Hey folks... here it is, the sick and twisted interview you've been waiting for from Anton Sirius. He's about to discuss all the nitty gritty fetishes of Matthew Bright, director of FREEWAY and FREEWAY II: CONFESSIONS OF A TRICK BABY. He's talking about upcoming projects and all sorts of sleazy shit you'll dig on. So... If you are a lover of 'women in prison' films... and sleazy bad girl cinema... this is the interview for you... Enjoy!
Matthew Bright Interview
Matthew Bright is the writer/director of Freeway and Freeway II: Confessions of a Trick Baby, and the writer of Gun Crazy, among other projects.
Anton Sirius: Confessions of a Trick Baby contains some, um, interesting scenes. What rating did it get from the MPAA?
Matthew Bright: We got an 'R' rating four hours before Columbine, fortunately. They're into language now. 'Pussy' is a word they just can't stand. I don't know how they think. Y'know, they say "Well, we're just doing it for the kids" but the fact is you just can't sell something without an 'R' rating, it's just set up that way. But then newspapers won't advertise anything over an 'R'. Of course they scream like pigs when they feel that their rights are being infringed, but they're real hot for censorship for us... We did have a lot of cuts, but not as many as for Freeway.
AS: Really?
MB: Yeah, Freeway was much worse.
AS: What kind of things got cut?
MB: Language. Whole sentences in the conversation between Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland were cut.
AS: You mean the confrontation in the car?
MB: Yeah, that was really cut up. And the violence too, they were really bothered by. They let violence through constantly, but if it's violence in any kind of intelligent context then they go crazy. Steven Seagal sticking a piece of glass through somebody's skull, that's cool, but any kind of intelligence… And then of course they're sexually hung up, too. If they censored books like they censored film people would realize how our liberty is being curtailed. They censor Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Almodovar… it's like a chimpanzee throwing shit on a van Gogh. It's a horrible situation.
AS: So the cut here is the one with the 'R'?
MB: We did everything they wanted, and they signed off on it. I don't think we've got the official rating, but that's what they signed off on. We made 53 cuts in a 90 minute movie. We did everything they said and they said OK.
AS: How's distribution looking?
MB: Not real good. They're offended by content, for the most part. They didn't like Freeway too, the first one, when that came out. Of course this one wasn't supposed to be called 'Freeway II'.
AS: Who was behind that idea?
MB: The company, not I. There's no freeway! Fifty minutes of Freeway is set on the freeway, and this one has no freeway in it. It's ridiculous. No one, the actors, nobody wanted to do a sequel. Plus this one's half the budget of Freeway. So it's going straight to video, I think. It's got theatrical in the UK, and France, and it'll play in San Francisco- because Freeway played there for 18 months. But the content is considered too hard-core for even the cable companies.
AS: That's too bad, because it got a really good response from the Midnight Madness crowd. I mean, it was a little mixed- there were a few people who I think would have leaped over a few rows to strangle you if they could- but for the most part everybody got it.
MB: I got attacked at a Q&A in San Francisco for Freeway. Fortunately my kid was there and just beat the shit out of the nut. He was 13 at the time.
AS: Your last couple of pictures, you've written and directed, but before that you were primarily a writer, and most of your work- even as far back as the Forbidden Zone- has a kind of fairy tale aura about it...
MB: Well, I didn't do much on Forbidden Zone, just some dialogue, and after I wrote Gun Crazy that gave me a chance to direct. But generally I was just writing scripts and optioning them, and making money like that. But nothing was getting made, though. And now I'm directing, and if this thing sells enough videos I'm sure they'll let me do it again.
AS: Yeah, Freeway was like that. It just came and went in theaters, and everyone saw a decent review or two of it and thought "Oh, I'll just watch it on video"…
MB: It's sold a huge number of videos.
AS: I know! Everyone saw it on video and immediately told 18 other people "You HAVE to see this!"
MB: It didn't get even good reviews at first, though. The first reviews, like Variety… oh God, what a prick that guy was. I mean, reviewers now… there's a guy out in LA who reviewed 8MM, which I haven't seen, and was just ranting because the MPAA didn't give it an 'X' or an 'NC-17'. A reviewer who calls for censorship, that's just not cool.
AS: I'm trying to figure out what could have gotten it an 'NC-17'. Just mentioning the fact that child porn exists, I guess.
MB: It's a terrible situation.
AS: Anyway, back to your movie. How do you like directing, as opposed to just writing?
MB: I didn't have a real good experience on this shoot. There were some people in the crew who were really gung-ho, but for the most part I had a real hard time. A lot of people hustled to get the gig, and then as soon as they got the gig they were hostile to us because of the material.
AS: This was in Vancouver?
MB: Yep. They hated us. It was a rough, poisonous environment. They were mean to Natasha, Natasha was mean back to them, it was really, really bad. The Freeway shoot was wonderful, but this was really grim. I've never experienced anything like it. It was a war, it was a complete war.
AS: So you're NEVER coming back up here to shoot.
MB: No! I'll shoot in Canada, I'm just not going to shoot a non-union flick in Vancouver again.
AS: Some of those problems were with the government?
MB: Well, some people on the set would call up and say we were molesting children, so that we'd get shut down. Or they'd call the union and say things because they just wanted to fuck us over. It was a war. We had traumatic stress syndrome when we finished. I'm sorry I can't say anything good about it. I just can't bring myself to say it was a wonderful experience, which I probably should. But I can't. It was like working in the Soviet Union or something. And Natasha's like a 19, 18 year old girl, she and I knocked ourselves out putting this together, and they treated us like we were… I mean, they had her in tears every day, they were abusive. But we got the movie done, that's what it's all about. If it's going to be a war, then it's going to be a war. Fortunately I had some people, like my art director and stuff, who were on our side. We had to do all our wardrobe ourselves! We had to do reshoots in the car, and it was supposed to meld in with the stuff that did work. The actors were shot down the middle, and I didn't have a monitor on this fucking thing, so that had to synch up and when they bring the car in for the reshoot it doesn't have the same seats in it. So there goes that whole day. Just day after day…
AS: Let's talk about some happier things. I can't let you get down like this!
MB: OK, OK, sorry.
AS: What was it like working with Natasha Lyonne? I know she was heavily involved from the beginning.
MB: She was one of the producers. She was wonderful. She was great, I love her. I'd work with her again. (pause) I'm sorry I got down like that…
AS: No, no, It's OK...
MB: (laughing) I'll come back up now. No, it was a crazy project. The cast got into roles of those criminal girls and they had that persona… the actors get into the roles, and then I get into the actors, I love them so much. They amaze me and I've never been able to do the things they can do… y'know, they have these tattoos on that they can't wash off so they're coming in places and people are horrified! They look like convict dykes! And they would just play with it. We'd get kicked out of restaurants. They'd be all, "We're closed!" if they saw us coming.
AS: Was this really different from the prison segment of the shoot in the first Freeway?
MB: This was different, because of the bulimia and stuff. You know that party, where they're all puking in the bucket? Two extras on the set starting puking their guts out when they saw that. It was horrible. They got so sick. I just started laughing when I saw what was being created in that jail. People were getting sick to their stomachs when we had the vomit machine, which might be part of the reason they were so mad at us, because we had puke everywhere.
AS: There's no greater tribute to a filmmaker than making people vomit.
MB: Natasha on the first day, because she was so crazy into it, stood up and said "This is a movie about pussy, bulimia and pussy!" She doesn't talk like that, she's like a normal girl when the tattoos come off. The Woody Allen movie (Everyone Says I Love You) is more like her in real life. She's a classy, highly educated, brilliant, brilliant girl. My God. I love my Canadian actors too. I'm never going to make a movie without some of them. That girl without the arm, I mean I know it's only a couple of lines but she was just ass-kicking good. And Mrs. Wilson, the woman who was barfed on, she was great, and my cops. I love actors, they just amaze me.
AS: What were the differences, working with Natasha vs. Reese Witherspoon? From what I've seen you've managed to get the best performances of their careers so far out of both of them.
MB: Well, they're both brilliant. I'm in love with Reese too, of course. You know, it's funny, I get these 15, 16 year old young girls, and when you do a movie with someone it's like going to a shrink, you get something called transference, they start dreaming about you. I mean, Reese would dream about me, Natasha would dream about me, other actors would dream about me. Now dreaming about somebody is pretty intimate. They don't want me coming into their heads in the middle of the night! That's very annoying, some middle-aged fucking pervert coming into their skull every night. Reese would come to the set pissed off, Natasha sometimes would come to the set pissed off. They were very combative at times, it got to the point where they were slugging me, they're getting physical. And then on top of that I adore them! It's like, after I've worked with them they can't even look at me for a year. It's a year before they can look at me and then they realize I was just trying to get the best out of them. Basically for acting, as a director my job is sort of… administrative. I just want to make room so they can kick ass. I don't want to interfere with them. I want them to go to town and go nuts.
AS: Do you do any prep work on the characters or do you leave that entirely to them?
MB: My contribution is all in the script. With Reese I didn't have to do anything with her, I just gave her the script and made sure that she had room so she could do her thing and not trip over any of the furniture and not try to suppress it. Same with Natasha. I mean they come to the set and they know every word and every beat and they're so professional and so brilliant. I'm really lucky to have worked with a shitload of geniuses. It's annoying to them, a bit. I think sometimes they want more structure and someone to not leave them hanging and feeling like they're on a cliff. But I'm getting great performances. It's grueling, it's hard, especially on a 23 day shoot. But I love it. All the girls I've worked with have been great, I'm trying to think… oh God, I'm getting Alzheimer's…
AS: Let's see, there's Tara Subkoff from Freeway…
MB: That was actually the first thing I shot. Everybody was worried as hell, I've got so much make-up on these girls it's like Kabuki, and they're all worried about it, and then they see Tara walk across the schoolyard on that fucked-up leg, and that leg brace, and they suddenly realize why we're in this business: because it's so hysterical. But making a movie is like a war, it is a campaign.
AS: Who do you want on your side for the next one? Would you rather work with Natasha or Reese again, or is there somebody else…
MB: Oh God, I'd be so happy to work with either of them. I feel like they're my kids, I love them like my own kids. They probably, because of me being their director and stuff, got the feeling that I was just too damn close to them, and I impinged on their privacy or something, but I just did my job, and I think the end result shows that it was worth it. Reese was amazing, and Natasha was amazing, and I'd jump at the chance to work with either of them again. And then there are a bunch of other girls I'd like to work with. I'd love to work with Jennifer Jason Leigh, there's a few others, but not many that come up to that level. I mean these girls are really amazing, but they'll never have another role like that, unless they work with me. It's true!
AS: Now the next film in the 'series' is a Three Little Pigs take?
MB: That's probably Natasha, I mean if she'll still do it. A couple of more weeks on the script and it'll be ready to go. But before that I've got something with Oliver Stone which I'm not allowed to talk about.
AS: Is that the Pol Pot project?
MB: Nope. That one's something he's producing, but this is something he'll be directing. I got commissioned to do a script for him. But I want to do the Three Little Pigs very badly, and Natasha would be right for that.
AS: She'd be playing 'the Wolf'?
MB: Yes, up against three police officers. I have to get fake teeth for her and her whole family.
AS: How did you end up meeting Oliver Stone, and working with him?
MB: An old friend of mine, who introduced me to my first wife, works with Oliver Stone, Richard Rutowski, who's produced a lot of Oliver's movies and was one of the writers of Natural Born Killers, and he gave Oliver two scripts of mine, and one of them was Freeway and Oliver just called up and said let's do it. He became the producer. He gave me a chance when nobody- NOBODY-else would. Nobody would even touch me with a ten foot pole. He's got lots of integrity, he doesn't try to second guess the audience. He lent support, nothing but. In casting, people were scared shitless of the script. But with him, it was like "Well, if Oliver is bringing this to us it must be cool." I owe him everything.
AS: What is the Pol Pot project, since you can talk about that one?
MB: There's a book called "For the Sake of All Living Things" and it's about a child who's kidnapped and sent to a place called The School of the Cruel. This is all true. They kidnapped orphans from the Vietnam War, which spilled over into Cambodia, so they'd take ten year olds and basically bury them underground for a couple of days, then let them out and torture them, inflict horrible discipline on them. Then they'd start them out with torturing animals, monkeys, things like that, and that was his army, kids with AK-47s. And like in Africa and other places where children have guns they don't have a concept of death for themselves or others. You'd say "Did you kill somebody?" and they'd say "No, they just fell down." They have no concept of the terrible atrocities they did at the behest of adults. Pol Pot, Ho Chih Minh, Mau Tse Tung, they were all monsters, absolute monsters. I want to shoot it in Cambodia. If I shot it here it would be $100 million, it would be like Saving Private Ryan- there's eight thousand extras, armor, helicopters. But I had the budget professionally done, and since there's no Westerners in it at all, to do it over there would cost $1.1 million.
AS: So it'll end up being sub-titled then?
MB: It wouldn't matter, in America it probably wouldn't be understood anyway. If there isn't a white couple screwing then they don't give a shit about four million people being genocided. But for $1.1 million all I need is an Asian audience, and a European audience. And a Canadian audience!
AS: Not that Oliver has ever been terribly worried about what American audiences wanted anyway.
MB: An American audience won't care unless there's an American fucking somebody. That's all they care about.
AS: Do you want to make a film someday with a larger budget, something a little more to play with?
MB: I would, but at the same time I wouldn't want to do a script by committee, I don't want it directed by committee. I'm at an age now where I've got 15, 20 years left, so whatever I do it's what I want. If I just stick with independents then it'll be OK. I don't have to sell out because gee, I won't even be alive in 15-20 years. Whatever torture I suffer as a result of this stubbornness isn't going to last because I'll be dead. And if I didn't think I'd be dead I couldn't get to sleep at night, because who wants to be tortured for 30 years?
AS: Oh no. Lighter topics… who did the music for Freeway II?
MB: Kennard Ramsey. It was very low budget, none of the songs cost over $300. Veruca Salt gave me freebies.
AS: Did Juliana Hatfield know one of her songs was going to be used in a shower scene when she gave it to you?
MB: I sent her the tape, actually, I really think she's great. I learned about her from John Doe, and John Doe gave me a bunch of stuff he had done but the thing about John Doe's stuff is that it's so story specific, so nothing fit. There's stories in all his songs, he's that kind of writer. Whereas with Juliana and Veruca Salt… Louise Post was my contact. I loved Veruca Salt. They broke up. Really dumb. The best bands always do that, they just got dysfunctional. But it's so stupid! What did they have to fight about? Juliana's did cost money, but at least we got them. Even there, we just had so much hostility towards this movie! The music people hated our guts, called us sexist assholes. So they were surprised when Juliana said she wanted to do it, when Veruca Salt said they wanted to do it. "Oh, you'll never get them! Because you're a piece of shit and these are nice girls!"
AS: Is this soundtrack going to get a release?
MB: I don't know! It wasn't just the Canadian crew that hated our guts, it was the Americans too that we were working with. If it weren't for my art director, and editor, and composer, I would have been boiled in oil. And we were all ready for a psychiatrist. We were so combative at the end, we were snarling at people, "Well, fuck you! I'll kill you!"
AS: You're going back down again.
MB: Oh, God, sorry.
AS: Nope, I'm here for you, if you need to work this out…
MB: Aah. I've probably said too much about it. I mean, it's just a sensitive film about pussy, bulimia and pussy. I mean, I thought it would be funny!
AS: It was funny!
MB: But you're in the minority. You show that to a normal audience in Toronto…
AS: Yeah, there's probably be a riot.
MB: They should show it like this: "We're doing a double feature tonight- Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey, and Confessions of a Trick Baby, because they're both about teenage girls."
AS: That is your strength, though, even of the scripts you've written but not directed like Gun Crazy, really strong roles for young women.
MB: Not many people do them.
AS: But that makes no sense to me, because all Hollywood wants to sell pictures to is 16 year olds. That's the target audience they want right now, but they won't actually create roles for those kids to look up to.
MB: Well, they don't come to me, that's for sure. Although, I have a little cache… And I do get some great girls who come up to me, "Oh, I was in juvenile hall and I saw your movie on cable and I just want to tell you I love you, you're so great." Then they'll turn out to be violent, or they'll steal everything in sight. I have all these psychopathic girls in love with me.
AS: You're the voice of their generation.
