Steven Shainberg is the avant garde filmmaker behind the films "Secretary" and "Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus." The former a kinky indie that turned hitherto unknown actress Maggie Gyllenhaal into a full-fledged movie star and the latter a kinky indie that cast a movie star (Nicole Kidman) as an imaginary version of the groundbreaking photographer Diane Arbus. Here, on the eve of the release of "Fur," he discusses acting, filmmaking, Angelina Jolie, Prince and the source of artistic talent with casting director DL.
DL: Back in the beginning when you were doing short films at AFI you were able to land some pretty great actors: Jennifer Jason Lee and JT Walsh, how did that happen so early on?
Steven Shainberg: I was living with Jennifer for about 5 years and JT was a friend of mine.
DL: Do you still have a relationship with Jennifer?
SS: No we do not. After we split we were done.
DL: You also made short films with Angelina Jolie early on. The Mr. Viril Series.
SS: She was in a couple of them. I can't remember which ones. There were about 8....but the other girls were, um, not of her.....not of that caliber.
DL: So, she was completely not famous
SS: No, she was a total unknown.
DL: How did that come about?
SS: Well a friend of mine named Mark Gordon (who is a fabulous DP, who ended up shooting my first feature) called me and said " I'm going to shoot some things just for my reel, just with some great looking girls, and I've got this friend who runs a modeling agency, and he's gonna help me cast them. And I said "well, what do you mean you're going to shoot something for your reel?" [He said} "You know, I'm just going to light them to show that I can light these girls." And I said "give me a week, give me 10 days, so I can write something for you, that that we could make. You've got these girls, you've got a stage, you've got the film, you've got the cameras, man why don't you do something more interesting? So I wrote these little films. I actually wrote a lot of them, maybe like 20, that were all like 2 to 3 minutes and each of them had a fabulous looking girl! And so, we hooked up with Mark's buddy and we just had a big casting call and we picked the girls we liked, and Angie happened to be one of them. She was unbelievable!
DL: Well, Right! That was my next thing. When she walked in the room, were you like [mouth drops]
SS: Um, hehe, well you- you're like; we're going with this girl! And we actually put her in 2 of them.
DL: I saw them on YouTube and they were just REALLY very cool, unique.
SS: Yeah, I mean, MTV bought them which led to an opportunity to make others to sell to other channels and so forth but, you know, shit, she was all over the place by then.
DL: That actually leads to my next question. Did you ever consider using her for "Secretary?"
SS: You know, I didn't, because the girl... it was crucial that the girl, who ever she was, not be glamorous, and I don't really think you could take Angelina and ever make her believably... you can't make her frumpy. You know Maggie [Gyllenhal] is an amazing actor in that she can be unbelievably sexy, and she can also be this really ordinary girl.
DL: That IS what's extraordinary about her, isn't it?
SS: It's amazing! So when she came in I thought: Wow man, you know, maybe this could work. It's a VERY difficult role. I mean it's unbelievably, totally, hard to play. You know?
DL: Yeah
SS: But, just to answer your question about Angelina, that's almost like the Zalman King version, YOU KNOW what I Mean! [laughs]
DL: [Hahahahaha] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SS: Not - NOT that I wouldn't want to SEE IT! But I wouldn't want to make it. You know I was making something that was, you know, more complicated and more HUMAN and it was not an exploitative movie. And to me that's a whole different thing to cast in general.
DL: Secretary was your second feature right?
SS: Yes
DL: So, I'm just curious, was it helpful that you had worked with her, even though they were these short films, as far as getting people interested in your project?
SS: I wouldn't even mention it.
DL: So the people that you were able to land early on, didn't really.. - they didn't say oh, well this guy has worked with so and so, maybe we..?
SS: NO. Because the short films I made at AFI are good. So, I didn't really need to say I did these with Angelina Jolie. I would never even mention it. It wouldn't even be something I would show. I've done other stuff that can prove that I can make a movie look good, you know what I mean, I didn't really need to say...
DL: Well, not that you would say, but you know with the Internet and everything, people just find these things out.
SS: Yeah, sure, I mean yeah ok, if it's an asset, I'm glad I got it, but you know it's not something that I think about.
DL: With Secretary, did you know how special it was when you finished it? Did you really have that kind of feeling, like...
SS: I didn't make it for any other reason other than because I wanted to make it, and I thought that we had made a very interesting movie. But I will tell you, that we left Sundance without a deal. At the end of Sundance, at the awards ceremony, we won the Special Jury Prize. We did not have a distribution deal, and I think that that says a hell of lot about what's going out there. It's amazing, but at the same time it was devastating and unbelievable to me that we had made this obviously unusual film that is, from my point of view, really compelling and I thought it could have a life out in the world, and none of the distributors wanted it.
DL: Can you speak to that some more? You said what's going on out there right now?
SS: Well, I mean, you know it's very difficult to get unusual films made, period. And it's very difficult to get unusual films distributed.
DL: Is it because they're worried about the Middle America factor or...
SS: Yeah... it's because of all the things that we know. It's unfortunate that that's the way it is. It's unfortunate for the AUDIENCE! It's unfortunate for filmmaking. It's unfortunate for the ART of it. And it IS always going to be an art. No matter what they think, it's an art. You know, people actually respond to art. We all felt very confident about Secretary. We had this totally unusual subject matter, I think beautifully realized, with an incredible two actors (Gyllenhaal and James Spader). So when Lions Gate picked it up, and pushed it, and I think did a pretty good job distributing it domestically, you know, it kind of proved us right!
DL: Did you think that it would make Maggie a big star?
SS: Yeah! I thought she was going to be a star when I met her! She's just a totally unusual actor because she has a combination of things you just don't find very often. She's very literate, she's well educated; she is really genuinely interested in playing unusual people and she looks different.
DL: Now, getting to Fur: I'm going to get to Nicole Kidman in a second, but after the success you had with Secretary; did you have your pick of any movie star you wanted?
SS: Well, I don't know about that. Nic was a big fan of Secretary and she wanted to do a film like this. She knew about all this and was interested in all this. She responded REALLY well to the script. So there were a lot of things in our favor. Having said that, you know, she's a HUGE star. I'm mean, maybe one of the biggest stars. It's only really because a movie she was going to do with Russell Crow in Australia fell apart a week before they were to start shooting that she said "maybe I could do Fur." Otherwise we would have never been able to make our schedules work. Certainly, I'm interested in complicated characters with real problems and aspirations in movies that are basically pretty unusual. I've managed so far to get good performances out of people, and that just makes actors want to work with you. So, I don't think I could get any body. I mean there are probably people who just don't like my work, and they would say "I don't want to work with HIM." BUT, in general, if you make a good movie, and then you make another good movie, you've got a better chance to make another good movie in the future.
DL: Why Nicole Kidman to play Diane Arbus?
SS: Just from a physical stand point, I did not want somebody who looks like Diane Arbus because the movie is not literal. It's a kind of dream, it's a kind of fantasy, and it's a metaphor. And, to have somebody who doesn't look like her wrenches the audience into another space, so that's Good! And it's a part with very little "talk" so everything that's happening for the character has to be taking place internally for the actor and it can't be something that we read right away - Because SHE doesn't understand what's happening, WE can't understand what's happening. And that's a quality that very few people have. Where, what's going on in them can't be deciphered; it's not easily accessible, it's mysterious, and it's happening, but you can't really figure it out. You look at her. Watching her performances...you just don't REALLY know what's going on and that is endlessly intriguing. And that's what we needed!
You know, 10 minutes into the movie, 15 minutes into the movie, if you understand what's happening, then I've killed the film! You had to have somebody who is truly, in their own life, curious about discovering the strange thing, and new thing, so on and so forth. And, if you meet her and talk to her, she's the most curious person you'll ever meet. I mean, she wants to know about that book your reading, what was that movie, what was that art show, what is that play, what's going on with you, you know: who's that person. I mean she's just the most - TRULY the most open person who wants to connect.
DL: Do you think that's why she's such a good actress, because of that?
SS: Well I think you have in her a constellation of qualities that happens maybe like five times in a generation. You've got once in France: you have Isabelle Huppert. It happens once in the UK, it happens twice in America, it happens once in Australia. You know, you get this phenomenal physique. She's mesmerizingly gorgeous. You get this tremendous intelligence, insane curiosity and you've got this fabulous talent! You just don't have it happen that way, and that's why they are who they are. I mean, they REALLY are like, really weird, wonderful, rare beings and, and, you know, she's one of them. What their capacity is, no director will ever know. You know, you can work with them and see if you are getting what you want, but you can't say how to do it.
DL: I remember Prince saying once that it's not him, that he channels it. Do you think it's the same thing, almost like they channel it?
SS: No, I think musicians are different. I know a lot of them, and have worked with a lot of them. I don't know what the hell they are 'cause it's just amazing! So I think musicians are different. I really do. It's not totally irrational to think different, you know what I mean?
DL: Yeah
SS: I, think it's different because I think that an actor goes through a certain period of analysis with their character and there is a certain conscious mind aspect to what they do. It's not like it just comes from nowhere. They do their homework, they have meetings with the directors, they read things. Whether it's directly connected to a real person, or an esoteric piece of poetry, but they are putting pieces together that is different from, say, Prince singing. You know, I know what he means. I've worked with him, and I've seen him do his thing you can not imagine how he does that. I don't understand that talent at all. The actor I think is something else. It's different, and it does have more rationality to it, and it does have more of a conscious mind to it than to what appears to be a purely unconscious activity of many musicians.
DL: After watching Fur, what should audiences go away with?
SS: I want them to leave the theater with a real feeling for what was happening when Arbus went to take a picture; for what she was after in her life. You know, I think that this movie, more than a straight ended biopic, will give that picture. Yeah, you know it's a lot easier to do the straight ended bio, but I would be falling asleep if I made a movie like that.