Transcript
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. The multimedia artist John Waters has spent his life being a champion of outsiders, redefining norms and celebrating individuality and eccentricity. His career path has gone from outrageously standards-defying filmmaker to popular avuncular TV host and elder statesman of bizarre pop culture. His 80th birthday is next week on Earth Day, April 22, and we're taking time today to celebrate John Waters.
Waters was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1946, and filmed most of his movies there. As a teenager, one of his best friends was Glenn Milstead, an actor, singer and drag queen, who, in his drag persona, went by the name Divine. Waters cast Divine in his early underground films - "Mondo Trasho" in 1969 and "Multiple Maniacs" in 1970 - and cast Divine again as the star of their big breakthrough film, "Pink Flamingos," in 1972. The plot of that film had people competing for the title of Filthiest Person Alive, and it was a robust, sometimes scatological competition.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PINK FLAMINGOS")
DIVINE: (As Divine) These are obviously jealous people, jealous of our careers, of all of our press. Why else would they sign that The Filthiest People Alive? Everyone knows that that title has become my trademark. Why, to you use it in this way is only to insinuate that they are filthier than I. How could anyone seriously believe that? How could anyone be filthier than Divine?
BIANCULLI: Divine also co-starred in the movie that brought Waters into the mainstream, 1988's "Hairspray," in which Ricki Lake played a dance-obsessed teen in 1962 Baltimore. When she performs on a local TV show, her parents watch in bed, disapproving of some of the other contestants. The mom is played by Divine, the dad by Jerry Stiller, the actor who eventually would play George Costanza's dad on "Seinfeld."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HAIRSPRAY")
DIVINE: (As Edna Turnblad) I watch that tramp, and I'm embarrassed to be white.
JERRY STILLER: (As Wilbur Turnblad) You know, Edna, I've been reading about these kids. Maybe Tracy could be some sort of campus leader.
DIVINE: (As Edna Turnblad) Wilbur, it's the times. They're a-changin'. Something's blowin' in the wind. Fetch me my diet pills, would you, hon?
BIANCULLI: As his films gained praise as well as notoriety, Waters found that celebrities lined up to appear in a John Waters film, and he was only too happy to oblige. He was addicted to stunt casting, too, so his ensembles were wildly diverse. The original "Hairspray movie," in addition to Divine, also featured Sonny Bono, Pia Zadora, Ruth Brown and Deborah Harry.
"Cry-Baby," which Waters wrote and directed in 1990, featured Polly Bergen, Iggy Pop, Troy Donahue, Joey Heatherton, former X-rated movie star Traci Lords and Patty Hearst. And the title role of Cry-Baby was played by a young Johnny Depp, who made the most out of his outrageous role of a rebel with a cause - and with a tattoo of an electric chair on his chest. In this clip, he's in a park making out with his girlfriend, Allison, when lightning strikes a nearby tree and shatters the mood, causing Cry-Baby to rip open his shirt in anger.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CRY-BABY")
AMY LOCANE: (As Allison Vernon-Williams) What's the matter, Cry-Baby?
JOHNNY DEPP: (As Cry-Baby) Everything's the matter.
LOCANE: (As Allison Vernon-Williams) It's just a thunderstorm. Heat lightning. It's sexy.
DEPP: (As Cry-Baby) It's not sexy. Electricity makes me insane.
LOCANE: (As Allison Vernon-Williams) Why cry, baby? Why?
DEPP: (As Cry-Baby) Here's why.
(SOUNDBITE OF THUNDERCLAP)
DEPP: (As Cry-Baby) Electricity killed my parents.
LOCANE: (As Allison Vernon-Williams) They died in the electric chair?
DEPP: (As Cry-Baby) That's right, Allison. My father was the Alphabet Bomber. He may have been crazy, but he was my pop. Only one I ever had.
LOCANE: (As Allison Vernon-Williams) God. I heard about the Alphabet Bomber. Bombs exploding in the airport and barbershop.
DEPP: (As Cry-Baby) That's right - all in alphabetical order. Car wash. Drug store.
BIANCULLI: From there, John Waters kept getting even more accepted. "Hairspray" became a hit Broadway musical, then was refashioned as a popular movie musical. He kept making outrageous movies, such as "Cecil B. Demented" and "A Dirty Shame, " and kept insanely busy in many other arenas. As an actor, he appeared in everything from "Homicide: Life On The Street" to "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." This fall, he'll appear in the newest season of FX's "American Horror Story," opposite Ariana Grande, Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates. Fittingly, it's the show's 13th season.
He's written a memoir called "Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom Of A Filth Elder." He's had exhibitions of his visual art at the Baltimore Museum of Art and at New York's New Museum of contemporary art. And he's hosted TV shows, from a true crime series to an overview of some of his cinematic favorites. He called that series John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You. The films included the dark cult movies "Freeway" and "Baxter," and he hosted the show from his own Baltimore home.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "JOHN WATERS PRESENTS MOVIES THAT WILL CORRUPT YOU")
JOHN WATERS: Hello. I'm - never mind who I am. No cops followed you here, did they? In today's climate, you can never be too careful. When I'm showing a sexploitation film, I get a little nervous. Come on in. We're going upstairs, to my bedroom.
BIANCULLI: In his memoir, John Waters writes, suddenly, the worst thing that can happen to a creative person has happened to me. I am accepted. He spoke to Terry Gross in 2019, when he had published his memoir. He told her he came from a conventional middle-class family in Baltimore.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
WATERS: My parents had a happy marriage for 70 years. They both lived to be about 90. So I really had - I'm wondering why I'm kind of as nuts as I am, really, because I had a - pretty good role models from them.
TERRY GROSS: Well, speaking of as nuts as you are, you write that you were born six weeks premature, quote, "a little boy slightly miswired, already not following the rules. All I know is I was born with a screw loose." So when you wrote that you were born slightly miswired, I didn't know how literally to take that. Like, if you think you're...
WATERS: Well, I think I was.
GROSS: ...Cognitively different, you know?
WATERS: Well, I think, right from the beginning, I didn't want to be like anybody else. And I think I was overly baptized because in the Catholic Church, they keep baptizing you. And, you know, I needed a little original sin, and they wiped it all away.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: So I think that that was the problem. I was a teacup baby that was overbaptized.
GROSS: But did you...
WATERS: You know, the one thing like - like, there's that great ad campaign for - there's one thing wrong with a Waters baby, it's alive.
(LAUGHTER)
WATERS: And kind of, I think I was a little like that.
GROSS: But there's a difference between not wanting to be like everybody else and being incapable of being like other people.
WATERS: Well, I'm both. I couldn't - you know?
GROSS: OK.
WATERS: I - no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't play football very well. And I am so gay that tools...
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: Even the sight of a hammer made me cry as a child. That's the one thing...
GROSS: Made you cry?
WATERS: ...I cannot do. Yeah. The - we had to hammer the next day in school. And I remember waking up screaming in the middle of the night of this horror that I had to hammer. And I still can't hammer. And my father would take me down and show me. It's easy. This is what you have to do. And I know he was mortified that I was that panicked. That's about the gayest thing I ever did.
GROSS: This fits into something else you write, which is, I realize now how hard it must've been for my parents to understand my early eccentricities. So in addition to your terror at seeing hammers, what were some of your eccentricities when you were really young?
WATERS: Well, I was obsessed by car accidents. And I played car accidents. And my mother would take me to junkyards and walk around with me. And I'd be like, oh, there's been a terrible one over here. Look at this.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: And I think, what did the junk man think? Well, what is this little ghoul? So that kind of thing.
GROSS: What did your mother think?
WATERS: I don't know. That wasn't in the Dr. Spock book of what to do if your kid is obsessed by car accidents. And my parents were very straight. And what straight used to mean was not gay or straight. Straight used to mean you didn't smoke pot or you were not following the rules in the '60s. But my parents were very, very conservative in a way. My mother was liberal later in life. But still, I don't know what - they didn't know what to do, really. But they didn't freak out too much. They were confused by it, as - and what parent would be happy their child made "Pink Flamingos"? Really, none.
GROSS: Yeah, I - yes (laughter).
WATERS: At the time, really.
GROSS: At the time? Absolutely not.
WATERS: Yeah.
GROSS: Yeah. Yeah. So in your acknowledgments in your new book, you write, and finally, great gratitude to my late parents, John and Patricia Waters, for giving me the foundation of good taste to rebel against.
WATERS: That's completely true.
GROSS: What was that foundation? What was the good taste that they had?
WATERS: Well, the foundation is - my mother would always say - my favorite thing is, who is that creature? - she used to say about friends that I gathered she didn't approve of. Or when I would hang rockabilly male singers like Eddie Cochran and Elvis and everything on my wall, my mother would always say, who is that creature? And some of the people that came home, that I would bring home - my friends - she would just be horrified. But she was polite. I remember when we made "Multiple Maniacs" at my parents' house and filmed the Cavalcade of Perversion on the front lawn. Divine came in afterwards in a bloody, one-piece, white women's bathing suit, carrying an axe. And my mother served us tea...
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: ...As if Princess Di had come over, really.
GROSS: So we were talking about your parents and your family and how differently wired you were and how you rebelled against, like, your family's good taste.
WATERS: Yeah.
GROSS: So you write that you were raised to be preppy. You were sent to private school. But you yearned to meet the underclass. And you write, I first saw real working-class men when my dad took me downtown to see his new company building. My parents once took me to a bowling alley. They didn't at first realize it was also part pool hall. Here, I saw juvenile delinquents for the first time - boys with their shirt collars turned up, pompadours freshly greased, girls with tight, black, long skirts, ballet slippers and head scarves tied around their Debra Paget hairdos. How I longed to be with them. Talk more about the influence of, like, working-class teen culture on you.
WATERS: Well, I was so - it was the opposite of me. And I still like to be around people that are the opposites of me. I'm attracted to people that are the opposites of me. And so to go to that neighborhood and see - well, to see these kids together - they were like Elvis. They were like juvenile delinquents that I would read about all the time. We didn't have juvenile delinquents in my school, in my preppy grade school. But we did have one that lived across the street. And I made friends with the family. And really, he had a car and looked just like Cry-Baby. I basically based the character I wrote, Cry-Baby, on this person that lived across the street. And, of course, my mother would say - who is that creature? - the same thing. But I always was kind of just amazed to see these bad - supposedly bad - kids hanging out.
And you know, I went to the Elvis movies, Jerry Lee Lewis, all that stuff. So I knew about juvenile delinquency. I was always corrupted by Life magazine because we got it every week. And it always covered beatniks, drug addicts, everything that I was interested in. I would read every word of it. And then my parents got the encyclopedia - the World Book Encyclopedia, I think. And that had everything in it. I would look up everything in there that you weren't supposed to. So I was corrupted by the things that my parents brought in for educational reasons in our house but not for the educational reasons they had in mind.
GROSS: What are some of the things you looked up in the World Book Encyclopedia?
WATERS: I used to look up - was it the Wolfenden report that was the United Kingdom's study on homosexuality? I used to look up drug addicts. I used to look up - always Tennessee Williams, always beatniks, always bohemia, Leroy Jones, as he was known at the time. Everything about trouble in the arts, I looked up.
BIANCULLI: John Waters speaking to Terry Gross in 2019. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2019 interview with filmmaker, author and social influencer John Waters. He's celebrating his 80th birthday next week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: So you loved rockabilly. You loved Elvis Presley, and you write that Elvis made you realize you're gay.
WATERS: Yeah, he did. When I saw him twitching and acting like a space person, singing those first early songs, that's when I realized. And then later, I was confused by it because then I loved Clarence "Frogman" Henry, too. I remember he sang, I ain't got no home. And he would sing like a man. And then he would sing like a girl, which seemed kind of gay. And then he started singing like a frog. But I was so young, I thought, is there trisexuality?
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: Are people attracted to frogs? That hadn't happened to me yet. But I was open-minded to it if it was coming. Mercifully, it didn't.
GROSS: So I want to play a song that you write about - and this isn't going to be Elvis...
WATERS: All right.
GROSS: 'Cause you write, I never wanted to be a drag queen, but if I had to lip-sync...
WATERS: Oh, God.
GROSS: If I had to lip-sync to a woman's song, even today, it wouldn't be Judy, Liza or Cher. It would be Eileen Rodgers, a nightclub singer and one-time understudy for Ethel Merman. So...
WATERS: Had you ever heard of her?
GROSS: No, I had not.
WATERS: OK. Yeah.
GROSS: No, I had not. But this is what YouTube is for (laughter).
WATERS: Yeah.
GROSS: So I went on. I found the record that you write about, which is called the "Treasure Of Your Love." Let's listen to it, and then we will talk.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TREASURE OF YOUR LOVE")
EILEEN RODGERS: (Singing) If I could have a mountain of gold and diamonds like the stars above, the treasure I would most be longing for would be the treasure of your love. If I could have a silver ship to sail and all the pearls within the sea, oh, I would gladly give them all away if you would give your love to me.
WATERS: Oh, God. She was a drama queen.
GROSS: Yes, yes, yes.
WATERS: I'm trying to picture her - I bet she was dressed kind of, like, Kate Smith-ish, wouldn't you think? I don't think she was any kind of sex bomb. But she was the understudy for Ethel Merman. So think of that. She could belt it out.
GROSS: So why is that the song you'd lip-sync to if you did a drag...
WATERS: I don't know. I just remember hearing it as a child. And I had the record, and I played it over and over. But I was obsessed by - in my bedroom, I had a stage. My parents built me a stage, almost like Divine has in "Female Trouble" when the Dashers say, oh, a little stage. I had a stage at the top of the steps with curtains and everything...
GROSS: Wow.
WATERS: ...And a costume box. And I would put on self-indulgent plays for my one poor aunt, who would put up with it - and I can't imagine what she thought - where I would tape-record all the top 10 off the radio and then perform all the numbers and stuff like a crazy person. And so - but I was allowed to do that. So I got all that stuff out of my system early.
GROSS: So you had an art retrospective, like, recently, like - a couple years ago, was it?
WATERS: No. It was last year.
GROSS: Was it last year?
WATERS: It was at the Baltimore Museum of Art. And then it went to the Wexner Center in Ohio. Yeah.
GROSS: Yeah. And so...
WATERS: And I had one maybe 10 years ago at the New Museum in New York.
GROSS: Oh, OK. OK. So the one from the Baltimore Museum of Art has a nice, like, hardcover catalog...
WATERS: Yeah, they did a beautiful job.
GROSS: ...Of the work from the show. And so I want to discuss a couple of pieces...
WATERS: OK.
GROSS: ...From the show. One of them is your, like, imaginary tabloid covers. And so one of them is called, like, National Brainiac. And the headlines are, Joan Didion hits 250 pounds. Philip Roth dates 70-year-old woman. It's about time, readers say. M.F.K. Fisher has cellulite. Help, I've got writer's block, Joyce Carol Oates sobs. I mean, I think that's, like, hilarious, the idea of this...
WATERS: I would love to have that magazine for real.
GROSS: (Laughter) Yes, I know.
WATERS: And I would love to be - you'd be - after you. Terry Gross swimwear pictures.
(LAUGHTER)
WATERS: I mean, you'd be hiding outside of intellectuals' doors, trying to get - they didn't have to die. You know, and I still do get the tabloids, although the Enquirer is nothing like it used to be. It used to be fun. Ever since it went on the Trump thing, now it's the same pictures that are in the Globe. It's not as much fun, except the meanest one they have every year is, who will die next? And it has the celebrities on it and the odds. Who's it going to be? - which must be nice when you're just in the grocery store and see yourself on the cover. But I do think a tabloid like that would be fascinating. And I could do a good one. I wish I could really do that tabloid for real.
GROSS: So when did you start being interested in tabloids?
WATERS: Oh, always. I think I've had a subscription to the Enquirer and the Globe for 30 years. And I remember the midnight used to be the one even before about that that I think I wrote about in one of my books. I forget. But I still get six newspapers delivered every day. I still - I used to get a hundred and some magazines a month. But as you know, that is really dwindling. But I still get lots of them. I was really sad when Jet went out of business. I got that for 30 years. There was a lot of magazines that I got that I felt that I had a peek into a world that I would never know about or never be there. So I still get a lot of magazines. And - but the tabloids aren't as good. I mean, the New York Post is still pretty hilarious. I mean, the covers - was it today (laughter) about the mayor running for president and had everybody looking at television, laughing meanly. It was such a great New York Post cover.
GROSS: Have you ever been in a tabloid?
WATERS: Not like - 'cause what do I not admit to?
(LAUGHTER)
WATERS: What are they going to use against me?
GROSS: John Waters has a filthy mind.
WATERS: John Waters saw a romantic comedy this weekend.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: So getting back to your museum show - and there's a catalog of it. One of your series that was in the show was still photographs of things that can go wrong in movies, like hair in the gate. And that's when you see...
WATERS: Yeah.
GROSS: ...Like, one hair on the image.
WATERS: Well, the thing is that's a ritual that you do. Whenever you're shooting a movie, and you - let's say you've done three takes. You've got the take. You're moving on to the fourth. Before you move on, the AD always says, check for a hair in the gate. So they (blowing) blow it and check. Well, I never in my life found a hair in the gate. So I tried to imagine what it would be like if they didn't find one in the biggest, most expensive scenes of the biggest epics. So basically, the Red Sea parting in "The Ten Commandments" with a big hair in it...
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: ...Or Clark Gable in the middle of "Gone With The Wind," embracing her and it's the hair in it. So I just tried to imagine...
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: ...All the things that would go wrong.
BIANCULLI: John Waters speaking to Terry Gross in 2019. After a break, we'll hear excerpts from another of their conversations, and Justin Chang reviews the new Steven Soderbergh film "The Christophers." I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M NOT A JUVENILE DELINQUENT 'ROCK, ROCK, ROCK'")
FRANKIE LYMON AND THE TEENAGERS: (Singing) I'm not a juvenile delinquent. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not a juvenile delinquent. Do the thing that's right, and you'll do nothing wrong. Life will be so nice, you'll be in paradise.
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. We're celebrating the 80th birthday of filmmaker and writer John Waters, whose birthday is April 22. He's violated many taboos and created intentionally perverse scenarios in his films, most notably in "Pink Flamingos." His movie "Hairspray" was adapted into a family-friendly hit Broadway musical and then into a musical film starring John Travolta. When Waters was 66, he began a cross-country trip hitchhiking from his home in Baltimore to his co-op apartment in San Francisco. He chronicled his adventures and frustrations on the road in his book "Carsick." Terry spoke with him in 2014. Parents, this interview has a couple of moments that probably are not appropriate for young children. But hey, it's John Waters.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: John Waters, pleasure to have you back on FRESH AIR. What made you think of hitchhiking cross country as the idea for your book?
WATERS: I don't know. I don't do dating sites.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: I don't do Facebook. I don't do any of that. I just thought I wanted to meet some new people, and I wanted to have a midlife crisis that didn't involve buying a sports car or doing ridiculous things. So I came up with something more ridiculous - an adventure.
GROSS: So, I used to hitchhike all the time in college. I used to pick up hitchhikers all the time. I never see anyone doing it anymore. I wouldn't dream of picking up a hitchhiker now. What made you think...
WATERS: Well, I would.
GROSS: You would, yeah?
WATERS: Yeah. But I - the whole time when I hitchhiked across the country, from when I left Baltimore to San Francisco, I saw one hitchhiker, and I was in the car with somebody else, and I said don't pick him up. I can't believe I did that.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: You'd think that would be such bad hitchhiking karma. But I - when you hitchhike alone, you don't want to share your ride with somebody. Believe me. I'm not a communist hitchhiker.
GROSS: (Laughter) So, you assumed people would think you were either an older homeless man or that you were John Waters. So how did it divide up between the people who recognized you and the people who thought you were a pathetic, sad...
WATERS: Well, there was a...
GROSS: ...Destitute person?
WATERS: There was a little of both because what happened is people would drive past me and think, well, was that John Waters? But no, why would I be standing there doing that? And they'd come back and pick me up. Other people didn't know and pulled over and tried to give me money or help me and then realize and start laughing and screaming. And many people didn't recognize me. And when I did tell them during the normal conversation in the car that I was a film director, they just looked at me like I was so deluded as a homeless person that believed he was a cult film director. So, generally, I didn't care because it didn't matter to me. I wanted to hear their stories. I was relieved if they really didn't know who I was. But yet, I'm a hypocrite because when I get stuck, I would shamelessly use it if I could to try to get a ride.
GROSS: Oh, you even carried around a fame kit.
WATERS: I did. That helped with the policeman. It was for if the cops stopped me.
GROSS: So what was in your fame kit to prove that you were really a movie director and not a destitute person?
WATERS: You know, fame ID, which is your Directors Guild of America Card, your Writers Guild of America Card and the most ridiculous, my Academy of Arts, you know, the Oscar voting card, which I really wanted to, like, use that. What do you mean? You can't put me in jail. I vote in the Oscars every year. But it did work the one, only time I ever used it. No, I used it twice. Once I used it for the policemen that stopped me, and he gave me a ride. The second one, I used it when I was stuck in a rest area, hanging outside of bathrooms, begging people to give me a ride, which really made me feel like a pervert.
GROSS: So, there's three parts of your book. The first part is fictional stories you imagine that are the best-case scenarios of what would happen if someone picks you up, and then you have...
WATERS: Yeah.
GROSS: ...Part two, which is fictional stories of what would happen in the worst-case scenarios, and then you have part three, which is what actually happened. So there's an excerpt of a story from part two, the worst-case scenarios (laughter), that I'd like you to read. And the setup of this chapter is that you get picked up by a member of a group that he calls React, and he says it's a trucker citizen band radio emergency channel organization made up of volunteers to assist other motorists in times of disaster. But it's actually this guy who really hates cult directors and wants to kill all of them, including you. He hates...
WATERS: Yes.
GROSS: ..."The Rocky Horror Picture Show." He hates Herschell Gordon Lewis, who did "Blood Feast." He hates "El Topo" and Todd Solondz, David Cronenberg, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodovar. And he's come to give you your last ride. And I'd like...
WATERS: Yeah. Yeah.
GROSS: ...You to do a short reading about this ride.
WATERS: Alright. I've never read this one out loud. OK. (Reading) Hold it, hold it...
GROSS: And I'll say we've edited this for radio.
WATERS: (Reading) Hold it, hold it, I yell, hoping to buy time. We are just writer-directors trying to do our job. I'm sorry if my films offended you.
You think eating a dog turd is funny? Randy demands with terrifying hostility.
No, no, I was just commenting on censorship laws at the time of Deep Throat, I beg.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Randy sneers before whipping out a pocket knife and stabbing me in the leg. That, he roars, looking at the blade still stuck in my flesh, is funny. Ha-ha-ha.
Just repeat after me, I plead. It's only a movie. It's only a movie. It's only a movie. But this old catch line from an exploitation ad campaign doesn't do the trick.
And that birth scene in "Female Trouble," he charges like an obscenity prosecutor, was absolutely disgusting.
Before I can even plead my defense, he shoots me in the other leg. I howl in agony. I scream for my life. We pull into the Las Vegas city limits. Time flies when you're being tortured. I see the ridiculous skyline of the town, a place filled with tourists I have spent my lifetime trying to avoid. Look, Randy, I groan through spasms of pain, just let me out here. I promise I won't make any trash films again. I'll go make mainstream movies, I swear.
It's too late for a career change, Randy snarls with murderous rage as he pulls his truck off the road into an abandoned drive-in movie theater.
It's been a long time since any movies were shown here. There's not even a screen anymore, and the concession stand has been burned to the ground. The few remaining poles for the speakers have been stripped clean of working parts. Randy slams on his brakes with a sickening finality. Get in the back, Randy orders.
Oh, Randy, please, I argue. Let's go see "The Avengers." Let's go see Hollywood tentpole blockbusters.
His answer - a bullet into my right foot. I almost pass out when he grabs me and throws me into the opening, his car between the truck and the trailer, he's pulling. Inside is a cult movie director torture chamber. Josie Cotton's cover version of the theme song from "Who Killed Teddy Bear" is playing on some sort of sound system. Beneath movie posters for "El Topo" is the decaying body of Jodorowsky, whom I thought was still alive until Randy tells me differently and takes credit.
I see George Romero's amputated head hanging in a basket surrounded by posters for "Night Of The Living Dead" and all its sequels.
Enough is all Randy offers an explanation.
Before I can scream, I trip over what appears to be a corpse clawed apart by wild animals. Randy kicks it, and I realize this poor human is still alive. I try to look away, but Randy grabs my head in a chokehold and forces me to gaze upon this nauseating face. Oh, my God. It's Herschell Gordon Lewis, and he chuckles when he sees me. He's still got a sense of humor, even as he approaches death.
Randy pushes me forward into the bloody pit of horror.
GROSS: And that's from one of the fictional sections of John Waters' new book "Car sick" about hitchhiking across America. That's an example of one of the worst-case scenarios he imagines. So...
WATERS: Yes. Hopefully, it's not the best, right?
GROSS: (Laughter) That's right. How many of the things that Randy does to you in that fictional scene have you done to other people in your films?
WATERS: Oh, in my films? I thought you said in real life. I...
GROSS: No.
WATERS: ...Thought, Terry. Yeah. In my films? Well, I've certainly cut off people's heads. I've certainly - yes, I've probably done all of them in my films. But for comedy. And in this, writing your death as comedy is sort of fun to do, too.
GROSS: So...
WATERS: I've probably done all of them, except the sexual parts that you cut out.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: And I might have done them, too in my movies, not in real life.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: That's a chart, Terry. You'd have to make - I'd have to diagram this chapter for you to tell me what's real life, what's fantasy, what I have done and what I've done in my movies. That's a gray area.
GROSS: (Laughter) That's hysterical. So, one of the best-case scenarios in your book, one of the imagined best-case scenarios in your book is that you're picked up by your favorite porn star Johnny Davenport, the star of "Powertool." And he is or was a famous porn star in reality, who, in reality, did star in "Powertool," one of the great titles.
WATERS: There's some other good ones, too, but I can't say them. Right.
GROSS: Yeah, no, exactly. Why would that be your dream ride?
WATERS: Well, because what happens to me, you know, I'm picked up by a porn star who also is friends with extratorrential (ph) aliens that take us aboard and have sex with us, and then I meet Connie Francis. So really, it's...
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: ...You know, when you think up the best and the worst, that gives me freedom, you know, to - I mean, to imagine the best and the worst, those are extreme words, the best and the worst. And I have read many people that do really believe that they were kidnapped by spacemen and had sex with them. That's what gave me the ideas. And I read a couple of those books, just to see. And so I wanted to go to the most pitiful ones that looked like Zsa Zsa Gabor set, you know, of "Queen Of Outer Space." And they ate liver. That's the only thing I added. Like, space aliens, before they had sex with you, they had to eat liver dinners.
GROSS: So I imagine you've actually watched a lot of porn films in your time. So what are some of the...
WATERS: Once I was the judge for the porn Oscars, so they sent cases of them. And I...
GROSS: No.
WATERS: ...Actually heard - yeah, and I heard another judge say, I'm raw from this, dude.
(LAUGHTER)
WATERS: And the porno Oscars were held in a Howard Johnson's that spun around. So people were like, sick, kind of. You know, have a bunch of drinks at the porn Oscars and the party was at Howard Johnson's in LA that spins. So you kept finding yourself, you had to be like a ballet dancer, make eye contact with one building every time it went around so you wouldn't get the whirlies.
GROSS: Wait, so is this the real version of the prize that Dirk Diggler wins in "Boogie Nights"?
WATERS: Well, there is the AVN Awards. I get AVN, which is the Adult Video News, which is the trade paper for the porn business, which is great. I mean, they have interviews with people who says, oh, yes, my mother handles all my fan mail. I'm like, she does?
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: You know, and she's so happy that I'm - and then these titles are so ludicrous, you know? So I'm all for that magazine, which always gives me ideas and probably did help this chapter.
BIANCULLI: John Waters speaking to Terry Gross in 2014. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2014 interview with John Waters, who's celebrating his 80th birthday next week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: Let's get to the real thing, what really happened to you, John Waters, while you were hitchhiking cross-country. And you write, (reading) can I really give up the rigid scheduling I'm so used to in my life? Me, the ultimate control freak who plans weeks ahead the day I can irresponsibly eat candy.
And I never thought that you were that much of a schedule - that you actually planned in advance the week you would eat candy.
WATERS: I do. My hangovers are on my schedule three months in advance. I carry four pennies, always, in my pocket so I'll never get more change.
GROSS: Wow. That's actually very smart, but very, very planning ahead (laughing).
WATERS: Yeah, I do plan ahead. I think I got that from my father.
GROSS: It's certainly nothing I ever would've imagined from your early movies that you would've been so kind of orderly and precise in your planning, because the movies are just, like, so transgressive. And so, like, if there's a boundary I'm crossing it. I'm defying it.
WATERS: But how could I have made all those movies on no money with my with my friends if I didn't plan? That can't happen magically. It happened because we were kind of obsessed. The same time, everybody said, oh, you must've been on drugs when you made those movies. No, we weren't on drugs when we made them. I was on drugs when I thought them up, and I was on drugs when we showed them. But I was never on drugs when we made them because it was too hard.
GROSS: So, you know, another question you ask yourself is what is the etiquette of hitchhiking? If a car stops, but there's something you don't trust about the driver, do you politely decline the ride? Will you end up insulting the driver if you do that? Did you have to do that at all during your hitchhiking?
WATERS: No, here's the thing. I wrote about that in the prologue. But when the real life, when you're out there, as I said, I would've gotten in Ted Bundy - in his Volkswagen...
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: ...with his arm in a sling in the front seat. You'll get in any car, believe me. All your rules, all your things that you imagine go out the window when you've been standing there for 10 years in those Kansas winds, ripping your weather-beaten face. It is the worst beauty regiment ever to hitchhike. I would go in the motels at night and look in the mirror. And I have in my office a little mirror, a hand mirror that I got from a joke shop where you pick it up and look at yourself and it screams.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: Well, that's what every mirror - that's what every mirror did when I hitchhiked across America. It let out a shriek of horror when they saw hitchhiking face, a new thing I want to invent a product for. No - and I thought, no wonder people aren't picking me up, because I had a hat that said scum of the earth, which was a dumb fashion choice to take with me. It's in a weird little exploitation movie I like. But I should not have worn that hat. But pecker would've been worse. That was the other one I had. I thought, that really would be a bad one.
GROSS: (Laughter) Another movie title of yours, yeah.
WATERS: Yeah, yeah.
GROSS: So one of your rides, you got picked up in Myersville, Maryland by a 20-year-old Republican town councilman. And he drove you to Ohio. And it was a great ride. You call him, in your book, the Corvette kid.
WATERS: And he was only going to lunch, to get his lunch at the subway shop, when he stopped. And it was pouring rain - and gave me a four-hour ride, which was very nice.
GROSS: And then you met up with him again, and he gave you an even longer ride.
WATERS: Yes, he came back. He kept texting me. But I thought he was just kidding me, that he wasn't going to come back. And finally, I got a really - I got stuck in Ohio, in Bonner Springs, Kansas. So it took a long while. And I was going to - he kept texting me saying, I'm going to come get you again. I thought he was kidding.
So I got a great ride with this Kansas couple, who is coming to the signing in Baltimore, by the way. And they took me really a long way, all the way to Denver. And he wrote and said, what do you mean? I've been driving 48 hours at 80 miles an hour to catch up with you, and he finally did, and then took me to Reno. And then I just gave him the keys to my apartment. I said go stay at my place in San Francisco. And he was great. His parents were horrified because if they Google me, it's not good.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: If you Google my name from a parent's viewpoint that your son is missing with in a car on the other side of the country...
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: ...It is not comforting.
GROSS: So did the young Republican town councilman know your work?
WATERS: He didn't.
GROSS: And what was his reaction when you described it?
WATERS: He didn't know my work. And he did Google me on the way and saw at least it was true. I don't know to this day if he's ever seen my movies. But we certainly became friends. He stayed longer in San Francisco when we got there, and then he came to my Christmas party this year. I'm still in touch with him. I think it gave him confidence. He looked great. He looked great before, but he was - we were just an odd couple. I mean, his friends were texting him saying, way to go. You're in Reno with a gay man at a motel.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: You know, that's great for your campaign, right?
(LAUGHTER)
WATERS: And we just laughed about it because it was so ridiculous. The whole thing was completely innocent. We on the way met some swingers that kept trying to hook up with us by texting him, which really...
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: In another hotel, the maitre d came and knocked on his door in the middle of the night. I thought, hey, what about me?
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: It was kind of funny. We just laughed the whole time.
BIANCULLI: John Waters speaking to Terry Gross in 2014. She also spoke to him in 2000, when he had just released his film "Cecil B. Demented."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: Do you have any home movies at all?
WATERS: This one.
GROSS: No, no, I mean, I mean...
WATERS: No, yeah, half my films.
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: I mean, like, movies your parents made of you growing up.
WATERS: Yes.
GROSS: Your birthday parties.
WATERS: They had - some of that was in Steve Yeager's documentary about me.
GROSS: I haven't seen that, yeah.
WATERS: "Divine Trash" and "In Bad Taste," they have some of that. Yeah, those footage are in there. Yes, 8-millimeter movies, my parents have, certainly. I don't have them.
GROSS: How do you feel when you see those?
WATERS: Well, you look at it and it looks so happy. When you look, you think, why did I ever need to go to a shrink? You know, I'm with my parents in a nice house. My parents never did anything that horrible I can remember. Why am I this nuts?
GROSS: (Laughter) What were your birthday parties like?
WATERS: Oh, themes. I had pirate parties where I got to be Captain Hook. I had a pirate party every year so I could be Captain Hook. And once I was the Wicked Witch of the West, the only time I was ever in drag in my entire life, and just because I wanted to be green. I didn't care about the dress. I wanted to have green skin.
I was always a Disney villain every year. And I had costume parties a lot, certainly. And they do have pictures of that, the pirate party. And I was Captain Hook. And I always - I put that coat hanger. It's a great game. I've taught my nieces and nephews to play it. Take a coat hanger. You bend it and you put it up your sleeve and you, too, can have a hook. And it's a good look.
GROSS: (Laughter).
WATERS: A hook adds a definite edge to a dull outfit.
BIANCULLI: John Waters spoke to Terry Gross in 2000. The writer and director of "Pink Flamingos" and "Hairspray" turns 80 years old next week. Happy birthday, John.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PINK FLAMINGOS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Happy birthday, fatso.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, screaming).
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) You are no longer the filthiest person alive.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Oh.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) We are.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Oh.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY")
THE TUNE WEAVERS: (Singing) Happy, happy birthday, baby.
BIANCULLI: Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new Steven Soderbergh film, "The Christophers." This is FRESH AIR.
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. In the new dark comedy "The Christophers," Michaela Coel, known for her Emmy-winning miniseries "I May Destroy You," plays a gifted artist who takes a job working for a famous London-based painter, played by Ian McKellen. The movie, which is now playing in theaters, is the latest from the director Steven Soderbergh. Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review.
JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: After Steven Soderbergh's terrific 2025 double bill of "Presence" and "Black Bag," I almost wish that purely for the sake of variety, I could say that his new movie, "The Christophers," is a dud. But I can't. It's terrific, and it's the latest confirmation that Soderbergh is working with a nimbleness that no other American director at the moment can match. You might have to go back to the workhorse days of the old Hollywood studio system for such a consistent abundance of quantity and quality.
"The Christophers," which was written by Ed Solomon, is a spry and witty chamber comedy. Most of it's set in the ramshackle London townhouse of a famous painter, Julian Sklar, played by a superb Ian McKellen. Not long after the movie begins, Julian takes on a new assistant, Lori Butler, played by Michaela Coel. What he doesn't know is that Lori is a skilled art restorer and that she's been hired to infiltrate his home by his two greedy grown-up children, played by James Corden and Jessica Gunning.
Lori's mission is to find several of Julian's unfinished paintings - all portraits of his former lover Christopher - and finish them in Julian's style. The plan is that when Julian dies, perhaps someday soon, the forged Christophers will be discovered and sold for millions. Lori will get a third of the proceeds.
Soderbergh has a deft way with heist and home-invasion movies, and "The Christophers" is, as you'd expect, full of twists and reversals. Lori has some moral qualms about taking on a forgery job, but she also has a personal gripe to settle with Julian that leads her to say yes. Also, she needs the money. As ever, Soderbergh is keenly attuned to his characters' economic straits.
When she starts working at Julian's townhouse, Lori mostly keeps her head down and pretends to know nothing about her boss or about art. But Julian can sense that his new assistant is more clever than she lets on. And in this scene, he begins asking her about her personal life.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE CHRISTOPHERS")
IAN MCKELLEN: (As Julian Sklar) Lori? Am I allowed to ask if she has a boyfriend?
MICHAELA COEL: (As Lori Butler) No. I mean, no.
MCKELLEN: (As Julian Sklar) No, she doesn't?
COEL: (As Lori Butler) No, you're not allowed.
MCKELLEN: (As Julian Sklar) Noted.
COEL: (As Lori Butler, laughter).
MCKELLEN: (As Julian Sklar) Why not, though?
COEL: (As Lori Butler) Well, firstly, we're at work.
MCKELLEN: (As Julian Sklar) Nonsense. It's not like we cease to be ourselves simply by crossing some conceptual boundary. Here I am at work, and here I am at home, ask away. At work, oh, don't you dare. All yours.
COEL: (As Lori Butler) You can't ask me in either place because you are my employer, which means you hold the power.
MCKELLEN: (As Julian Sklar) And I should use it to ask if you have a partner.
COEL: (As Lori Butler) If you'll explain its relevance?
MCKELLEN: (As Julian Sklar) The relevance is that I'm curious.
CHANG: It's no surprise to learn that Julian experienced a close brush with cancellation years ago, owing to some impolitic remarks he made about women artists. It's one of many reasons his career has floundered in recent years - that, plus a general lack of inspiration and productivity.
McKellen has a sublime ability to combine gravitas with mischief, and he gives his strongest performance in years as this incorrigible old soul. I was reminded of his great Oscar-nominated turn in "Gods And Monsters" as the Hollywood director James Whale, another queer artist in the twilight of a legendary career. But McKellen is matched, nuance for nuance, by Coel, an intensely magnetic screen presence whose work here is mesmerizing in its poise and restraint.
It's no spoiler to note that Julian is too smart to be deceived by Lori for long, and once the truth begins to emerge, their battle of wits doesn't just deepen. It turns inside out. Despite their differences - in race, gender, class, temperament and worldview - Julian and Lori are more alike than they realize, and what's thrilling about "The Christophers" is the way it becomes a tart yet tender portrait of two kindred spirits.
Julian, for all his bloviating, turns out to be a more empathetic listener than he appears, and Lori, for all her initial reserve, turns out to be Julian's rhetorical and intellectual equal. In the movie's best scene, Lori dissects the history of Julian's entire Christophers project, balancing rigorous analysis of his materials and techniques with unsparing insight into what each painting reveals of his emotional state at the time.
McKellen and Coel make such splendid company that I'd have gladly watched them simply trade insults for two hours. But Soderbergh and Solomon have grander ambitions, and every scene of "The Christophers" is spring-loaded with ideas. They know that it's never been harder for artists to make a living doing what they do. It's no coincidence that both Julian and Lori rely on side hustles just to get by.
The filmmakers also know the absurdities of the fine-art world, where the price of a painting can fluctuate wildly according to the whims of the market. Soderbergh, not for the first time, seems to be commenting at least in part on the struggles of independent filmmaking. Not unlike the New York pro-sports milieu in "High Flying Bird" or the Florida male strip club in "Magic Mike," the studios and galleries of "The Christophers" can feel analogous to the movie industry itself - a place where, against crushing odds, art somehow manages to find a way.
BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed the new film "The Christophers." On Monday's show, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai on her life before and after she was shot by a Taliban gunman, payback for standing up against the Taliban and advocating for her right, and the right of all girls, to go to school. She's serious about her ongoing advocacy but has a delightful sense of humor. I hope you can join us.
To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram - @nprfreshair. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/thisisfreshair.
FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld and Diana Martinez. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.