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John Waters Dishes with Letters
For the tenth anniversary of the Rehoboth Beach Film
Festival, the Film Society has pulled off a coup. They got writer/director
John Waters, who opened the first film festival in 1998, back again to
kick off the 2007 edition. In the interim of course, Waters has become
quite the man of the hour, with his film Hairspray having been turned into
the Broadway musical and most recently the fabulous film Hairspray
starring John Travolta. Waters has a new musical in previews, too.
The fact that he will be here in Rehoboth Beach on Oct. 27
for a live performance at Baywood Greens, sponsored by the Rehoboth Beach
Film Society is wonderfully exciting. I got the chance to talk to John
Waters by phone this week and ask him some things about his recent
successes.
FJ: Welcome back! It’s been about 10 years since you kicked
off the very first Rehoboth Beach Independent Film Festival.
JW: Was that ten years ago already? Those decades really fly
by…really? Ten years?
FJ: Yup. When you were here last time, the film was
Pecker…very sweet and very Baltimore. How would you compare today’s
Baltimore with the 1960s version?
JW: There are still great neighborhoods and the ones I like
are still pretty much the same—you can still find really bizarre people.
It’s home. Sure, there’s been changes, gentrification, but some of our
neighborhoods just don’t change that much.
FJ: For Hairspray, I loved John Travolta and his Baltimore
accent…did you coach him?
JW: No, I didn’t coach him, but I was on the set. I liked
the accent too—his best word was “negotiate.” He’s from Philly and
think about it, that accent is pretty close. And John Travolta made a film
before in Baltimore and lived here for several months. I really had a good
time with Travolta and I credit him for much of the film’s success—we
got great publicity and notice and I was really happy with it.
FJ: What did you think of the controversy over the casting of
Travolta?
JW: There was no controversy. Really, none. One editor (Kevin
Naff of The Washington Blade) wrote an editorial. It was a picket line of
one. John Travolta reinvented that role for himself—and that’s what
you have to do. Once it’s the same as the movie or the musical,
there’s no place to go. It’s done. We really had a good time doing the
film.
FJ: Did you yourself ever go to the Buddy Dean Show, or was
that too mainstream for you even then?
JW: No, we thought it was cool. I did go, twice. Maybe people
in Towson (Editor’s note: a Baltimore suburb) thought they wouldn’t be
caught dead going on the show, but in my neighborhood we thought it was
cool. I went two times, when the show went on location—one time it was
at the Timonium fairgrounds. I was asked to leave because I was doing the
only dance, it was dirty, that wasn’t allowed. I went to the Buddy Dean
reunion years ago and that’s where I got the idea for Hairspray. You
know, I gave it a happy ending, with the integration. The real show was
shut down because of racial problems. In real life sometimes the white
kids would sneak into the Negro Days, but the show never integrated.
FJ: When we first heard them talk about Negro Day in the
film, it sounded so wrong, so like something we would never say.
JW: That was the respectful term back then, the way the
liberals talked. Of course, people used to say a lot worse—but we really
gave the movie the happy ending.
FJ: How did you wind up with the cameo as the Flasher in the
movie?
JW: Simple. They offered it to me and how could I turn down
the only sexual thing in the whole movie…well, maybe there were a few
other things, but I enjoyed doing that scene, right there in the beginning
of the movie. Of course I didn’t know what the movie would be like when
it was finished, but I had a good feeling about it.
FJ: Here’s a question I’m dying to ask that’s
completely off topic. What’s your take on Larry “wide stance” Craig?
JW: Well, the cop was cute, no , I’m kidding, I’ve been
in airport bathrooms and they are really so horrible, why would anybody
even think to tap his foot? Now it’s a horror story, with people going
in and looking and taking pictures there. What a comedy skit. Craig is
such a hypocrite. It made the cover of the New Yorker this week. A guy in
the stall reading about Iraq and somebody tapping his foot from the next
stall. What a comedy. I want to know if he had two shopping bags. That’s
how people used to do it, somebody standing in a shopping bag so they
couldn’t see two sets of shoes. I loved the headlines. My favorite was
“My Own Private Idaho.”
FJ: I hear there’s about to be Cry Baby, the musical, from
your 1990 movie with Johnny Depp. What can you tell me?
JW: It’s in rehearsals in San Diego for its November
opening pre-Broadway. It opens on Broadway in March. The team is terrific,
with a great cast of Broadway people. The script is by Thomas Meehan and
Mark O’Donnell, who did Hairspray and we have choreographer Rob Ashford.
The music is by David Javerbaum, who writes for The Daily Show and Adam
Schlesinger, from Fountains of Wayne. They are putting together a whole
new kind of musical.
FJ: Are there any taboos you are still aching to break on
film?
JW: No, not really. I just like to make people laugh over
things that make them nervous.
FJ: You mean like wearing white shoes after Labor Day like
Patty Hearst did in Serial Mom?
JW: I’m really conservative about that. I feel strongly
about fashion crimes—you can’t wear velvet before Thanksgiving, no
patent leather shoes before Easter, that kind of thing. Tube tops and
headbands are terrible fashion crimes.
FJ: Have you been to Rehoboth other than the festivals?
JW: Well, no. But when I was 16 I lived under the boardwalk
in Ocean City.
FJ: Tell us about your show, This Filthy World, that we’ll
be seeing here in Rehoboth on Oct. 27. There’s a film, too, right?
JW: Well its not out yet, I think its being released on
Netflix in November. I think the Rehoboth show may be one of the the last
times I do the show live...no sense doing it if there’s a DVD.
FJ: Wow. We better make sure everyone sees it. It will be a
classic night.
JW: Well, I hope people show up.
FJ: Guaranteed. Thanks for chatting with me. See you in
Rehoboth.
JW: Thanks to you—and stop by and say hello.
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