THE WRESTLER—The Evening Class Interview With Marisa Tomei

Although my vote for Best Supporting Actress at this year's Academy Awards would be for Viola Davis for her powerhouse performance in Doubt, there's no question that Davis will receive stiff competition from Marisa Tomei, whose performance as strip dancer Cassidy—the love interest in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler—recently garnered her a win in that category from the San Francisco Film Critics Circle. She's likewise running neck and neck with Davis for that honor at this year's Golden Globes. I recently had the opportunity to discuss how she developed her character for The Wrestler.

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Michael Guillén: Marisa, you are so fine in The Wrestler!

Marisa Tomei: Thank you.

Guillén: You're such a brave and committed actress. Can I ask how the role of Cassidy came to you?

Tomei: It didn't come in a very exciting way. Mickey and I have the same agent. It was sort of a matchmaking thing. My agent told me about the role and shortly thereafter I got a call from Darren, we got together, and we started negotiating. There was no script for me to read at first so I joke around that he did everything to dissuade me from taking this part, saying how hard this was going to be, how hard he was going to push me, how there was no money, how he needed me to be nude in XYZ scenes, how Mickey was a wild card, and how I had to be down for all of it. [Laughs.] I said, "Great! Call me when you have a script and then we'll see."

Darren and I also realized that we clicked and then realized that was because we were both from Brooklyn and had gone to the same high school. Now I know that he knew my brother and that they shared a mutual good friend. So we had a tie and a language; that was on the positive side. Then a few weeks later he sent the script and it was one of the easiest scripts I've ever read. They're so hard to read normally, which doesn't mean they're not going to be a good movie but sometimes it's hard to just get through the script and to picture it. But the script for The Wrestler was so evocative and I really liked it. I was intrigued by my part. Shortly thereafter he offered it to me and that was it pretty much. I mean, he took a little longer than I would have liked. I thought, "You've just asked me to go through Hell for you…."; but, it finally came through and we decided to do it.

Guillén: Between this performance as strip tease dancer Cassidy and your previous performance as Gina Hansen in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, you've been absolutely fearless.

Tomei: I don't know if I was fearless or insane!

Guillén: You're so much more bold that most actors around. How do you approach something like the amount of nudity you had to do in The Wrestler? That can't be comfortable for you?

Tomei: [Sighs.] We talked about it in detail. First of all, I was flabbergasted that the mystery of life should bring me a second movie in succession where I would be asked to do something like that. I had never in my whole career been interested in that or not so much that I wasn't interested but I didn't think it would create the kind of career that I want, which is to hopefully be taken seriously to do a range of roles. Because I started in a comedy, it was already hard to be taken as a serious actress. I thought, "Please let me have a range of roles." But that's hard for anybody anyway. So I was always against nudity for myself but without being judgmental. But then it came up later in my career and I guess I was like, "Well, you have to do everything once. What the hell." And there was something of an adventure about it so I was more intrigued by the adventure and couldn't resist working with Sidney Lumet. I thought, "Okay, I'm just going to do it." I was shocked when I saw what I had actually done. I didn't realize in a way. Because it's in the acting. I was doing what the character would do. I was living a normal life. People have sex and that was part of my job—the naturalness of it—but I didn't really think about how there it is.

Then when it came to me a second time by another director who I simply could not resist, someone with so much to say and someone with whom I wanted to be aligned and be part of his vision, I just had to laugh. I thought about it long and hard, "What am I saying with this? It could really go the wrong way." But ultimately I decided to trust Darren and to trust myself. It almost became a hat trick the second time. It was like, "Okay, can you do it again?" I made it into that kind of challenge. With The Wrestler it was interesting because Cassidy has to be so comfortable with it, that's just how she lives, she's naked most of the time. She's naked at her job all the time so she has to be completely comfortable. When I went in, it was just 100% and I didn't really think about it again.

Guillén: Aside from the nudity, Cassidy is quite a complex role. I was intrigued by the parallel structure between her and Randy the Ram (Mickey Rourke), between your bodies and the ruin you're both putting your bodies through. To research for the role, did you have to collaborate with actual pole dancers? You got the technique down pat. What was that process like?

Tomei: I had danced as a teenager and so that was part of my tool box in a way. I have that in my muscle memory. I didn't strip but I went to my dance classes and I've always wanted to do a musical and that's why I actually wanted to be an actress. I loved Singing in the Rain. I loved Gene Kelley. I would write fan mail to Gene Kelley and not Scott Baio. [Laughs.] My body has always been a part of my expression. Also, I started in the theater. On film a lot of times you're only required to act from your neck up really. So I was still very connected to my body through my training in dance and theater and I was excited about expressing my character through her body and her feelings through her body. Because I could dance, I knew I could learn the kind of moves Cassidy required. Mickey always talks about how he was a boxer and how he had to relearn and unlearn the boxing because in boxing you hide your punch and in wrestling you show it. For Cassidy's movement I had to do hyperextensions, something you ordinarily would never do in ballet or jazz dance. I had to hyperextend my chest and walk certain moves that were her "go to" moves, her carriage. I had to catch on to that a bit. I knew that I was flexible so I wanted to use that as much as I could. I knew I could do splits and things like that pretty easily; but, for the pole stuff, I knew I didn't have much gymnastic training. When I did gymnastics as a kid, I was always a balance beam-floor kind of gymnast; I was never an uneven bars type of person. My upper body wasn't that strong.

The pole is very very hard and I have a new respect for that. I went to a lot of clubs and hung out with a lot of dancers and also just watched a lot. It was kind of an osmosis, an absorption. Seeing what kind of style I might like, getting inspiration, observing whether it was always tawdry. I had no idea really. It wasn't clear in the script. It was open to interpretation. I sprang from the point of the parallels that you're talking about. He loves his wrestling so I went with she loves the dancing, even if it was just the dancing and not the whole world of the strip tease joint, maybe not the lapdance, maybe not always having to be on and be servicing; but, maybe in those two minutes when she's dancing, there's a transcendence for her at times? Maybe that's been a safe place for her expression when she was younger and got into this? I decided to build the character of Cassidy on that. I would look for who was connected to their bodies and into it. In a certain way you have to be into it for yourself to make the dance really good. It's not just posing or an external thing. You have to be connected inside. So I looked for different styles and for someone who I could say, "That's someone I would like to go for." But I never found someone who was that person and was going to be able to teach me so I just got a variety of visual experience and then I had a friend who is really into strip clubs and she teaches pole dancing. She teaches yoga and is a masseuse also and she had the same build that I have so that gave me a little more confidence because my idea of what a stripper was supposed to look like was not what I look like. I talked to Darren about that. He said, "You just haven't been to enough strip clubs is all. [Laughs.] There's all shapes and sizes. You're going to be fine." But I was worried that I was going to disappoint people. But he said it was going to be okay.

When I found this friend of a friend who then became a good friend of mine, it was great because I could see her moving in a way that was similar to my body type. It inspired me. The reason my friend teaches pole dancing is because she sees it not only as great exercise but because she sees women becoming liberated and empowered by it. They're not living the life of a stripper—they're just women who go to these classes—but, I was able to touch in on some of that and let that be part of Cassidy. Just in that little area of her life. I don't think she has it together—she's a mess, for sure—but, that little area might be something that's sacred to her. That's a performance thing too and I could relate to it as a performer.

Guillén: So you've described how you developed the dancing; but, in general and specifically for this role, how did you go about creating her character? You only had so much time and you had to suggest an entire life.

Tomei: Yeah, proportionally there was not that much screen time for this role.

Guillén: And it was a psychologized physicality, for which I must compliment you. It's not like you were mimicking someone else or—as you said—posing. The physicality did indeed express Cassidy's psychology.

Tomei: Thank you. I worked hard on that. I talked with Darren, of course, to see if he had a specific direction in mind. We went through the script line by line, which he does with all his actors, and I found that really helpful because it creates a space where you can bring up any questions. There was one person in particular that I met at Crazy Girls in Los Angeles who had a great sense of humor. She was almost a tomboy, like a goof I could hang out with, and I liked that it could work for Cassidy with him because I guess I just thought they were more pals even though it changes into something else that confuses her. That's why she's back and forth with him. In the end it's a feeling of comradeship. So I went with the idea that Cassidy was somewhat a goof who could be funny sometimes.

Guillén: And she likes her '80s metal.

Tomei: And loves her '80s metal! I watched a lot of Rock of Love. I don't know if you've ever seen L.A.'s Bret Michaels' reality TV show where all these strippers try to marry him? [Laughs.]

I write a lot and think about the history. You can see a lot of the history in the tattoos. Darren had said he wanted Cassidy to have a lot of tattoos. He wanted her to be like a Suicide Girl. I didn't even know what that was at the time but they're these young girls who would now be considered cheesecake? Light porn? They're all tattooed up and they're real cute with short hair. Punky porn. But I told him, "This is not my character's generation." So my tattoos are totally built on, "This was when her son was born. This was a drunken mistake one night. This was her first effort to get clean. These are the musical notes from her favorite song." We built them up layer by layer.

Guillén: I regret we don't have more time so I'll wrap up by praising again your wonderful performance in The Wrestler.

Tomei: It was a pleasure talking with you.

Cross-published on Twitch.

DOUBT—The Evening Class Interview With Viola Davis

The cascading accolades Viola Davis has received for her supporting turn as Mrs. Miller in John Patrick Shanley's film adaptation of his Broadway play Doubt confirm that this is the breakout performance every actor dreams of and which Davis unquestionably deserves. Best known for her performance in Antwone Fisher, Kenneth Turan writes at the L.A. Times that Viola Davis "brings a sense of decency, urgency and even fear to her rending performance." At the Chicago Sun Times Roger Ebert praises the scene between Davis and Meryl Streep "as good as any I've seen this year. It lasts about 10 minutes, but it is the emotional heart and soul of Doubt, and if Viola Davis isn't nominated by the Academy, an injustice will have been done." At Slant, Dan Callahan writes that Davis's performance is "stealthy and cautious, and her presence fills the screen with a rage she can barely contain." My immediate reaction after seeing Doubt was that Davis was an obvious shoe-in for an Oscar nomination in the Supporting Actress category and that—if I could interview anyone from the film—I wished I could talk to her. As wishes go, mine was granted.

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Michael Guillén: It's been said that if a person is willing to begin with doubt, they can proceed to certainty. Clearly, with your performance as Mrs. Miller in John Patrick Shanley's film adaptation of his Broadway play Doubt, the certainty is that this choice role will launch you into a season of nominations and awards. It's a stellar performance inspired by formidable talent.

Viola Davis: Thank you.

Guillén: Congratulations on your Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress and—as of this morning—your S.A.G. nomination. Any others I don't know about?

Davis: The National Board of Review gave me breakthrough performer of the year—that was a good one—and various film critics awards, many of which I've never even heard of before: St. Louis, Dallas, etc.

Guillén: Are you surprised?

Davis: Frankly, I am. I have to say I am surprised.

Guillén: I'm aware you come from the Broadway stage, where you garnered a Tony for your portrayal of Tonya in King Hedley II, so I'm curious if you know Adriane Lenox, the actress who originally played your role in Doubt on Broadway?

Davis: I know her personally. I'd never seen the play before; but, I know her personally, yes. She's a fabulous actress and a great person.

Guillén: Did you know about the role when the play was on Broadway?

Davis: Oh yeah, because everyone talked about it, "My God, the scene with the Black woman"—they'd say "the Black woman" or Adriane Lenox, dependent upon whether they knew her name or not—but no one ever told me what the scene was about. It was like everyone had a gag order on them. It won Adriane the Tony, even though it was just one scene, so I knew the actress was fantastic and that the scene itself must be something extraordinary; but, I didn't know how extraordinary until I picked up the play to solicit myself for the role in the film version.

Guillén: I would say the scene is the most well-written scene in the script as a showcase for the nature of your character, Mrs. Miller. First of all, how did you come to the role in the film version?

Davis: I came to it because I heard the play was going to be done as a movie and I knew Scott Rudin would be producing it and he really likes me. Then I heard they had secured Meryl Streep. I thought, "I have a chance at this role. I can solicit myself—which I never do—so I picked up the script four months in advance, phoned my manager and said, "I really want an audition." Now probably every other actress would say, "I want the role", but I just said, "I want an audition." Every Black actress in America auditioned. I finally made it to the short list of seven. They screen tested in New York. They paraded us in full costume, hair, everything. Seven Mrs. Millers! [Laughs.] They carted us into a room with the producers, the director and the full crew to do the scene and I found out maybe an hour and a half later that I got it. I felt like I had won $150,000,000 in the lottery; that was the feeling.

Guillén: Well, you earned the win. When you read the role, and you decided to audition for it and lobby for it, what was it you felt you could give to the role? What was it that you saw in the role that you knew you had the chops to deliver?

Davis: You're always doubtful if you have the chops; but, I felt I could play the complexities of it. She's not what she appears to be when you're introduced to her. You think you know what she's going to say. You really feel it's going to just be a conflict, an argument scene, and all of a sudden it unfolds and she's so much more. It's such a scene about the extraordinary mother love, loving in extraordinary circumstances, and I felt like I could give that duality and complexity through simplicity. I feel that's my thing. I know how to be simple and how to play different emotions through that simplicity.

Guillén: I would argue that the simplicity you're describing lends itself to the collective conscience the role demonstrates and requires. That conscience is the service of this role to the story. I first noted your acting in Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven where you played Julianne Moore's maid Sybil. Especially the scene where you offer to accompany her to visit Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), when you realize she's on her way to see him and that it isn't quite appropriate and that maybe it would look better if you went with her. In that—as you say—simple offer, the audience recognized Sybil as informed, conscious, moral, loyal, and someone who really wanted to help this woman who was going out on a weak limb.

Davis: Yes, absolutely.

Guillén: Are these roles of steadfast consciousness simply portrayed the ones you prefer to play?

Davis: I love to play them! This role in Doubt would not exist, this scene would not exist, if it were set in 2008. No one would buy it. They buy it because it's set in 1964, because of restraints. Things you want to say but can't say. A kind of relationship you want to have but can't have because you're too restrained by the culture, by racial differences and sexual differences. I enjoy playing characters like that. You have to communicate what you need and want through other means besides the obvious. I find that to be a challenge.

Guillén: I'm aware that you come from a background of abject poverty. I, too, come from humble origins, the child of migrant laborers, and—as a gay male—my mother, like the character of Mrs. Miller, loved me unconditionally. Mom was, of course, concerned about my sexuality because—as you say—it was in the mid-60s, not 2008. And yet she wanted me to get ahead. The first few times I started associating with older gay men, her friends cautioned her, "Don't let Michael go with that guy! Don't let Michael do this. Don't let Michael do that." Yet Mom wanted me to find opportunity however I could find it, wherever I could find it, in a way that fulfilled me. That's a decision she made at that time that only now I recognize as a consummate sacrifice. Perhaps that's why I related so much to how the role of Mrs. Miller was written and your portrayal of her. Her demonstration of love is amazing.

Davis: Yes! That's what it's about, right? People want to put all the labels on me too—not me, Viola, but the character Mrs. Miller—and I don't mind it, sometimes, but other times I say, "I can't take it" because they want to make the character out to be so heroic and I guess she is in a very simple way; but, she is absolutely frightened. I don't think she's as progressive as people make her out to be. I think she's a bit horrified by the fact that her son is a budding homosexual; but, I think that any mother that is at the crossroads of recognizing that their child is someone that they didn't envision them as being or want them to be then has a choice. You either love them, or you don't. Really, that's the bottom line!

Guillén: Believe me, I know. I've had many friends tell me how they were abandoned by their families once they came out. I feel blessed that my mother's love was abiding.

Davis: Mrs. Miller decides, "I love my son." Ultimately, you love your child because that is something ingrained. God has put it in you, I think anyway. From the moment you get pregnant, that child's life is probably more important than your own. She's made that decision, despite the fact that she doesn't even understand the rest of it.

Guillén: As a hypothetical—and I'm not sure you can even answer this or if it even needs to be answered—but, I've been alert to the presumption in some of the reviews that Philip Seymour Hoffman's character Father Flynn actually molested the boy Donald. Do you think he molested your character's son?

Davis: I think that they had some sexual exploration.

Guillén: So you think that indiscretion actually took place?

Davis: My character so fully believes that, that I probably believe that I believe that, even though I don't think that's actually the point of the movie.

Guillén: Interesting. I didn't read it that way. I felt that Father Flynn knew what the repercussions would be if such a scandal broke and how Donald might be harmed. He knew you. He knew your husband. He knew what would happen to the boy. That's why he elected to make the choice he made to leave. I believe it was a choice made from loving compassion and generosity of spirit.

Davis: That's great! Everybody reads it differently. But it's so funny you ask me that because I don't even know what I think, as Viola, but Mrs. Miller—because she has no frame of reference for homosexuality—she's thinking, "Well, if my son is already showing signs of homosexuality and this priest is showing such an interest in him, something may have happened." She has a line in the movie—"My husband was afraid of how he would act with the other boys; but, nothing has happened as far as I can tell"—which is very cryptic. When she comes into the office, I think that's part of the fear in the back of her mind that something has gone on, that maybe her son has touched someone. That's just character information that I'm giving you.

Guillén: I'm sure you've been asked this before; but, what was your personal feeling working across Meryl Streep?

Davis: Complete horror and terror. [Laughs.] I was absolutely terrified.

Guillén: And yet Roger Ebert, in his review for the Chicago Sun Times, qualifies that your scene with Streep "is a confrontation of two equals that generates terrifying power" [my italics] and some reviewers have even ventured that you stole the scene right out from under Streep?

Davis: Well, I have to tell you right now that—though I'm very flattered by that—I will absolutely disagree. It's funny, once again, truth is stranger than fiction, as they say. I was absolutely petrified to work with Meryl Streep because, c'mon, you gotta come 100%, right?

Guillén: I would be terrified just to talk to her!

Davis: There you go, right? Well, me too! [Laughs.] I had to work with her in this scene! But for all the reasons that I was terrified, they were the selfsame reasons that made working with her, Meryl, not Meryl Streep—such a wonderful experience. Because she is just as invested in your work as in her own. She's a consummate actor. That's what an actor does. They say you're only as good as your partner. She's a fantastic partner because she's not just invested in her close-up; she understands that it's about give-and-take. Whatever you do, you know she's going to be right there for you. And then off the set, she's a fantastic human being—interesting, funny, curious, bawdy, y'know?—and she creates a comfortable atmosphere in which to discover and to take risks. So all the reasons you're terrified of her—Is she going to be a diva? Is she going to be so fantastic that she's going to critique your work? Blah blah blah—none of those things come into play. She's a great actress and a great person.

Guillén: I've read that when you first saw your rushes, you were very unhappy. Is that true?

Davis: [Groans.] Yeah.

Guillén: But now when you look at yourself, do you realize differently?

Davis: I saw the film once. I feel like you could put me in that theater once; but, don't put me in that theater again! I was okay the first time, but…. [Laughs.] The thing about it is, when you watch yourself it's a different experience than actually shooting the scene. When I'm shooting a scene, I get out of the way of the character. I check my vanity at the door. But then when I watch it, all that vanity comes back and I'm looking at my nose dripping [what Manohla Dargis at The New York Times described as "shaking the film up with a few extravagantly mucousy minutes"], I'm looking at my lips quivering, I'm looking at what I'm doing with my eyes, I'm looking at all the things I didn't know I was doing when I was actually shooting the film. Now I had an outsider's perspective and I took to my bed, as they used to say back in the day. I drew the blinds in my house, got under the covers, for two weeks until my husband said, "This is ridiculous, Vi."

Guillén: I do understand the conflict you experienced, though. But the truth remains that your performance is precisely powerful for being authentic and stripped of vanity, as you say. You were in service to that moment in the script, both of you were, and that's why that scene is so pivotal in understanding the deepest currents of the story.

Davis: I knew when I read the scene—well, I didn't know at first; it took a long time—but, I sensed that the scene was very very intimate and I also knew the stakes were very high. I knew you couldn't play it just as a conversation because I knew that by the end of the scene Mrs. Miller was making an incredible confession. It would have been catastrophic if taken the wrong way, if it landed the wrong way. So I didn't know any other way to get there except to rip my heart out and put my guts at the feet and mercy of Sister Aloysius. In the end I knew I had to affect her and the woman constantly lives in her head. I mean, c'mon, she has a whole party going on inside of her head where she's the life of the party!

Guillén: She's so mental she could snap out light bulbs!

Davis: Absolutely! And so the only tool I had, the only weapon of mass destruction, is to slay her heart; to appeal to her heart. I mean, c'mon, by the end my character is pleading with Sister Aloysius. It says it in the script, she's pleading. They say that in acting, whatever your character says in the script are the given circumstances. You cannot question it. It is what it is. She is pleading with this woman in the end. What do you do when you plead? Have you ever pleaded with anyone?

Guillén: More often than I care to admit. [Laughs.]

Davis: I've pleaded with people and—when you're pleading with people—that means you're at the end of your rope.

Guillén: Again, comparing the role of Mrs. Miller to that of Sybil in Far From Heaven, you're exactly right when you describe your effort to pierce her heart. Both performances are the grounding performances in a context of behavior governed by false ideals or ideologies or—as Kenneth Turan stated it in his review of your performance in Doubt for the L.A. Times: "The concerns of the real world, not the cloistered one, walk into the film with her, and that's quite a difference." Mrs. Miller and Sybil are both performances that provide a reality check to what's come before in their narratives. In that tradition of grounded authenticity, your work is very much like Cicely Tyson's or Alfre Woodard's, two actresses who I admire tremendously. Who were your inspirations?

Davis: Cicely! Cicely Tyson is the one who inspired me to act. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. I was six or seven years old when I saw that and watching her transform from 15 to 105, I could not believe that it was the same human being. And she was a human being who looked like my mom, like me, dark-skinned, full-lipped, y'know? It changed my life because it was not acting just for purposes of entertainment. I saw the craft and I didn't know that acting was a craft until I literally saw Cicely do it. What made me feel that it was possible for me to do it was that she looked like me. I know that might not make sense for a lot of people; but, I'm telling you, when—as a child—you see a physical manifestation of a dream, it makes it feel possible for you. When you see someone who's doing something that you want to do and they look like you, you can feel it and touch it. She changed my life!

Guillén: I like how you phrase that—"a physical manifestation of a dream"—because when I was listening to your NPR interview with Farai Chideya and hearing about your background, I thought, "Here is a woman who has shaped her prayers. Her prayers have taken definite form. She's moved out of difficult circumstances, seen where she wants to be, and has moved towards it." I love stories like that because they confirm what I did with my own life. I decided, "I am not a victim of my upbringing. I will hold it close to me as I become who I know I'm supposed to be." That's one of the aspects I find so remarkable about your career.

Davis: Thank you.

Guillén: I'm aware you've expressed criticism about the casting of Black actors in the Hollywood system. What are your hopes from this performance in Doubt? Are you dusting off your mantle in preparation for that little golden man? Can you even think that way?

Davis: No, I can't think that way because I feel like someone's setting me up to break me down. [Laughs.] I know the breakdown is coming! But my hope? This is my hope. I sum it up through an argument a friend of mine once had with a man in a bar. My friend is Black and the man he was arguing with was White and he had, of course, probably had too much to drink. The White man said, "What do you people want? What do you want? What is it that you want?!" And my friend answered, "What do you want? Because we want what you want." That, to me, sums it up. If you could sit with any White actress right now, or a Hispanic actress, they will tell you the kind of roles they dream about. I would love to do a science fiction action movie. I mean, c'mon, I would love to do a Terminator-type movie like Linda Hamilton.

Guillén: You did The Andromeda Strain, didn't you?

Davis: Oh yeah, but I didn't get to kick anyone's butt! [Laughs.] I want to do it all. I want to do what Meryl Streep is doing, what Amy Adams is doing. I want what any actress would want. I want to work in great roles and that's it. I don't want to be limited to roles that are designated for Black actresses, which are usually functions and archetypes.

Guillén: That's fascinating that you reference functions and archetypes, because those are Jungian psychological terms.

Davis: Functions, archetypes, metaphors: that's usually what the roles for Black actresses are. Usually the writer, the producer, the director, whoever, they don't know who you are and so then you become just a way to move the protagonist on and the protagonist is almost always—not always, but almost always—White. So you know as a Black actress that your service to the story is not as another human being with her own story and her own background. That's not fulfilling.

Guillén: Returning to the context of your peers then, have you had a chance to talk with Adriane Lenox about your performance in Doubt?

Davis: You know, I have not.

Guillén: Is that anything you dread or look forward to?

Davis: If I were to be honest, I probably would say that I don't look forward to it because I feel that's the worst part that comes with the business. You have a great actress like Adriane Lenox who originated the role on Broadway and who won the Tony award for it so, obviously, she did a fantastic job. Then for the movie to come along and she's not in it? Another actress is in it? I would think that would be uncomfortable, even though you understand it's an occupational hazard. I certainly hope that she understands that I have nothing but utmost respect for her and her work.

Guillén: Having been both on the stage and in front of the cameras, is there a difference for you in terms of how you commit yourself to your craft?

Davis: No, no difference, absolutely.

Guillén: Not even as to scale?

Davis: You do have to modify. The camera's right there so there's no extraneous movement or twitches or whatever; but, basically, no, there's no difference in terms of how you approach it because your job as an actor is to create a human being so you use all the tools that you learned in acting class and then some and then what slowly forms is a human being. That's what you have to do on stage too. If there's an actor out there who doesn't follow the same process, that would be interesting to hear. But they're still people that you're creating on stage, just on a grander scale because you're trying to fill up a theater with maybe 1200 people so you have to—what?—talk louder and project facial movements; but, it still has to come from a place of honesty, of talking and listening, all those values have to be there.

Guillén: Well, within the craft of creating genuine human beings, you have created one of the most memorable characters in recent film history. I wish you the best. You have my vote for Best Supporting Actress. Remember that when you polish up your little statuette on your mantle.

Davis: [Laughs.] Thank you.

Cross-published on Twitch.

MY NAME IS BRUCE—Jesse Miller's Evening Class Interview With Bruce Campbell & Joshua Grannell

There were two questions I purposely avoided asking Bruce Campbell: the first was the status—if any—of Evil Dead 4; a question which Bruce indicated in his Ain't It Cool News interview as the one question "guaranteed" to be asked in nearly every Q&A on his two-month 22-city My Name Is Bruce ("MNIB") tour. The second was why he was replaced by Ron Perlman to play Elvis in the Bubba-ho-Tep sequel; a question again answered in the AICN interview. Instead—in anticipation of this evening's Midnight Mass screening of MNIB and on-stage chat with Peaches Christ—I invited Joshua Grannell to join us for an informal discussion of the MNIB tour.

* * *

Jesse Miller: So, Bruce, what day is this on your 22-city tour of My Name Is Bruce?

Bruce Campbell: City number 20! I just have Berkeley and Los Angeles. We're near the end. Staying strong!

Miller: I appreciate your allowing me to invite Joshua Grannell (aka Peaches Christ) to sit in with us today because you are the ultimate fan icon and Peaches is the ultimate fan, which I felt was the perfect set-up. Aware that you've been talking to lots of people on this tour about the film proper, I'm intrigued by your experience of the tour itself. You've scaled it down from your previous PR ventures….

Campbell: Yeah, my record is 55 cities with the first book that I wrote.

Miller: Which nearly killed you?

Campbell: Yeah, there's a piece of me left back in some city somewhere. There's a piece of my soul on that jagged trail. But I don't know any other way. Because if you're not Warner Brothers or one of the other big studios and you're making little stuff, you have to figure out some way to do it. I figured, "Let's just go there!" On the next tour I actually want to do the B-city tour. No big cities. It will all be towns like Albuquerque. I've had some of my best signings in Albuquerque because people go, "Thank God! Thanks for coming to Albuquerque!" We had the whole roller derby team showing up one day because there's nothing else to do in those towns. I've enjoyed that aspect on this tour. Also, we're driving. When you drive to every city, you leave when you want to leave, you take the route you want to take, you stop where you want to stop, you eat where you want to eat—none of that Godawful airplane food or nightmare traffic delays—so the tour's been really good. We've been able to take strange days off. When we were finished up around the Washington D.C.-Baltimore area, we realized Gettysburg was really close so—because we had three days to get to Columbus, Ohio—we spent a day in Gettysburg and walked the whole battlefield. I had only heard stories and seen the pictures but never been there, not even as a kid. The point is we could just do weird stuff like that because we were on our own schedule. No one really knew where we were between cities and no one cared how we got there.

Miller: What's your sense? How have your audiences been?

Campbell: Good! They're fine. The response has come in three tiers. The critics want to take the negative and shove it up my ass.

Miller: Those bitches!

Campbell: There's been a big disconnect with the critics. The bloggers have been giving more of the underhanded compliment: "For a stupid piece of shit, I laughed my ass off." And then the fans—who actually pay money—are fine.

Miller: And, after all is said and done, they're the important ones.

Campbell: Yeah, the important ones are fine. I don't wake up in the morning trying to come up with something that the fans will like or not like—that's not really the game—but MNIB is fan-friendly.

Miller: Among the critical response, I did like Roger Ebert's review.

Campbell: I just read it a couple of days ago and, I have to say, it's a very rational approach and I was thankful that yet another great critic didn't rip a new asshole in the film.

Miller: I admired it for being such a fair review. He took on Nick Schager's comment at Slant that MNIB "is just one-note insider navel-gazing with no aspirations except to excite its adoring base" by countering that "if the navel has been there, done that and had unspeakable horrors wreaked onto it, the navel has paid its dues." You have paid your dues. You're 50 years old. You've made many films.

Campbell: I appreciate what he said very much. It's going on the DVD box. We wanted to make the crappy review list; but, only pick the biggest papers—the New York Times, the Village Voice (which was the most dismissive review I've ever read)….

Miller: Aaron Hillis, I believe.

Campbell: Could be. But I think we could get some great zingers and compile the anti-review!

Miller: Didn't John Waters use that strategy, Joshua?

Joshua Grannell: Yes, it makes people want to see it more!

Campbell: Especially if you pull the real zingers that make you go, "Wow! What the hell was that?!" We'll see what happens. If you're swimming with the big dogs…. I directed a film a few years ago called The Man With the Screaming Brain and we only did selected screenings, so I only had a smattering of reviews. MNIB is an official—albeit teeny teeny—release. So the New York Times says, "All right, send Joe to go review it" because now they have to review it; it's an official release. I've never seen more reviews of anything I've ever done only because—jeez—between the internet now and all that crap, there are so many reviewers out there!

Miller: What intrigues me—and I admire you for this—is how the whole landscape is changing with regard to movie distribution and you're somewhat ahead of the curve—having learned from your own mistakes—about self-distribution and self-promotion.

Campbell: I hear this from filmmakers all the time. They go, "I've got this movie. It's a great movie but no one will show my movie!" Then get your ass on the road! In every other theatre now you've got your projector here, your projector there, and inbetween a digital projector where you can take your DVD and pop it in there and they can play it. Filmmakers need to take advantage of the fact that—through your website and on the internet—you can get some basic information out there, that's your shingle you can put up, and through the advances in technology you don't have to carry a big print around with you anymore, just a DVD you can shove in your pocket. I'm just doing what I always encourage filmmakers to do: if you don't have an avenue for your film, you have to create an avenue. I've found that if I show up sometimes, I can jumpstart a run of my film.

Miller: I likewise appreciate that you're centered and know what you want to do. You're not being misled by Hollywood ambitions.

Campbell: No, I'm misleading myself. [Laughs.] I am! It's my own poor career management; but, at least my own. The good news about MNIB—again, the movie is what it is—but, I had one guy as a partner, Mike Richardson who owns Dark Horse Comics and he was my studio. One guy. No marketing team. I remember when I first went in to pitch my first book, they had the PR person sitting in the room. I had to tell them that I'd been on Jay Leno and every major news outlet. I had to send them a follow-up list of literally the media I had done that they would recognize in order for them to go, "Okay, you could probably sell this book." That was the criteria. Not the subject matter of the book or who's the author; it was, "Can we sell it?" Before they even made the deal. It was bizarre. That happens a bit in movies too because I'm sure a lot of executives will sit around and say, "Hey, I'm thinking of greenlighting this movie. Okay, who's in it?" They'll go through all that and decide whether it's worth the risk; but, the lower the budget, the lower the risk. So your movies can get weirder, stranger, you can kill your lead actor, you can do anything, your lead actor can be any kind of character. He can be an idiot like this guy. He can mess around more. There's plenty of bad B-movies. We all know that. No shortage of bad B-movies. But there's some really cool ones too.

Miller: I grew up on cool B-movies.

Campbell: And a movie that you like is a cool B-movie, even if it's Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Miller: What's it like directing yourself? How do you do that? Do you just set up shots and then run into them?

Campbell: I have a guy who's my stand-in and blocks the scene for me so I can still sit back with the monitor. I usually carry a little monitor around the set. You block it normally, set all your movement, set up your shot however you're going to do it, then he gets out of there at the last second. I'll run through the scene once maybe to see if I'd do anything differently than the stand-in would.

Miller: Do you practice in front of a mirror?

Campbell: No. My Jim Carrey days are over.

Miller: You're not mugging all the time to try to get the right look?

Campbell: No, no, no. Other than for that, it's not that difficult to direct yourself. It's just more homework because you show up on set and you think, "Well, I know what I'm shooting today. Aw crap! I don't know my lines!"

Miller: This is the second film you've directed?

Campbell: Yes.

Miller: What would you say you have gained in experience from your first directorial effort?

Campbell: Where to shoot and who to partner with.

Miller: It sounds like your partnership with Mike Richardson really worked for you this time.

Campbell: It did for me and, again, the movie will be what it is; but, the situation for me was much better. The first time I directed I was told, "You are shooting the movie in Bulgaria." I was like, "You're shitting me? This movie takes place in East L.A. There are no people of color in Eastern Europe. None. They're gypsies. And they have no written language. Where's the call sheet going to go up? On their caravan? It might not be there the next morning." That's how absurd it was. So I had to beg them to let me restage it for Bulgaria. I said, "Look down the street, guys. No cars look like American cars! It's all in Cyrillic. All that language is Russian-looking; it's upside-down and backwards! We don't have the budget to change all these street signs and move all these cars and bring in a bunch of Chevys. These are ex-Soviet SUBs and German cars that are two-cylinder with a paper shell on them. It doesn't look like America! If you looked out this window here in Bulgaria, you'd see one new building and the other ones are left over from 1989 and the fall of Communism and they're half-built with rebar sticking up and a giant tree! What are we trying to do here?" And it was all because the average Bulgarian makes $110 a month. I don't want to disparage Bulgaria, they have their own issues, I'd be happy to go back there one day to not make a movie. Very lovely people. But if you have packs of wild dogs chasing you around, it's not a good place to make a movie. But I was so eager and so happy that someone was going to give me the money to make this stupid movie that I'd been trying to make for too long for no good reason. I really learned from that. Fans hate stuff as much as they love stuff. If there's something of mine that they hate, they hate it and go after it! And that's fair game. But I learned from that. Don't put yourself in a situation where you have to explain why the movie blew. Why do that? Mike Richardson's from Oregon. I live in Oregon now. Mark Verheiden, who wrote it, is from Oregon. We went, "Let's make this stupid movie in Oregon. Let's set it in Oregon and let's shoot it here."

Miller: You built MNIB's town Gold Lick on your own property?

Campbell: Yeah. Now I have a Western town I can't get rid of. [Chuckles.]

Miller: You should turn it into an amusement park.

Campbell: I guess. Right now it's a great party conversation piece. "Hey, shall we go out to the tavern? Hang out at the livery stable?"

Miller: Having now nearly completed your national tour with only a couple of gigs left, has your audience response been such that you have greenlit the sequel My Name Is Still Bruce?

Campbell: We're going to wait. We're not going to be that snotty and jump right into it. We have to see if people want to buy the DVD when it comes out. We have the money for it but I don't think it's right right now. I don't want to keep playing myself. I want to play some other idiot.

Miller: You're not really playing yourself.

Campbell: Of course. But there's always going to be one person, I'm sure, in every audience who thinks I actually drink whiskey out of dog bowls.

Miller: I did when I first saw it. I was shocked.

Campbell: There you go. You're the one. So I have to be a little careful.

Miller: Regarding the movie itself then, I liked a comment you made that you like to act with Ted Raimi—who plays three roles in MNIB—because he makes you look better.

Campbell: Exactly. I'm more subtle.

Miller: [Laughs.] Yes, you are! You're much more subtle than Ted. Has there been any negative reaction to his over-the-top portrayal of the Asian character Wing?

Campbell: Here I go. I was just thinking, I woke up this morning and thought, "Here I am in San Francisco. I got two gay ranchers in the movie and a horrible Asian stereotype." I thought, "Thank God this is a jackass comedy." Because look, I wouldn't go near that stuff if this was a serious drama. The whole gay rancher thing we made up on the first day of shooting. I got these two grizzled friends of mine, they're actors, one was in Evil Dead 2 [Dan Hicks] and one was from Army of Darkness [Timothy Patrick Quill]. We had them do this scene where they were both in the dark watching a slide show, and they're such grizzled guys, and I said, "You should just hold hands at some point." We did it as a tossaway gag and then we realized after the first day that they were just going to be gay now for the rest of the movie. We weren't trying to do anything other than make a stupid movie with as many gags as we could come up with.

Miller: What I found of interest with regard to Raimi's Asian stereotype in the script was that, by contrast, you yourself have been very respectful of the historic Asian populations in Oregon.

Campbell: They got screwed. I mean, c'mon. They were the manual labor group of that whole mining area, which includes Northern California and Southern Oregon, which were big on gold. The Chinese did everything. The funny thing about the Chinese is that they saved the railroads because the Irish were coming in and they would have what they called "Blue Monday" where they would drink all weekend long. The Irish would come in on Monday with liquor reeking out of their pores. Monday's were worthless. They were getting sick because they wouldn't boil the water. They would only eat meat and potatoes. The Chinese were brought in because they didn't really drink; they boiled all their water to make tea; they were told to get their own food—nobody supplied them with any—and so they caught fish, grew vegetables, and they could weave baskets to take away dirt from the holes they put dynamite in. That's what saved the railroads.

Miller: So you and Ted were just playing around?

Campbell: C'mon….

Miller: Thinking back, you grew up with Ted and Sam [Raimi] in Detroit? I'm trying to get a picture of you guys running around as kids. Have the three of you really changed much since then?

Campbell: Sam was incorrigible. Sam was a massive troublemaker. The first day of high school he comes in, he's in Modern European History before me, I come in the following class and—the second I come in—we sit down to take roll, the teacher comes to my name, and he goes, "Oh, Mr. Campbell? See me after class." I'd never met the teacher before in my life. I'm like, "Whoa. What happened? I know Sam's up to something." I stay after the class. The teacher goes, "Well, Mr. Sam Raimi tells me that you do an excellent impersonation of me. I'd like to hear that." [Laughs.] The son of a bitch. He would do that kind of shit constantly. I'd be answering a question in class and he'd make a point of sitting directly behind me and stick a sharp pencil into the back of my neck and start applying pressure. The longer I answered the question, the more the pressure would be applied. It became a test of wills. I was thinking, "Huh-uh. I'm going to make him snap that thing off in the back of my neck" versus could he make me break. So we've had a contest of wills from the start. After the question I'd turn back around and he'd say, "I was trying to help you." That was his reasoning. It was his version of trying to help me.

Miller: I was reviewing some of your earlier films and you're just a kid in them. What's that like for you and your childhood friends to look back at this body of work in which you've all grown up together?

Campbell: Yeah! I think it's fun. Of course, this is our job now. But, you know, when Sam and I were working on Spider-Man 3, we were laughing together because here he is this massive A-list director now and we both think it's hilarious.

Miller: Did you guys have a sense when you were younger of where you'd end up? Did he always want to do the really big stuff? Did you always want to do creative low-budget films?

Campbell: Sam always had a huge imagination and we could never afford his ideas. I always felt bad as a producing partner because we couldn't help him out. He'd go, "How are we going to do that?" There's some crazy stuff in those Evil Dead movies, visually, mostly because of him. But now I think he realizes that he's finally in a spot where now he can do all this stuff. He can now get the toys that he needs. If he wants a shot to go around and come up underneath and spin around 86 times, they'll figure out a way to do it. I think it's great. It's been really fun to watch him. He's wanted that. He's been ready for that. He's a bigger-than-life kind of character.

Miller: But your dream was more to create movies on a lower budget?

Campbell: No, more just to get back to the basics. Don't have big meetings with 10 people in a room about what a movie's going to be like. I'm not interested in that. I want one boss, if that. The lower the budget, I've got as much experience now as most people on the set. I can do two or three jobs on a film set. I don't care about the budget; it's the working situation: how creative is it? How fun is it? What leeway do you have to make up lines of dialogue, to do whatever you want to do at any time? That's what it's all about.

Miller: Speaking of fun, I'm really looking forward to this evening and your on-stage appearance with Peaches Christ. Joshua, how did you get involved in inviting Bruce out to the Bridge Theatre?

Grannell: Over the years of doing Midnight Mass, it's always been a dream of ours to have Mr. Campbell come and be one of our featured guests.

Miller: You mean Bruce? [Laughs.]

Grannell: Over the 11+ years that we've been doing Midnight Mass, finally we got successful enough that we could invite people like Mink Stole and John Waters and Tura Satana and it's just been a total joy ride meeting these icons and putting them up on a pedestal. I think San Francisco, in general, has the best audiences in the world. There's nothing like presenting someone beloved to San Francisco.

Miller: In terms of your fan base, Bruce, I think you're going to see your fans tonight like you've never seen them because Joshua has allowed us to be geeky and worshipful.

Campbell: Conventions have a lot of people who do that too. I would venture to say that people like to make fun of geeks and fanboys; but, I'll bet that at the average convention in Cherry Hill, New Jersey there are more people getting laid than at some sporting event because—when you show up there—you instantly have 500 friends and something in common. I've had people say that specifically. They show up there and they look around and they say, "I can instantly talk to you guys about anything right now because we're all here for the same reason." At conventions there's a lot of hooking up and connecting. It's amazing. So I'm not surprised that people really get into it. They want to feel like they can be a geek. I use that term lovingly. With regard to tonight, this isn't my show; this is your's. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do. I have no preconceptions. I don't have to do anything. I'll just try to stay out of your way.

Grannell: It'll be easy. That's the nice thing. All we do is set the stage for you and I to sit down and have a conversation, much like this, only with me as Peaches. And Peaches is the biggest fan dork there is! Girl, boy, whatever. It's the one drag territory, midnight movies, that hasn't really been mined.

Miller: To wrap things up here, Bruce, my final question: you really skewer yourself in MNIB and you also skewer your fans. How have your fans reacted to that?

Campbell: I think they're okay because they're mentioned. I'm pandering to them. I'm slapping them in the face a little bit….

Miller: You're offering them a lot of in-jokes….

Campbell: Yeah, which pisses off all the critics; but, I think for the fan they love the mentioning of movies that probably only they have ever seen. Fangoria magazine put it best. They said MNIB is a love letter to my fans dipped in poison.

Miller: My favorite description is your own: it's Bob Hope with decapitations.

Campbell: There you go.

CIAO—The Evening Class Interview With Yen Tan and Alessandro Calza

Earlier this year during Frameline 32 when I mentioned to friends that I had invited Alessandro Calza—one of the leading actors in Yen Tan's Ciao—over to my house for wild rice sour cream waffles, they tried to invite themselves over … and it wasn't for my infamous wild rice sour cream waffles! Fortunately, my withering glance was more than enough to keep them at bay so that I could conduct my interview with the film's director and lead actor with a certain measure of professionalism; though I have to admit that the informal quality of our conversation made for a much more pleasant experience. Ciao was one of my favorite films from Frameline 32. It's now in its theatrical run and though—as indicated by Dave Hudson's aggregate of reviews at The Greencine Daily—the critical response has not been altogether favorable; I can, without hesitation, assert that some of the reviews have likewise not been altogether fair. An eye should be kept on the fact that a gay film with any crossover appeal whatsoever—a feat uniquely (unfairly?) negotiated by gay filmmakers—is cause for commendation. Yen Tan's film is more than competent in this regard and such an accomplishment shouldn't be deminimized. I suppose my impatience with some of the film's dismissive reviews is because they underplay the fine achievements by cinematographer Michael Roy, film editor David Patrick Lowery, and production designer Clare Floyd DeVries. Ciao represents yet another example of the great divide between critics and audiences, having been quite well-received at Frameline 32.

* * *

Michael Guillén: Alessandro, one of the things that first struck me about this project was how far geographically you two were from each other—Yen in Texas, you in Italy—how did your creative collaboration begin?

Alessandro Calza: Thanks to downloading movies at a site in Italy, I saw Yen's first movie Happy Birthday. A lot of movies aren't distributed in Europe and you'd never be able to see a film like Yen's first movie or a movie like Tropical Malady if it weren't for downloading them. Purely by coincidence, I was checking around and I found Yen's website with his contact info. I don't know why I decided I wanted to write him; but, the fact that he was visible with his web site and accessible through email seemed like he was waiting for people to give him feedback on his movie, which usually doesn't happen with directors. Half the time you don't know who they are or where they are. So I wrote Yen and I told him that I really liked Happy Birthday, which I still like very much. Then we just started talking by exchanging email. He seemed really flattered.

Yen Tan: This was back in 2004, so it was quite a while ago.

Guillén: And then you checked out Alessandro's website and nearly fell over, right? [Laughter.]

Calza: Actually the problem—and the good thing—with Yen and I is that we both like the same type of men, who are very different from the way we both are. That made me comfortable so we could develop a real friendship.

Tan: We weren't trying to get into each others' pants or anything. It was completely platonic. Every time we tell this story, people always go, "Nooooo…!"

Guillén: Why I ask is because the online phenomenon—in terms of film culture—has a unique potential for sociality and fraternity. I've met many writers on line who I later meet at film festivals and it's created a society that wouldn't have been possible if I'd just met them here in San Francisco. So, joking aside, what intrigues me about your collaboration is that you were able to use the online medium as a creative platform. Can the two of you speak about how you came up with the story and how—despite geographic distance—you hammered it out to become the film?

Calza: Yen was working on a trilogy at that time. He was developing three scripts simultaneously. But we became close talking about what we liked. I had a background in European cinema—Tarkovsky, Fassbinder, Wim Wenders—and he was more informed about contemporary directors. On the other hand, I was very much into music so we started exchanging ideas.

Tan: The script for Ciao came out fairly effortlessly. It was created at the same time that I was talking to Alessandro. I was consciously using him as the model for the Italian character. I was having a lot of problems having a film made at that time, getting it off the ground, financial issues and all that, so at that point Ciao was actually supposed to be a sexy fluffy romantic comedy revolving around an exotic Italian guy who comes to America.

Guillén: I am so glad you worked that one out.

Tan: But it was the kind of film that we would have had an easier time making several years ago; though I would have been embarrassed years later. Afterwards I might have thought, "Why did I make that film?" At the time I wrote it, that wasn't in my mind. At that point I just wanted to get something made. I didn't care what it was. Thankfully, when I sent that draft to Alessandro, he was hard on it and told me exactly what he thought. Mostly he criticized the character I'd based on him. That's when I thought maybe I needed to step back and think it through a little more.

Calza: Yes, because the stereotype is that—when you have an Italian in American cinema—he's usually like Antonio Sabato, Jr.; a gay bartender from Miami with an Italian background. He's always what people from Iowa think an Italian should be and what he looks like. For me that wasn't quite right. Also, for the purpose of the movie, such a character—with the focus on clothing and style, wearing silky shirts—would have been distracting. So I was critical about the character.

Guillén: Did you send Yen back an alternate script? Did you rewrite it?

Calza: No, no. We just discussed it. At that time I wasn't trying to interfere with the writing. We weren't even at the stage of my being able to do a rewrite or even auditioning for the part. That came way later.

Tan: It was just something that I wrote that I showed Alessandro. He gave me his thoughts and I reconsidered.

Calza: At that time I didn't yet know that with Yen you had to be very careful because everything you say could end up in his movie. I wasn't aware that every personal detail I shared with him would end up in a script.

Tan: Then I wrote another draft, which was still like the first draft, only a little bit better. At this time, other gay filmmakers were getting their films made and—after watching them—I thought, "Maybe I don't want to make a film like that. Maybe I really need to be careful about what I do next because there may be a permanent scar on my filmmaking career."

Guillén: Your sensibility as a filmmaker, and specifically a gay filmmaker, developed more breadth?

Tan: Right. I thought, "Okay, maybe I need to continue on this path and see what I come up with instead of trying to do something commercially viable that, over time, I might not be happy with." Especially when you're doing a low budget film, the point is to take risks. If you can't take risks with just a little money, then what's the point?

Guillén: Creativity frequently rides a bare bones aesthetic. Roughly, then, how many drafts were there between the sexy rom-com and the movie in Frameline?

Tan: Roughly 10 drafts. Even up to the point when we began shooting, there were still some scenes where I was on the fence. I would rewrite them overnight, give them to the actors the next morning so they would have a little time to rehearse, or I would take scenes out altogether. I don't know if it's because of the way I am, but I have this way of writing where it's very sexual on paper but—by the time we get to the set—I don't feel we have to film it that way anymore. I change my mind.

Guillén: And what kind of a time period are we talking about?

Tan: A year and a half. Alessandro came in about halfway through. He kept on giving me so many notes that I kept incorporating into the script that at one point I decided he should accept billing as a co-writer because he was so involved in the script's development.

Guillén: Had you cast him as Andrea yet?

Tan: Not really. Maybe subconsciously I was thinking about casting him; but, I wasn't firm about it. He had no acting experience and he was in Italy. The whole thing didn't gel in my head. Finally, at one point I just asked him.

Calza: It was in June, about two years into the project, about a year after he started talking to me about the movie, just before he started shooting, that he asked me if I wanted to audition and the way we went about it was original, it was all "new media." I auditioned through videotapes I made about my personal life and—once he cast me—we rehearsed through Skype, with him in Dallas, me in Genoa, and Adam Neal Smith in Los Angeles.

Tan: I would send him a couple of pages from some of the scenes, he would videotape himself, send me the clips, and then I'd look at the clips and tell him what I thought. The first time he sent me the clips, he was so nervous that he didn't open my email notes back to him until about a half an hour after he received them.

Guillén: With Ciao having this international profile—you in Texas, Adam in California, Alessandro in Italy—do you consider Ciao a Texan film? Is the film scene in Dallas much different than that in Austin? Does Ciao reflect film culture out of Dallas?

Tan: The Dallas film scene and the Austin film scene are significantly different in the sense that—even though there are a lot of independent films being made in both cities—the Dallas sensibility is oriented towards making the Hollywood calling card. They do a lot of high concept pieces with low budgets—a lot of genre films are made in Dallas—whereas in Austin they just make the films they want to make and they end up being the films that get into the big film festivals.

Guillén: Doesn't that tell you something?

Tan: It does. It's weird. I've always identified more with the Austin scene than the Dallas scene. At the same time—as much as I don't want to brand Ciao as a "Texan film"—after watching it so many times, I recognize it's a very Texan film, but by an approach that hasn't been used by a lot of Texans, if that makes any sense. There's a tendency with a lot of Texan filmmakers when people shoot films in Texas about Texans to make them colloquial. I don't think I did that in Ciao.

Guillén: If anything, you avoid that hazard by having a sense of humor about it, especially in the scene where Andrea, Jeff and his half-sister Lauren are playing the guessing game about the foreign languages and Jeff uses Texan slang as his foreign language. There's a loveliness in that.

Tan: But then someone told me that I'm still not a local because I've only lived in Texas for 10 years. I'm still taking everything in as an outsider.

Guillén: How did David Lowery become your co-producer and editor? Is the Dallas film scene so tight that such collaborations are inevitable?

Tan: Pretty much, yeah. I met David about eight years ago when we were both just experimenting with short films. He and his friends, the group of us, pretty much help each other out with our films. We've grown together in our appreciation of cinema and how our sensibilities have progressed over time. It's nice that we also like the same kind of films, which is not the case—we've discovered—with a lot of other Dallas filmmakers.

Guillén: Ciao's overall design is striking. The compositions are frontal, photographic. The camera is still and steady. As a designer, Alessandro, did you have much to do with the look of the film?

Calza: No, not really. That's Yen. That's Asian in general. Usually Asian style is very much about simple things. Sometimes they can do stylish things with just paper. It sounds stupid but they can come up with very strong ideas, even if they don't have huge production budgets. Yen is very good at exploiting whatever he has.

Guillén: Your design skills didn't come into play at all?

Calza: No, not at all.

Guillén: Not even with designing the film's posters?

Calza: Yes, those I designed.

Guillén: I wanted to highlight what I felt was an interesting substitution pattern in the poster design. There were two posters that I saw. One had the three faces of you, Adam and the actor playing Mark. And then there was the other one with you and Adam and the tree between you. In my mind, you equated the tree between you with Mark, the absent figure.

Tan: That's an interesting observation.

Guillén: What made you choose that one shot of the sidewalk leading to the tree?

Tan: I'll add something to the whole design element. This is another example where Alessandro and I really stimulate each other when it comes to these kind of ideas. As a result of knowing Alessandro, I became more design-conscious. He would express his views and show me what he liked and, therefore, it generated a new sense of awareness when I would see what he had to show me and listen to what he had to tell me. The same thing happened when I introduced him to films he had never seen. He would watch them and say, "Oh, I see what you're saying." It was a mutual learning experience for both of us.

As for the poster, we had a lot of discussions about it. We ran into problems where we were trying to figure out whether we should market Ciao as a gay film and draw in gay audiences to watch the film? The poster with the three faces was an attempt to get people to come in and watch these guys. The version with the tree was more the artistic version; but, I don't think it's very commercial. I don't think people would "get" that poster.

Guillén: That isn't the one you're using?

Tan: Not really. We go back and forth.

Guillén: Use the tree one. Trust me.

Tan: You think it makes more sense?

Guillén: It underscores the integrity of the film.

Tan: The funny thing about the tree in that scene: that location came about because we didn't have the alternate location. The way it was originally scripted, Mark is exiting the hallway of his apartment building. It's an interior shot. But we couldn't find a hallway that was long enough for me to shoot as wide as I wanted to. We were a week and a half into the shooting and still hadn't shot any of these hallway scenes. Finally, I was sitting just outside the door of the complex that I live in and we had rented out a complex right next door where we were shooting a series of scenes. As I was sitting there, and I saw the sidewalk leading away through the buildings and the tree, it clicked. I thought, "Oh, this makes sense." The person walking out of the unit, walking down the sidewalk to where his car is parked and it's parked beneath the tree. I also like the idea of playing with offscreen space. So I thought, "This works. It totally works." And it was outdoors and there was a tree, which had a sense of life to it.

Guillén: The Greeks, in fact, have a term called endendros—"the life at work in a tree"—which is often a mythic referent between the realms of life and death. I concede that's probably not anything you were even thinking of, but, it's what I see. And it's universal. And that's why—of the two designs—I would recommend the image with the tree at the center. For me it has a stronger thematic thrust; an image that will survive over time.

Calza: We actually have, like, 30 other designs.

Guillén: In gist, I'm trying to emphasize your fine sense of design. Your website's interactive presentation is notable. Can you speak a little bit about your design background?

Calza: Ciao as a movie came to me not because I specifically wanted to act. I never had that ambition. I never pursued acting. But at the end of the '90s, when I started to get onto the Internet, I decided that it would be interesting to use the new media to expand personal visibility. By that I mean I wanted to make myself known to other people everywhere for no reason. With traditional media you are famous for a reason. My idea was to completely co-opt that rationale and approach from the opposite angle. I wanted to be known for no reason. I started out with photographs influenced by artists like Cindy Sherman or Matthew Barney. I wanted to use photos of myself to create a website that would seem like the website of a famous person. That was the personal level.

At a more political level, and from a gay perspective, I wanted to show everybody that—with just a little money—a person could achieve a visibility that had previously been reserved for celebrities with a lot of money. If I say so myself, my website is better than Madonna's! I actually joke that I was 2.0 before 2000. In 1999 I started with a website that had information about me and the music that I liked, way before MySpace. Now everybody has a personal website. But I remember at the time that I created mine that people thought it was weird that I wanted to have my own personal website. Now everybody's doing it. I'm actually thinking about 3.0 right now. Initially I was a graphic designer, then I shifted into web design, I used photography, I used video and I used myself—not because I was self-obsessed—but because it was the most convenient asset at hand. I could take pictures of myself. I created my web persona. Ciao became a larger step of that whole progression: I've got a personal webpage, I'm doing video, and now I'm doing a movie. I want to see how I can use the whole of this work as viral marketing for the movie itself. The result is that I know more people in San Francisco than I do back home in Genoa. I know like 200-300 people in San Francisco and probably a few thousand people are aware of me and my work here in San Francisco, even though they don't really know who I am.

Guillén: Cultivated web personas are the natural result of 2.0 and they do harbor a global potential that can be both rewarding and addictive. I keep wondering what will happen when they pull the plug? Let's talk about some narrative particulars in Ciao. I liked that Jeff's step-sister Lauren was Chinese. That was an unexpected and intriguing touch. Where did that come from?

Tan: People tell me that often. It came from the conscious decision to make a film with people I knew already. I've known Ethel Lung who plays Lauren for years. She was in my first film. Adam is also someone I've known for a while. I felt I knew Alessandro sufficiently from interacting online. I wanted to create an environment where I wasn't directing actors I'd just met. I wanted to work with people I knew personally so that I could add some of their personal traits into the onscreen characterizations. Adam and Ethel have been good friends for a long time and they've always had this kind of sibling rapport going on between them that I felt was interesting. For the story, I needed them to be siblings so I worked it out so that it would make sense; but, I also didn't want to make a big deal out of it. I wanted it to be casual. Jeff's mom divorced her first husband and married a Chinese guy who had a daughter. That's it.

Guillén: Simple, yet multicultural and effective. Were there discussions about what the nature of the relationship was going to be between Jeff and Andrea? There was a sense that they might fall in love and the whole narrative would have a happy ending; but, that would have been too predictable and I didn't want that to happen. Still, it came very close. Alessandro, can you talk about what—as your character Andrea—you were doing for Jeff in that bedroom scene? What was your sense of their affection?

Calza: For me, my acting approach in the movie was quite mixed from Adam's. I wanted it to be more than just acting. I pushed for that a lot in the relationship between me and Adam so we could break down professional distance. It wasn't that I was cruising him for an actual relationship; but, I wanted our interaction to develop intimately. Adam is a charming person but he's more closed off about his feelings. When we got to that scene, for me it was liberating because it was the first time I could be close to Adam, the way I wanted to be. I think it was the last scene we acted together and it's my favorite in the film, not just because it's sexual; but, because it was the only chance to be close to him as a person, not just acting.

Guillén: And yet, within character, you struck me as the reserved one or the one who had less need. When he leaned in to kiss you, you backed up a bit to look at him. It gave the sense that you were the strong one who could contain his need. You gave him what you needed; ballast for his grief.

Calza: There was a mixture going on. On one hand, there was what we had to do, what Yen wanted to have happen and what he expected us to act. At the same time, for me, I didn't know what was going to happen.

Tan: On that note, me neither! [Laughter.]

Guillén: They're both so handsome that the audience holds its breath expectantly.

Calza: It was the last scene that we shot because nobody knew what was going to happen.

Guillén: Ordinarily, because of its emotional difficulty, I would imagine that would be one of the first scenes you would film to get it out of the way.

Tan: In case the actors fight and don't like each other. But then I also took a while to figure out what I wanted from that scene. In the script that scene is only two sentences. They kiss and then they hold each other, that's it. It wasn't a scene that was heavily blocked out. It turned out to be a four-minute one-take shot.

Guillén: It reads as authentic and real in a subtle, distinct way. There's not a sense of it being passion as much as it is the sweetness of shared grief. The moment didn't collapse or capsize into the expected.

Calza: We shot on a closed set. We had given much thought to being comfortable—not so much for me as much as for Adam—and it was the final wrap-up scene so I felt that me and Adam told each other through that scene a lot about the conflict we had as actors on the set and the tension between us. I wanted to make the movie in a more personal way.

Guillén: Was Adam afraid of you?

Calza: He's a more reserved person. He approaches acting in a more professional manner. For me it was more an experience.

Tan: In retrospect, it worked for the characters. Jeff, Adam's character, was more reserved and closed-off. In that scene he just lets it go. And that actually kind of happened when we shot that scene. The kissing scene was a letting go. Every time I watch that scene, I see something different from Adam, little gestures and movements.

Guillén: How I read the surrender of that scene was that it expressed the gift men have to be nurturing for one another—and I mean the male nurturance that is unique to their gender—where feelings are contained within the moment, gathered, and then let go. Your character, Alessandro, actually didn't express much emotion until the final scene in the airport. In that moment is when the audience realizes how much Andrea has given Jeff; but, also, how much Andrea has lost by never meeting Mark, how much he was expecting and how he felt he had found the person he was looking to love only to have it be taken away on the eve of its fulfillment. That sense of frustrated anticipation was palpable and heartfelt and—I felt—very true to gay male experience.

I commend you both for how carefully observed the film is, how it holds silence, how subtle it is. "Slow" is a lazy way to describe it. The measure of its cadence is specific. That being said, you obviously decided not to make Ciao a Hollywood calling card? So what are you expecting from the film?

Tan: It's been so hard for us to get any press attention for this film. Obviously, because we're doing it on such a low budget, I have to be my own publicist on the film; but, trying to get people to pay attention to it has been nearly impossible, which is why I'm so grateful for your coverage. As far as knowing what to expect from the film, I don't want to stress myself out about what's going to happen—whether it will be accepted, whether I get to do another film, whether it will impact my career—it's more like just wanting to appreciate all the moments we have had in making the film and the moments we will have as we go forward, interacting with audiences, which is what we've been gaining so far. We talk to people after the screenings in the lobby where they're waiting to talk to us and they step up to us and that's already great. Q&As right after the film are difficult because the movie ends on an emotional high note and people need time to appreciate it. At almost every screening when the film ends, there's this sense of being touched and in the moment.

Guillén: Are there any plans to continue the story? To bring Andrea back to Jeff?

Tan: We talked about that and considered setting the sequel in Italy. But that would be more expensive now with the failing economy. No, there's no sequel in the works. We want to do another film together but it will be a completely different story.

Guillén: I hope you take that question as a compliment because the audience has become so invested in the characters. I got the sense they would keep in touch. As a hypothetical, what do you think happens to Jeff and Andrea, Alessandro?

Calza: If I think of it in my terms, yes, Andrea would return to Italy, think it over, and then invite Jeff over to give it a chance. Especially after the kiss, I think Andrea realizes there is something between them.

Guillén: Shared grief can create relationships. When I lost my partner of 12 years to AIDS, I was struck by the fact that people I thought were going to help me, weren't there to help me and complete strangers stepped in and did all they could. The stories of those relationships are rarely told. In my own wishful thinking, I would want a sequel just because such relationships are rarely represented. Realistically it might be doubtful that Jeff and Andrea would become lovers; but, whether or not they become lovers is not as important as the depth of their interaction. Perhaps they would merely strengthen their loving friendship with the memory of this man shared between them?

Calza: Probably, yes. After the kiss, I imagine Andrea would be even more drawn to Jeff, if only for consolation and not sex. Developing such an emotional connection in such a brief time would make me want to explore the whole relationship further. But, of course, such an intense encounter doesn't lead to a happy ending where Andrea decides to return to Jeff; that would be false.

Tan: Interestingly, a lot of people told us they thought that's how the story was going to end up. They thought Andrea would stay and not return to Italy, which was not a development we ever considered.

Guillén: As a filmmaker, I would encourage you to continue capsizing such expectations. Such facile audience expectations need to be collapsed. The authenticity of the film is precisely what surprised me.

Tan: Originally, the ending of the film was when the garage door closed on Mark. I thought that was the perfect place to end the film. But then David Lowery convinced me we could create an epilogue which would appear to tie everything together though through a hint of ambiguity.

Guillén: I very much appreciated the closing shot where you show Jeff riding Mark's motorcycle because it expresses how an individual incorporates someone they've lost. Death truly is the middle of a long life, as the Irish say, it's not the end. It's a bridge that leads to the future. In the few years after my partner passed, I found myself incorporating him through small gestures like coiling the garden hose or cleaning out the roof gutters. I found myself wondering how that happened? It happens through love and memory. You become what you do not want to lose and achieve that becoming by incorporating their familiar behavior. For me that is the true religiosity of memory.

Tan: When we pieced the final shots of the film after the garage door closes, it was a perfect way of bringing the opening shots back into the film. The two opening shots are the two closing shots. The framing device is a ring. I wanted the audience to invest the negative space with accrued meaning. And that was definitely David pushing me creatively.

Guillén: To wrap up, what's coming up for the two of you?

Tan: Our next project will be called Croon.

Calza: It's comparable to Ciao in that it's a film about two men. We're still in the exploratory process. Aside from the issues of grief presented in Ciao, Ciao was likewise about looking for something far away that mirrors expectations, about looking for something that you can't find close at home so you turn to the Internet, through an exotic fantasy. Croon is the opposite. It's a story about how—even if you're looking for something exotic somewhere else and have a specific fantasy of who your partner should be—in the end, love at first sight is the real thing. You can't define it. You can't write it down. You can't control it. You can't say, "I want a Latino, I want a Cuban, I want someone my age." In the end, love is a magic you can't know until you are drawn into the experience.

Tan: Croon continues on the path of pushing ourselves creatively. Its narrative is more loose than Ciao's. We purposely don't want to script everything out. We hope to capture the spontaneous experience of two men falling in love. We hope it will trigger audiences to remember what it was like when they first fell in love. You know how sometimes you experience a one-nighter where it's not just sex? Where it feels perfect?

Guillén: I call that illo tempore.

Tan: What do you mean by that?

Guillén: It means returning to the original place, the original time. The first place. The first time. As in returning to the garden. It can happen in a one-night stand. It can happen in a 20-year relationship. It's perfection measured as authenticity. Which recalls me to a conversation I had with Apichatpong Weerasethakul wherein I asked him if he was consciously trying to create gay relationships in his films and he answered that, more accurately, he was commenting upon the Western conception of finding a relationship as if it's the end to a goal, when in truth love is destiny. You don't make it happen. You recognize it. Generally speaking, Westerners look and look and look for relationship whereas Easterners recognize they are constantly in relationship and that recognition is how you honor relationship. This is, in fact, one of my critiques of Western gay culture, which caters to fantasies more than realities. We're taught in gay culture to think, "That guy isn't goodlooking enough, he isn't sexy enough, he isn't buffed enough, he's not wearing the right clothes, he's not making enough money. I better let him go and find the right one." Truthfully, within Western culture, that's not exclusively a gay phenomenon; but, arguably, the nascent phases of gay liberation encouraged exploration over commitment. Nowadays there's more of a focus on commitment and marriage, what have you, but when I was growing up the hunt was frequently more important than the catch. Which was unfortunate only in that we weren't appreciative of illo tempore. We walked away from perfect chances for authentic relationship because we didn't take time to recognize them, distracted by fantasy's desire. We exiled ourselves from the garden. When you fall in love it's always a return to the first time in the garden. When can we expect Croon?

Tan: Oh gosh. Three years? [Laughter.] Or something! I don't know. We want to do it fast. We don't want to drag it out too much.

Guillén: Will you film in Texas?

Tan: We're actually considering filming in California, near L.A.

Guillén: Not San Francisco?

Calza: No. It's too pretty here. Too distracting.

Guillén: I could show you some ugly places. [Laughter.]

Calza: We wanted to work with the juxtaposition between New York and Los Angeles. As an Italian, these are the two cities I think of when I think of the United States. Both cities are so huge, so populated, and yet allow you to be anonymous and alone. There's a scene in Alan Parker's Fame where a character is singing alone in his apartment, which is at the same time located in Times Square. That feeling of emptiness and being alone is heightened by the metropolitan feel of cities like New York and Los Angeles. Memphis doesn't have that. Even if you're alone in Memphis, it doesn't have the same quality as being alone in New York or Los Angeles. Similarly, in San Francisco there's always a sense of community around you.

Guillén: Well, if you ever decide to film in San Francisco, can I be an extra in the background, some gay guy walking two pomeranians while fluffing up my hair?

Tan: [Laughs.] Sure!

Cross-published on Twitch.