LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMP Profile |
by Fay Jacobs |
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 sameyou 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 toohis 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 successwe 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 himselfand 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 locationone 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 worsebut 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 crimesyou 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 youand stop by and say hello. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 17, No. 14 October 12, 2007 |