On a driving tour of the rundown Baltimore neighborhoods where he made all his films, writer/director John Waters talks about how Christina Ricci and Edward Furlong got their parts in his new movie, Pecker, theorizes that Catholics have better sex than Jews, and explains why he's a devoted member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
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Director John Waters opens the door to his Baltimore brownstone, grabs my hand and leads me into his living room. Placing me in a chair, he reaches under the couch, pulls out a Polaroid camera and asks, "May I take your picture?" Before I can respond, the flash has popped. "I keep a set of pictures of everyone who has ever been in my house," Waters says proudly. Then he walks me upstairs to his office and proves this by showing me his card file full of photos, each one with a name and a date.
In person Waters looks exactly like you think he would, except he doesn't look at all creepy. Actually, he's quite handsome. He looks way younger than his age (52), And yes, the rail-thin mustache does straddle the line between kitschy and downright obscene, but on Waters it works.
Waters starts to walk me through the rooms of his house, trying to dazzle me with the highlights: the gorgeous Cy Twombly paintings and the walls and walls of books (there's a whole section on true crime, and another on psychological deviations). "I probably know more about Tourette's syndrome than any layperson in the world," he says with a laugh. Then there's the electric chair where Divine got fried in Female Trouble. But Waters has given every person whose picture is in his card file a tour of his house, so there's nothing new to report here. Plus, I'm not easily dazzled. So I suggest, "Let's take a walk."
"A walk?" he asks incredulously. "No, let's take a ride."
Waters has been driving the same kind of car, a four-door sedan, for the past 30 years. When one car dies, he just calls a dealer and waits for another used one. When he turns on the current Buick, we are both nearly blasted out of our seats by earsplitting rap music. Waters just smiles and lowers the radio. He drives with his left foot tucked under his right knee and a sort of herky-jerky motion that has me reaching for my seat belt before we've left his street.
"Good idea," he says, and straps in too. Within minutes, we have left his pristine neighborhood and are headed into the territory Waters has depicted in Mondo Trasho, Multiple Maniacs, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, Desperate Living, Polyester, Hairspray, Cry-Baby and Serial Mom. Bored-looking kids stand on corners, smoking cigarettes. Stores are run-down or boarded shut. I glance over at Waters. He looks delighted.
In Waters's new film, Pecker (it doesn't mean what you think it does), which was also filmed on these streets, Waters takes a look at fame and finds it seriously lacking. The movie stars Edward Furlong as Pecker, a goofy Baltimore teenager who works at a sandwich shop and takes grainy, out-of-focus photos of his bizarre family and friends. When a New York art dealer (Lili Taylor) becomes enamored of his work, his whole world changes--and not for the better.
Most of Baltimore's citizens would probably not recognize the city that Waters used as the backdrop for Pecker and every other film he's made. "They try to pretend that side of town doesn't even exist," he says, only half kidding.
"It must be fun for you to spoof the art world," I say, knowing that Waters is a big art collector himself.
"Wait a minute," Waters says, swerving a bit. "I love the art world. I'm in it, I'm one of them. So I don't see it so much as a spoof. But I think the things I bring up in the film are funny--that people can be swept up in the brilliance of someone else's work, even though they don't get what's so good about it in the first place. You know how that hysteria kind of comes along and sweeps people up? That's the part I was making fun of. I don't want people to think that it's a blanket statement against the art world--"
"Oh please, John," I interrupt, "you have offended so many people in your films, I can't imagine that you'd be worried about offending some art snobs."
Waters takes his eyes off the road and taps the tape machine. "She said that, I didn't," he pleads. "Really, I love the art world."
"OK, I said it, I said it," I shout into the tape recorder, hoping he'll look back at the road.
"This is right where I filmed Pecker," he says, slowing way down to a speed at which the car is starting to shake in a funny way. "I think this may be the only film in history where things are really where we say they are. See, there's Pecker's house. And right up the block, right where we said it was, is the bar that Pecker's father owns. I mean, really, you don't need much art direction if you have a neighborhood like this to begin with." People are looking toward the car and smiling. Besides Barry Levinson and Baltimore Orioles third baseman Cal Ripken Jr., John Waters is Baltimore's favorite son.
"Sometimes they think I'm Barry Levinson," Waters admits. "I'll be out on the street, and someone will say, 'Hey, I loved Diner.' I just smile and say, 'Be sure to watch Homicide.' They never know the difference."
"You've always cast your films well," I say. "Using Johnny Depp in Cry-Baby was inspired, plus it ended his teen idol thing. You brought Ricki Lake national attention in Hairspray. Patty Hearst has been in three of your films, and you've used a number of people who seem like they would never even go see one of your movies."
"I read the tabloids religiously, looking for casting ideas," Waters admits. "I've looked in the National Enquirer and said, 'So that's what they look like now.' And it's given me ideas. I told this to Polly Bergen, who appeared in Cry-Baby, and she was appalled. But that's how [casting director] Pat Moran and I get our best ideas."
"In Pecker you've got a great cast. Christina Ricci as Pecker's girlfriend is terrific. She runs a Laundromat and treats her job as if it's a religious calling."
Waters starts rocking in his seat. "I called Christina and asked if she would read for me, because some of them won't read at all, you know, once they get to a certain level. And she said 'Sure.' I was a fan of hers, of course, from The Addams Family and The Ice Storm. And when she came in to read, she did the same thing Ricki Lake did to me, which is she gave me exactly what I wanted, without my saying anything to her. You see, when I write a movie I play these parts out in my head for six to eight months. I've talked to myself, I've been their character. And on a cold reading, Christina just came in and did it right. Every once in a while that happens, and then you don't want to look for anybody else. I think she's a terrific actress."
"What about Eddie Furlong? This kid has been on the verge of major stardom since he was a child in Terminator 2, but I'm not so sure about him."
Waters swerves over to the side of the road. "Oh no, you have to be sure about him. This kid is great. Eddie never played a happy character, he's always playing these miserable people. And Pecker is a happy kid. So the first thing I asked him was, 'Can you smile?' As soon as I saw his smile I knew he was right. And when he read for me, there was something so endearing in his voice--it would crack. When he came in to loop the picture, I asked him if he could do that again, because it worked so well with the character, and he said, 'Oh no, John. I was just so nervous in the beginning.' He's 21 now, not so much of a kid anymore. When I wrote the film, I said that Pecker was 'dweebishly cute but didn't know it.' And Eddie has all those characteristics. He's a very handsome guy, but at the same time he doesn't look like he thinks he's sexy. I predict a huge career for this kid." Waters finally eases the car back into traffic.
"What about Martha Plimpton? This is the best work she's done in years." Plimpton plays Pecker's sister, who runs a bar where guys just out of prison strip for money.
Waters starts to laugh. "I used to teach at a prison in Baltimore, and right next door was this bar. When these guys got out of jail, there were no jobs they could get, so they'd go work at the bar. The guys who were stripping were straight, for the most part, and the guys who were watching were gay. And the girl who would introduce them would say things like, 'This is John, he's a second-story man, been inside for four years for a burglary he committed in Maryland.' It was just the most bizarre place. So when Martha Plimpton came in to read, she seemed a little leery of the whole thing, like maybe she didn't get what this girl was about. But then she put on this black wig, and I swear, by the end of the first week, she was carrying on with the strippers and she just loved the role."
"Do you see movies in a theater or wait for them to come to you on video?" I ask. Almost everyone I know waits for the video.
"Oh, I go see them in the theater, or I don't see them. I never watch videos, except at the end of the year when they send out the Oscar videos, and then my house is like Blockbuster for my friends. I like all kinds of movies, except romantic comedies. I really should walk out on them, but when a film is so terrible that I want to walk out, I just stay and make snide comments that drive people up the wall because they're so engrossed with the movie. I hate romantic comedies because I hate manipulative, feel-good movies. And really, when was romance ever a comedy? And I won't name the films I'm talking about, either. Although I thought Titanic was fine. I saw it the day it opened, before I heard any of the hype. I liked The Poseidon Adventure too, though. I liked Das Boot. I guess I like tragedies on boats."
"Do you vote every year for the Academy Awards?"
"Oh yes, religiously. I love voting."
"Do the movies you vote for usually win?" I ask this because Waters seems so outside the Academy it's hard to imagine that he's even close.
"You're not supposed to tell," he says in all seriousness. "That's the rule in the Academy, and I'm a rabid Academy member."
When we stop at a light and a tawdry hooker walks by, we sit in stone silence until she gets to the other side of the street. "I heard you were once a judge for the Porno Oscars [Adult Video News Awards]."
Waters smiles. "Yes, that was fun, let me tell you. They sent me so many tapes. I think there's only one real male porno star, and that's Jeff Stryker. I've met him a couple of times. He's so great, and here's why--everybody is always trying to get out of porno and into 'legitimate' movies, whatever the hell that means. But he's the opposite. He doesn't want to be in regular movies, and when I met with him, he tried to convince me to make a porno movie."
"Do you think porno has gotten better or worse now that everyone has their own video camera?"
"Better in a lot of ways, because some of these people are very creative. It's very curious to see the politics of sperm in movies today. In straight movies they don't use rubbers and they fuck up the ass, which to me is like watching a snuff movie. In gay movies they always use rubbers. Am I allowed to talk about this stuff?"
"Oh, absolutely," I assure him.
"In gay movies they use rubbers 100 percent of the time. The, um, uh I'm trying to figure out how to say this properly."
"I doubt there's a way to say it properly."
"Basically, the gay pornography industry is much more sexually correct, I guess you would say. The reason I'm really interested is it's the only real outlaw cinema left. But no, I won't ever make a porno film."
"There are people who think you already have," I say.
Waters gets hysterical. "True, true," he admits. "But that's because they're uptight Catholics. You know how it is."
"Not really," I tell him. "I'm Jewish."
"Oh, you don't have Catholic guilt, you have Jewish shame. That's the difference."
"It's a big difference, because if you're Catholic, they tell you you're bad from the beginning. If you're a Jew, your mother tells you that you're the best thing in the world. And then you can never live up to it."
"That's a good way to put it," says Waters, who was raised Catholic. "I think Jews are probably healthier. Catholics have better sex, though, because it's dirtier."
"Is that why there's a whole part of Pecker that's about pubic hair?"
"Have you ever been to Japan?" asks Waters. "Because when you get there they confiscate your magazines and cut out all the pictures of pubic hair. So you get the magazines back and they're ripped to shreds."
I'm trying to figure out what this has to do with Pecker, but I don't want to interrupt Waters. He's on a roll.
"In Maryland, you can't serve liquor where you show pubic hair," Waters continues. "So you either have to be sober in a strip club, which, believe me, not too many people want to do. Or you can serve booze and keep the pubic hair covered up. To me, that's the most bizarre rule. So I just played it up in the film."
"Do you have a boyfriend now?" I inquire.
"No, do you know anyone great for me? But he'd have to have his own house. I can't imagine why people want to live in the same house as the person they love. I have never understood that. I think they should come by, have dinner, have a great evening and go home so I can do what I want."
I don't have a snappy comeback to that, so I ask, "Do you own a home in Los Angeles?"
"Oh God no. I'm not in L.A. a lot. When I go, I live in the Chateau Marmont, where I've stayed for the past 25 years. I have great friends in L.A., but unfortunately, when I'm there, it's really important and all business, because either I'm gonna live for the next three years because a movie's going to be made, or I'm doing testing-- whatever it is, it's all high anxiety. So I try to get in and out as quickly as I can. My motto is, if they say 'yes' to you in Hollywood, run for your life before they change their mind. Don't hang around and let them see you at a party Friday night. Get out before their wives can say, 'Honey, what the hell were you thinking?'"
Waters points out other landmarks in Pecker's life, and some in his own. We drive around like that for about an hour more, looking at Laundromats and delis, used clothing stores and flea markets. "Wave," he says, suddenly, and I realize that we've been circling the same couple of blocks for some time now and that people on the street are waving at us. We both wave back. Now I am sufficiently dazzled.
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Martha Frankel interviewed Julia Louis-Dreyfus for the September '98 issue of Movieline.