Interviews

In 1993, The Independent ran a story about The War Room, directed by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker. The film followed Bill Clinton’s 1992 election campaign from inside campaign headquarters.

Writer, producer, and film executive James Schamus has had about as brilliant a career in independent film as they come, and it just keeps getting better.

Larry Clark’s films are shocking. There’s Kids, about drug-using, AIDS-carrying,
sexually active Manhattan teenagers; Bully, the true story of a group of teens who
murder their tormentor; and Ken Park, which was so sexually explicit, it was never released in the U.S. These films are shocking because they capture a reality most people don’t want to know exists.

Rosario Dawson was sleeping when I arrived on the set of Descent at Brooklyn’s Galapagos bar/gallery on a slushy morning in December. I had come to interview Dawson and her Trybe production company partner and longtime friend, Talia Lugacy. But Lugacy was busy directing the film’s “club scene,” and thus also unavailable, so I waited in the cavernous extras quarters next door.

Five years ago, when Deepa Mehta was about to start making her film Water in the holy city of Varanasi, India, 11 people stood outside the set and threatened to light themselves on fire. Weeks before, protesters had stormed the film’s set on the banks of the river Ganges and destroyed it, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

If you’ve seen a John Sayles movie, you know who David Strathairn is. Sadly, if you’ve not seen a John Sayles movie, you’re much less likely to have ever even heard of David Strathairn. He’s one of those I-know-I’ve-seen-him-somewhere actors that every once in a blue moon will pop up in a studio film like, say, Losing Isaiah (1995), but is more likely to be seen in an independent film you stumble across on the Sundance or IFC channels, or at a festival, which most likely will end up being the only place the film is ever screened.

Earlier this year, I got a call from a friend of a friend—a former executive producer of a children’s television show. He asked me, “Are you interested in writing for television?”

Ryan Gosling brought me flowers when we met for this interview on a hot Sunday in July. Our earlier scheduled meeting had gone awry, and he was feeling badly for his part in the miscommunication. I don’t mind saying that I loved the gesture or that I’m a huge fan of Gosling’s work—even before he brought the flowers.

I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I did not know exactly why I was to meet the actress Bai Ling at Playboy Enterprise headquarters to conduct our interview for this issue. Although somewhat less embarrassed to say that neither did I know she was in the final Star Wars installment, which opened in May amid shameless commercial promotion.