do the Fashion Police the next day, so you can be so much more truthful. But they want us to go back on.

Q: Khloe Kardashian and Giuliana Rancic; how are they working out with you?

JR: Great. It was very difficult for them. They were doing Fashion Police together and then they shoved me in and said to the girls you’re like a panel. And I thought this is going to really be difficult but they were both terrific. And we really like each other and really laugh when the camera’s down so it worked out, thank you god, because Giuliana could have been very angry.

Q: Are you a fan of Sex and the City?

JR: I love Sex and the City on television. But I think the girls have to be careful because it could be Sag in the City if they do one more. There go four more friends. I have no friends. The joke comes first. But I think it’s such a good show. There are certain shows that always are good. Any “Seinfeld” I stop there; so brilliantly written. Sex and the City is always good. There are certain ones late at night you go friend, stop there.

Q: Is there a female around today that you love?

JR: I love Kathy Griffin because I know her struggle; it was a struggle for her to get there. I think she’s just great. And Meryl Streep can do no wrong on stage. I saw her in the park in Mother Courage and I go, “I can’t stand it, she’s just great.”

Q: You always give Wendy Williams your jewelry when you’re on with her. You gave Wendy your earrings.

JR: I gave her my hair extensions. I love her so. When they ask, “You want to do Wen..?” “Yes!” I don’t even wait for the second syllable.

Q: I wish they would let you do like a five-minute stint on her show every day.

JR: So why don’t you tell her?  She and I want to have a very fancy dinner party. I said to her we’ll have finger bowls  and only the two of us will have a good time.

Q: What are the Altoids for?

JR: Altoids are because when I have interviewed people close up all these years, many a time wished they had one. So I always make sure I have one. I always carry Altoids with me.

Q:  To keep your energy level as high as we see it in the movie, what do you do for your daily workouts?

JR: I do a half an hour treadmill and a half an hour free weights.

Q: Are there things now, especially in light of making this movie, that you want to do?

JR: Oh, everything.

Q: What other kinds of projects or media?  Or your own website?

JR: Oh, I have my website, I do my blog, I do all that. I would love to do another late night talk show, which will never be offered to me.  [She made no mention of reality shows.]

Q: Why don’t you think one will be offered to you?

JR: Because they look at you with a 10-year time frame; and they look at me and they think god knows where she’s going to be in 10 years. That’s number one. Number two, I have to constantly beat myself, I constantly have to top myself. Who is my biggest competitor?  Me. “Oh Joan, she’s funny. So you have to be better than that; you’re no longer fresh.” If I came in as Harriet Schwartz, a new housewife from Long Island, the world would be open to me. But I’m Joan Rivers–for 40 years she’s been funny.