Category: Interviews

  • Meet the Joe in ‘Craigslist Joe’

    Joseph Garner travels the nation in Craigslist Joe
    Joseph Garner travels the nation in Craigslist Joe

    Joseph Garner directed the new documentary Craigslist Joe which will open on August 2nd.  He had a home, a job, money, friends and family and he left them all behind for 31 days in December with a plan in mind.  He would depend on Craigslist to provide for all his needs except what he took with him.  A backpack, a laptop computer, a cellphone, the clothes on his back and a toothbrush.  His 31 day journey was documented by one cameraman who travelled with him as he journeyed out into the cyber-community.  I got a chance to sit down and ask him about his experiences, his movie, and some other thoughts on film and life:

    Tail Slate: What’s your favorite film?

    Joseph Garner: Wow, right out of the gate.

    TS: Oh that’s an easy question.

    JG: I don’t know.  Don’t you want to watch something different depending on your mood?  You might be in the mood for Magnolia versusAmerican Beauty.

    TS: What I want to watch definitely changes depending on my mood but I still have one film that’s my all-time favorite.

    JG: Which is?

    TS: Lawrence of Arabia.

    JG: Great, great film.  I wasn’t even thinking back to the classic films.  In recent history I love character driven films.  I don’t mind if there’s a huge epic, like older Spielberg films, no matter how big the film was he found someone’s story.

    TS: Even in 1941?

    JG: I thought John Belushi had some great character moments.

    TS: I thought he did as well.  What are some of your favorite documentaries, the ones that inspired you?

    JG: One that definitely inspired me was We Live in Public.  It was a film I saw at Sundance a few years back.  Just really interesting how the subject of the film was not the director but how he wanted to explore the notion of privacy rights and how individuals can come together and how they would change their actions if they were being filmed.  So he did these meet up things in New York.  Check it out.

    TS: I will check it out. 

    JG: I love everything investigative, like The Cove, something that sheds light on something I didn’t know about.  Or just like something that is obscure, like Exit to the Gift Shop.  I loved how he (Banks) turned the tables and flipped the camera around and was making the documentary about the guy making the documentary.  Shedding light on massive corruption.

    TS: Hoop Dreams?

    JG: I thought Hoop Dreams was great.  I worked for Todd Phillips who got started in documentaries before he did the Hangover movies.  He did one called Frat House before he did Old School that kind of like looked at the notion of brotherhood and kind of guys in situations like that.  I have a range of documentaries.  But if there are any you recommend I should check out…

    TS: The Queen of Versailles. Just saw it, and highly recommend it.  What happened, if anything, of note on the days we don’t see on screen. 

    JG: A lot of sitting in an internet café and trying to get things going.  You watched 90 minutes of it and it seemed pretty easy.  Seems like everyone was willing to try to help you out.  But for every one person that said “yes,” there were at least 200 who said no.

    TS: That’s a pretty good ratio.

    JG: It’s not bad.  You have to be persistent and I was.  I didn’t let anyone know I was doing a documentary.  It was just a guy looking to meet up.  How often do you look on line and see what’s going on with a stranger?

    TS: Do you think people acted differently because they were in front of the camera?

    JG: I guess there’s no way for me to know for certain.  But I think that I spent a number of days with these people and they were only on screen for five minutes or so.  After a certain amount of time, it isn’t like we had a crew or anything…

    TS: So they might have been camera-aware at first, and then as you spent more time with them they relaxed and acted normally?

    JG: Yeah.  I certainly wasn’t aware of the camera.  I told Kevin, the camera guy that no matter what amazing thing you might miss, there’s just no way to go back and re-do it.  You get what you get.  I never wanted that to come into the interaction.

    TS: Did you ever feel afraid?

    JG: I felt lonely, I felt depressed, I felt hungry.  I never felt like I was with anyone that could put my life in jeopardy.  Maybe that was me being a little naïve, maybe I just got lucky with who I met.  I also knew no matter how bad it got, if I had nowhere to sleep or went without food, this was a choice.  I wasn’t forced onto the streets.  Unfortunately for a lot of people, that isn’t a choice, they’re on the streets and that’s their reality.

    TS: And you could have always bailed.

    JG: I was not going to bail…

    TS: I know you weren’t going to but if you absolutely couldn’t take it anymore you could have.

    JG: I guess you could say I could have even though I promised myself I wouldn’t…

    Joseph Garner (l.) in 'Craigslist Joe'
    Joseph Garner (l.) in ‘Craigslist Joe’

    TS: Don’t get me wrong, I admire the commitment you brought to the project.

    JG: There was a clean out for me, I could have called my friend, said “I’m done.” But having that comfort zone, knowing I had my friends and family to go back to…

    TS: I think it’s admirable you knew you weren’t going to give in to it, and that made your experience as close to homelessness as you could have gotten.

    JG: As you can, but again I will say I still have no idea what it is to not have a home to go to at night.  I have friends and family and an apartment to go back to, so no matter how cold it was there was an end to it.

    TS: I noticed that in a couple of places you were drinking in bars and clubs.  Who bought the drinks?

    JG: Daisy in Chicago had a beer at her house.  I never got like drunk.  Where else was I drinking?

    TS: There were a couple of bars.

    JG: Right.  There was a bar in New York that posted an ad that there was a new DJ spinning, so no cover.  Someone I met there became a Craigslist connection and that guy bought me a shot.  When I stayed at people’s houses, they’d give me extra apples and the like.

    TS: What internet film sites do you frequent (I knew he would not say Tail Slate, but maybe someday…)?

    JG: Deadline, Indiewire, Cinemablend.  There’s so many.  I literally spend hours surfing and getting my news from various sites.

    TS: Any romance during your 31 days?

    JG: Yes.  It was not objective but I felt like to experience the website and all that it has to offer I had to be willing to engage.

    TS: What was the most difficult moment?

    JG: There was a physically difficult moment and a mentally difficult moment.  You want both?

    TS: Please.

    JG: The physical moment was in New York.  I was physically exhausted.  A couple of things fell through

    TS: Was that when you were sitting on the sidewalk alone in the early morning hours and someone comes back and takes you to their home?

    JG: Yes.  L.A. was tough to get things going, New York felt like the hustle and bustle it wasn’t small, while Portland has a small town feel.

    TS: I love Portland.

    JG: Yeah, Portland is great.  Great community up there.  New York, people have got things to do.  Some things had fallen through.  The guy who was driving me from Chicago to New York was only allowing me to stay one night at his friend’s house and I didn’t want to impose, no problem.  It was the middle of winter, I was freezing and hungry and just kind of had nothing to do.  I was exhausted and I found that one bar that was advertising on Craigslist.  I met that one girl there, kind of told her what I was doing, like hey, if you’ve got a floor I can crash on and she said no, that’s not going to happen.  So I said to myself I could get through one night on the streets, no problem.  People do this unfortunately every day.  She ended up coming back.  That inspired me to help others.

    TS: What level of caution would you advise someone new to Craigslist?

    JG: Same level you would do in taking safety precautions in doing things not on Craigslist.  Try to meet people in public places, try to let friends know where you’re going, exchange phone numbers.  You have to do a bit of character judgment, but it’s about establishing rapport, establishing trust.  There are going to be bad apples anywhere you go but you just try to be cautious of that.

    TS: Did Daisy’s revelations that she is a dominatrix shock you?

    JG: I never met someone who was a dominatrix before.  I never really understood that world.

    TS: I think those of us who are NOT in that world will never really understand it.

    JG: (laughter) I was fascinated by it to tell you the truth.  That she had a day job in a corporation, that she took this break dancing class, she wasn’t what I’d imagined to be the traditional dominatrix.

    TS: She didn’t have enough leather on?

    JG: She actually said that she got made fun of by more dominant dominatrices who said she wasn’t dominant enough.  She said I’m kicking the guy in the nuts, how much more dominant can I get?  What do you want me to do?  She took me through the dungeon where she works, it was interesting.

    TS: Were you an active volunteer before you made the film in terms of giving of your time and effort, not just money?

    JG: No.  I am embarrassed to say I wasn’t.

    TS: I don’t think you should be embarrassed.

    JG: But it’s true, because I just got caught up in my own life, trying to make it as a director and it’s grueling.  I could make excuses all day long.  The truth is I did not make it a priority.

    TS: Is it a priority now?

    JG: I’m definitely trying better.  I felt when I was making the documentary I was really in the spirit of volunteering.  Now I am trying to balance a life and really making an effort to volunteer more.

    TS: I would never try to tell you what to do, but one way to get a better level of experience of what homelessness is like is to volunteer or work at a homeless shelter.  I used to work, at a job, not as a volunteer at a homeless shelter downtown.  A place called the Lamp Community.

    JG: (Joseph borrows my pen and writes down the name of the Lamp Community)

    TS: What happened to the bicycle?

    JG: Matthew’s bicycle.  As you know from seeing the film I should have just dropped it off before I left Los Angeles.  After Travis’ car broke down we had it towed to a junk yard where Travis knew the guy and we left it there.  I was like Matthew lent me his bike and I’m sure he would be fine with it, but I wanted to give it back to him.  I wasn’t able to get back to the bike during that month.  However I called Travis and asked if he knew where his van was and he told me.  I looked it up and called the owner and said “there’s this brown van and the owner doesn’t care what happens to the van but I happen to have something invested in what happens to what’s inside the van.  Is there any way if you guys ever come down, you could bring that bike down?”  Six months later, and I’d already told Matthew and he’d said it was fine, and then a trucker is making a delivery and he brought the bike down.  So I could give it back to Matthew.

    TS: Who are some of the people you met in the film who inspired you by what they’re doing?

    JG: One was John in New Orleans

    TS: The artist.  He was inspiring.

    JG: You hear about Katrina and it’s forever ago, and you just assume it’s all done and people are back in their homes and it’s all good.  It’s not the case at all.  A lot of those people just moved on.

    TS: Is Craigslist an engine for social change?

    JG: I certainly think it can be.  They are hands off but I feel like the people on there  in that online community if they decide to band together they can make huge social change and I don’t think it needs to be limited to Craigslist either.  It doesn’t take money either  We have so much power in numbers and energy and we can decide to do better if we want to.

    TS: So it could be the central community feel we used to have in America, but online instead of in the village square?

    JG: I’m hoping it could be both.  We could start on line and bring these into face to face actions and make real change.

    The interview ended there and I kicked myself for forgetting to ask him what his next project will be.  I’m sure there will be another, Joe is a director on the rise.  I don’t know if he’ll stick with documentary filmmaking or follow the path of Todd Phillips into features, but this is one director who is on his way.

  • The day I met Luke Skywalker (a.k.a. Mark Hamill)

    The day I met Luke Skywalker (a.k.a. Mark Hamill)

    Mark Hamill, otherwise known as Luke Skywalker, at Comic Con in NYC
    Mark Hamill, otherwise known as Luke Skywalker, at Comic Con in NYC

    It’s not every day you come face-to-face with a pop culture icon.

    My encounter with one came on a Saturday afternoon on the west side of Manhattan, in a large room hidden away in the bowels of the Jacob Javits Convention Center.

    It was the New York Comic Con, the unappreciated stepchild of the more publicized San Diego Comic Con. The Con has grown over the years, and if this day was any indication, the attendance was through the roof. By 2 p.m. the joint was hopping. There were hundreds of people both inside and out.

    This is a unique group of people, showing their geek spirit with pride and cardboard. There were guys with grand guts and bulging love-handles decked out in Spider-Man outfits, as well as girls showing off their girlie parts as scantily-clad Harley Quinns. One guy in particular had a rather nicely tailored Superman suit (and donned it sans underwear, as his disturbingly pronounced manhood indicated).

    But I will say I loved the old school cosplayers, like the chick dressed as David Bowie from Labyrinth, and the group decked out as the characters from Darkwing Duck.

    I loved each and every one of these fellow geeks, though. They love these characters and express it proudly. More power to them.

    That love started wearing thin, however, as I tried walking through the convention floor.

    Making my way through the horde was like navigating a path through the Well of Souls. There were people everywhere, shoulder to shoulder, shuffling about. Some woman in a lacy outfit hit me in the head with her obnoxiously wide wings. I was then seconds away from cracking a Wolverine wanna-be in the face with my elbow for poking me in the ribs with his 99-cent plastic claws when I realized it was time to face Luke Skywalker.

    I descended into the press rooms and found my way to the meeting place.

    Costumed babes at Comic Con NYC 2011
    Costumed babes at Comic Con NYC 2011

    Inside were several round tables, several very attractive PR women, as well as a tall, red-skinned demon-like creature.

    It was the press event for New Gen, a popular comic book title whose creators are working their way toward making a feature film. The multi-million dollar movie is an independent film working to get financing.

    Luke Skywalker — also known as Mark Hamill — could very well play a part in the film. As such, he was there to help promote it. He’d done a panel earlier in the day along with the comic’s creatures — J.D. and Chris Matonti — but unfortunately I did not arrive in time for that.

    When I entered, Skywalker — er, I’m sorry, I mean Hamill — was seated with a group of journalists for a roundtable interview. He was decked out in a leather jacket and jeans, animatedly talking about comic books (one of his passions).

    But I was scheduled to have a one-on-one with him, so I decided to sit back and wait. I was one of about three others looking for a piece of the one-time Jedi Master’s time.

    And so I waited… and waited… and waited some more. I have just a handful of talents, thankfully patience is one of them.

    By the time I was able to talk with Hamill, my time was short. I had to toss away several of the questions I’d hoped to throw at him. He seemed to launch himself in my direction, speeding across the room to take the seat across from me.

    Princess Leia was right, he really is short for a stormtrooper.

    I shook his hand and we sat. He then proceeded to discuss the Jumble, a popular puzzle game found within the pages of the newspaper I was there to represent.

    “I had this thing, whenever I did a Broadway show, that we’d have to do the Jumble before the half hour, and if we didn’t finish the Jumble we couldn’t go on,” he told me. “You get to the point where you could almost do it without a pencil. And then there’ll be that one that stumps you, like Larynx or something.”

    It was ironic, as I recalled with him that when I first started at the newspaper a long time ago in what seems like a galaxy far, far away, I too was obsessed with the Jumble. I used to do it every night, tearing through it with joy. (I even kept them for weeks afterwards, but I did not share that with him.)

    He then discussed the project that had brought us together, the New Gen feature film.

    “I get approached by fans all the time who want advice, and I’m happy to give it to them,” he began. “I met these guys while I was doing Six Dance Lessons” — this is a Broadway show he did several years ago. “I thought it had a really fresh take and it appealed to the comic book geek in me. But then it organically grew from me just giving advice to formally vetting and reading the scripts, and giving my advice.”

    Hamill said he thought the producers should probably make New Gen — which was first published as a comic book in 2008 — into an animated series before jumping into the feature film game.

    “At the time I was urging him to make it into an animated series,” he said. “Do the comic books, because that was the most doable and I mean, you could probably get those published. And then you’d have a better chance getting it made into an animated series because it was a comic book. Take baby steps.”

    “But [J.D. Matonti] is so ambitious, that the fact that he’s already talking about a feature film at this point… more power to him,” Hamill said. “He’s got an amazing passion for the project, and great tenacity, which I think is very important in this business.”

    Comic book cover of Mark Hamill's 'The Black Pearl'
    Comic book cover of Mark Hamill’s ‘The Black Pearl’

    Hamill seemed unsure if he’d actually play an onscreen role in the film, however. He noted that at 60 he’s reached “geezer status,” and New Gen is about young people. “I’m open at this point to being involved behind the scenes if he likes,” he said, but “he’s still talking about me doing something on camera… And I gave him my word that if he stuck to it I would be available to him.”

    The conversation quickly shifted to what Hamill hopes to be his next gig, directing a feature film of his vigilante-themed graphic novel, The Black Pearl.

    “I’m much more interested in the art house movies, the little stories about little people and little problems, and Black Pearl is about a very unbalanced person who thinks its a good idea to go out into the real world and exact his own justice,” he said. “In one line its about how in reality there can’t be a Batman, because it’s like Fargo, where this one decision nearly ruins his life… I know this story, I know how to shoot it.”

    Sadly, things were ended as Hamill’s family was standing nearby and anxious to head out. Before he departed, I asked him if I could get a photo of him which I snapped with my iPhone (and you can see above).

    I’ve interviewed a number of celebrities over the years, both in person and on the phone. They’ve all been enjoyable and fun experiences. But after I made my way through the crowd and out of the convention center, it started to sink in that I just spent time chatting with a man I had grown up watching.

    Star Wars was a movie I saw more than a dozen times in the theaters. I used to make my mother take me to the Midway in Forest Hills, Queens every Saturday for weeks (back when movies actually stayed in theaters that long). I have since seen the original trilogy dozens of times.

    But meeting Luke Skywalker — er, dammit, Mark Hamill — was by far the most thrilling celebrity experience I’ve ever had. It put a smile on my face that seemed unwilling to go away. It was made all the more enjoyable to find him to be a friendly, sincere individual.

  • Mena Suvari chats about ‘Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’ and NBC’s ‘The Cape’

    Mena Suvari chats about ‘Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’ and NBC’s ‘The Cape’

    Mena Suvari in 'Hemingway's Garden of Eden'
    Mena Suvari in ‘Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’

    The 1920s was a time of change for women, who struggled to break away from centuries of repression that kept them in the home and playing housewife.

    Women to this day struggle to find their own identity. It’s something that Mena Suvari said drew her to Hemingway’s Garden of Eden.

    “As a woman you’re expected to live a certain lifestyle, or behave a certain way or look a certain way,” she told Tail Slate during a recent interview. “And I could relate to that, and the role of Catherine.”

    Suvari, who has played roles in films such as American Beauty and Day of the Dead, was a fan of the Ernest Hemingway novel upon which it was based.

    Published posthumously in 1986, the story follows a writer who marries a free-thinking young woman named Catherine (Suvari). The two spend their honeymoon in France. However, Catherine soon bores of the relationship and finds different ways to torture her new husband, who deeply loves her.

    One of the things she does is draft a rich and beautiful Italian woman named Marita (Caterina Murino), with whom she begins a sexual relationship. She then forces her easily manipulated husband into a relationship with the girl, which then begins to destroy the marriage.

    Mena Suvari with John Huston in ’Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’
    Mena Suvari with John Huston in ’Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’

    “She tries to fit this square peg into a round hole, and I think if people are fully honest with themselves, you have to fully honor and respect yourself before you get into a relationship,” Suvari said.

    There’s lots of drinking, smoking and… making love. But the 31-year-old stressed that the movie was more than just a few racy sex scenes.

    “This film is a very sexual film,” Suvari said, “but it’s also a character study and about the discovery of ones self and the transformation of ones self. It’s not just sex scenes for the sake of showing someone having sex.”

    Outside of the racy love scenes, there is one other thing to note about the film: the stunning replica of a 1927 Bugatti.

    “I had a few scenes with it, and everyone was really nervous,” Suvari said, laughing. “Jack [Huston] drove it a lot better than I did… I always make the insurance companies nervous. They’re always like, ’yeah, why don’t we put the stunt girl in there.’”

    Her biggest challenge was getting used to the manual transmission.

    “I would easily stall the car, so when I was driving down a hill they had sandbags set up and everything as if I was going to roll over and crash into someone,” she said with a laugh.

    Mena Suvari with the 1927 Bugatti in ’Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’
    Mena Suvari with the 1927 Bugatti in ’Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’

    For her next role, Suvari goes from the beautiful shores of France to the dangerous streets of Palm City in NBC’s Batman-inspired The Cape.

    “I play this character named Dice, and she’s a superhero villain,” she said. “I’m kind of like Catwoman, so I have a good purpose.”

    Suvari said it was a challenge as the action role was unlike any she’d done before. And she’s hoping for a chance to return.

    “I hope [they’ll invite me back] because they didn’t kill me off,” she said.

    Hemingway’s Garden of Eden opens Dec. 10 in NYC and LA.

  • Caterina Murino talks sex, love and ‘Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’

    Caterina Murino talks sex, love and ‘Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’

    Caterina Murino in 'Hemingway's Garden of Eden'
    Caterina Murino in ‘Hemingway’s Garden of Eden’

    Looking at Caterina Murino, it’s hard to believe she wanted to be anything other than a model and an actress.

    But according to the Italian beauty, she never saw herself heating up the big screen. All she really wanted was to be a children’s doctor.

    “My family all comes from universities, I never sought this kind of work,” she recently told Tail Slate. But why did she not pursue her goals of being a pediatrician?

    “Because I failed twice the exam to get in,” she said with a laugh. “Even though you try so hard, sometimes destiny is whispering in your ear and you just have to listen.”

    Murino worked as a model for a time before turning to acting on stage. But it was the then 28-year-old’s role as a doomed lover of James Bond in Casino Royale that ultimately turned heads and jump-started her career.

    “[That] helped me very much,” Murino, now 33, said.

    This year she’s raising eyebrows in the sexy Hemingway’s Garden of Eden.

    Caterina Murino
    Caterina Murino

    “I never would have gotten the role of Marita if it hadn’t been for James Bond,” the actress said.

    In the film, Murino stars as a young rich woman who encounters a pair of newlyweds on their honeymoon.

    David (Jack Huston) and Catherine (Mena Suvari) aren’t exactly a normal couple, however. Catherine is increasingly unsatisfied with her just-started marriage. She then pulls Marita into a twisted game of sex and relationships as she continually toys with the mind of her writer husband.

    “I think it’s so important that in the relationship that David and Catherine have, they are so in love with one another, but the craziness of Catherine pushes David… to accept another woman in his life,” Murino said.

    When they aren’t standing around smoking cigarettes or gulping down absinthe, the easily manipulated David bounces between his wife and Marita.

    “This movie is about relationships, it’s about fear, it’s about sex, it’s about love,” she said. And “Catherine and Marita are a mirror. A mirror of the same person.”

    The role calls for Murino to not only shed her clothing a few times (which isn’t as revealing as it sounds with the help of some clever camera angles and lighting), but engage in some intimate moments with both Huston and Suvari.

    “I’m very comfortable with my body, but it was difficult for me to accept this,” Murino said. Although it wasn’t the first time she filmed sex scenes, because of the way it was shot, she felt more at ease.

    “It wasn’t just there to show the [nudity] in the movie, and everything was very elegantly shot,” she said.

    Murino has a few projects in the works for 2011, including the Canadian series XIII. Starring Stuart Townsend, Murino plays the gritty role of Sam, which she says won’t be about her good looks.

    “You’d never think it was me,” she said. “Long hair, dirty hair, full of tattoos and piercings. It’s completely different.”

    As she bounces from movies to television to the stage, Murino is grateful for the opportunities playing a Bond girl has given her, but strives to show she is more than just a pretty face.

    “Sometimes you get a chance to get away from the image of a Bond girl, and I’m always trying to pick different roles that don’t depend on my appearance,” she said.

    Hemingway’s Garden of Eden opens Dec. 10 in NYC and LA.

  • Q&A with Kal Penn

    Kal Penn and Lauren Cohan in 'The Rise of Taj'
    Kal Penn and Lauren Cohan in ‘The Rise of Taj’

    On Wednesday I was given the opportunity to participate in a chat with Kal Penn, whose role in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle has made him a house-hold name among college students and pot smokers. He’s also, I think, a naturally good actor. Maybe that comes off as kissing up somehow, but it’s an honest opinion. He impressed me most in A Lot Like Love because even though the role was extremely limited, he actually managed to upstage Ashton Kutcher while the two shared screen time.

    Penn is, of course, doing press for National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, a spin-off sequel to Van Wilder (which gets released next week in a “unrated” version). The interview became a conference call with several college papers throughout the country (we were the only online press around). Penn seemed like a fairly level-headed fellow, which is always refreshing, because when it comes to talking with celebrities, you never quite know what you’re going to get. The following is a selection of the questions and answers from that interview, so I hope you enjoy it.

    ——

    Question: Did you ever expect you would be making a sequel to Van Wilder, and how did that come about?

    Kal Penn: Ah, no, I definitely never thought we’d be doing another Van Wilder movie. In fact, when they called me to do it, I said, ‘I’m not really into it. I don’t want to do a knock off’. The first one, people liked so much, and Ryan [Reynolds] did such a nice job. And then we talked about it, and they said they don’t want to do a knock-off sequel, they want to do a spin off. So they said, ‘We want to take your character, none of the other characters come back, we want to take your character four years later going to grad school.’ So that was sort of interesting to me, and we sat down and talked about how to develop it. In the first one, I play this sort of sidekick, stereotypical kind of guy. But what people liked about him was that he was the underdog. Everyone’s kind of dorky at some point in their lives and we rooted for him because of that. So, we took the elements of the character that were fun and just kind of embellish them a little more and spin him off into his own movie. I definitely didn’t think we would actually do it, but the script was pretty funny, and we tested [the film] with different audiences around the country and people seemed to like it. So, I hope people enjoy it when it comes out.

    Q: Was Van Wilder and the upcoming sequel reflective at all to your actual college experience?

    KP: No, it was very different. I actually went to a school that I’m really embarrassed about this week. I went to UCLA, and I don’t know if you guys have been following the news, but a student was Tazered five times while he was handcuffed and pinned down by UCLA police in the library. It’s on YouTube, and the student was obviously acting up, but the excessive use of violence by these cops — if you can call them cops — is just outrageous to me. Apparently this is what’s happening at UCLA this week, but that’s not what my experience there was like. We sort of studied during the week and partied on the weekends, which is different than the Van Wilder experience, where they basically party all week.

    Q: You’re doing a sequel to Harold and Kumar, can you tell us about that?

    KP: The Harold and Kumar sequel is actually untitled right now. IMDB isn’t usually that accurate, but I think they said for a couple of months that the title was going to be Harold and Kumar go to Amsterdam. But that was never the title. It’s untitled right now, and we’re shooting it in Shreveport, Lousiana in the middle of January. I just read the first rough draft of the script, and it was ten times funnier than the first one, I thought. But I don’t know what the final plot’s going to be because they’re re-writing it right now.

    Q: According to IMDB, is says you are a vegetarian? Is that true?

    KP: No, I’m not. I used to be a vegetarian, but I kind of go on and off.

    Q: Were you one while filming Harold and Kumar?

    KP: Yes, I was.

    Q: What was it like having to eat those burgers?

    KP: We actually didn’t eat real meat burgers. We actually got Boca burgers and cut them into little squares. It’s the magic of movie making.

    Q: Were you a big lover of White Castle before the movie?

    KP: I was not. And I’m still not.

    Q: Speaking of Harold and Kumar, I was curious about the DVD menu. It’s one of the best parts of the DVD — aside from the movie, of course. How did that get put together?

    KP: The company that did the DVD had an idea of doing a menu that would loop with five or six different loops. They had a rough script and they asked us to just talk for 20 minutes. And we were like, ‘You just want us to sit their and talk?’ It was a little strange. So we got into character and they had these cards, which we loosely followed, while also doing some ad lib.

    Q: You’ve done a lot of comedies, are you interested in moving into dramas and other genres?

    KP: Yes. Actually, the goal was never to do just comedies, it was to do comedies, drama, action if I can get into it. I’m in the new season of 24 for a couple of episodes, and that starts airing in January. And I have a drama coming out in March called The Namesake, based upon a book with the same title.

    Q: Can you talk a little more about The Namesake, which deals with a character of Indian descent who changes his name from something more ethnic to more American. I was curious if that was reflective at all of your own experience?

    KP: The character that I play and myself had two totally different experiences in terms of the name change. The character I play is an American kid born in New York City and they gave him a Russian name, so he’s sort of screwed up in the head about that. And my whole name change thing, I haven’t legally changed my name, it is more of a screen name deal like many other actors have done.

    Q: Right, many actors change their name in favor of something less ethnic. Do you think Hollywood has changed at all in terms of how people are seen or cast in relation to their name?

    KP: Yeah, I think so, slowly. That was the weird thing about doing the whole fake name change thing. I just took my first name and split it in two and added and “n” and put it on my headshots, because friends of mine were telling me that if I had a less ethnic-sounding name then I’d get more work. But I didn’t believe it, and I did it to prove them wrong. And then… it worked. I was getting more auditions, which I thought was screwed up. So then I thought if that’s all I have to do in order to get more auditions, then it’s totally worth it. So I think things are changing, but not as fast as most people would hope. A show like Lost, for example, is great because it has an incredibly diverse cast that is really reflective of the country and of the world. But it doesn’t make an issue of it. They’re stuck on an island, and they don’t get divided by race, they get divided based on other things. Or unified by other things. And those things make the plot more interesting.

    Q: Do you have trouble gaining roles because of your ethnicity?

    KP: Typecasting is always a big problem, regardless of race. The way that film and TV works, it’s all based on type. If people think you look like a specific type, then that’s all they want you to play. And if you’re studying theater, then it’s really frustrating if they only want you to play one kind of role.

    Q: How’d you get started as an actor?

    KP: I went to a performing arts high school in New Jersey. It was a public high school, actually, and they had a program where you could take college level theater and film classes. And after that I studied theater and film in college. I missed a lot classes trying to make auditions and get into films and independent films, but it paid off, thankfully. Although my GPA wasn’t the best.

    Q: What would you consider your big break?

    KP: My first big role was probably in Van Wilder.

    Q: How long were you trying to break in before you got that role?

    KP: About four or five years, doing little bit parts in commercials or student films for no money.

    Q: Did you ever consider giving up and trying something else?

    KP: No, I did not. I knew this is what I wanted to do. I never really had a complete fall-back career. I’m sort of opposite of most people. In high school, I always thought that science was a fun hobby, but I never wanted to do it as a career. I wanted to do the film thing as a career. And most people, I think, do the drama club as a hobby with science as a career. It’s kind of the same thing now. I take classes and I’m trying to get into teaching a little bit, but that’s mostly on the side.

    Q: What advice would you give to those who are following in the footsteps of being an actor?

    KP: I’m glad that I stayed in school and finished school, but I’m also glad that I took some risks and missed some classes in exchange for work. I probably wish I had balanced things better, with a little more on school and a little less on career, but not as much because then I wouldn’t have the success I have now.

  • Q&A with Matthew Fox

    Q&A with Matthew Fox

    Matthew Fox in 'We Are Marshall'
    Matthew Fox in ‘We Are Marshall’

    I was recently given the opportunity to participate in a conference call interview with one of the main stars of the ABC series, Lost, Matthew Fox. He is co-starring in the upcoming true-life drama, We Are Marshall, from Warner Bros. And I’ll be honest, something came up and I wasn’t able to ask any questions.

    Yeah, it sucks. And to make matters worse, my wife was pretty disappointed. She’s got a long-time crush on Fox, and wanted me to pass that along to him. Oh well.

    But our friends over at Warner Bros. were kind enough to provide us with the interview and we’re happy to share it with all of you. Fox discusses his work on We Are Marshall, as well as Lost (sorry, no secrets here) and another film he will be co-starring in, Vantage Point.

    ——

    Question: How much did you actually get to talk with Red Dawson and what did you learn from him that really helped you get into the character [for We Are Marshall]?

    Matthew Fox: I actually got to spend four, five days with him. I was shooting the finale of Lost last spring and I couldn’t leave the island. So I asked Red, I called him and asked him if he would be interested in coming out of Hawaii and I fully anticipated him that is — to do that because he hasn’t done a lot of flying in the past 35 years. And I was, you know, pleasantly surprised when he took me up on the offer and he came out and spent about four days [here] just hanging out with me on set and spent some time with my family. And it was just an incredible experience. I mean, obviously, I thought that was absolutely crucial to have some time with him and to ask him about his — that year of 19, you know, 1970 and what it was like and what some of his memories were of it. And I also anticipated him being reticent to talk about it. He hasn’t been really open about that. He’s not that kind of man. He sort of carries all this internally and so, it was just an amazing experience. The specifics of that are I think, you know, pretty private to him, and so I wouldn’t want to go into those. But he certainly was open with me. It was difficult. We had some tough moments and he’s just an amazing man and we’ve become very, very good friends.

    Q: Besides being able to talk to him, how much other research did you get to do on the story itself?

    MF: Well, I didn’t know this event until I read the script and then, that was McG. So, I was — I felt like I had a whole catching up to do obviously. And, you know, aside from my discussions with Red, I immediately asked McG for all of his research materials and he sent me gobs and gobs of stuff that he had collected over his preparation. And I went through that as much as I could just to sort of get caught up on the facts and really get to know the story and what happened. So I spent quite a bit of time with that. And then, most of my time was really consumed with trying to empathize with Red’s position. And anytime I had really deep questions about that, I would call him and we would sort of go through that process and we’re trying to figure out how he felt. It was an amazing experience.

    Q: Obviously you must be pretty busy with your schedule on Lost and you probably don’t have to do other things. Why did you decide to do a movie in the break like this one? And what was McG work like — to work with on this kind of movie? He is known for kind of action-comedy type stuff.

    MF: Right. Well, it was the script. I mean, I do — Lost does take up a huge chunk of my year and I am reticent to fill my hiatus with other work unless it’s something that I’m obviously, you know, incredibly passionate about and see almost like I have to do it. And that’s the way I felt about the story. I felt very, very moved and it affected and it felt, you know, the way I choose things is always sort of a nebulous sort of vague process and ultimately just comes down to sort of the sense inside yourself that it’s really important for you to do this part and be a part of this project. And McG, I cannot say enough good things about him. I mean, I would work with him again in a heartbeat. It was — I mean, my first big movie. It couldn’t have been a more amazing experience and McG was an enormous part of that and making it that special. He was so passionate about the story and just did a phenomenal job of creating environment that was — had a great energy. The entire project had a great energy. And I think that obviously, it being based on a true story and being us shooting in Huntington, West Virginia to start was — there was just something about it that had a great energy going into it and the entire process just continued that way.

    Q: Could you tell us a little bit more about your character’s relationship with Jack played by Matthew McConaughey?

    MF: Well, it was sort of slightly fictional. In the real world, I think there was some tension between those two guys. You know, Red was really the coach that was left over after the crash. And he felt an enormous responsibility to honor those kids and people that were lost in the crash and had this coach coming in from the outside that wasn’t from that community. And Lengyel’s philosophy was more about sort of pushing past it. And I think there was sort of a fundamental wrestling with this concept of do we hold on to what’s happened and honor it or do we move past that? And obviously, that is the fundamental struggle within any — all of the individuals, you know, and — associated with everybody in Huntington. So it’s a question about how to deal with grief. And I think those two coaches were sort of two sides of the same coin and ultimately what they both wanted was the same. But the way that they wanted to go about to was slightly different. So, at the same time sort of honoring that relationship between the real coaches, Matthew and I had to find a way to have that. And also sort of created a kind of a slightly — a buddy dynamic in some way, you know, sort of a — two guys that we know are fundamentally different people are coming at the same problems from fundamentally different angles, but still find a way to be partners in it. And working with Matthew is amazing. He was really dedicated to the project and worked really hard. The two of us had a good time doing it.

    Matthew Fox and January Jones in 'We Are Marshall'
    Matthew Fox and January Jones in ‘We Are Marshall’

    Q: Did the people of Huntington feel about the production, since you shot it not far from the actual town?

    MF: It was an amazing experience. This event, it feels to me and obviously, we were a bunch of people coming into that community to make a movie about that story. It’s a very defining part of that community. So I think that anytime you have something like that and a bunch of Hollywood people are going to come in and make a movie about it, there is going to be initially some suspicion I think, that it’s so important to the people that are affected by the story are tied to it in some way. And almost everybody there is, you know, they could be slightly suspicious of a big Hollywood film being made about it. But I think that went away very quickly and I just felt completely welcomed into the community and everybody — shortly after getting there, felt like everybody was routing for us to make the very best, the most honest, most, you know, most beautiful movie and depiction of that time for them as we possibly could. And Marshall, the school itself and everybody that I met there was just — hugely support us. I think that that’s what created this almost special energy for all of us that we’re involved in trying to do this thing, because we felt this huge sort of net of people behind us rooting for us to do it, to do it justice and that was good.

    Q: Did you play football when you were younger, and how did that affect your performance being a coach?

    MF: I did. I played football as wide receiver for a huge portion of my life, all the way through college actually. So I know the game well, but it was the first time that I’ve ever approached the game from the coaching perspective. Made me feel a little old. But yeah, I know the game well and you know, I had spent enough time with Red to even I think, you know, I’ve had all of my own coaches in my life and I’m sure brought some of the things that I knew about them into the way that I wanted to portray Red. But it was — I really documented Red well enough and I felt like I had a good idea of what kind of coach he had been as well, and how important the game was to him and how important the people in the game were to him.

    Q: You were talking about filming in West Virginia and working with the people from that area. How much extra pressure did you feel as an actor to get the story right because it is based on real people and it does affect so many people?

    MF: I felt more pressured than I’ve ever felt doing anything. I mean, when you’re doing a purely fictional story and you’re inventing a character in a story just in your imagination, you want to make something beautiful. You always set out to do that. But when you’re doing that in conjunction with it being based on a true story and you’re playing a man that you’ve become great friends with and you — all I really care about is that Red feels like I’ve done him right, you know? That’s — that was a huge part of what drove me everyday. So there was a lot of pressure, but that’s a good thing and I always approach it that way. And I think everybody are involved in the making of the movie felt that. And I hope that we did it.

    Q: Regarding Lost, when you pick up the script, there’s always the possibility that they’re going to kill off a lead character. So are you worried when you actually think of a script that yours might be next?

    MF: I think that’s always an element it. I don’t worry about it too much. I feel really fortunate to be a part of this project and I do from an objective point of view understand that that is an element of the show that’s important. You can’t create this sort of this island in which life is always in the balance and then not, you know, have people perish. I think that’s just part of the show. And — so yeah, that’s always in the back of my mind but I don’t thread it too much. You know, if that happens to Jack, I really feel — I have an enormous amount of faith in Damon Lindelof and J.J. and Carlton that if that time comes for Jack Shephard is because that’s what is meant to happen in the story and I have faith in the — that they’re on top of that.

    Q: Since the show has turned it attention more towards the Others, and the characters are all separated, you don’t get featured as much. Does that mean you get more time off now than you did at the beginning? And how do you feel about fans who say they miss the dynamics of the original cast because so much attention is given to the newer characters?

    MF: It has created some more time off for me because I’m doing all of my work essentially in one set, so I have two or three days where I’m working 14-hour days. And then, I will have a week of time-off while they’re doing other stories and that’s been incredibly nice for me. I mean, I worked on two films over my hiatus. I worked six days a week all the way through. So getting back to Lost was — I was excited but at the same time getting this much time-off has been a real relief. It’s been nice. And I understand the audience misses some of those other dynamics. But, you know, the story is dictating right now that we’re looking at the story more from the Other’s perspective than our original survivors’ perspective. And that’s a — I think that’s a really amazing thing. I personally — because Jack is now part of those Others as being held in, you know, captivity there, I’ve gotten to work with these with new actors and create completely new relationships and dynamics and that’s been really exciting for me.

    Matthew Fox in 'Vantage Point'
    Matthew Fox in ‘Vantage Point’

    Q: Since you do have so little time to devote to projects outside of Lost and you have been incredibly choosy about your film scripts, I was wondering what appealed to you about the project Vantage Point and how was the challenge of that character and that project? Was that more intense or less intense than We Are Marshall?

    MF: Well, Vantage Point was a script that I actually read about a year and a half ago and I met with Pete Travis, the director of that film. And that was a movie that I was looking at for my first hiatus actually. And then, something happened where it couldn’t get made then. So when it came back around and it looked like it might fit into my second hiatus, I was really excited. I just think it’s a really, really smart, intense and incredible thriller. I feel very strongly about Pete Travis as a director. He directed this movie Omagh which I think is an incredible film. So, he and I really feel eye-to-eye on what needed to happen for that character. And yeah, it’s a very, very — a very different character than what I play in We Are Marshall. It’s a very different movie. So I felt great about the two projects individually obviously and I also felt great about them sort of how different they were. And it’s a very, very intense character. You’re right. It’s intense in different ways. I mean, playing Red Dawson was very, very emotional. And — I mean, it’s not [outwardly] but I had to carry something and carry this weight… and also because I’m playing Red, my friend, you know, there was that added sort of intensely to it. The Vantage Point experience was intense in a different way and I can’t really talk about that too much. It’ll giveaway…

    Q: But you play a secret service agent, correct?

    MF: Yes, I do.

    Q: Did you study at all with actual secret service agents, all that?

    MF: Yeah. Pete was really amazing about trying to get us a [trained], and those guys are really reticent to talk about their profession. So, getting that opportunity was great and Pete really pushed for that to happen and then we had some research materials as well that we studied. We also had people on the set all the time that were sort of consultants to make sure that what we were doing jives with reality.

    Q: Do you and the other actors who play the Others try to make a point of not hanging out or joking between takes to kind of keep the animosity easier?

    MF: I wouldn’t say that it goes that far. There’s definitely a dynamic. I mean, the stuff that’s happening between Jack and Juliet, and Jack and Ben and you know, these Others — the relationships that my character has with the Others — I think there’s an understanding between us as actors, that on the day that we work, there’s a certain dynamic that we strike. But I’m getting to know them both as people and they’re amazing. I just love them as actors. I’m really excited about working with them all the time and how psychological the work is. And — so, yeah, it’s — I’m really enjoying that stuff.

  • Q&A with Frank Spotnitz

    Q&A with Frank Spotnitz

    Frank Spotnitz
    Frank Spotnitz

    Although the concept is really old hat now on television, an elaborate mythology for a series was new back in the early days of The X-Files. Frank Spotnitz, long-time writer and producer of that series, helped develop much of what became a complex storyline of aliens, monsters and religion. He later went on to executive produce its short-lived spin-off, The Long Gunman, as well as Millennium and Harsh Realm, and recently worked on Michael Mann’s Robbery Homicide Division. This past season he helmed his own series, Night Stalker, starring Stuart Townsend.

    With the DVD of that cancelled series hitting stores on Tuesday (see our review of that here) we were given the opportunity to chat with Spotnitz and discuss his experience making Night Stalker and more.

    ——

    Tail Slate: What is your fascination with Kolchak?

    Frank Spotnitz: When you were growing up, as I was, in the 1970s, in a three-network world, there was nothing scary on television. And when Night Stalker originally came on, it was really good. It was really scary, and it made a huge impression on people my age. And I never forgot it, and I loved that character, and Darren McGavin was such an incredible personality. He made it even better than it would have been without him. And then I watched the TV series. It wasn’t quite as good, but he was still great. So, however many years later, some 30 years later, I got the call to do it again. I said yes out of love of the character and thinking of my childhood. But then when I really went back and looked at those original TV movies and the series, I realized how many of those things were wrong. With the series, anyway. And why in my judgment you really couldn’t do it today without changing it quite a bit.

    TS: You mentioned in one of the commentaries on the upcoming Night Stalker DVD set, that the show was actually based upon the two television movies, not the series. Did that change or affect the way in which you developed your version?

    FS: The only think it really changed is that I would have liked to have included some of the music that was in the TV series, and some of the characters and character names. But, because I couldn’t base it on the series didn’t stop me from watching it and studying it, and figuring out why it didn’t work. There were a lot of reasons why I think it didn’t work. Like, why did Kolchak alone of all the reporters in Chicago find monsters week after week? And what was his interest in monsters, anyway? He didn’t really have any interest other than looking for that story that would get him that big time newspaper job again. And why did any of these stories get into print? And what about the cops? And sometime the cops would even see these monsters and they didn’t respond to it. That really shaped a lot of what my series was going to be.

    TS: What is it that drives your interest in these kinds of shows, such as The X-Files and Night Stalker, the science fiction or the horror?

    FS: I have to say I’m not a true horror fan. I don’t run out and see most horror movies. But I like supernatural storytelling, to be more vague about it. Because it tends to be about something. If you can change the physical world, and you come into a story where there’s supernatural phenomena, or a monster, or something like that, it’s because you have an idea, a good story, that can’t be expressed in the real world. And that’s what I like about it. It tends to be about something, and there’s something to think about after it’s over. And I think that’s why so many people take an interest in the writers of this genre, where they don’t take interest in writers of other genres, because they recognize that those ideas are unique.

    TS: It seems a lot of the writers from The X-Files have gone off and done similar-themed shows. Were you and the other writers all of a like mind and loved the genre?

    FS: I think what happens is that once you do a successful show, whatever genre it is, Hollywood likes to typecast you. I think a lot of people, whether they like it or not, are going to be asked to do shows in the same vein. John Shiban, who’s doing Supernatural now, loves the genre, just like me, as a kid. But I think some of the others, they just fell into it.

    TS: When it comes to developing a mythology for a series, how much is plotted out? Like with Night Stalker, how much was plotted out and how much did you discover as you went along?

    FS: I think you try to do both. You try to get a very clear idea of where you’re going, and what the series is about. But then you have to be flexible about all the stops along the way, because you don’t know what actors you’re going to find, or what’s going to happen in the news that might affect your storyline, and you don’t know how many years you’re going to be on the air. In the case of Night Stalker, ABC actually required that I tell them what the mythology was. I had to write a top secret, five-page document, before they would order the series. It explained what was in the pilot, where the series was going to go, and what the last episode would be. So I had a very clear sense of what that show was about, and I have to say, I really felt like I had a particularly rich mythology to pay out. It was particularly disappointing that it got cut short.

    TS: Do you think that a “mythology” show has a limited lifespan? How long can a storyline get dragged out until it burns itself out?

    FS: I think it depends on your skill in weaving the mythology of the series. I have to say that we had the benefit and the curse of being the first to devise the mythology series. As it was happening, we didn’t realize what we were doing until we were well into it that we were in fact creating this mythology that wove in and out of the series. I remember hearing the word “mythology” and thought what a pretentious word that was to apply to a TV series, but now it’s sort of accepted. And our’s spread out over nine years. And now I see the viewer’s impatience, and their appetite for resolution happen on a much faster schedule then it did when we were doing The X-Files. The thing that I wonder is how many of these shows can people keep in their heads at one time. So many shows now have a mythology that you’re expected to keep track of.

    TS: Right. After Lost last season, they came out with several shows this season, such as Invasion, Surface and Threshold, all of which are gone. I’ve had discussions about this with others and, for me, it always came down to: I only have so much room in my brain to dedicate to a television series, I don’t want to have to remember all these things for all these different shows.

    FS: Yeah, that’s the way I feel. I really don’t want to have to keep track of too many fictional universes.

    TS: I always get nervous about shows like Night Stalker that don’t last, because if you get into it and it gets cancelled, then you never find out what the plan was for the series. I was glad that you explained a lot of the show’s secrets in the DVD’s commentary.

    FS: Well I figured this was my chance on the DVD set for those who liked and watched the show, or were buying the DVD, this is what this meant and this is what that meant. And [the show] was fairly unique. And I would like to think that I have the benefit of experience, having played a key role in The X-Files mythology for all those years, of what a mythology should and shouldn’t be, and I tried to apply those lessons to Night Stalker.

    TS: Now, you worked with Michael Mann on his most recent show, Robbery Homicide Division.

    FS: Yes.

    TS: The one thing I remember thinking when I first saw Night Stalker was that it looked like Mann had directed it. Was that intentional?

    FS: He’s such an amazing filmmaker, and he is truly a visionary, which is not a word I would use about many people. And he understood early on what these new high-definition video cameras can do and how they were going to change filmmaking. And, especially in their early days, what they could do better than anything else was photograph the night, because they see light in very low levels. In fact, the new generation of cameras see light at levels even the human eye can’t see. So, when you’re doing a show called, Night Stalker, and you just worked with Michael Mann using these high-definition cameras, it didn’t take a lot of imagination to say that these cameras would be great for this show. So I wrote the pilot and subsequent episodes to take advantage of these cameras and the technology. And going hand-in-hand with that is the idea you want to be on location a lot because you can see off into the distance, you can see clouds in the night sky, you can see all these details which are so rich. That was part of the show, too. We filmed on location almost everyday, which is extremely difficult for a television series, and extremely expensive, too. But I think that’s what gave the series its look.

    TS: I understand that you were once a reporter yourself.

    FS: I was, which made me uniquely qualified to do [Night Stalker]. Not by design did I follow that career path, but right out of UCLA I became a reporter for seven years. But then I made the career change by going back to film school.

    TS: How did you end up as a reporter?

    FS: It was an accident. I went to UCLA intending to get into Hollywood, and fell in love with journalism. I became editor of the college newspaper, and then left to become a reporter. And it wasn’t quite the job I thought it was going to be. I think I was very young, and idealistic, and I became disillusioned by what the job really was. And I just didn’t have the dedication and love for it that you need to become a really great reporter. I think I knew before seven years, but after seven years I finally said that’s enough and I moved back to Los Angeles and Hollywood.

    TS: Now, one of the next things you’re working on is Amped.

    FS: Yeah, that’s a pilot for Spike TV that we hope to do this summer.

    TS: What can you tell us about that?

    FS: We’re waiting, any day now, to get the green light to start casting and so forth. It’s another scary show that I wrote with Vince Gilligan, from The X-Files. This one is about cops in a police precinct. It’s got a larger ensemble cast than I’ve ever worked with before. And the world outside them has changed. A certain percentage of the population has begun to mutate, and they mutate in all different way. It depends on the individual’s DNA on how he or she changes. So the cops go out every day and they quite literally don’t know what they are going to encounter. They might encounter what, for all intents and purposes, may be a monster. And this makes the job utterly unpredictable and, pretty scary. And they all react to this challenge in different ways. So, it’s a really funny and scary show, but it also has a lot of parallels to things that we all feel and fear today.

    TS: And you’re also doing the The X-Files sequel.

    FS: Well, I hope to be doing it. I’m still waiting like everybody else. My deal is done. I think all the creative deals are done. We’re just waiting for some legal issues between Chris Carter and 20th Century Fox to be resolved.

    TS: And there was a mention that it wouldn’t be connected to the alien mythology of the show.

    FS: No, no, it’s not. I think that’s one of the reasons we’re excited to do it, because we did the mythology for nine years. The first movie had to deal with the mythology and was sandwiched between two seasons of the show. Now we’re freer to do a good, scary movie. I always thought it could make a really good film franchise of really scary mysteries. It will have, not a mythology element, but a character element in that we’ll catch up to where Mulder and Scully are in their lives.

    TS: Now, in the spirit of conspiracies, I had this question for you: When ABC decided to cancel Night Stalker did they intentionally cancel it showing only the first part of a two-part episode, so they would hook people into getting it on iTunes and now on DVD so they can see the second part?

    FS: No… you know, I don’t even know if when the people that make those decisions realized they were pulling it in the middle of a two parter. I think what really precipitated their haste was that we were in November sweeps, and they thought that we were going to get another week of low numbers, so they wanted to yank us off for something better. They did yank us off for a Primetime Live special that didn’t do any better. In fact, it did worse. That was particularly frustrating, because I think that second part of the two-parter was one of the best episodes of the series.

    TS: I actually got to watch it this morning on DVD, and I did think it was pretty good. It was interesting to see where the show was going. And I was disappointed that they canceled it. I was actually ready to dedicate a part of my brain to watching it and keep track of its storyline.

    FS: That was the first episode that really told you that, you know what, you may think you know what this show was about, but maybe you don’t because the bad guys didn’t kill him when they see that mark. So, who is he? What is going on? And that was really the exciting part of the mythology that you really hadn’t seen before.

    TS: Would you ever consider letting people see the five-page document you wrote for ABC?

    FS: Only when I know without a shadow of a doubt that the show is absolutely dead and wouldn’t come back in any way shape or form. Even then, I have to say, some of those ideas may find their way reimagined or reconfigured into something else. So much of what this show was about are themes and ideas that are really important and interesting to me. The mythology of good and evil, which is such a profound issue in everyone’s lives, whether they think about it or not. So I expect I’ll continue to deal with these ideas in some way in everything that I do.

  • ‘The Ghosts of Emmett Louis Till’ filmmaker Keith Beauchamp

    ‘The Ghosts of Emmett Louis Till’ filmmaker Keith Beauchamp

    Kevin Beauchamp, writer/director of 'The Ghost of Emmitt Till'
    Kevin Beauchamp, writer/director of ‘The Ghost of Emmitt Till’

    There are millions who have probably never heard the name Emmett Till. For Keith Beauchamp, that name has become nearly has familiar as his own. For a decade he has been working diligently to tell the story of the young black boy who in August of 1955 was brutally murdered in Mississippi for innocently whistling at a white woman. This Tuesday, the DVD of The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till gets released (read our review here), and Beauchamp took time to talk with us about the journey he embarked upon to learn more about the case. That life-altering experience has lead to a new chapter in the Till case, which was reopened in 2004 thanks to Beauchamp’s efforts.

    Tail Slate: What inspired you to make this film?

    Keith Beauchamp: I first heard of Emmett Till at the age of 10, when I lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I came across a copy of JET magazine that had published the photograph of Emmett’s body in 1955. And like many of us, that photograph shocked me. I couldn’t imagine how someone could murder him in the manner that they did. And then I learned that he was killed for a simple act of whistling. My parents came in and explained the story to me, and over the years Emmett Till’s name kept coming up in my household.

    When I was in high school I was involved in inter-racial dating, and the first thing my mother would say to me was, ‘Please don’t let what happened to Emmett Till happen to you.’ They didn’t say this because they wanted me to stop my inter-racial dating, but because they wanted me to be aware of the racism that still exists in this country. Then two weeks before my high school graduation I had my huge wake-up call when I was beat up by undercover officers when I was dancing with a white friend of mine at an inter-racial party. And that’s what sort of pushed me to want to do something about the racial problem in this country. I decided to study criminal justice at the University of Baton Rouge, and then I became a civil rights attorney. Later I decided I would try the entertainment field, because two of my childhood friends had moved to New York City and started their own production company. I produced some music videos, and then had the opportunity to work on my first feature, and the only thing I could think about writing was the Emmett Till story.

    That’s how it started off. It was going to be a feature film, but then later turned into a documentary because of all the evidence I came across, as well as the encouragement of Emmett Till’s mother. She basically said to me that it was going to take a long time for me to make it as a feature, and that I may not be able to get all the facts out because of Hollywood. ‘Why don’t you do it as a documentary and use it as a stepping stone,’ she suggested.

    TS: Has there been any further movement on the case since it was reopened?

    KB: A lot has happened since the case was reopened in 2004. The FBI has come in and worked extensively and processed the evidence I have given them and the leads on the case, all the way up to the examination of Till’s body in June, and now we’re at the crossroads. Just a couple of days ago the FBI said that everything will be handed over to District Attorney Joyce Chiles in Mississippi. She will be the one to decide whether or not to go ahead and seek indictments. And so my objective is now to keep telling Emmett Till’s story until justice is done.

    TS: How did you start the process of finding the people involved and getting the interviews?

    KB: It was very difficult because of the fact that a lot of the witnesses did not want to talk about the case. I was young at the time, when I started doing this. I was 24 years old, and I went down to Mississippi and started poking around. Eventually I met Emmett’s cousins, who were all still there. I met Simeon Wright, who was one of Emmett’s cousins who shared the bed with him the night he was abducted. It took me three years to convince him to talk to me. He was like my missing link to the whole case. After I got an opportunity to get him to speak to me, he opened the doors to everyone else.

    TS: Were they reluctant to talk about it because of their own personal feelings, or where they simply afraid to talk about it because of what might happen to them?

    KB: They were afraid to talk about it. But in Simeon’s case, he was afraid to talk about it because he was upset about what history has written about the case. A lot of historians and scholars who have written about the incident have blamed his family, his side of the family, for the murder of Emmett Till. It was even written that the cousins had dared Emmett to go into the store (which led to the encounter which got him killed). All this misinformation led to a lot of them not wanting to talk at all because they weren’t certain what would happen to their words. In regards to Ruthie, the only female at the store that day, she was afraid to talk on camera so we had to hide her identity.

    TS: It just shows you that a lot of that anger, they still feel it there.

    KB: Nothing has really changed in this area of Mississippi. Racism and prejudice still exists, those people who had those ideas in the 1950s and 1960s still feel that way today. And it’s not only in Mississippi. We’re still fighting that war.

    TS: How did you feel when you were talking to these people and learned about their experiences during that time?

    KB: It was very emotional. You would think that after all these years a lot has changed, but the reality is nothing has really changed. Even during the process of talking to these people [for this documentary] there were a number of lynchings that took place throughout the South, and around the country in general. These lynchings were often ruled as suicides by local coroner offices. And this was all going on during the production of this film.

    Then there was sitting down and hearing these stories about something I first heard about when I was 10. Getting all the players and putting all the pieces together was just amazing. I never thought in a million years that a story I heard when I was a child would be something I’d have the opportunity to tell millions of others about as an adult. And tell it in a way that was so compelling that it reopened the case. Emmett Till became an obsession for me. Telling his story, meeting his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, who was one of the most prolific people I’d ever meet in my lifetime. And she came into my life at a point in time when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. She nurtured me into the activist that I am now, without even my knowing it.

    TS: There are some white people who are still around from that time and were involved in this case. Were any of them willing to talk with you?

    KB: First of all, I did not want to be biased. I wanted to go in with a clear head and start from scratch. I wanted to feel that atmosphere and understand why this murder took place. I really thought that if I could understand this case it would help our generation deal with racial relations today. So I went in and I tried to interview the other side, but nobody wanted to grant me an interview. I was able to confront the wife of J.W. Milam, and she said that ‘my husband is dead, and Emmett Till is dead, and this story needs to be dead.’ The white people didn’t want to talk about it. They thought I was opening old wounds, and dealing with something I didn’t even understand. And they were telling the truth in a way, because I never realized before how complex the case really was.

    TS: There were two things that surprised me about the film. The first was that there were blacks involved in the crime.

    KB: It is amazing, because for so many years you hear it is black-and-white, black-and-white. And then being African-American myself and coming across the works of Medgar Evers, Ruby Hurley, Dr. Howard, and James Hicks of the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper. These people were the first to lead the secret investigation behind the scenes of the crime that discovered that black men and other white men were involved. And then I built upon the work of these great people and found out that a lot of the people they were looking for at the time were still alive. And that’s how things began to unravel for me about the case.

    TS: The other surprise was when you show the picture of Emmett Till’s corpse. I can’t wrap my head around how a person could do that to another human being. But do you think that image is still as effective today as it was then? Aren’t we a more jaded society now?

    KB: No, not at all. Everyone who has seen the film has been affected. I’ve been traveling the country and lecturing about this case. I’ve screened the film, and I’ve talked to students and I’ve talked to civil rights organizations. That photograph is even more powerful today than it was then. And it is because we’re a generation that has forgotten all the travesties that have occurred in our past. I can’t blame us, our generation, for that. We have to blame our elders and our parents for not wanting to instill those values that they had during the civil rights movement. They need to sit down and tell us those stories. Our parents don’t tell us those stories anymore because they feel we don’t have to go through it. But I knew that if I used that photography in that film today it was going to wake a whole generation up, and that’s exactly what it is doing. I mean, you even have people who grew up during that time and never heard of Emmett Till or saw that photograph. This story is being taught all over again, but this time it is being taught the right way.

    TS: How did the murder of Emmett Till affect the Civil Rights Movement?

    KB: Mamie Till’s decision to have an open casket funeral changed the world. It sparked the Civil Rights Movement. It was because of Emmett Till’s death that Rosa Parks refused to get up from her seat in Alabama. It was because of Emmett Till’s death that 26-year-old Martin Luther King decided to take on the Montgomery bus boycott because he felt the murder of Emmett was an intimidation tactic to keep black folks from the polls. So these people made these courageous decisions because of the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till. The march on Washington, August 28th, it is the same date as the murder. A lot of people don’t realize that the reason that date was chosen was to keep Emmett’s memory alive. When you talk about civil rights in this country, you can’t keep talking about Brown vs. Education, and then jump over Emmett Till and go to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Of course the Civil Rights Movement would still have happened, but I don’t think it would have been as effective.

    TS: Why do you think that people so often overlook the murder of Emmett Till?

    KB: Because of the fact that we as a country, black and white collectively, haven’t faced our demons. Racism is still a problem here, but we’re still afraid to discuss racism in a public forum. In 1955, the Emmett Till case was never talked about. It was a bad case, and it was a great atrocity committed to a child, and no one wanted to talk about it.

    TS: Why is this the “untold” story of Emmett Till?

    KB: This is untold because there’s a lot of information that has never come out about this case. I only used eyewitnesses that were involved in the case. The film doesn’t have narration. I was never a fan of narration, because sometimes when you have a narrator you feel as an audience that that narrator is telling you the truth. But here, I only wanted to set a platform for the eyewitnesses who have never spoken publicly before. And that was very powerful for the Justice Department, which is what led to the case being reopened.

    TS: What kind of equipment did you use to conduct the interviews?

    KB: It was all kinds actually, because I shot most of the interviews by myself. Most of the witnesses didn’t trust anyone else. I used a Sony DVX1000, Canon XL1, and a BetaSP Cam. That was it.

    TS: And what was the span of time all the interviews were gathered within?

    KB: Four years. No, I take that back, because even afterwards I was still finding people to interview. Everywhere I needed to get information I went out and shot it. I completely finished the film in 2004 for the Hamptons International Film Festival.

    TS: Did you find at the end that you found there were interviews that you had to leave out?

    KB: Of course, there were a number of people I left out because of the investigation. I wanted so badly to include them in the film, but I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want to affect the investigation. A lot of people who have seen the film, the media and all, have said that it is a perfect set up for a second film. I wasn’t able to put everything that I really wanted to include, but people are now telling me I should make a second part because now I can put in everything. I just signed a deal for the feature film, so I think that’s going to be my second film.

    TS: How important was all the archival footage you used?

    KB: It was very important. It authenticated the information that the eyewitnesses were describing. It was very important to have that because it was the bulk of the story. The Emmett Till case started the media revolution in this country. The Emmett Till case is the only case of its kind to be completely documented by archival footage and micro film, as well as photographs. All major networks and newspapers covered this case. Even other countries like Russia, Germany and England were writing about it.

    TS: The main reason these people were not punished in the first place was because of racism and the racist establishment that was in charge at the time. Do you think things have changed enough for justice to be done?

    KB: I will say yes because of the fact that the case was reopened in the first place by the Federal government. I have hope.

  • Carter Jenkins talks ‘Surface’

    Carter Jenkins talks ‘Surface’

    Carter Jenkins in 'Surface'
    Carter Jenkins in ‘Surface’

    The 2005-2006 season was marked by the premiere of several serialized television series, following in the footsteps of ABC’s successful, Lost. Of those, some have since fallen into the realm of cancellation, while others succeeded enough to gain a full season’s worth of episodes.

    One of those shows that succeeded early on was NBC’s Surface, a unique science fiction series about mysterious creatures that appear in Earth’s oceans. The government struggles to investigate these beings while keeping their existence a secret from the general public. That didn’t stop some individuals from having personal experiences with these creatures, one of them coming in the form of Miles Barnett, a 14-year-old in North Carolina. That young teenager is played by Carter Jenkins, a talented actor who in only a few short years in the business snagged a starring role in a hit prime time network series.

    “It’s like, my dream,” Jenkins said in a phone interview recently. “I’m just really grateful for it.”

    The role of Miles in Surface is different in that his character’s storyline is separate from the other two main characters on the show, Laura Daughtery (Lake Bell) and Richard Connelly (Jay R. Ferguson). While they are off being chased by government agents and plunging into the ocean in search of the giant creatures, Miles found a baby creature and raised it as a pet. This presents a unique challenge for Jenkins, since so many of his scenes involve interacting with a digital effect.

    “That’s really tough, because you’re doing a scene with… nothing,” he said. “And acting is reacting. When you’re working with another actor, you react to that person. But I don’t have that.”

    In fact, in the show’s first few outings, Jenkins didn’t have a clear idea just what he was supposed to be interacting with. “It’s actually kind of funny, because in the first couple of episodes they had a very preliminary ‘Nimrod’,” he explained with a chuckle (“Nimrod” is the name Miles gave the lizard-like animal). “For the pilot they had a picture of him. But they said it was going to change a lot. That this wasn’t going to be what it was actually going to look like. So for the first few episodes, I had to imagine what it was going to look like.”

    Although his own personal image of the creature was more like a mythical dragon, Jenkins was impressed by how the creature ultimately came out. “They showed me video of it before the series aired,” he added. “It was cool.”

    Working with a digital creature serves as an interesting acting experience, Jenkins said, but that is something he relishes. “It’s challenging, but I really enjoy it.” Especially with how digital effects have become a standard in Hollywood now, getting this kind of experience early in his career can work to his advantage. “The actors in something like King Kong, they have to be really good at acting and reacting to nothing. What’s good is that I have experience with it now.”

    Another challenge of working on a series like Surface is that even the actors don’t always know where the story is going. “I’m always left to guess,” Jenkins said. “We shoot a couple of episodes in advance, but I don’t know what’s going to happen beyond that.” For example, when his character, Miles, had a very brief exchange with Ferguson’s Richard on the Internet in one of the early episodes, Jenkins thought that storyline would lead to them actually meeting on screen.

    “It was weird, because when we were shooting that I assumed that the story was going to go in that direction, and that I was going to meet him through the Internet, or something,” he said. This, however, did not happen. But that does lead to the question: Will Miles ever appear onscreen with both Richard and Laura?

    “Well, it hasn’t happened yet, I can tell you that,” Jenkins said, hesitantly, not wanting to discuss plot or story elements in any detail. “But it’ll happen soon. At least, I really hope so, because I really like Lake [Bell] and Jay [Ferguson]. I think they’re really good actors, and I’d be really bummed if I never get to work with them at all… I was talking with Jay the other day, and we were both joking that if our characters did meet it would be one scene, and then be like, one word, and that would be the end of the season.”

    With Surface returning on Monday, January 2nd, at 8 p.m., Jenkins promises that the next five episodes will reveal more than most fans may expect. “A lot is going to get revealed in the next five episodes,” he said, excitedly. “It’s going to surprise people. At least, I know I didn’t know how the story was going to progress.”

    Outside of Surface, Jenkins will be seen in two upcoming feature releases in 2006: Keeping Up with the Steins with Jami Gertz, Daryl Hannah and Garry Marshall, and the comedy, Think Tank. You could also catch him on DVD in the recent remake, Bad News Bears, which we reviewed here on Tuesday.

  • ‘Pretty Persuasion’ director Marcos Siega is a hot commodity

    ‘Pretty Persuasion’ director Marcos Siega is a hot commodity

    Marcos Siega with the cast of 'Pretty Persuasion'
    Marcos Siega with the cast of ‘Pretty Persuasion’

    You can tell right away whether or not someone is a “people person” and Marcos Siega, director of Pretty Persuasion is definitely one of those. It was obvious from the moment he walked into the room and asked the nine or ten journalists/critics present to introduce themselves, “so I’ll know who I’m talking with.”

    Siega, who is making his feature film directorial debut with Pretty Persuasion had previously directed a number of music videos, including Anthrax’s “Inside Out”, “Nothing” and “Fueled”, Blink-182’s “What’s My Age Again” and “All the Small Things” and Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Come Down”. He had also done some work in television and just to demonstrate how busy he has been, his second feature film Underclassman will be released this coming Labor Day weekend.

    Siega’s producing partner brought him the script for Pretty Persuasion, written by Skander Halim, who said, “It took five years to get this film made with one of the hottest young, up-and-coming directors in Hollywood attached to it.” Siega explained that one of the challenges he faced after reading the script was convincing Halim not to direct it himself. About that Halim said, “Which was surprisingly easy because he was the first one, I could tell, who understood what I was trying to do.”

    “Nobody wanted to touch this script,” Siega said, and given how it pushes the edge of the PC envelope that isn’t surprising. But he also pointed out that every actor he sent it to that he wanted to cast said yes immediately. That was an indication of just how compelling the material was and how much he wanted to make it.

    Evan Rachel Wood was only 16 when the film was shot and there were several provocative scenes that she would be involved in shooting. How did director Siega handle this? Simple. He gave her, and every other actor in the film a card they could play at any time. If there was anything in the film at all that any of them felt uncomfortable about doing, all they had to do was speak up and the crew would have to do that thing first. Wood used that card, as did co-star Jane Krakowski. She felt uncomfortable doing a scene in bra and panties, so the entire crew shot that scene without shirts on.

    Regarding Pretty Persuasion’s “unrated” status, Siega said, “It was just a matter of making decisions. At Sundance we were offered… I’m also a producer on the movie, I had a responsibility to my investors who included family and friends… studios wanted to buy the movie if we made those same changes that they wanted while we were making the movie. Samuel Goldwyn came in, said I love it, I want the movie to come out as you want it. My first question was what about rating, what if it they come back and say NC-17, is that going to effect how you try to sell the movie, will that effect if the movie comes out theatrically, and they said no. We’re not a signatory to the MPAA so if it comes back NC-17, we’ll put it out unrated. We ended up not getting a NC-17, we ended up getting a R rating.”

    When asked how he and Marcos approached doing accurate portrayals of teen females, since they are both men, he said, “I didn’t really do any research. In fact I’d have probably been arrested if I’d tried to do that kind of research.” After the laughter in the room died down, Marcos added, “The other litmus test for me was I sat down with Evan, after she’d read the material. She and the other actresses, they were young teen girls and they gave me the information and so my research was coming out of my actors. Teenagers today don’t really think of oral sex as sex. Our world’s changed a bit, me being in my 30s, I remember playing spin the bottle and it was a big deal. Nowadays spin the bottle is not a big deal at all. Whether Skander did research or not doesn’t really matter, he hit something on the head that sort of exposed those private morals that are relevant today.”

    “Ya gotta go there,” Siega said, when asked about pushing limits to the edge, and if ever there was a film and director who went there, he and Pretty Persuasion fit the description.