TRANSCRIPT Ep. 130: ‘The Vanishing’ with Essie Davis

Transcript

music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw. A jaunty, jazzy tune reminiscent of the opening theme of a movie. Music continues at a lower volume as April introduces herself and her guest, and then it fades out.
april wolfe
									
Welcome to Switchblade Sisters, where women get together to slice and dice our favorite action and genre films. I’m April Wolfe. Every week, I invite a new female filmmaker on. A writer, director, actor, or producer, and we talk—in depth—about one of their fave genre films. Perhaps one that’s influenced their own work in some small way. You may already remember from the last few episodes, but here’s a reminder. We are remote recording now, since we’re all social distancing. I’m recording from my bedroom, so you’re gonna hear my cat screaming. She was already doing it earlier. The audio is likely going to sound a little different from our studios, but everything else is exactly the same. Except for the fact that today, our guest got to call in from Tasmania, because I’m very excited to have actor-producer Essie Davis here with me. Hi, Essie!
essie
									
Hi, April. It’s a pleasure to be here.
april
									
So for those of you who aren’t familiar with Essie’s work, where have you been? But also, here’s a refresher. Essie was born and raised in Hobart, Tasmania. She studied in Sydney at the National Institute for Dramatic Art, and then she graduated onto the stage, performing in the Bell Shakespeare Company, already securing coveted roles like Juliet. When she moved into film in the 1993 detective story, The Custodian, and the 1995 Australian comedy, Dad and Dave: On Our Selection before appearing in The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Code 46, and Girl with a Pearl Earring, among many others. She returned to the stage, winning a  Laurence Olivier Award for best performing actress for her turn as Stella opposite Glenn Close in A Streetcar Named Desire, and was nominated for a Tony for her Broadway debut in Jumpers. Essie was lauded in TV as well, being nominated for an award for her work in the mini-series The Slap. The television would find her again when she was cast Phryne Fisher in the internationally beloved detective series, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Somewhere in there, she had the time to star in Jennifer Kent’s terrifying debut, The Babadook as a distraught mother trying to survive in a house haunted by a spooky children’s book character. You guys may remember Jennifer Kent already came on the show to talk about The Innocence. You may also remember her as Lady Crane on Game of Thrones, or from the mini-series’, The White Princess, The Last Post, or the Lambs of God. She’s now starring in a nice handful of films coming soon—this is a very busy year for her, despite the pandemic—including Shannon Murphy’s upcoming Babyteeth, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, and Justin Kurzel’s True History of the Kelly Gang, in which she plays Ellen Kelly, an erratic woman toughened by poverty and British rule, into the—well, essentially, a Lady Macbeth of the badlands. After that, you’ll see her in The Justice of Bunny King, opposite her Kelly Gang co-star, Thomasin McKenzie. So, Essie, wow. That’s just a lot. Are you tired?
essie
									
[Laughing] I am tired, actually. It’s uh, I am completely exhausted just listening to that. Um, I am very fortunate that I’ve worked an incredible amount for the past couple years, and it’s a bit sad that everything I’ve done is just coming out now. However, it’s also a time when everyone desperately needs to be entertained and respected and inspired, and hopefully this will give people the opportunity to be all of those things.
april
									
Yeah, and you know, speaking of True History of the Kelly Gang, we actually have it playing at a drive-in theater here. [Essie gasps.] So people can—yeah, I know.
essie
									
Are you kidding?
april
									
People are gonna get the old school experience. I’m not kidding.
essie
									
That is fantastic. That is fantastic. I was just desperately—I’m—I love the drive-in more than anything. I used to love sitting in the back of mom and dad’s car with my brothers and sisters with a blanket in our pajamas and watching the first feature and a double feature and falling asleep and waking up to bits of all kinds of amazingness. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and some incredible films I saw at the cinema—at the drive-in. And they don’t exist in Tasmania anymore. They’ve gotten rid of all the drive-ins. I’m so glad that you still have them and people like, go?
april
									
Yeah! Right now they’re allowed to go. I mean, there’s definitely some restrictions, but your movie’s gonna be playing there, so.
essie
									
That is the best news I have had this month.
april
									
I know, it’s gonna be— [April breaks off, giggling.] Well, that’s wonderful. And people in LA, definitely check it out at the drive-in. But, Essie, the movie that you chose to talk about today is The Vanishing from 1988, the original. Can you give us an explanation on why that’s one of your fave genre films?
essie
									
You know, it was really hard to pick a favorite. I’ve got so many. But I have to say, there’s something about that film that is terrifying, and the level of dread that it fills you with, and really—I watched it again last night to refresh my memory, and it really is a film you can only watch once. Even though it was extraordinary to watch it again, it’s really tricky knowing what’s gonna happen. But uh, the whole opening of it is such a powerful feeling of tension and dread. And I think what I love bout it so much is that it’s so—it so potentially could happen. It’s, you know, someone drives in, a couple drive in to a petrol station roadhouse. She goes in to get a drink, and never comes out again. And he—it’s um, it’s that—the terrifying fear of abduction or what would happen if somebody just disappeared out of your life, and this kind of quest to find them. Oh, I’ve got goosebumps thinking about it.
april
									
For those of you who haven’t seen The Vanishing yet, today’s episode will obviously give you some spoilers, but that shouldn’t stop you from listening before you watch. As always, my motto is that it’s not what happens, but how it happens that makes a movie worth watching. Still, if you would like to watch—pause this, watch The Vanishing first, go ahead. It’s on Criterion channel at the very least, and you can definitely rent it online.
essie
									
But you’ve got to make sure it’s the right Vanishing, because the American remake is. Not. Good. I’m sorry to say, America.
april
									
[Chuckling] Spoken from the words of Essie Davis herself. Okay.
music
									
Tense music begins to play under April.
april
									
Okay. For those who need a refresher on The Vanishing and what happens, it’s written by George Sluizer and Tim Krabbé, and directed by Sluizer for release in 1988, The Vanishing stars Johanna ter Steege as a playful woman named Saskia on a road trip with her boyfriend, Rex, played by Gene Bervoets. The relationship is antagonistic, but Saskia is pushed to an edge when Rex runs out of gas in a long, dark tunnel, and leaves her against her protestations to get some more fuel. Rex apologizes, but there’s a sense that Saskia, no matter how joyful, knows that something is wrong. She recounts to him a chilling dream she had about being trapped in a golden egg. The two reach a rest area where they play around on the grass. Saskia goes into the store and comes back with a frisbee. She goes into the store one more time, but this time, she doesn’t return. Rex can’t find her. We cut to the past, though it’s not explicitly made clear. A family man chemistry professor named Raymond begins plotting to kidnap a woman. He tries and fails a few times, until a target actually gives him a great idea: abduct a traveler from a rest stop up the highway. Then we get back to Rex, three years later, who keeps getting postcards from the man who says he’s the killer. Rex shows up at a cafe in Nimes, across the way from Raymond’s house, but Raymond’s too chicken shit to go through with it. After Rex makes an appeal on television, Raymond finds him and tells him he’ll tell Rex everything. Rex doesn’t even care about punishment, he just needs to know what happened. Rex gets in the car with Raymond, who then drives him down the highway, recounting a long, long story about how he decided he would kidnap someone, and how it was Saskia whoa actually approached him, and then got into his car to try to buy a gift for Rex. But Raymond refuses to say the rest. If Rex wants to know, he must experience it for himself. He must die. Rex struggles with this, but eventually drinks a cup of drugged coffee. Then he wakes up buried alive in a simple wooden casket, flicking the lighter Saskia bought for him, understanding finally the last horrifying moments of the woman he loved.
april
									
[April makes a wavering, spooked out sound. Essie starts laughing.] Okay. Um, it’s horrific. It’s horrific.
essie
									
It is horrific. It’s horrific.
april
									
And it’s also um—because it’s like, it’s uncomfortable, and in fact I think that’s something that, you know, we should begin with, is the fact that Sluizer, when he was saying that he is okay with things that make you feel disturbed, he said, “I don’t mind disturbing the audience. Disturbed means you’re required to think about what’s right or what’s wrong.” End quote. And this most definitely makes me think about what is right and wrong, although it’s very obvious that you should not bury someone alive after abducting them. I’m sorry. [They both start laughing.]
essie
									
No. Do not do this in your own home. And certainly don’t do it in a bush somewhere either. [Laughing] Just don’t do it. Stop and don’t! If you want to find out what happened to someone, don’t agree to let it happen to you! [April laughs uproariously.] That is like a—that is a lesson in life. Sometimes things are best left a mystery.
april
									
I know! Oh my—but the way that the builds that up, where this guy is maniacal to the point where he just needs to know what happened. You know,, he won’t let it go, his relationship is crumbling. That’s something that is—like, he’s kind of building to this inevitably poetic ending where the only way that he could go on is if he also perishes. Um, and I would not make those choices, but I can see in some way how this character is making these choices at the very least.
essie
									
I can, too. I can, too. But that’s what—it is a shame that you have to give away that last moment, because that is the tension that drives you through, as an audience member, drives you through the watching of the film, is you not knowing. You not knowing and going, god, what would you choose, what would you choose? Would you just want to know? Because you as an audience want to know what happened, what happened?
april
									
And I want to talk about what it’s like, maybe as an actor and trying to build that suspense and also working with objects. Because Sluizer was saying, “The word suspense was always in my head, but it was not number one in the writing of the movie. In the making, I was more conscious about and more involved in building suspense. It was in the script, but then you have to play it or make it so you feel it. Do I know this, does he, does she? So, knowing and not knowing becomes affected. It’s also objects having a value in that suspense. Is that truck important or not important?” End quote. And I think, you know, for this, like you’re saying, like she goes in, she buys a frisbee, there are drinks that she’s buying, there’s a keychain that we see that, you know, the killer is giving us a gift that we don’t know is part of the story yet. But because there’s a certain kind of magic imbued on these objects, on this truck that passes, you know, it’s—you can tell that there’s something there. But I’m wondering, you know, as an actor, you also can’t indicate. You know, you can’t um, you can’t give away that this is the key, that this is the clue. Because you already know the end of the script. But I wonder if that presents a kind of interesting challenge for a performer.
essie
									
Well, it certainly can. I mean, there are—that—I also know that really is extremely important when you’re doing theater work as well. That if you magic a prop with too much magic—[She breaks off, laughing] just by knowing it, you can—the way you hold it, or the way—then you can unwittingly give away something that really shouldn’t be given away. And um, and the filmmaker does it in so many ways that, you know, depending on if you linger on anything for too long, or—it really—it’s incredibly important to, when you’re working, to know how much value to give something. But it’s also in how long a shot might linger on a prop, or in the editing of the storytelling, like, what’s just something that can just be passed over, and just—just sprinkle it with a little bit of, um, thought, but without being pointed at. Sometimes that’s enough, that you’re standing there and you are thinking about a prop that’s not even got any focus on it. It can actually—you can—uh, somehow there is a way of magic that you kind of give kind of resident value to an object just by thought, and that thought can be too much or not enough.
april
									
Well, you must do that quite a bit with Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. I mean, so much of it is gathering evidence. This character who is handling props, gathering evidence, and making sure that you’re leading the audience along with it. Because of the type of show that it is, you can hopefully potentially figure it out on your own, if you wanted to.
essie
									
Yes, but you’ve also got to be very clever, because Phryne's smarter than anyone, and she’s meant to be figuring it out before the audience does. [Both laugh.] So you’ve got to go, “Hmm, this could be really important, but I’m just going to give it a different kind of energy that it might be important, but maybe it’s important for a different reason.” It’s quite interesting. I’ve been listening to Sherlock Holmes a lot lately. Stephen Frye’s reading the entire works of Sherlock Holmes and it’s amazing hearing a client read like, list all of the events that have happened and the things that they saw, the things that they touched, the things that they did, and then hearing Sherlock’s take on all of those things is just like, “Oh, I see why that was important!” it’s quite clever clue placing.
music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
									
And we’re gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we’re gonna come back to something you keep talking about, which is a really beautiful part of the film. Which actually is only for about 11 minutes total, or about 8 to 11 minutes total of the film, and that’s the relationship between Rex and Saskia that’s developed. So, we’ll talk about that right after the break. [Music fades.]
promo
									
Music: Fun, cheerful music. Kirk Hamilton: Video games! Jason Schreier: Video games! Maddy Myers: Video games! You like 'em? Jason: Maybe you wish you had more time for them? Kirk: Maybe you wanna know the best ones to play? Jason: Maybe you wanna know what happens to Mario when he dies? [Someone chuckles.] Maddy: In that case, you should check out Triple Click! It's a brand new podcast about video games. Jason: A podcast about video games?! But I don't have time for that! Kirk: Sure you do. Once a week, kick back as three video game experts give you everything from critical takes on the hottest new releases— Jason: —to scoops, interviews, and explanations about how video games work— Maddy: —to fascinating and sometimes weird stories about the games we love. Kirk: Triple Click is hosted by me, Kirk Hamilton. Jason: Me, Jason Schreier. Maddy: And me, Maddy Myers. Kirk: You can find Triple Click wherever you get your podcasts, and listen at MaximumFun.org. Maddy: Bye! [Music finishes.]
music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
									
Welcome back to Switchblade Sisters. I’m April Wolfe, and I’m joined today by Essie Davis from Tasmania, and we are talking about The Vanishing from 1988. Um, one of the things that we have obviously gotten into is Johanna ter Steege’s performance. It’s amazing. She said, “George asked us to come to France one week before we started shooting, and we went to the south of France and worked every day together, the four of us. We talked about the film, the story, the characters, and he also wanted to see how the three of us were together in daily life. He wanted to know us. He’s an actor’s director. He wants to know who you are, and that’s what he uses for the film. “And I’m in the film for only 11 minutes altogether, and my part with Rex is probably maybe only 8 minutes, so it was a very short time to show what a relationship is between the two people. So we worked very precise on every second, every minute in the scene. I knew that we had to show the audience that the relationship between Saskia and Rex is very intense. They love each other very much, but they are also very insecure about the future. There’s also a power game going on with them. Who is the smartest, who’s the funniest.” End quote. I, you know, I wanted to get into the fact of the—the preparation that they did, you know, where George Sluizer is watching them interact with one another, and really designing the characters around their kind of natural tendencies of who they are. And, you know, there was of course, obviously, the script and what Sluizer thought they could be like, but then he just kind of accentuated the actors’ natural personalities and their natural push-pull relationship with one another. Have you had an experience before where a director worked that closely with you to kind of make the character so, so much about you?
essie
									
I have, but it’s not necessarily about you. It’s about you as this character. It’s about what you bring out or what things about yourself that you bring out to play this character. And we all uh, as actors are capable of expressing a myriad of a million different little subtleties about humanity that we observe or that are naturally our own. But all of those things, I find you tend to dip into yourself and either exaggerate yourself or just put on display what is—what you feel is like, the cards that your character is holding from your own experience. I mean, the script and the story are everything. The clues, all the research that you do. And then you—I mean, I am not Amelia in The Babadook, and I am not Phryne Fisher, and I am not Ellen Kelly. But all o those characters are characters that I have created in a way that is “what would Essie do in this situation?” I wouldn’t necessarily be any of those characters to start with, but if I were that character, what would I do in that character’s situation. And so, certainly 3working on True History of the Kelly Gang, Justin has this extraordinary way of working where he gets each—he gives each actor like, a manifesto of things to do to prepare for the role. Which is five full script pages of, okay, I want you to read this, listen to this, um, go to this concert, wear these clothes, buy new boots, change your shape, eat this, do that, listen, go, watch these fighters, watch the weigh-in of these particular female fighters and how the male fighters react and behave, how they challenge each other, listen to Patty Smith, watch all of her concerts, watch her interviews, how is she masculine, how is she feminine, what do you do, how—what would happen if you joined a band, I would like you to join a band and write some punk music and perform it— [April laughs and guffaws multiple times as Essie continues.] —in fact why don’t you guys—I’m booking you in for a gig in three weeks’ time. Pick up an instrument and you’d better have a set ready to go, because we’re gonna have this, we’ve booked you in and you are being advertised, your band has a fake history, and people are coming to see it.
essie
									
He’s just—I mean, I, George MacKay, and Earl Cave, Sean Keenan, and Lola Hewison play Ned Kelly, and Dan Kelly, and they’re best friends. They play the gang, and um, Ben Corbett, who is also a punk musician, who played his first role as Red Kelly, he has his own band called Six Ft. Hick, where he does this extraordinary Jiu jitsu self-flagellating kind of bottle smashing onto his body, kind of crazy dancing with his brother and their band. And we together, while the boys are writing music and crashing drums and writing songs inspired by their characters’ stories in the film, punk music, we are dancing and kicking and oozing. And then, you know, and we had uh, George and I also, we were going bushwalking together, and we were—he was learning to chop wood and ride horses. We were doing all kinds of things together. We had punk music playing, the band was playing while we were rehearsing scenes, so that we would rehearse a scene while three of the boys would be playing a song, and George and I would be in the middle of dancing with Dan, or gut running through our lines, and then cut.
april
									
Essie, is that why you’re so terrifying in this movie? You are so terrifying in this movie. [Both laugh.]
essie
									
Thank you.
april
									
Deeply terrifying.
essie
									
Well, I think there is this—thank you. [April laughs louder.] She’s mercurial, isn’t she? She’s—I mean, I think that the amount of preparation that you can do for a role, really, can be, if you have the opportunity to do it and especially if you have someone as extraordinary as Justin Kurzel saying, try this, try that, go here, do this, listen to that. ‘Cause he has such an immense knowledge, and such a wide ranging interest in life and art and sport and history and the world. And so, you know, to have someone kind of go, “Come on, embody this, I want you to step into this person’s shoes.” And you know, he can look at a character and just go—on the page it can be confusing and not necessarily a complete character, and then when you try out all of these different ways of being, and try them together and bond it together and weld it together with the people you’re working with, it can become—it all joins together. Because it doesn’t have to, it’s—you are the—you are the gunpowder and the wick that gets it from A to Zed in the blink of an eye, because you know what’s going on and the audience doesn’t necessarily have to witness how you got there. It’s like, you just have to be ready to take massive leaps of faith. And similar with Jennifer Kent on The Babadook. We, you know, we had a similar shorthand, because we knew each other extremely well, as Justin and I do, and—and um, and so, you know, the level of bravery that you have to have as an actor. And you have to be able to reveal a bit and be vulnerable and available to your director. At least, certainly to the camera and to that kind of level of openness, it becomes um, incredibly important. The preparation that you do together, and how intimate you can be all allow that kind of deep or intimate performance to be shared with an audience through the camera, because you’ve reached a place of trust, I guess. That, and the kind of intimate work just means that when you re completely vulnerable, there is like a massive wealth of information going on underneath it all that—that you don’t necessarily have to show, that an audience can feel.
april
									
I think that when you’re—you’re talking too about, you know, those kinds of leaps or jumps between a character feeling one way and then having a kind of tonal or mood shift that feels organic but is very sudden. And that’s something that I’m seeing also with this character that Johanna is playing, I have to say. Because if I think about even your character, Ellen Kelly, versus hers, I mean, even though they’re quite different—one is very spritely and one is terrifying—there is so—there’s wheels turning constantly. To the point where, you know, the choices that everyone’s making is like, you can be extremely serious one moment, and then you might crack a joke, you might have like a defense mechanism that will be like, “Oh, now here’s where I tease.” But you’ll be serious underneath that. And so there’s these moods where this person is not just sad or angry, but there’s all these different emotions together. And I was thinking of that in terms of—the scene that was really hard for Johanna to play, which was in the gas station, she said, “When you see Saskia, you see a very happy person who loves life and adventure. Why he picked Saskia, we’ll never know. You can also see that Saskia picked him. I said there is one moment I find very difficult to play to George. I put my coins in the machine and I turn my back, and suddenly, I begin to talk to this man, and I don’t know why I do this. I ask him before to change my money, and then I go back to Rex. But this is the character. She is very spontaneous, I realized. She goes from one moment to another moment, and she says, ‘You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to drive a car.’ That’s her. She’s very playful, and I had to come around to that.” End quote. So, I thought that was really interesting that like, with all of these tonal shifts that Johanna is playing with, she still couldn’t quite bring herself to understand why her character would bet he one to strike up a conversation with this, you know, this would-be serial killer that she’s about to meet. Then she had to kind of talk through, like, well, here’s why she would do this.
essie 
									
Quite often that happens, I think, with actors where you’re going, “Hang on a minute, hang on a minute, why would I do this? Why would I put myself in a situation?” And yet the character does. The character does put themself into that situation, and so you have to find the little, tiny little threads that get you there. And yes, spontaneity. Also, it’s very easy when you know a full story to um, feel the warning signs that you might feel as highly sensitive. We’re all highly sensitive beings, actors, generally, who wear our hearts on our sleeves and, you know, are able to bring things to the surface very quickly, because are thin-skinned and— [She breaks off, laughing.] Volatile and, you know, ridiculous people. But when you know a story, or when you feel in the story there is a kind of level of dread, then your instincts as an actor quite often can step in there and go, “Uh, don’t talk to that person, no, no, no!” ‘Cause you are being an audience in a sense, but in fact—
april
									
But you have to cut that out.
essie
									
You have to cut—you have to—sometimes you have to cut out both instinctual parts of yourself, where you’re going, actually, I’m outside of this situation as the third eye. I need to cut out my third eye and put myself inside the situation and be much less aware of what is going on as an audience or a director, and let the director be the third eye and just live life without—with less knowledge, I guess. Or, you know, put your own directorial eye off. Get it blindfolded and go, okay, I need to um, yeah. Just from my perspective, this is just nerdy guy asks for some change, and because I’ve spoken to him before, I trust him the next time I see him. Um, just oh yeah, we’re all in a big, safe public place.
music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
									
We’re gonna—we have to take another break. When we come back, we’re gonna get a little bit further into him as a character, how these actors related to one another to bring out that threat. We’ll be right back. [Music fades.]
april
									
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music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
									
Welcome back to Switchblade Sisters. I’m April Wolfe, and I’m joined today by Essie Davis, and we are talking about The Vanishing from 1988. I would love to talk about casting some things, and the way George Sluizer found Donnadieu, who was the guy who played Raymond. He said, “The main part on which everything is build is I wanted originally Triniant, but he was off working for a year.” Another actor. “So, I had to think about other actors while thinking of different French actors. “I remembered one or two lines in a movie, Twice A Woman, a film I made ten years before. An extra who came from nowhere and played a little part in a little scene. I remember how he threw away the cigarette he was smoking. He was flirting with the ladies. I said, ‘Oh, that is someone who can, in throwing a cigarette away, create a whole character.’ I said, ‘I must find out what he’s done in ten years.’ Apparently he’d done a lot of television. So, I met Bernard-Pierre, asked him to read. He liked the story very much and said, ‘I want to do it.’” End quote. And I think that’s a really interesting thing for an actor. You’re talking about small things, and how small things do a lot, ands um, how that can kind of tip a director off to say, like, oh this person can build a character. There’s something I was thinking when I was watching True History of the Kelly Gang. There’s a scene between you and Nicholas Hoult, and it’s, I think, just a one shot through the entire thing. You know, him talking, and you reacting. And um, you know, you’re not actually doing much for most of the scene, but there’s quite a bit of reacting and kind of body movement and facial movement. And if I think about those kind of small things that build up character, you know, that’s all part of it. And are there things that you do or that you have done to develop characters in that way, those kind of small movements before?
essie
									
I think one of the things that I understand about myself and the way that I work is that when you know what a character is thinking, you know your character in a way. If you are thinking like your character, you have—there is something about film where it reads so much. And quite often I think I am guilty of doing too much, because I’m still learning. And certainly in theater, I know how profound it can be to think a thought as you say a line or as you do something, and know that the audience, the one thousand people out there, get it, because it has this kind of um, special, profound connection somehow. I know that on camera, you can think and the camera can see those thoughts, and that might be the tiniest of things. It’s not necessarily—it’s um, it’s not necessarily choreography, it’s filmed thought. And perhaps in the way that he threw a cigarette away, maybe it was because he had a lot going on that was romanticized in that butt. [April laughs uproariously.] In the way he was flirting with those women. I’m not sure, I didn't see it. But you know—I’m trying to think of the name of the film. Um, ugh, it’s gonna come to me. In fact, I’m gonna ask you, is it 45 Years or something? It’s um—I’m gonna forget everyone’s names now.
april
									
45 Years, yeah. From 2015, that drama that won, yeah.
essie
									
Who’s in it? Sorry.
april
									
Uh, Charlotte Rampling.
essie
									
Charlotte Rampling. Okay.
april
									
And uh, Tom Courtenay.
essie
									
So, that is—that film has got an extraordinary, I mean they’re both really beautiful in 45 Years, but Charlotte Rampling at the end of that film when she’s dancing alone at the end of the film, she might even be dancing with him. It’s a long shot that goes on and on and on, and there’s about 17 million thoughts that go through her head, and you could just—you’re just going, “Oh, my god!” It’s like—it’s like one of the greatest pieces of acting ever. You’re just going, how did you convey so many ideas in this extremely still moment with just every thought that went through you? Ugh, it’s extraordinary. And it is tiny. I think I’ve gone off track a little bit, but—
april
									
No, no. I mean, it’s just—I think, you know, in terms of technique and craft for acting, it just feels like you spend so much of your time trying to live inside these characters, which is something that seems a little bit froufrou, you’d tell people. But um, you know, just like the techniques to get inside of their brain, I find that fascinating. Um, and just how it kind of bleeds out in your mannerisms, you know, how it becomes a different person.
essie
									
Well, it is fascinating. It’s like—it’s fascinating. I don’t—I don’t know how to explain it, but— [April laughs.] You know, it’s unexplainable.
april
									
Essie, you need to explain it right now for us.
essie
									
No. And I mean, Joaquin Phoenix in The Joker, that is one of the most extraordinary performances. And he is really—I’m a bit envious. I do find that um, that some people get to spend a lot more time preparing or working on a character than others necessarily. But I-like the level of detail in that performance, in the physical change is brought about by what he has to go through and what he does. He’s quite extraordinary, Joaquin, in the way his physicality changes with each role he plays. And um, I think that there is—yeah, there's just something as you—I mean, I like to not see the same person in the mirror when I’m playing a character that I would see in the mirror of the next character I play. I want it to be a different person. I want it to inhabit physically and have a different space. And um, you know, sometimes—sometimes that is all about preparation and actually working out where your character sits in your body, and where someone’s voice lies or how present they are in their eyes or not. But it can be as simple as what music do they listen to, and how—and I mean, I am still—even though I’m not in any school—I probably should be in school—but um, I’m still learning, and I think constantly hoping to get better at that kind of depth of profoundly becoming another character.
april
									
Well, I gotta say, I can’t think of any three roles that are more different than what you did for Babyteeth, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears, and Real History of the Kelly Gang. So, I think you’re doing alright, Essie. [Essie laughs.] I want to thank you for coming on the show today and for talking to us about The Vanishing and your own career and work. And um, again, I mean people can see True History of the Kelly Gang online, VOD anywhere. But also in LA, it’s playing at the drive-in, so keep an eye in for that. Um, and Babyteeth I heard is coming out later this summer, is that true?
essie
									
I don’t know. I know that it’s um, that it was going to be. I don’t know when it might be delayed now. I’m really not sure when The Justice of Bunny King will now be showing. We’ll have to wait with bated breath and hope that we have enough content for everyone to get totally—there’s a lot of incredible films, and this is definitely worth seeing, True History of the Kelly Gang. Please. Get to that drive-in.
april
									
So head out to the drive-in. Yeah.
essie
									
Or download it.
april
									
Yeah. I would love a double feature if it was with Miss Fisher’s movie. Thank you so much. [Essie laughs.] Uh, and have a great day in Tasmania. We appreciate you calling in.
essie
									
Thank you so much, April. It’s been a delight.
april
									
And if you live in LA, definitely check out True History of the Kelly Gang at the Mission Tiki Drive-In in Montclair, California. And thank you for listening to Switchblade Sisters. We’re going to start doing something a little different, as you guys know. At the end of each episode, I’m going to be giving you a staff pick now. A recommendation of a film directed by a woman. So, I know you guys have a little bit of time on your hands sometimes, once you put the kids to bed, and I wanted to recommend some movies for you all to watch. And this show is all about highlighting the great work of women filmmakers, so, you know, this is your shot. Um, the one that I want to recommend today is a—oh god, do I describe it as like a neon noir? It’s an interesting film directed by Betty Gordon from 1983 called Variety. It’s about this woman who I think is a little bit repressed, you might say, and she works in this pornography theater. And she develops this fascination with pornography and voyeurism, because she’s selling these tickets to all these men who come in. And then she also gets fascinated with one man in particular, who she ends up following around the city. So, in turn, this woman becomes the kind of man you might see in a Hitchcock film, like Vertigo. So, it’s really interesting, really ahead of its time, and you might see a nice little small part from an actor who became much more famous, Luis Guzmán. And also some other people who are very interesting. But it’s a great film for 1980s New York City as well, to see that kind of old type of city that used to be there before Rudy Giuliani.
music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
									
Anyway, if you want to let us know what you think of the show, you can tweet at us @SwitchbladePod or email us at SwitchbladeSisters@maximumfun.org. Please check out our Facebook group. That’s Facebook.com/groups/switchbladesisters. Our producer is Casey O’Brien. Our senior producer is Laura Swisher, and this is a production of MaximumFun.org. [Music fades.]
speaker 1
									
MaximumFun.org.
speaker 2
									
Comedy and culture.
speaker 3
									
Artist owned—
speaker 4
									
—Audience supported.
music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw. A jaunty, jazzy tune reminiscent of the opening theme of a movie. Music continues at a lower volume as April introduces herself and her guest, and then it fades out.
april wolfe
									
Welcome to Switchblade Sisters, where women get together to slice and dice our favorite action and genre films. I’m April Wolfe. Every week, I invite a new female filmmaker on. A writer, director, actor, or producer, and we talk—in depth—about one of their fave genre films. Perhaps one that’s influenced their own work in some small way. And you may already know, but here is a reminder that we are doing remote recording now, uh, since we’re all social distancing. I’m recording from my bedroom. You may hear my husband doing dishes in the background, which I hope won’t happen. [Mitra laughs.] Um, and the audio is likely going to sound a little different from our studio’s, but everything else is exactly the same, except for our guest. Because today I’m very excited to have comedian, writer, actor Mitra Jouhari here. Hi!
mitra
									
Hello!
april
									
Recording from your bedroom, living room? What’s your room of choice?
mitra
									
I’m recording from my bedroom, yeah. It’s actually—I was scared that it was gonna be a Zoom call, because it is in such an embarrassing state. [April agrees.] And I was very relieved to see that there was no camera element to this one.
april
									
We are merciful here if anything at Maximum Fun. Um, for those of you who are less familiar with Mitra’s work, please let me give you an introduction. Mitra is an LA based comedian, writer, and performer. She’s appeared in Judd Apatow and Kumail Nanjiani’s feature, The Big Sick, on Comedy Central’s Broad City, and can be seen in the upcoming season of TBS’s Search Party, which I’m eagerly awaiting. Um, she regularly hosts and produces the live show It’s A Guy Thing with Catherine Cohen and Patti Harrison. Mitra was previously the digital producer of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on TBS, and her staff writer credits include The President Show at Comedy Central, Miracle Workers on TBS, High Maintenance on HBO and Pod Save America on HBO.  Mitra was recently an executive story editor on season 5 of Netflix’s Big Mouth as well. Now, Mitra has co-created and stars in the Quarter Hour series Three Busy Debras, a surreal story about three deranged housewives named Debra in the affluent suburban town of Lemoncurd, Connecticut. And the show is produced by Amy Poehler for Adult Swim. So Mitra, the movie that you chose to talk about today is, you know, one that has flown under the radar for so many people, and it is Earth Girls Are Easy. [Both laugh.] Can you give us a little explanation on uh, why this one is one of your fave genre films?
mitra
									
So I—I—Earth Girls Are Easy is a movie that I um, I had been told that I would love for a really, really long time an then for whatever reason just didn’t end up watching it, and uh, I really love—across the board, I think I just, I love a movie that like, doesn’t take it too seriously that it’s a movie, kind of, is the best way I feel like I can describe it. I like a movie or a TV show where things can just can just happen if it feels like the most fun thing to do, and this definitely feels like a great example of that. It seems like a movie where they just um, they wanted—if they wanted to do something, it kind of just went in the movie. I really—I so enjoy the experience of watching this movie for the first time, because like, when that uh, [Singing] “‘Cause I’m a blonde, ya ya ya” song happens, I was like, my jaw dropped. I was like, “Wait, what’s—” and it was so deep into the movie, and I was like, “What’s happening?” [Both laugh uproariously.] How do they do this? But it was so inspiring, because it was like, oh yeah, I guess you kind of can just what you want. You can make your thing. And it really felt like that, it felt so specific and fun.
april
									
We’re definitely gonna get into how they did that and why they did that. For those of you who haven’t seen Earth Girls Are Easy , today’s episode will obviously give you some spoilers, but that shouldn’t stop you from listening before you watch. As always, my motto is that it’s not what happens, but how it happens that makes a movie worth watching. Still, if you would like to pause and watch first, this is your shot. It’s on Hulu right now.
music
									
“Earth Girls Are Easy” off the album Earth Girls Are Easy by The N
april
									
Now let’s introduce Earth Girls Are Easy. Written by Julie Brown, Charlie Coffey, and Terrence E. McNally, not the other Terrence McNally, uh, and directed by Julien Temple for release in 1988. Earth Girls Are Easy stars Geena Davis as Valerie Gale, a manicurist whose boyfriend, Ted, is just not that into her. So her stylist friend, Candy Pink, played by Julie Brown, gives her a makeover, hoping to tempt her guy into giving her some action.
clip
									
Candy Pink: Valerie, Ted is obviously a victim of PMS. Valerie: What? Candy Pink: Premarital stress! Valerie: Oh. Well, what’ll snap him out of it? Candy Pink: A new woman. Valerie: Thanks. Candy Pink: Wait, that’s it! We’ll make you a new woman!
april
									
Valerie goes blonde and wears a sexy getup, but when Ted gets home expecting Valerie to be gone and at a conference, he’s got a lady with him, and he’s exposed as a cheater.
clip
									
Valerie: You brought a girl home to have sex? Ted: Well, you weren’t supposed to be here, Val. Valerie: You were gonna have sex without me? Ted: Well, no! Of course not.
april
									
Valerie kicks him out and destroys all his stuff while reminiscing of the times they had together. Meanwhile, three aliens, Mac, Wiploc, and Zeebo, played by Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, and Damon Wayans, respectively, are wandering around space just hornt all the way up. They get a broadcast of a bunch of sexy human women, realize it’s coming from Earth, and make a beeline detour to check out that planet. And the first Earth girl they meet is Valerie, whom they catch tanning by the pool before they crash land into it. At first, Valerie is freaked out and pissed she’s also getting abducted by aliens after her break-up.
clip
									
Valerie: Oh, if things weren’t bad enough, now I’ve been abducted by a UFO.
april
									
But then she starts to grow fond of the fuzzy guys as they start to soak up American pop culture. They can’t take off for their home planet until the pool is drained, so Valerie gets Woody, played by Michael McKean—who is one of my favorite characters in the movie—to drain it for her.
clip
									
Valerie: So how long is this going to take? Woody: Uh, about a day.
april
									
To hide them in plain sight, Valerie gets Candy to give them a makeover—lots of makeovers in this—revealing that they are, in fact, hot dudes. Mac, the hottest of all.
clip
									
[Gameshow music plays.] Candy Pink: Okay, behind door number three, this is the ultimate.
april
									
They take them out on the town and they pick up some chicks, but Mac’s got his eyes on Val, and they make some crazy hot alien love. Whiplop—okay, let me say that again. [Mitra laughs.] Wiploc and Zeebo accidentally rob a gas station, steal a car, and crash the car into the Randy’s Donuts sign. Mac and Valerie scheme their way into getting arrested to find Wiploc and Zeebo, which brings them to the emergency room, where Ted, the doctor, is examining them and finding out they have two hearts.
clip
									
Ted: It’s amazing, you each have two heartbeats.
april
									
Ted and Valerie get back together for some reason after Ted gets tricked into thinking that these guys are just in a band or whatever, echoes, he’s hearing things. Um, and so Valerie and Ted are like, “We’re gonna get married,” which makes Mac really sad. But Valerie calls after him that it is Mac she really loves.
clip
									
Valerie: I have to tell you something! I love you! Take me with you! Mac: [Inaudible.] Valerie: Anyplace! Mac: I am Mister Right? Valerie: Yes! Yes!
april
									
And she jumps into his space ship, but not before Candy wants to serve them all margaritas.
clip
									
Candy Pink: Wait you guys, you can’t leave without margaritas!
april
									
That’s the movie. [Both laugh.] It was incredibly difficult to write the synopsis of this. It’s just like, “Oh my god, there’s more that keeps happening.”
mitra
									
I was like, so relieved that you explain the—it’s a movie that— [April laughs uproariously.] —it’s so hard to explain what happens. Like, there’s no succinct way to be like, “Yeah, so Earth Girls Are Easy is about blah blah blah.” It’s like, no matter what, it’s like, “Oh yeah, and then it’s like, there’s a song on the beach, and then like they have to drain the pool, but also they’re aliens, but also they’re horny, but also they’re learning English.” [She breaks off, laughing.] No one said no at any point in the process of this movie being made, creatively, it feels like.
april
									
It’s so good, and I feel like—okay, here’s something. Julie Brown, this was kind of like, her—her little baby that she had been making. Because she came out with her album that had the song “Earth Girls Are Easy” on it, and, you know, it was very weird how this happened. Apparently she said, “The album was out, and I got a call from Warner Bros. And they said, ‘These songs are so theatrical, you know, they have these stories. Do you have any movie ideas?’ So I pitched them Earth Girls and they bought it in the room, which never happens. And they were like, ‘You can be the star of it.’ “You can’t tell anyone that that’s how to get into show business, though. But it was my sense of humor, me that I put out there. You have to make stuff. You have to put your point of view out there. Nobody’s going to be writing ‘Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun’ for you.” I think that that is insane that it’s how this movie got started.
mitra
									
It’s—I mean—but like, it simultaneously makes no sense, but then it makes perfect sense, because it’s like I feel like you either buy it in the room or never at all. Like, because, if she didn’t—if it wasn’t just like, the broadest explanation of this movie like, as soon as you try to explain what’s happening in this movie, you feel insane. So, might as—I feel like you’d have to just take it on the most vague amount of information possible.
april
									
Oh yeah. But she also wouldn't have been able to sell it without the song is the thing, too. You know, like having this album that kind of exemplifies, and I think, you know, can you imagine pitching something that is this strange without any kind of accompanying visual references, you know, from her music videos or from anything else. She was already kind of selling her style in these like, small bits, which I think is a really interesting thing for the 1980s. Because to me it kind of mirrors what we’re seeing now with shorter pieces being developed, so you can get an idea of like, what an artist’s vision is before they maybe make a feature.
mitra
									
I definitely relate to that. I mean, it’s so much apart of like—I mean, Three Busy Debras is kind of a version of that, where we had these shorts that we had on YouTube and a play and all that, and we definitely had a very specific thing that we were doing that adult people, first Amy Poehler and then people at Adult Swim became aware of. And that—I mean, if we didn't have these highly specific things—we needed to be able to point to like, “Yeah, this is exactly the tone of the show. It already exists, we’ve been working on it for years.”
april
									
Yeah, ‘cause otherwise you’re just in a room saying like, “Okay, so there’s three women and they’re all named Debra.” [Both begin laughing continuously.]
mitra
									
Yeah, I think they definitely would not have taken us at our word, I would say.
april
									
So I—I think that, you know, Julie Brown is—I think she, you know, she was a genius of her time, and still is quite smart. And she was talking a lot about the fact that even though Earth Girls is out there, she still had what she thought would be kind of a grounding story of it. And she said, “With Earth Girls, the idea in my head was always The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy is in this place of longing and she doesn’t know what it is. That’s what Geena’s character is going through. She’s at a level of dissatisfaction, and then this alien comes along and suddenly she’s willing to leave the planet with him.” So, even though she’s out there, she’s still making these, you know, when she was in the room pitching, she’s just like, “I know that this sounds nuts, but truly, this is just The Wizard of Oz in a different way.” And, you know, that’s one of the reasons—a way that she was trying to get people into it, and try to sell it in the room. And I’m curious if you remember how to do that yourself.
mitra
									
Well, definitely. I mean, again, with Debras, just because I’m so in the thick of it and it’s so much of my life, and I think with so many of the—with Big Mouth too, with these really heightened shows where really, really crazy, not relatable stuff happens, it’s important to have a conversation about what we’re really talking about or what the important, emotional thing is. We definitely have those conversations in Debras, where it’s like, it’s such a wacky thing, but at the end of the day it’s three women who are unhappy with their lives and don’t really like themselves. And uh, I hope this isn’t too controversial, but I think people can probably relate to that. [Both laugh.] Um, but I—I certainly can. And these women just doing crazy things out of a place of pain, so you have that really dark sort of kernel informing a very, very silly, often dumb, big, heightened thing. Which, I think, happens with a lot of different comedy shows, where you see something that would never happen—and, you know, movies and other things in general. But I think seeing something very heightened, you can access that and allow yourself to go to those places when you know why. Like, there’s a part of your gut that understands why a person is doing what they’re doing.
april
									
Yeah, ‘cause I mean, it can be the most absurd concept in the world, but as long as there’s some kind of like, grounding piece to it, I think everyone can kind of relate, you know?
mitra
									
Yeah, when things start to feel unwieldy with us when we write the show, it’s often just because we’ve lost sight of whatever the emotional thing is. So we have to sort of backtrack and force ourselves to have some self control and go back to the important, emotional thing. ‘Cause if we lose track of that, then people, I think, watching the show would feel very lost.
april
									
Well, I mean, talking about tropes, this movie— [Mitra bursts into uproarious laughter.] —is very much, much about tropes, you know? It’s very much about kind of embracing um, these older things in film and television, but also poking fun at them lightly. And specifically, you know, we’re talking about these kind of loving references to the 1950s. You know, they’re using the scope format, these really saturated colors that are emulating all the really beautiful range that you had in technicolor, back in like, all the beach movies. And you’ve got the use of like, Julie Brown using—the name of the beauty parlor is Curl Up and Die. Um, and they’ve got like a cuticle convention called the Nail Expo, and there’s just all of this like, really wonderful love for, you know, the glamor of that era, the kind of pop culture of it. And, you know, similar in a way that you get from someone like John Waters, who’s throwing back to these different eras of film. But I truly love the way that they tap into the—just the kitsch of all of it, and recreate it, and—
mitra
									
And it’s so fun! I mean, but that’s like, I mean, and you really feel the movie being made out of a place of love. Like, it’s tapping into all this stuff, but you can tell that the people who are making it really love this stuff. You can’t—you—I love—I mean, I think that’s something that I really value in comedy is like, when there’s parody or satire or references or anything like that. I—this is something I try to do in my own work, too, where it’s like, if I’m making fun of something—if I’m doing a parody or a reference or something like that—I often find that I’m having more fun when it’s coming form a place of love. When I’m trying to like, take something down. It’s a matter of personal preference, but my style, I think, often leans more into reverence and adoration in order to inform. Like, with Debras, I—I love—I love the Real Housewives, I love the Desperate Housewives, I love all those like, portrayals and stories of opulence because they feel so foreign and like, a different planet to me. But I watch them and I’m obsessed with them, because these women do seem to live in a completely different universe, so I think just taking it a step further with Debras has been such a blast.
music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
									
We’re gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we’re gonna talk a little bit more about the process. I’m very interested in casting and what it’s like to star in the work that you actually wrote as well. Um, so we’ll be right back. [Music fades.]
promo
									
Music: Relaxing ukulele music. Manolo Moreno: Hey, you've reached Dr. Gameshow. Leave your message after the beep. [Music stops.] [Beep!] Sara: Hi. This is Sara, and I'd like to tell you about Dr. Gameshow. Dr. Gameshow is a band of geniuses, or nerds, or brilliant artists, or kids, or some combination of all of those who get together to make a show like no other that's family-friendly. It's an interactive call-in gameshow podcast. When I found Dr. Gameshow, I found joy. I told my friends and family that if they weren't listening, they were wasting joy. I sent them the episodes that made me laugh until I cried, played it for them in the car. They laugh, too! Laugh their butts off. But they still don't listen on their own, so they're wasting joy. And I keep looking for someone to understand me. Maybe it's you! Give Dr. Gameshow a listen, and find joy. [Beep!] [Music resumes.] Jo Firestone: Listen to Dr. Gameshow on Maximum Fun. New episodes every other Wednesday. [Music fades out.]
music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
									
Welcome back to Switchblade Sisters. I’m April Wolfe, and I’m joined today by Mitra Jouhari, and we’re talking about Earth Girls Are Easy. Um, so, I want to go back a little bit to Julie Brown and the deal that she was getting when she, you know, sold this pitch in the room. She said, “I had approvals. I have to go along with stuff, but technically I had approvals. I was supposed to do Geena’s part. When it got closer to the end, we attached Julien Temple as director, and then the budget got higher, and they gave this screen test that was completely bogus. And they did it to show me that I couldn’t star in the movie. “I knew it was happening. The make-up man had worked on The Wizard of Oz. He was ancient, and he fluffed my eyebrows and made me bleed. I went through this whole thing and they said, ‘Look, you can’t star in it. See this video.’ And the contract said they couldn’t make it without me. So they said, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I said, ‘I’ll rewrite the secondary part,’ which was supposed to be a gay man. I like my part now. When they wanted to bring Geena on, I had approval. They brought Geena and Jeff together.” I feel like that would be so stressful, thinking about it. Of just being like, okay, well, I have to completely rewrite my script that I’ve been working on to try to give myself a part. And also are they thinking that I’m being selfish, because I won’t let them make it without me, I won’t, you know, get out of that contract? Or—but she, you know, she did it and I love her part. I love Candy. She’s wonderful. Um, I feel like this has to be something that happens to a lot of writer-actors, writer-performers, because um, if you don’t  have the right look, if you aren’t, you know, the kind of “leading lady”, no one’s gonna let you play that. I mean like, probably most famously in comedy there’s Tina Fey, who wasn’t allowed to be a performer, until she was. But I just imagine that it’s pretty constant.
mitra
									
Definitely. I mean, I think we’re so lucky that we wrote something so specific that it kind of—you know, we were never gonna be like, an NBC show. So there wasn't really a concern with how—there wasn’t as much of a concern with how big a draw it would be, just because Adult Swim, beautifully, is like a smaller network than NBC, so more specific things can be made there by people who might not get to make things other places. So, I mean, but I’ve definitely experienced that in other places. You know, people are looking for a specific look, they’re looking for a specific type of person. So that feeling that it’s like, kind of rigged, or that you’re not like, “Why did I waste my time?” I think is so prevalent for everyone. I feel very lucky that my main thing that I have written for myself was—I never really worried that I wasn’t going to get to play the role of Debra, just because no one—no one could do it better than us, because we’ve just been doing it for so long. I mean, I’m, you know, it just wasn’t even a conversation, thankfully. Um, and I think largely that’s just because of the work of other creates who have fought to cast themselves as the part that they wrote for themselves, you know? So it just wasn't as big of a deal when we were like, “We’ll be playing the Debras.” It was kind of like, “Yeah, of course. Who else would want to do this?” [Both laugh.]
april
									
Well, you know, I think that something that like, Julie Brown is talking about in the earlier quote that I read, too, is just the fact that, like. If you make something that’s so you, you can’t actually be erased from it. [Mitra affirms.] Like, you may not be the lead, but you can’t be erased from it, you’re there. So it’s like a long term insurance.
mitra
									
It is! I mean, I think that’s part of the reason, however consciously or subconsciously, why I really gravitated towards writing first, rather than—I think there was a point where I felt like I was—kind of had the option to either really throw myself into writing, or really throw myself into acting, and that side of it. And acting felt so much more… just. Sorry, writing felt so much more just, to me, because it’s much harder to be like, “Oh, you know, we were looking for a blonde writer.” There’s just less reasons why you might not get a job. Obviously there’s still—like, nothing’s just a true meritocracy, but if you have a really funny, really specific voice and point of view, then you have a much greater chance of being elevated and hired, and all that kind of stuff. So, I think that’s a huge factor for me, is just that I really wanna be able to know that If i work hard, and if I do a good job, that I will be rewarded for it in some way, so. And it feels more possible with writing, than with onscreen stuff.
april
									
Um, like, speaking of onscreen stuff, though, I wanted to talk about actor processes, because these are some of my favorite stories that I get when I do the research on these movies. And um, one of my favorite things is Julie Brown’s descriptions of how Jeff Goldblum was acting, and how he was like, kind of taking control of the set. She said, “It was Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans’ first movie, Jeff Goldblum was teaching acting at that point. Those two who hadn’t work that much were listening to everything Jeff said. So we had this theory that you should distract yourself before the take. And sometimes he would just read from a book as loud as he could, so they would make as much noise as they could before the take, and Julian would yell action. And I just could not concentrate. They probably do not do that now at all, it was just not easy to work with them, even though I think they’re all really talented.” End quote. But I’m just—
mitra
									
That sounds fucking awful. [She laughs.]
april
									
Oh, God. Like, I’m sure it was all, like, good natured, everything is fine, but I just—you know, it’s probably nicer like, Julie Brown said that, she like, had to go along with people, and you know, she technically had approvals—she wasn’t quite sure when Jim Carrey came in, for instance, to audition, she had seem his stand up, and was just, like, “He’s all over the place, I don’t really understand it, he’s just wild and kind of spazzy.” And then it turned out though, like when he did come in for the audition, she was like, “Oh, I get it, he’s an alien. This works. This makes sense to me.” [They laugh.]
mitra
									
I mean, that’s beautiful. It goes both ways, where it’s like, there are people that, with Debras, that we really had in mind, and we knew we wanted to cast. We love Peter Smith, for example, who is in the second episode of Three Busy Debras as someone who is just such an exciting, talented performer, so we knew going in that we really wanted to write something for them. And um, but then the other side of it is, you know, we were casting almost entirely Seattle locals, and none of us had ever been to Seattle before and we really didn’t know anybody up there. So it was just going through these tapes, and if there was somebody who we thought was really amazing, it’s like, is there a way that we can do more for them? Is there more for them to do? Is there a way where we can, in the same vein of like, seeing Jim Carrey and knowing, oh, that’s an alien, like, is there somebody that we see. Well, in our episode uh, episode 4, the character of Sandy’s older sister, Barbara, is played by an actress named Carol Swarbrick, who is uh, much older than Sandy in real life. And we were originally looking for people who were around our age, because it just, naturally our minds went there. But she—when we got the tape for Carol, it was like the funniest audition that we had gotten, and she just completely embodied what we wanted. And it was like, oh, well, you know, if Sandy’s older sister is 70, then she’s 70, ‘cause that’s the best tape we got. So, it was a very—see, going through that process for the first time on that scale was very eye opening.
april
									
I wanted to talk about a person in the cast of Earth Girls Are Easy that is uh, really just a cameo, but is very important to Angelinos this year, Angelyne. She uh, she ends up in the movie, driving her pink car into the gas station where um, Wiploc and Zeebo crash into her before taking off and stealing the car, driving backwards. Um, but, as Julie Brown said, “The reason she’s in the movie is Julien Temple came from England and saw her on billboards everywhere. The fact he was so interested, I was like, ‘Ugh, this is so stupid.’ But, now I get it. She was an LA icon, and that’s what she’s all about. I didn’t write her in, but I’m glad she’s in it now.” And I think that that’s something where she was from the valley, right? So Julie Brown is from the valley, she’s like, this has been a part of her blood is like, “Yeah, Angelyne, the fucking billboards, I’ve seen them.” Um, but she needed an outsider, this Julien Temple guy, to come in and be like, “You don’t see how weird this is?” [Both laugh. Mitra affirms, saying “totally”.] “Maybe we should put her in and like, see what happens?” And she’s like, “What, why would you do that?” But I think that like, at first you're like, okay, why would some British guy come over and direct this movie about valley girls? But there is, I think, something valuable about having like, an outsider kind of give notes to you, of um—examining your culture and being like, “Do you not see that this is weird?”
mitra
									
And just like, no—like, pointing out what you take for granted that makes your—the world that you’ve built special. Like, it’s always interesting to see what, yeah, what people latch onto, and what people identify with. Because it’s not always the thing you expect. I mean, I think that’s one of the most exciting thing about doing comedies. It’s kind of—you’re just—obviously, by the time you’re making a movie, it’s been through a bunch of drafts and all that kind of stuff, but at its core you really don’t know if anything is going to work. So it’s really, really exciting to see what does, and it’s—the coolest—a very cool part of the process is just seeing what you didn’t think was gonna be big for people but is big for people. Something like that, I mean, it’s—yeah, having somebody be like, “Yeah, this woman who is on billboards, that’s crazy.” It’s like, oh yeah. I think that happens so often in comedy where its like, the way you turn your head and look at the camera might be so funny, and you just have no idea, because you—it’s your face. You see it all the time. But somebody sees something that makes you realize that it is funny, so.
april
									
Oh yeah, and I mean, I think that’s also Julien Temple, I think, maybe suggested the Randy’s Donuts sign, too. Just like, you know, it’s an LA icon, but there are so many people like in middle America or anywhere around the world who are just like, “Woah, that’s a giant donut. What the fuck is that doing there?” [Both laugh.]
mitra
									
Yes! We have this big um, there’s this thing near where I’m—I’m from around Cincinnati, and there is this huge statue of Jesus that actually got a lot of publicity because it got struck by lightning and destroyed. [Laughs] But um, it’s called Touchdown Jesus. That’s what we all call it, and it’s something that is just such a part of my life, but then when it made national news for getting struck by lightning and people were like, “Wait, why did they have this in the first place?” I was like, “Oh yeah, I guess not every town has Touchdown Jesus.” [Both laugh uproariously.]
april
									
Back home we have one of those Big Boy statues and it has chains all over it because he’s been stolen so much that it like, looks like he’s imprisoned. It’s like, oh god.
music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
									
Anyway, we’re gonna take a quick break again. When we come back, we’ll talk a little bit more about Earth Girls Are Easy and also, you know, just the glory of writing really dumb characters. Uh, so we’ll be right back. [Music fades.]
promo
									
Music: “War” by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong with lead vocals by Edwin Starr plays in the background. John Roderick: Friendly Fire is a podcast about war movies, but it’s so much more than that. Adam Pranica: It’s history! Speaker 1 (Film clip): Was just supposed to be another assignment. Ben Harrison: It’s comedy. Speaker 2 (Film clip): Under no circumstances are you to engage the enemy. Adam: It’s... cinema studies. Murdock (Rambo: First Blood Part II): That's a hell of a combination. John: So, subscribe and download Friendly Fire on your podcatcher of choice. Ben: Or at MaximumFun.org. Adam: And also, come see us at San Francisco Sketchfest on January 16th. Ben: You can get tickets at SFsketchfest.com. Speaker 3 (Film clip): [A strained whisper] Mission… accomplished. [Music fades out.]
music
									
“Switchblade Comb” by Mobius VanChocStraw.
april
									
Welcome back to Switchblade Sisters. I’m April Wolfe, and I’m joined today by Mitra Jouhari, and we’re talking about Earth Girls Are Easy. Um, one of the things that I love about this movie is that all the characters are dumb. Without exception, they are complete dumbbells, the three aliens included. Uh, Ted is like, maybe not a dumbbell, but he’s also a dumbbell in a different way.
mitra
									
He’s emotionally dumb. [April affirms.] Definitely, definitely, definitely dumb, just in a different way, which is so beautiful The diversity of dumb represented on screen in Earth Girls Are Easy is iconic. [Laughs.]
april
									
I love it. I love it so much. And, you know, as many people, I think, were pointing out at the time, there’s no villains in this movie, either. It’s like, everyone is kind of given like, this kind of amount of like, delight and affection of like, who they are in the archetype that they’re playing. So even though Ted is like, you know, he comes home with like, this girl and is cheating on Val, he’s not really a villain. He’s just so stupid.
mitra
									
Everybody sort of expects the best of everybody in the movie and the only real shock and betrayal is when people like—yeah, people not acting perfectly, which is—like, there’s no cynicism, which I really love. Everyone—everyone sees the best in each other and the only real heartbreak is when it’s like, slightly different from what beautiful thing the characters expect from each other.
april
									
You know, I mean, I think that something like this is—it’s a movie that will probably go in and out of fashion, because, as you say, its kind of lack of cynicism. Because there are certain periods of time where comedy is just all cynicism, you know, it’s just like maybe mean or cynicism pervasively, and then—I feel like, however, we’re almost in this period of time where it’s okay to be both. To be like, the anti-cynic and to be otherwise. Like, I keep thinking about Detroiters and just— [Mitra responds emphatically multiple times.] —the idea of these two friends who just want to encourage each other so deeply, you know? And how refreshing it felt when I saw that, I was just like, “Oh shit, there’s so much kind of positivity in this.”
mitra
									
The whole reason I moved to New York to do comedy in the first place was ‘cause I wanted to work in political late-night comedy. That was my life’s dream and—
april
									
And you did it, so.
mitra
									
I did it! So it’s all over. [Both laugh.] Um, but it—I understand people feeling exhausted by it, because—or just the discourse in general, just because there’s such, you know, there’s the 24 hour news cycle, there’s Twitter, there’s a bunch of late night shows. And I still love that world, but I definitely relate more to escapism right now. And wanting, I think, that’s why I really gravitate towards things like Detroiters that feel silly and loving but also just like, deranged. And I Think You Should Leave and Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and Earth Girls Are Easy. All of those types of things where you can really just be in this very specific world that is as close or as far away from the real world as the creator wants to make it, but you just don't have to think about anything for a little bit. You can just feel these char—these often very dumb characters who love each other so much fuck up over and over and over again, and everything is kind of okay at the end. I really value that, and I think that’s why I was so excited to talk about this movie. Because it is really the kind of—especially just being quarantined in my house, it’s like, I certainly don’t have the bandwidth personally right now to sit and watch an hour long drama or something, but I can always watch something like Earth Girls Are Easy.
april
									
Oh my god. I—and one of the reason I’m gonna say that you could probably watch this movie is because, for me, every time I have seem it, I have seen something different. I have noticed something that I did not notice before, and I would love to talk about some of the details of this, just even in the production design and how that kind of makes the comedy just like, sing. Um, because there’s so much in the detail, including, for instance, we were talking about Ted. Ted has like, a little bumper sticker on the back of his car, and he’s a George Bush supporter, right? And you’re like, “Oh, I get it. I get him. Okay.” And then there’s also like, this motif of like, hands, and the fact that Valerie is really into her job. She’s not just like, kind of a manicurist. She’s like, “No, I live for hands.” She opens up her drawer once, like a night stand, and there’s actually a little hand in it. Like, a little like—like a little plastic hand or something. And I was just like, “Wait, what?” [Both laugh.] Do you have any, like, fun moments where you were working with someone in the art department, or they just kind of got what you guys were doing and kind of brought out the best in the scene, or gave you a great visual gag?
mitra
									
Yes, we had an amazing, amazing art department, and our show is so silly-cartoony, and is incredibly prop heavy, and really, really dependent on having a great art department. And ours’ just, like, blew it out of the park. And there was this one moment in the third episode, our sleepover episode, where I—in the script, I turned to the other two women in the show, Sandy Honig and Alyssa Stonoha are the other two Debras. And I—in the script, it just says that I’m like, trying to get them to open up to me throughout the episode, in sort of a sleepover format, and I turned to them and I’m like, “Now let’s play security questions!” And it was supposed to be just like, a line, no prop added to it or anything? And I just asked them security questions like you would get on a computer to get to know them better? And Erin O. Kay, one of the people who worked on the show, made it a board game actually called Security Questions, And just showed up with this prop. And it’s so funny, and it looks like a very, sort of like, 1950’s kind of old-timey—it’s just so—it really elevated it, and seeing the actual board game was such a smart idea, and made the joke work so much better, and it really, really made me laugh. And there was so much stuff like that with them. I mean, any time we were like, “Um, we’re looking for sort of, like, sort of a silly slogan,” they went off, and they were just unbelievable. Turned a hospital lobby into a police station. They could really do anything. But it was constant surprises with them, and them wowing us with their ideas.
april
									
Oh, I love that. Um, I would love to get into one of my favorite scenes, one that you had mentioned earlier, and it’s the music video that pops up for “I’m Blonde”. [They laugh.] Like, in the middle of nothing. Julie Brown is just like on the beach all of a sudden.
music
									
“‘Cause I’m A Blonde” off the album Earth Girls Are Easy by Julie Brown Because I'm blonde I don't have to think I talk like a baby and I never pay for drinks Don't have to worry about getting a man If I keep this blonde, and I keep these tan 'Cause I'm a blonde Yeah, yeah, yeah 'Cause I'm a blonde Yeah, yeah, yeah I see people working It just makes me giggle 'Cause I don't have to work I just have to jiggle 'Cause I'm blonde B-L-O-N-D 'Cause I'm a blonde Don't you wish you were me
april
									
And, um, it’s just kind of crammed in, and it’s a huge produced musical that’s happening with dance numbers, and everything. And um, as a person who—a critic who really loved that, I can’t remember what the critic’s name was. But he was talking about the fact that some people were saying that—were like, “Why would you do that? Why would you just, like—it doesn’t have any reason to be there.” And for him, he was talking about how that is actually Julie Brown’s best scene, because it is crammed in in the exact same way that any of those beach party movies would cram in a song just because they knew they had to get a musical number in. And so it was just like, it’s got a reason to be there, because it’s also mimicking these older movies. But it’s also one of the funniest things they have. Just the fact that she shows up and she’s blonde all of a sudden, and she’s like, “Because I’m blonde, I don’t have to think, I talk like a baby, and I never pay for drinks!” And it is enduring.
mitra
									
Yes! And I mean, with anything like that, where it’s like, “Why?” It’s like, why not. It’s so fun! I mean, this idea that a movie has to be a certain way, or things are supposed to happen at a certain time, it’s like, first of all, it is referential in its placement, but also, even if it wasn’t, it’s so fucking fun. And it’s so funny. And why not? Especially in a movie like this, where anything can happen, why not just do anything? [April affirms.] It’s so joyful. It’s like, I mean imagining this movie without that song, it would still be a really fun movie. But for me, it took it from a crazy ride to just something really special for me. I don’t know, that song really did something for me. It’s inspiring to see someone just go for it.
april
									
Oh, god. I love this movie, and thank you for having me re-watch it. Thank you so much for joining us on the show, and  how can people watch Three Busy Debras?
mitra
									
Yes! So, Three Busy Debras is airing on Adult Swim. It’s on Sundays at midnight, so late Sunday night going into Monday morning. Uh, and it’s also available on Hulu. And for the next few weeks after this comes out, the first episode is also available to watch for free on AdultSwim.com, and then you can find me online @tweetrajouhari on Twitter, so it’s tweet, r-a-j-o-u-r-i, so that’s the best place to find me.
april
									
Wonderful. Thank you again so much for coming on the show.
mitra
									
Thank you, what a blast!
april
									
And thank you all for listening to Switchblade Sisters. As you know, we started doing something a little different at the end of each episode. Uh, from now on I’m getting a staff pick recommendation for a film directed by a woman. And I know people have some time on their hands, and I wanted to direct you to some really wonderful things to watch. And this is all about highlighting the great work of female filmmakers. So, here we go. Today’s, in keeping with our theme a little bit, of like a kind of sci-fi comedy around that time in the 1980’s, I got Susan Seidelman’s Making Mr. Right, starring Ann Magnuson and John Malkovich as both a scientist and an android. It is fun and mad-cap, and totally Susan Seidelman. I really love her work so please check it out. If you want to let us know what you think of the show, you can tweet at us @SwitchbladePod or email us at SwitchbladeSisters@maximumfun.org. Please check out our Facebook group. That’s Facebook.com/groups/switchbladesisters. Our producer is Casey O’Brien. Our senior producer is Laura Swisher, and this is a production of MaximumFun.org. [Music fades.]
clip
									
Valerie: If things weren’t bad enough, now I’ve been abducted by a UFO!
speaker 1
									
MaximumFun.org.
speaker 2
									
Comedy and culture.
speaker 3
									
Artist owned—
speaker 4
									
—Audience supported.
About the show

Switchblade Sisters is a podcast providing deep cuts on genre flicks from a female perspective. Every week, screenwriter and former film critic April Wolfe sits down with a phenomenal female film-maker to slice-and-dice a classic genre movie – horror, exploitation, sci-fi and many others! Along the way, they cover craft, the state of the industry, how films get made, and more. Mothers, lock up your sons, the Switchblade Sisters are coming!
Follow @SwitchbladePod on Twitter and join the Switchblade Sisters Facebook group. Email them at switchbladesisters@maximumfun.org.
People

April Wolfe

Host
Casey O’Brien

Producer
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