Latest / Notable Nostalgia / 93. A conversation with Darren Stein (Jawbreaker)

Transcript

93. A conversation with Darren Stein (Jawbreaker) · Notable Nostalgia

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There's nothing to hide, Fern. You're nothing, We're everything. You're the
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shadow or the sun. But I'm here to offer you something you never dare
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dream of, something that you were never meant to be, but will be
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because today Ferne, my dear fate has decided that you were cool. I'm
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Ali, I'm Andy, I'm Jeff, and I'm Ria and this is notable
0:33
nostalgia. Hey, nostalgia nerds, this is Jeff and Andy and we have
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this very special episode for you tonight where we get to interview one of my
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personal icons, the creator, writer director of one of my favorite films of
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all time, the nineteen eighty nine film Jawbreaker. Very excited about that.
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We had a lot of fun doing this interview, and he seems like a
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really cool guy. Just you know, we say this a bunch that,
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like everybody that we have on is just really nice and no no change or
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no different and no difference for Darren. Just great. Should we just jump
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right in? Yeah, let's do it. Listeners, We have a very
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sweet treat for you. Oh oh nice a jaw dropping and jaw breaking.
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This is my last one guests on the podcast, the writer and director of
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the nineteen ninety nine film Jawbreaker Darren Stein. I I I'm trying not to
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like fan girl right now because I didn't have the I had a good experience
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when I met Julie Binns. I went with my kid to comic con here
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in Portland, and I just got really starstruck because I, you know,
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a jawbreaker obviously Desperate Housewives, dexter of course, and I made the comment
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to her, you know, it's really I was getting a little for clamped,
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and I was like, Hey, it's really just see someone your entire
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life and to see them in person. And then I made the stupid comment
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like, I know it's not the same feeling for you because you haven't met
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me until now. Yeah, she hasn't seen me, but the sweetest,
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sweetest person I've like one of this. Yeah, she was amazing. No,
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so thank you so much for being on. So we're gonna do a
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quick just get to know you if you're okay with that, just like a
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speed speed round just of random, you know, just things. So get
2:38
ready, just clear your head, Okay, okay, all right. Favorite
2:43
spice Girl Jerry Dream, actor to work with ooh to favorite horror movie,
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Alien, favorite film of all time. Hm m, that's a tough one
3:02
or just current fuck dude all time. I'm looking around for ideas. I'm
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just gonna say, for today, the Holland Drive your favorite, Oh,
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this one's more important, Okay, yogurt or pudding? Well if frozen yogurt?
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Okay, you'r Who is your icon queen of music? Oh, I'm
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wearing a T shirt Susie from Susy and the Van Cheese. Who is your
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icon queen of film? Icon queen of film? Oh, that would be
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difficult because many I'm just gonna say, like Jane Campion because she's a great
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director. And then you know, I'm sweetie. Yeah. And then and
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this when we ask all of our guests that we have on just because we
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primarily are nineties kind of early millennial podcast, what what are you most nostalgic
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for from the nineties? Oh, the movie Virgin Suicides. Oh, Smashing
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Pumpkins, Side Me's Dream. Okay, there you go. I'm nostalgic for
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like that, the like nineties bands that moment with like Sound Garden and like
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Smashing Pumpkins and like Lollapalooza and just that that whole like Riot Girl, thing.
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Yeah, and we definitely have some questions later on about some of the
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music for because your music in this film was iconic. So no think like
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I think, how we I'm all over the place, But I reached out
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to you recently because you recently celebrated the twenty fifth anniversary of job Baker,
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So congrats on that, and and just how was that just celebrating that milestone.
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It makes me feel fucking old. No, it's great. I think
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it's just the good thing about it is that I feel like the film is
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just keeps getting bigger and bigger, and it keeps standing the test of time,
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and for that, I'm very grateful. Yeah, and growing up,
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that was such an iconic movie for me, Like my mom made me watch
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Rocky Horror when I was a kid, and then I got my first copy
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of Jowbreaker on VHS and I just, you know, watched it so many
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times. And then that was like pre internet. But when I found out
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that you were or you are a gay man, that just blew my mind
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because I was this little closeted boy in like a conservative town and to realize
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that a that a gay man could lead and produce such an iconic film was
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was amazing, So feels so good. That makes my heart like swell that
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you're saying that, thank you for sharing. That means a lot to me.
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Just you're like that, You're like, that's why I did so much.
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I will personally thank you. Though as an adolescent the LOLLI the popsicle
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scene that that part of my VH has got ruined, So thank you for
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that. Like that that was the club. Yeah, I feel like we
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need to start a support group of gay guys who like found themselves to that
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scene. The first time I shared this on the reasons why I wrote it,
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I wrote it for people like you. I think you're one of the
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reasons though. I shared this on a recent episode the first time, not
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to overshare, but the first time that I had like an adult time with
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somebody, like sexy time. I knew it was going to happen. So
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I went to the store and I bought like whipped cream, and like I
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bought food because I just thought in my mind, like that's what you do
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anyways, but not cool whip though not cool. Yeah I didn't spread cool
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with but so funny. So anyways, all right, if you have the
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first question, yeah, and so you probably get this a lot, but
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our listeners might not have heard it yet. But I was reading that when
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you were younger, you and your friends kind of got into making movies and
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everything. So what got you started in writing, directing and kind of just
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creating, Like was there one movie that you saw that you're like, hey,
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I gotta do something like this or what was it. I would just
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go see movies and then I would come home and make my own version of
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it. Well, first it was like, you know, with the kids
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in the neighborhood doing little plays, and then my oh, it's my dad
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brought up brought him a video camera at the dawna video in the early I
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think he must have been the early eighties, like eighty, you know,
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seventy nine eighties. I was like nine or ten. And then when I
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started using his camera and I started making my own version to the films that
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I would see in theaters, whether that it was like Karate Kid or like
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Platoons. They were like all those eighties kind of movies, late set Popeye,
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late seventies movies, Xanda A Shop Shop Treatment was a big one.
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The Rocky Horror, Rocky Horror sequel, Love that movie that was another VHS
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I just like watched over and over again. That's awesome. Yeah. When
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I was a kid, sixth grade, I had a little video camera and
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my friends would try to make movies, and for some reason, we always
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just resorted back to musicals. We just assumed it was easier. But it's
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really hard to make a musical. So we went through that phase of were
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you part of that? When we meet jackass movies? Yeah, yeah,
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yeah assholes. Okay, So, so do you have any advice for those
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starting out brand new on like, any advice at all about creating or movies
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or anything like that. Yeah, just use your phone. I mean,
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you can do everything now on your phone. You have everything you need.
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I didn't back then. I didn't have like two K four K phones or
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editing equipment on my phone and music and everything at your dispose. Everything digital.
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Now it's so easy to do, right, Yeah, So I would
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just start making movies. Start starting now, write, write them and direct
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them, and imitate also to imitate who you you know, who you like,
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and then eventually you'll figure out sort of your own vision. But you
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know, cinema is a new technology, right, a new art form,
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so everyone homages everybody else to a certain extent, I'm going to make a
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movie called Jolly Rancher. I mean, listen, I've been imitated quite a
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bit. I will say that for sure. Yeah, how does that go
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to that? Like, how does that feel to have that like homage or
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because your film is so iconic, but how does that feel to see that
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kind of in newer films. It feels good because it feels like you've affected
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the culture and that the imagery is important enough to reference, because that's what
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that's what I was doing with Jawbreaker, you know what I'm saying. It
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wasn't just Heathers. I mean, yes, Heathers was one of many movies
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that I was like, Oh, I love I love Heathers, I love
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Carrie, I love Halloween, I love rock and Roll, High School,
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Beyond the Valley, That Doll, Rocky, Horror, Mommy Dearest, John
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Waters movies. They were all sort of in the blender of like my Psyche
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when I wrote Showbreaker, you know, So to see people using Jawbreaker now
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like that, yeah, it feels good. It definitely feels great. I
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love it, I know. And there's the line that Rose McGowan does that
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I made you and I can break you just as easily. When I was
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a kid and I heard that, I almost like ship my fucking pants,
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Like I was like, that is m love me some Rocky. I literally
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lifted that directly for Rocky. I mean, you know one, why not
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steal from the beast? Yeah, no, it's that that's that's and then
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Rocky Horror did that was their whole concept with all of you know, science
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fiction double feature like everything. Shock Treatment was kind of you know, uh,
10:35
what's it called? Like just like foreshadowing what we would happen. So
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that was kind of a little bit different. But yeah, no, I
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think it's great. And your sidebarre, Are you like friendly with the with
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the Cask Patricia Quinn? Because I see like your because I know your buddies
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with Peaches Christ who was on our podcast. Do you like to so I'm
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just curious if you associate with them. Wanted to interest me to pat when
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last christ last Christmas in London, that when she was in London, and
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I if I had gotten myself to London, I couldn't met Patricia Quinn,
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but I couldn't get there in December. But I will meet her eventually.
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No, I had. I don't. I'm not I don't know. I
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haven't met any of them. I'm not that like, I'm not that girl
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who's like, I need to get your autograph. It's not my thing,
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but I would I would love to meet. If I could meet Tim Curry,
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that'd be cool. I I am that girl because if you see my
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dog on Instagram or right there, yeah, you have to you have to.
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Sure listener, he's showing us a starring Tim Curry tattoo on his for
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that's f fabulous. I got to Tim Curry one time and I just waved
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and he looked at me. He didn't wave back, but he knows I
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exist, So I'm cool with that. This is yeah, that's fabulous.
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Well kind of he was nice about it. He was just walking. I
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don't. I don't want to make this seem like Tim Curry's an asshole,
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but I was like, oh, and I waved and he kind of looked
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and kept walking. So to a job or story, like how did you
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come up with the story and and how did you and like what inspired you
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dv use a jawbreaker? Like it is super simple like that, like how
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did you think of that? Well? I think. I had seen cult
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fiction and there's the ballgag in it, and I was like, oh,
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that'd be cool, you know, because I knew a girl who was kidnapped
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by her friends for her birthday. And I went to all boys school and
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I really wanted to have an all a co ed experience, which I couldn't.
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I didn't have, and so my experience was through movies. Right.
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But then my friend Michelle's like, oh my god, my friends are kidnapping
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me. I'm like, I want to be kidnapped. That's so cool.
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Girls are so weird and so and that's where the idea came from, was
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an actual girl in the valley and then Sina got kidnapped. But I was
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like, well, what if the Heathers is fucking bitchy girls like the Heather's
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are kidnapping and they accidentally kill her? And then I was like the ballgag,
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okay, we would teenage girls use, oh, a jawbreaker, And
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that's a great idea because it will melt in her mouth and it's mad out
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of sugar, and I can get stuck in her throat, so it could
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become a good, like inadvertent murder weapon. That's cool. That did the
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girls that inspired that part of it, Michelle, Yeah, all my inspiration,
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Like I know a girl named Courtney, you know, a girl named
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Marcy, I know the girls who kidnapped. You know, there's a lot
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of it comes out of my past and my my own upbringing. And the
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movie itself is really just my gay shame and it's it's growing up gay and
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feeling different and all the rage ahead against the world. It came out in
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the in the movie. It's my velvet rage. So that's why Jobbreakers are
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dark. And people who are other, whether you're you know, another race
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or another sexuality, or trans people or traumatized people or I don't know,
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people who've had extreme life experiences seem to resonate with it. Yeah, you
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know kind of outsider, you know, extreme kind of outsider because the movie
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kind of goes it goes in hard, definitely does. And to talk about
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like Jawbreaker, you have to run, like the the cast is so iconic
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to me, to everybody. But so if I could just like kind of
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list off some of the cast members and then whatever comes to your mind,
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it can be long, it can be short, whatever. But Rose McGowan
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number one, who I think is going to be in history books of her
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amazing. She's incredible Courtney like she was born to play the role and just
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absolutely triumphs in the film. And to this day we're like, you know,
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still friendly Rebecca gayheart, Oh go ahead, I love I love Rebecca.
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I mean, Recca's incredible, such a sweet girl. She's iconic with
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urban legend and uh and my favorite Tony from nine to two and zero.
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I love Rebecca. A great actress and funny. She's a funny, funny
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person. Yeah, she And that's a like a hard role, I think
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too. I think Courtney is a fabulous role. But what what was Rebecca's
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what's her Recca's name? In this began her Julie, Julie. That's a
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hard role too, because she's playing against the tide. Julie bins adorable and
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funny, like Marcy wasn't that funny on the page? And then when Julie
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came in audition, she suddenly brought this like complete wackiness that I loved.
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Julie's is a sweet and a lovely, good person, just just just a
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doll. Next one, Jeff Conway, Jeff was great, came to the
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set wearing I have a grease jacket like he like his hair was grease back,
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like he was kind of Kiniki when it came to the set of kind
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But Jeff's great. I mean I have kind of a crush on Kiniki when
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I was a kid. Yeah, and Grease is such an iconic movie and
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it's so much Grease and Jawbreaker, So it was so cool that he that
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he did the film. One of my earliest memories ever. He was wearing
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jeans, a white T shirt and then like these boots that I had because
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I wanted to be someone from Grease. So when I saw Kiniki and the
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screen because this is I just recently watched job Breaker, but just talked about
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it so much and I don't know, maybe every fifth episode we have,
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he brings it up, so I felt like gonna watch it. I was
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like, oh my gosh, that's CONNICKI. So yeah, that was really
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cool. The cast, like the kids are fabulous, but the casting that
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I don't know if you had how hands on. I'm assuming you were hands
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on every aspect because it's your baby, But the adult cast is iconic,
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like on a different level. One of the other quote kids, Julie Judy
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Greer. Love Judy is incredible, brilliant actress, just a great person and
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saved our ass because we we didn't have a Fern. I mean we cast
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Judy, I want to say, like a week before production started. We
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really we lucked out and she could ease like she played those two roles of
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Vio, Violette and then Fern Mayo. Is it Carol Kaine from U or
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Kane from Unbreakable? Kimmy Schmidt love her will Carol? I knew from When
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a Stranger Calls, the horror film from the eighties. Oh okay, you
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know, have you checked the children? Have you checked the children? She's
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a babysitter. It's really freaked me out. In the eighties, I made
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my own version of it, and so casting Carrol for me was really just
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straight up homage to When a Stranger Calls and the effect that film had on
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me. One that is a little bit more of a like a couple of
17:22
blinks and you might miss her. But Tatiana Ali, Tatiana is just a
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great actress. Love her, such a love, lovely person and I wish
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she had more to do in the movie. But you know, I was
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young when I wrote it. I mean, the ancillary characters didn't get enough
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good enough to do, but they still make an impact with especially like I
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don't know if you how impactful like Fresh Prince of Bellaer was, but like
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for us like nineties little kids. Yeah, seeing her in it was just
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like, oh, like I love her. And then last but not least,
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Pam Greer. Oh legend, just straight up legends. Yeah, like
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who could take down Courtney Shane. Pam fucking Greer. Oh my god,
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she's amazing. I think you have an express on casting. Yeah, I
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was. Actually I kind of want to touch a little bit on the on
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Fern Mayo just a little bit. So when you were writing that character,
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did you intentionally write for Mayo as like LGTBQ plus or and if so,
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what kind of advice would you give to someone maybe that's a modern day for
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and Mayo going through that type of stuff. Yeah, I definitely did make
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for and kind of buyas Oh yeah, for sure, she's because I love
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the that I've like. Fern definitely turns out to be lesbian, I'm sure.
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But it's funny because a lot of trans people also really relate to the
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Fern Violet arc because they see themselves in being invisible and then becoming this extra
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glamorous girl and then getting dead named and like out it as your previous self.
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And so I had no idea that there are all these trans people who
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really like got into her, into the Fern Mao story. You know.
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So in the remake, I'm working and getting a remake done. It it's
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sony. It's like a movie musical remake. And Fern is now trand she's
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Vern. She's Vern, yeah, and Courtney sort of transitions her. So
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it's a lot more stakes, her much higher. It's a lot more emotional
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and uh, and the subtext becomes the meta text. So it feels right
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to do you know No, that's great. Yeah, that's a whole another
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layer to the character. I never know when if you don't mind me asking
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when do you kind of do you have like a timeline of when we could
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see because I know that you briefly did you wrote it already because I think
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i've Yeah, it was straight and well, first we developed it as a
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musical for the stage. I mean, listen, I've been a long time
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trying to get job breaking. It has not It's been a tough road I've
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pitched it as a series, then the musical for the stage, and now
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a movie musical. But I think this one really has a really good shot.
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So it just depends on when how soon we get a green light from
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the studio. But you know they want pop stars in the roles, so
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I've already, like I've had a meeting a zoom with Chloe Bailey of Chloe
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and Haley. I mean, I'm meeting with Ken Petris in April, Like
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we're trying to get like three really cool pop girls into it. Yeah,
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do you think we could see any of our OG's in there somewhere? Oh
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yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah. Well, Judy would play Miss Sherwood
20:25
in the New Music a lot, and have like Judy playing the Carrol Caine
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role and Rebecca, and then I have to find roles for Rebecca and Julian
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Rose out to I'll have cameos for sure. That's awesome. So you're a
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director, of screenwriter, and a producer, all three leadership type roles.
20:38
So I'm kind of curious what would you say I teach. I'm assuming you
20:45
teach art or like the arts greenwriting at a FI, which is like a
20:48
graduate film program in the l A. Yeah, So how would you what
20:55
would you say your leadership style is? How do you share your vision with
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others that are also creative? How do you I'm very I'm very collaborative.
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I just think like you need to really get people excited about your vision and
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make feel heard and make it feel like a you know, like a team
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effort. So I'm very like inclusive and easy and like back and forth and
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not a tyrant at all. I was much more trannical as a kid when
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I was a little kid making movies. That's awesome, you guys. You
21:22
guys should watch. I made this documentary called Put the Camera on Me,
21:25
which you're gonna rent for a dollar on Amazon, and it's about all the
21:27
films I make gram up in the eighties. It's like seventy minutes and it's
21:30
like all footage in the movies. That is wonderful because when I was doing
21:36
some research, I was like, oh, that's really cool that I used
21:37
to do that, because I used to do that, And I was like,
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I would pay a whole year's salary if I could find those old tastes
21:42
that I made with me and my friends were our kids. So that's really
21:45
cool that you have them now, Yeah, and I'll check that out for
21:47
sure, Okay. So to help honor the research twenty fifth anniversary of Jowbreaker,
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I was super excited when I saw that Vogue wrote a really fabulous article
21:56
specifically highlighting the fashion of the film. So you can tell me more us
22:00
more in our listener about the fashion of Jawbreaker and just some of the iconic
22:07
looks specifically, like just the colors and like your choices with that, like
22:11
it was it was. I really wanted the film to be timeless and fashion
22:18
forward and not feel like typical high school. So we were pulling from like
22:22
eighties from the fifties, you know, with grease fe fetal stuff from the
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twenties, you know, Dominatrix, kind of like punk stuff, fetish stuff,
22:30
and in a little bit of nineties to creating a complete style that just
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felt like it's own world because I always loved world building and movies like Blade
22:38
Runner or like The Matrix or any kind of film even like that fully immerses
22:45
you in it. So yeah, and then the colors of the Jawbreaker that
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the bright blue, the jewel tones informed of the colors of the girl,
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so you have the red, and you have the green and the yellow and
22:56
the blue and the purple. But it all came out right straight from a
23:00
job a splattered jawbreaker. We let those colors inform the actual color palette.
23:07
That's so cool. Was it strategic at the beginning because it sounds kind of
23:10
like the jawbreaker was kind of like an organic thought, but it just kind
23:12
of yepped out, so perfect mix for your film. And it was the
23:18
idea. It was the idea of candy colored goth. Like we like,
23:21
we're very into the idea of goth and darkness and the macabre, but the
23:26
candy colored version of that. And and there's a there's a line in the
23:30
room when I think it's rose or someone says that the sweet Detative crew says
23:33
the sweetest candies are sour and his death inside. Just the idea of something
23:37
that's sweet on the surface and the dark on the inside and sour on the
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you know, just the dichotomy between the or the hard shell, you know,
23:45
just playing with all those things. How a jobmaker could kill you,
23:48
A jaw makers hard, a jawmaker gag you, But it's also sweet and
23:51
you can look at it less forever. It's confusing. It's a very confusing
23:53
candy. Yeah, it's like impossible to break under most circumstances. But if
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you're just like kind of we two, you can get to the core that
24:00
is. Yeah, that's really heavy. That's toff. Yeah that's sick.
24:04
I like that. So, like I was saying, I just finally watched
24:07
it recently, and right afterwards I was talking to Jeff. I was like,
24:11
it has like a punk feel to it, and like the colors are
24:12
so vibrant and kind of has like an anti establishment type feel to it.
24:17
So how important was the music in Jawbreaker? Because you know from you Who
24:22
by the Imperial Teens? Just so what and more? Of course, but
24:26
like what kind of what were your goals when it came to the music for
24:27
this movie. I'm very into music and very into punk. Like same,
24:32
I have a social dissortion tattoo I love. I have said Nancy tattooed about
24:37
that's awesome. Yeah, oh Nancy upside there people are like, is that
24:45
Nancy from The Craft? I'm like it could be that's so sick, but
24:52
yeah, no, I really wanted it to be rock and punk, and
24:56
like, so does everything from like Scorpions, Rocky like a Hurricane, which
24:59
more of more of an eighties vibe, to Imperial Team which is the more
25:02
nineties and Bruk Assault, and then you have stuff like Connie Francis the Lollipoplyp
25:07
which is the more sixties, or like Young at Hard at the end when
25:11
Roses like her Mescaroon slow Motion, which is more being Crosberry from like the
25:15
I think the fifties. So it runs a gamut. So I wanted the
25:19
music to be timeless, sort of similar. And then we I don't know
25:22
if you're the soundtrack, but there's like a cover of like she Bop,
25:26
some weird like deep cuts like the Cindi Laupper masturbation song from the eighties.
25:32
So I'm really wanting to homage all kinds of time periods. But it's always
25:36
rock, always punk, always edgy, always girl, girl, well guest
25:41
a little bit. And then there's a transistor dreamy song when the Girl,
25:47
when Liz comes out of the pool that was sort of an homage to all
25:51
the Cocktail Twins and the Sportal Coil and all the lush all this the four
25:56
eighties stuff I listened to in the eighties. So yeah, music was a
26:00
and I really wanted it to be prominent. And or the cars with the
26:03
good Time, roll with the good Times roll when they pop the trunk and
26:06
they like recoil from the smell the I thought the Donnas were fabulous too,
26:11
like that that having them because they were big at that time too. But
26:15
they didn't distract me from from the film at all. But oh my gosh,
26:18
one of my favorite musical moments is very brief, but it's uh when
26:23
Violette is on the trunk of the hood of the car and she's just what
26:26
is she doing? She just bopping, But I just I love it so
26:30
much, so much. She's just so free and I'm just loving it.
26:34
But that that that part was so I don't want to do that, but
26:37
I would look like an asshole. But I know we're getting pretty close sometime.
26:41
Yeah, she's inspired by like Angeline. Angeline was like this billboard queen
26:45
in the LA in the eighties, like this punk queen, platinum hair,
26:49
and she sat and she drove a pink Corvette. So I really wanted Violette
26:52
to have a pink Corvette. We couldn't get a pink Corvett Ixfen had the
26:56
budget, so we got a red red Corvette, but she wore pink and
26:57
we and she saw the platinum hair. But she's supposed to be like at
27:00
her most monstrous, she was like Liberaci meets Angeline. You know, everything
27:07
in this movie, like the details, like the from the girls' rooms are
27:11
so iconic and so like Fern's room to Julie's, like it is so everything
27:17
the everything hats off, hats off. But well, the production designer was
27:22
a guy named Jerry Fleming, and we wanted to do a modernist look with
27:26
the production design. Modernist meaning minimalist, kind of that palm Springs kind of
27:30
like retro modern vibe. So that's that's why it looks so specific. Because
27:34
Courtney's room kind of was like a Barberella vibe is very like red boudoir.
27:42
And then Julie's room has like glass like color colver glass balls behind her bed
27:47
and stuff. But we alway, there's a lot of circular imagery that we
27:49
wanted to use that we calls the shape of the jobreakers. So you're constantly
27:52
seeing spears and circles and the earrings are big like hoops. It's it's a
27:57
Master, and I would be so curious used to know what Courtney's parents were
28:00
thinking of this broad like she's she's kind of rough. I'm just curious what
28:04
they were like. I like it one of the scenes like she's she's this
28:07
way and she's just in high school or really it's like how evil is she
28:11
going to be? Yeah? So, Jawbreakers, as we all know,
28:14
is an iconic cult film of the millennial generation. So what is your relationship
28:18
with cult films and when did you realize Jawbreaker had such a huge following.
28:23
I my big, my big cult film was Rocky Horror, Rocky Horrorbitcher Show,
28:30
which I first saw in the movie Grease A Nott Grease Fame Fame was
28:33
an eighties movie. At one point they go to see Rocky Hort Midnight at
28:36
the eighth three Playhouse in New York, and I was like, what the
28:37
fuck is that? I bought the book, I had the soundtrack. I
28:42
dressed to my mother's I went trying to find fish out. She didn't have
28:45
any I wore her brown hose. It's so good. And then Mommy dearess
28:52
bitch, I like found mommy dearras. I was like, fuck, yes,
28:56
so I would say, and oh, and then John Waters so ping
29:00
Flamingo's multiple maniacs, desperate living, all the early John Waters. So I'd
29:03
say those were my My holy trin name is Rocky Horror and I'm older than
29:07
you, guys. I think you know I was born I was born in
29:08
seventy one, so those are my those were my gems. And then and
29:12
I want you to like, I want to give you your flowers. But
29:15
like Richard O'Brien is iconic, John Waters is iconic, but you are that
29:22
my generation, especially the LGBTQ people. So when you like, I think
29:26
maybe accidentally friend, like we friend. I think I have a friend requested
29:29
you and then you accepted. I'm like, he doesn't know who I am,
29:32
but we have a PGS christ in comment. And then it looks like
29:36
your buddies with someone we went to school with, Anthony Hudson, So I
29:38
think you thought I was again. Anthony Hudson, who does uh does drag
29:44
is like a local like kind of I don't know the correct term of dragon.
29:47
Yeah, he does that character in Portland, right, yeah, yeah,
29:48
yeah, So that's what I'm gonna go to hell for this. But
29:52
it doesn't matter, but like I was there, Yeah, so I so
29:56
that. Yeah, she's Anthony's he's shown jobreaker there at that big theater.
30:00
Yeah. No, he's doing fabulous things. And when Peaches, when was
30:03
on our episode, girl is so good, Like she told some pretty awesome
30:07
stories. So I appreciate that. My next she was gonna be Oh,
30:11
Carlo, Carlo Rose, Carla Rossis. So I went to a direction recently
30:17
and the governor was there and that's who was hosting it. I don't know
30:19
that was Anthony. Yeah, that's fucking crazy, weird. Okay, So
30:23
my next question was going to be about what's next for Jawbreaker, but it
30:26
kind of already sounds like we got some stuff on the works. And I
30:29
did the honor this week because I watched your movie at least like four to
30:33
ten times a year. But I did introduce my son to it. He's
30:36
twelve, and people sideye me on that, but I was ten. He's
30:41
old enough, he gets it, he gets it, and he loved it.
30:44
And I showed my daughter this movie the first time and she goes,
30:47
she loved the beginning because it builds up like it's gonna be about that girl
30:51
that dies and then she so she was like, right after that, who
30:55
you think is gonna be the main character dies? You're just guessing the entire
30:57
movie, like you can't look away from it. I was like, right,
31:00
this is a really dope movie. So yeah, and the actress I
31:02
want to give her flowers to I forget her name, but the actress who
31:04
plays uh is Yeah, she she did at Charlotte. Charlotte was in the
31:12
Rage Carrie too. She's great. I love Charlotte. I have not seen
31:15
Charlotte. I don't She's one The one girl in the movie that I don't
31:18
really have a relationship with right now is a bummer. Yeah, she's iconic
31:26
and a dead girl. Was I was actually something else? But I have
31:30
a few just like because we only have a limit of time with you and
31:33
I want to like just ask you everything in the world. So I'm going
31:36
to do a kind of another just kind of rapid fire questions. Some of
31:38
them are about Jawbreaker, and you can definitely pass if you don't want to
31:41
answer. Okay, number one was there? This is more lighthearted? Was
31:47
there a like a class clown on set? Like we're I would say,
31:52
I would say Julie Ben's Julie Ben's Okay, some of these questions I didn't
31:59
proofread. That's how professional I am. What is the best part of being
32:02
famous? I don't consider myself famous, but iconic iconic. That's kind of
32:13
a weird question to ask. Problem pass on that this will make the This
32:20
will make the next question so much easier. What is the weirdest thing a
32:22
fan has the first said to you? Well, probably the last question.
32:27
Do you get weird fans? Yeah, yeah, definitely, but they're still
32:32
fans nonetheless, so it's sweet. I love my fans. I'm so grateful
32:37
for everyone who loves the films, so I feel like, you know,
32:39
it's all good. This is a question I always have for people that are
32:44
either behind the camera in front of the camera. Are you able to watch
32:47
movies and film and TV as an audience member or are you always thinking like
32:54
what went into this or the script? Or I actually I'm able to just
33:00
sort of watch a film and really just enjoy it and detach and not not
33:04
pick it apart. No, I can. I can watch it, gotcha.
33:07
That's just not my own thing. Yeah. Yeah, And this is
33:12
again probably an awkward question, but was there any drama or tea or gossip
33:17
from the set that you are willing to share. You guys can google that,
33:22
you can figure you can find some stuff over that we could do some
33:24
dive in. Yeah, nothing nothing major. Yeah, it seemed like every
33:30
all the set photos that are not sold, there's not so but shared the
33:35
fact that we're also friends today, I think says it all like there's no
33:37
bad blood between anybody, and uh, it was fun. But I will
33:40
say, you make it like when you make it from my Jobbreaker and you've
33:44
got girls playing these roles, those click dynamics can sometimes happen on a set,
33:49
you know, just because people are in character and sure you know,
33:52
yeah, I imagine that same thing with like any to the most part,
33:58
like on a micro standpoint, like any workplace, it's a place of work
34:01
that where there's drama that that comes up. But I think that's pretty much
34:07
all of it. I feel like I'm going to regret and regret. I
34:09
regret not having additional questions. But but I don't want to keep you any
34:15
longer, but for our for our listeners listening, and they want to keep
34:20
up with you, or do you have anything that you know to keep an
34:22
eye on? No, I've got a new movie called Aunt Max that I'm
34:29
in the process of casting right now. It's it's actually the most personal thing
34:31
I've ever written. It's sort of a queer herald of Maude about this older
34:37
woman that I was friends with when I came out of the closet who lived
34:40
vicariously and wanted me to have sex and tell her all about it. But
34:45
she was married in the valley and she it wasn't weird, it was she
34:50
gave me, she accepted me and let and gave me power because she was
34:53
like this coo older woman that was like, hey, yeah, twenty one
34:57
year old. So we go to gay bars and she picked my tell people
35:00
shows my and she'd be like, my nephew thinks you're cute. So she
35:01
was like my wing women and gay bars and stuff. It's really fun,
35:06
and it's like that's that's awesome, and like every relationship is so personal and
35:08
specific to like the individuals. What's kind of the time frame for that,
35:13
do you think you remind me? Asking? Hopefully we're going to shoot it
35:16
in the fall. Fingers Crossed herold Mott is a great film. I love
35:21
that you that you pay respect to, like the films that come before and
35:23
draw from your personal experience. And that's just such a cool sense of community
35:29
to us, kind of like outcasts too. I love that. Yeah,
35:32
John was really made. You know. I definitely wanted to write the film
35:36
that I wanted to see when I was in high school like that. That's
35:37
why I wrote the big stick scene, because I was like, fuck,
35:39
you know, I want to see a queer coded sex scene and I couldn't
35:43
make it overtly queer. So I was like, oh, I'll just have
35:45
a rose, you know, make him give head to this big stick,
35:47
you know, this popsicle the one of my feet. Yeah, that was
35:52
that. If I wasn't gay before that, lad Day. Uh. My
35:58
favorite line from the film, if I had to choose one, is and
36:01
if you mind getting it specific, but fer and Mao, Liz Perr and
36:07
then the meowing that's that's that's my favorite. Do you have a favorite line
36:14
from uh? From Jawbreaker? I like them all. They're fun, Yeah,
36:22
you know, I like I like the whole like cafeteria, that weird
36:24
speech that Roe says about flagellation and like digestion, defecation, like that all
36:30
those record words is fun and I love the whole like makeover thing, which
36:35
he's like where the shadow, you're the shadow or the sun. That's that's
36:37
a fun that scene that was me trying to be like Shakespearean, you know,
36:42
that scene in general. That's like I don't know what the proper terminology
36:45
is, but I call it like the theater of the absurd, like just
36:47
kind of over the top, just I don't know, like whimsical. That
36:52
scene where she is going through the makeover is so awesome, Like it's so
36:57
I don't know what else to say, but it's beautiful. It's like theater.
37:00
I don't know. You did, you did really good. But again,
37:02
I don't need to give your flowers, but I do want to say
37:05
again, thank you so much for being a part of the podcast tonight.
37:07
Thank you for creating this film and creating other iconic films and just being a
37:13
representation, especially to you know, us little gay boys in the nineties.
37:16
So pleasure you guys. Thank you for having me on, and I really
37:21
appreciate it. You know, you guys have been great. I loved your
37:22
questions and your enthusiasm and a lot to me. Thank you. We'll have
37:27
a good have a good night. Okay, pleasure meeting you too, guys.
37:30
Bye, And that was our interview with Darren Stein. So, Jeff,
37:37
after actually finally meeting him talking to him, did he live up to
37:40
what you pictured in your head? Will you? How? How do you
37:44
feel like it went? I think it was really I really tried to stay
37:47
present during it not get too wound up, and I think I composed myself
37:52
pretty well. I was maybe at like a seven or eight instead of a
37:54
nine or ten, So I think I killed it there, Yeah you did.
37:58
And just talking to somebody and seeing him via you know, internet,
38:01
world wide Web. It was very surreal a little bit, but I just
38:07
tried to stay present. And it was like I was saying during the during
38:12
the interview, to have you know, growing up, I was into rocky
38:15
horror and uh, you know, cry Baby and Pink Flamingoes, which shouldn't
38:21
have been watching at that end of age. And these icons of John Water
38:25
he they were a little bit more further removed. And then for him,
38:30
who was a little bit more in our generation, for him to be a
38:34
gay man who's creating film and leading and creating one of my favorite films,
38:39
it was just he means a lot to my childhood, and it was interesting
38:45
to discuss the movies that he pulled from and paid homage to, and then
38:50
the ones that came after, like Being Girls, So the ones that came
38:52
prior, like Heather's I think the Craft came out around the same time,
38:58
but just that there is the kind of this sense of community rather than rivalry.
39:02
Sure, and I think that's really special. And I think that this
39:06
resurgence of this kind of genre with like the Mean Girls musical coming out and
39:10
now finally like that there will be some jawbreaker like update which sounds fabulous.
39:17
Yeah, with the ogs and then the more of like the the Transit or
39:22
story arc. I think that's gonna be gonna be fabulous. Well, I
39:24
love too the part where he talked about him just like remaking the movies he
39:29
saw as a kid, because I wanted to keep talking about myself because he
39:31
doesn't like talking about myself. Right, But when I was a kid,
39:34
I used to have this little tape recorder and I'll watch Conan O'Brien and I
39:37
would just redo the skits on my little tape recorder. Yeah, so I
39:39
totally understand that feeling of like, oh my gosh, I want to recreate
39:43
that, you know. So it's just really cool, you know. But
39:45
it makes sense that what you're talking about, like the John Waters and everything,
39:49
because when they were making movies, most of those movies can before you
39:52
were like even porn, so it is hard to kind of relate. So
39:55
yeah, having this show up in your lifetime, especially at that you're like
40:00
ten or eleven, yeah, right around there. So yeah, very important.
40:02
Really cool guy, like I said before, and his tattoos are dope.
40:05
That's that's really cool too. So yeah, and for the listeners,
40:07
one of my favorite hobbies of doing the podcast is to see when we have
40:12
guests on what their home looks like. I love that he had the Audrey
40:15
Hepburn poster behind him, like just like I loved his that's my creepy vibe.
40:20
But I love too the just the origin story of the kidnapping in the
40:24
movie, the use of the jawbreaker and how beautifully that simple prop can just
40:32
transform how the movie looks and feels, and like the colors and the vibrancy,
40:37
if that's a word. And I love that, so it was He's
40:40
an artist for sure. No, yeah, yeah, all right, listeners,
40:45
Well, thank you so much for joining us. Please leave us a
40:50
five star or one star or whatever Apple podcast review. Find us on social
40:55
media's andy, do you have anything to promote? Oh no, just make
41:00
sure you give us a five star review. Oh yeah, good call.
41:05
But now Avengers season two or The Averager season two is coming soon. Yeah,
41:08
so check that out and you know, maybe leave us a five star
41:12
review, but then say horrible shit about us. That would be. That
41:15
would be. That's a good compromisation right there. And then if you want
41:19
to look at pictures of my chiuahua for some reason, Gus Gus Underscore the
41:22
Dog. And then if you haven't, go out and it's on Amazon Prime
41:27
right now, Jawbreaker. I think it's like three point fifty to buy,
41:31
So just go ahead and do yourself with a favor and just watch it and
41:35
buy it, and then keep an eye on Darren Stein's social media is for
41:39
other projects that he's working on. Yeah, and I don't I'm gonna plug
41:43
it again, but I'm really interested in that documentary he has called Camera on
41:45
Me. Yeah, so yeah, I'm gonna watch that tonight, so you
41:47
should watch it as well. That's gonna be Nostalgic to watch for sure.
41:51
Yeah, well until next time. I'm Jeff, I'm Andy Shane. Bye,
42:01
all right, don't just like the taboons of the notable. Nostalgia is
42:08
a production of Big Door Prize Media. You can find us links to our
42:13
social pages and other podcasts on the network at Bigdoor Prize dot com slash podcast.
42:19
This podcast is produced by me Ali and edited by both myself and Andy.
42:23
Our logo was created by Aaronughock of uglyhowk dot com. If you can
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