Carpe Noctem Interviews - Volume 2

by Carnell, Thom

  What’s this I hear about a Cat in the Brain book?

  I’ve enacted a novelization for Cat in the Brain. I thought it would be cool and Bob Murawski agreed to have the first Fulci novelization. I hired a guy, Paul Keith Lowe, because I figured he’d be perfect to embark on this task. And he was! I’m looking right now at the delivered manuscript.

  I want to ask you about Wishmaster. Tell me a little bit about how that shoot went and how you liked the finished product.

  I’d just wrapped this thing called Phantoms and I was deliriously tired because I haven’t stopped since Bride of Reanimator, man. I hadn’t even been home the last four Christmases. I wanted to do [Wishmaster] because Kurtzman was directing, but I just wasn’t up for it. And then, this guy, Russ Markowitz, the line producer, took me out to five titty-bars, which ended at 4:30 in the morning, at which point we made a deal. I did Wishmaster and, right now, I’m incredibly thankful that Russ and Kurtzman dragged me in. Boy, that was fun. It’s always a privilege to work with people who know what they want and love the genre. The first day of shooting, Kurtzman’s wearing a ‘Fulci Lives’ shirt. It is what it is, but we made it better than it had to be. That movie, to me, is like something Amicus would have released in 1974. It’s really interesting, because, in the end, we were sort of abandoned because Live was bought out, so everyone we answered to was gone. And that’s what happened to Freaked, by the way. Fox had a regime change, and when that happens, those movies get buried. Joe Roth, who was the president of Fox who supported Freaked, and was caught up in the regime change, when he left, any attempt at getting it in theaters, left with him. The same thing was going to happen to Wishmaster, but the old Live regime had already spent the advertising money. They knew they had to release it, but yet they never put any funds [aside] to help things along. For example, they never paid for a trailer. There was only the teaser. They never paid for new one sheet art. The art that was on the one sheet was the art that was done for the trades to show that the movie was being done. They wouldn’t pay for a band to be on the soundtrack beyond Harry Manfredini’s score, so, we all banded together and gave it hell right down to me bringing in Motorhead to do the end titles. It was Dave Trippet [the co-producer], that guy who got me my first one sheet credit on Return of the Living Dead 3, Bob Kurtzman and me.

  How was it working with Peter O’Toole on Phantoms?

  I directed the Visual Effects unit in Denver [on that one]. I had already assembled the make-up effects teams – KNB. And Steve Johnson’s X.F.X. Greg Nicotero and I designed together the chief KNB gags, and I soon cast the re-animated townspeople to ensure us making our deadline, including Linnea Quigley and Judith Drake (who was that naked fat chick who was eating the brains in The Sentinel). I had previously worked with Judith on Necronomicon. It was a lot of fun shooting and Peter O’Toole was phenomenal. It was a privilege and a dream come true to work with him. There was one night where they had some problems describing to O’Toole how to react to the monster without seeing it. That’s when I was introduced to ‘Lord Jim,’ ‘Tiberius,’ or whichever you see fit. I told him exactly where his eyeline needed to be, how he needed to react and he said, ‘What type of facial expression?’ I said, ‘Well, sir not unlike General Tanz [from Night of the Generals] looking at the Van Gogh.’ He just pointed at me and said, ‘This boy shall direct this sequence.’ There was all of this, ‘Well, Peter he uh…’ And I heard this shouting voice, ‘HE SHALL DO IT!’ It was fucking cool. So, Joe Chappelle allowed me to take the reigns and I got to direct Peter O’Toole, man! I actually had him do a take 2, which I had never observed happening, only because we were on a 25mm lens. Tim McHugh of Area 51 (an ace visual effects guy who dates back to shooting blue screens in [the first] Superman) was shooting the plates when I was directing and he actually bumped the camera and shot me giving O’Toole direction and explaining that it was a 25mm lens and on take 2 he needed to exaggerate his looks more. From there, Mr. O’Toole and I were friends. By the way, McHugh is a choice VFX man and a friend whom I bring on all of my projects as well. He was my choice in performing the digital disintegration of Kevin O’Connor at the end of Lord of Illusions – the first digital gore effect, I might add!

  That’s a great story.

  Yeah. It paved the way later for [O’Toole] to write his arm off on twenty one-sheets I’d brought up with me ranging from the Italian Night of the Generals to the America Caligula one-sheet. He would be drunk as hell and actually call me, ‘Little Boots’ in the height of a Smirnoff binge. [laughs]

  So, what’s next for you?

  I’m doing Bat Out of Hell right now, working on it not knowing if it will be greenlit to be honest. I actually turned the project down and, ironically, gave it to V.F.X. Supervisor, Mike Muscal. Mike really wanted me to stick around me to oversee the makeup FX stuff because I’m the only guy who does visual and makeup FX supervision. So, I agreed knowing that it wouldn’t be totally time consuming because I want to make sure that Cat in the Brain gets out and I want to make sure I finish Trailers From The Crypt for my fans. Uncle Tom has a great reputation from the Ed Gein bust, the first serial killer model kit. I don’t want to let them down from there. I know what it’s like to be disappointed stemming from my experience with Captain Company as a kid, and I just can’t allow that to occur. Death before dishonor! I’m also developing a screenplay that looks very promising that stems from several meetings I’ve had on Death Row with Henry Lee Lucas. I just wanted to concentrate on that stuff. I’m still totally inspired by Fulci who sat me down and dictated to me what I should start concentrating on. I actually still have it written down and carry around with me to never forget.

  Let alone that you haven’t had anything resembling a vacation in a while…

  Yeah, and yet… fuck that, you know? Work hard, play hard, leave a chubby corpse. I understand and relate to Fulci because I don’t give a shit about relaxation. I just want to get things done. I don’t work out. I eat steaks. I drink heavily and have always smoked cigars! But, all the business is done. Work is number one. And all kidding aside, nothing, including any vice or even a woman should interfere with one’s performance in his work. Drink. But don’t be another stupid drunk. Fuck, but don’t be pussy-whipped! Set your goals and give it hell, but don’t allow any crap to hold you down. My path is clear to work on and make films, music videos, or whatever in the genre I love and deliver to the fans the best I can. That’s what it’s all about...Perhaps a divine mission from God, and that’s why we’re here. It’s a mission from God!

  Since this interview, Tom has travelled to London where he hooked up with production company Great Guns, and London’s top five wealthiest men and film distributors. With Great Guns, Tom developed a friendship with producer Laura Gregory and director Andy Morahan who had Tom meet with them at London’s largest ad agency, The B.B.H. Tom was a big aid on helping to secure the highly sought Lynx cologne spot for Fabergé, a project that he is most delighted with as it’s to be a satire of ‘50’s sci-fi/horror films as well as One Million Years BC. Serving Great Guns as co-producer, Tom has designed the creature and hired David Allen to do the stop-motion work.

  It’s gonna be utterly stupendous! 100 scantily-clad strippers and a beast that I’ve wanted to see live in the arena of stop-motion photography since I was a kid. To hell with digital crap, long live the masters like Dave Allen. Luckily, with filmmakers like Laura and Andy around this is possible.

  Tom has begun work on this in full and wraps the job on March of 1998 when he is scheduled to commence producing and directing Motorhead’s next video which Tom revealed he is planning to shoot in a fully restored (and flying) World War II B-17.

  With Hamish McAlpine, Tom plans to find U.K. Distribution with Bob Murawski and he’s owned Cat in the Brain, but found a prized, unique friend in McAlpine.

  This guy’s fucking amazing. It’s like knowing Peter Sellers in The Magic Christian. I had no idea who he was outside of being the head of Tartan distribution, but upon enter
ing his home, I knew he was a kindred… giant photos of Cicciolina getting fucked to one-sheets from The Searchers adorn the walls! He even served me the immortalized Hemingway spirit, absinthe, of which, by our meeting’s end, I had consumed four! An amount that truly astonished Mr. McAlpine as well as other leading British heirachy, earning me his true respect. I later found out Mr. McAlpine was especially amazed that I had all my mental abilities after the fourth (much less sustained life), but even carried on to have an adventurous evening with Dee Dee Ramone in the bowels of Soho. By the way, I now hold the official record in England for the most absinthe consumed in one evening by one individual – quite an honor, I’d say.

  Viggo Mortensen

  Around the time the film A Perfect Murder was being released, (and right before he was cast in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings) we received a press release that Viggo was doing a one-man-show at an art gallery in LA. Spinning the wheel of chance, we contacted the gallery to try to arrange some time for us to talk. Much to our surprise, Viggo agreed and we spoke at length – discussing everything from Art to his creative process to which of his images were used in A Perfect Murder. Soft-spoken, but incredibly thoughtful, Viggo remains a favorite among the list of people with whom I’ve talked.

  [Viggo was one of the few people I had to try really hard not to geek out on. I absolutely loved him in The Prophecy. After Thom’s interview, he called to thank us. I put him on hold, and whispered to Thom, “The phone’s for you… It’s Satan.” – Catia]

  Fire That Fuels an Artist’s Heart – Issue 15

  Actors are a rare breed. It is their job to take everything that makes up their personality and mold it into someone completely different, sometimes pure and virtuous and sometimes malevolent and the very embodiment of evil itself. It has to be a tough gig. To supplant everything that makes you you and mutate the very essence of your being into someone – and sometimes something – else. Few people can do it effectively. Even fewer still can safely navigate the hazardous road conditions on the thoroughfare to celebrity and keep a level head and a rational ego. One such person who has done all of this and more is Viggo Mortensen. A soft-spoken man who has appeared in such films as Witness, Carlito’s Way, Crimson Tide, The Prophecy, The Portrait of a Lady, G.I. Jane, A Perfect Murder and Gus Van Sant’s controversial soon to be released remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Viggo is an artist of extraordinary range and depth who does not feel the need to constrict his perception of art to any one medium. He is an accomplished photographer, writer, and painter whose artistic endeavors are all pieces of the larger puzzle that makes up who Viggo Mortensen is. And now, with his recent showing of his paintings at Track 16 Gallery in Los Angeles, he is sharing his unique vision with the world.

  I’d like to talk to you a little bit about your film work and then jump right in to your art. First of all, I’m a little curious about you as a kid. What were you like growing up? I know you traveled a lot.

  Um, I don’t know. That’s a question to ask my parents or my brothers.

  [laughs] I mean were you a quiet kid?

  I just spent time by myself. I’m the oldest of three and got along with them and still feel like having time to myself whenever I can get it.

  Were you painting and doing a lot of artwork from an early age?

  I was drawing a lot. My mother says I was never without a pencil. Drawing something I guess. I don’t know that I was doing that any more than most kids frankly.

  Right. Like crayons on the wall, that kind of thing.

  Yeah. And… mostly on pieces of paper I guess. She said all the time with a pencil. Maybe on the wall I don’t remember.

  [laughs] Okay. When you went on to school, did you study art? Or was it just something that came naturally?

  No, I didn’t study art other than normal classes that kids have. No, I didn’t get into it too extensively at all. And I didn’t really learn much about… you know… various media. Jab poke here and there like kids do when they get a chance to try watercolors or if they’re lucky a little they learn a little bit about oils, but you know. I didn’t really learn much.

  So, your sense of composition came just purely from inside?

  Well, whatever sense I have. Some might think I have no sense at all.

  [laughs]

  Some things, whether it’s a painting or a poem, you kind of feel that, at a certain point, it’s working. A lot of time you can’t put your finger on why. It’s just a question of being open to it working, rather than trying to pick it apart.

  So it’s like a Zen thing for you in which it sort of happens?

  No, I mean I work hard at it and sometimes, a lot of times, I’m unhappy with what I do. And I try to do something else and maybe try to return to it. I don’t know what it is. You just keep at it until something takes shape that you’re comfortable with, what seems really true in the moment. You might look at it in a week later or two years later, and think that it’s flawed. But at the time it works. That’s all you can do is do it in the moment…

  I interviewed Clive Barker recently and, at one point, and he said that, at some point, you just gotta back away and say, “That was good then,” and if you want to change it you change it later on in something else.

  Yeah, sure. I mean, I’ve learned acting kind of a lot on the job. I had a little bit of training, but most of what I’ve learned I’ve learned, for better or for worse, on the film. So, consequently, there’s a lot of stuff on film that I’d be happier if it wasn’t on film, but what are you gonna do? It doesn’t bother me as much. It’s not like I’m gonna sit down and watch it or something. Now that I did it, and it’s out there… I suppose the same goes for drawings or photographs or certainly with poems. You know there are embarrassing poems that I wrote years ago.

  Yeah, I got plenty of those.

  Right, but you did it and I bet the best thing would’ve been if you’d kept them to yourself. Right?

  Right…

  But, unfortunately, some people have some, or some are even published. On the other hand, if you don’t – once in a while – reach out and give someone a poem or show someone a painting or a photograph, then you’re not… you’re owning… I mean it’s not wrong to not share anything with anybody and then maybe you die [and] someone finds this treasure trove of things. But, I think there is a chance no matter how reclusive you are, too… just from the way… the look on someone’s face when they look at something, you can pick up something, certainly if you talk about it. Whether you agree with what they’re saying or not. That’s why I think poetry work outs are a good thing. [They’re] a sort of round table discussion were you know it’s best when there’s a moderator or where someone limits what people are saying. You can get a lot out of that.

  I had an instructor once tell me that if you don’t share your work you become a legend in your own room.

  Yeah that’s a good sign.

  I’d like to take a quick run at some of your filmography. I want to get sort of like snap shots, your impressions of the finished work as well as some of the process. First of all Witness. Was that your first screen role?

  That was the first time I wasn’t cut out of a movie. Actually, I’d done three [films] before where I had at least a couple of lines or whatever and they were cut out. In a couple of cases with really good directors too: Jonathan Demme, Woody Allen…

  Oh, just those guys. [laughs]

  Well, for whatever reason. But the experience was good, you know, when you do one scene. Every movie no matter how tight the screen play is, in the end, there are parts of scenes and entire scenes that end up being taken out, just like you edit a piece of writing. It’s the same thing for them. You would have the best of intentions when you shoot the scene and make it work as a director. And then, you find what you could do without. You know the first thing you have to do is [determine] what could this story lose and still work. Yeah I do that in writing, become more tolerant and understanding of that in terms of what people can do with m
ovies. When you’re doing it with your own writing or, let’s say, your collection of poems or photographs or whatever the hell you’re doing you know you’re doing it. You know you can go to a friend [and ask them], “Well, what do you think? I have these ten photographs, I’d just like to just show five of them or six. What would you choose?” And then, you might not even agree with them, but you get two or three people’s opinions and, you know…

  Maybe a fresh perspective…

  Yeah. It can help you come to a decision, but the decision is yours. Where, with a movie, it’s obviously not. You just hope it works out. But, I understand it because I’m always looking at things that I write and going what can I take out of that and [make] it still work. And then, years later, thinking that I had done it all with that poem… I might look at that poem again and go, “You know, I can still take out two words.”

  Someone once said to me about being a musician, “It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes that you don’t play.”

  Yeah.

  So, I was looking at the list of your films and a couple pop up. Prison, the Renny Harlin film.

  Yeah. [We] shot that one in Rawlings, Wyoming. The middle of Wyoming.

  How was that? I mean, as a film, it was fairly enjoyable?

  It was a real low budget horror exploitation thing. The cast was a bunch of people [who were] New York stage actors. For that kind of movie, it was a pretty experienced group of actors; good actors got those parts. So, I was surrounded by people who really knew what they were doing, which was nice. It was fun to work with them. I mean, the story was what it was. It was a horror movie and it was on the cheap side and all that, but Renny Harlin had a certain amount of visual flair. Other than that, I don’t know if it stands out any more than the other movies at this time. I liked the location. I liked Wyoming.