IF I COULD BE A TEEN POP STAR: An interview with Boychick director Glenn Gaylord. By Warren Curry 4/24/02 Part 3 of 3

Photos Courtesy of Brad Bergman

What are you working on now?

I'm writing a few things. The main focus right now is that I'm working with a producer who wants to get the Lost Cause feature made. The original script was written before I made the short and it's gone through about 17 drafts. Once it's at a point where both of us are really happy with it, we want to get the money raised to make it. I'm always working on about 4 or 5 things at the same time and they're all feature films. There's also a play that I'm writing.

Can you tell us about the Lost Cause feature?

Well, the short is a scene from the feature and it covers a client frustrated with this organization trying to get help. The feature takes it from a different angle. It's really about this guy who comes to work at an AIDS organization with all of the best intentions, but none of the skills, and his values become corruptible along the way until he finds himself in such a tangled mess that he has to find a way out of it. It's similar in tone to the short, in that it's looking at something from a bureaucratic sensibility. It's not about AIDS; it's about how bureaucracy can get in the way of a good thing. The real antagonist in the story is our own distractions, our own sloth, our own inability to concentrate on the tasks at hand. It's a very jaunty, funny black comedy. I kind of compare it to a John Hughes comedy tacked onto Longtime Companion with a little bit of Network thrown in there.

On a completely different note, what was it like working as a model for Tony Kaye?

Well, of course, Tony Kaye is best known for directing and ranting about his own film American History X, but he has a much more colorful history than just that. He's kind of a shock artist, like Howard Stern is a shock jock. He started out in London taking a homeless person and standing in front of a museum with a sign that said, "Homeless person, please touch." He did it as a bit of performance art/social experiment. The next step for him in upping the ante, and I think he's always looking to up his antes, is to take people with HIV, strip them down, put them naked on a couch, draw blood from them, put the vials of blood in front of them and put the same sign in front of them that says, "Please touch." He made this living art exhibit, which I took part in, and I got to sit naked on a couch in London and Los Angeles several times. In L.A., I did it in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont hotel and in London we did it in this art space and it was quite a sensation over there, because he's much better known in England; he directs big budget television commercials and is notorious there. It drew a crowd. It was kind of fun being famous for being naked in London for 15 minutes. My proudest moment was making the cover of one of their rags called The Daily Sport, which always features a naked woman in it. We were on the cover underneath a naked woman and the cover read, "Nude Horror Show." It's my proudest press moment to date.

Kaye has a reputation of being a very abrasive, ornery guy. What's he really like?

I couldn't tell you; I don't think he can tell you. He certainly has the exterior of a madman. I think a lot of it is intentional. He is dedicated to social causes in a very unique way and I respect that. I can't say that I had a lot of interaction with him where I can say that I knew him. It takes a long time to get to know a person and he kind of let us do our own exhibit. He created the space for it, the idea for it and the background for it and said, "This is your show." I'm probably not the right person to ask; I think you need to ask closer members of his family, or friends who don't like him anymore if you want the juicy stuff!

Are there any people in particular who helped on your films that you'd like to mention/thank?

Kelly Elder McGowen -- my director of photography, who, along with production designer Gene Darnell, gave Boychick a vibrant, colorful, highly polished look. Christopher S. Capp edited both shorts, and did such a great job cutting Boychick in Honolulu while he was getting his big break as the editor on the big budget feature, Final Fantasy. Also, Jamie Christopherson, the composer on both shorts, who managed to make the Boychick score seem like another character in the film.

Lastly, what's the one thing that irks you the most about the movie business?

I have more positive things to say than negative, so I'll start with the positive and have a rolling finish to the negative. I've worked on a lot of films and, by and large, met really wonderful people, was able to be part of a traveling circus for years and bonded with people in ways that I never expected to, who are still my friends. I love being part of film productions and being part of a final product that sometimes I was proud of, sometimes I laughed at, sometimes I couldn't believe I worked on, but I always got something good out of each experience. Those are the positive things. The negative side of it is that I think the culture of Los Angeles and the film business is to be as passive aggressive as you can, as often as you can, and you rarely get a honest answer from people. People are really afraid to tell you if they like something or didn't like something to your face. I'm from Ohio, so that's closer to New York and I really appreciate the very assertive, honest type of behavior that's fostered in that city. I wish that kind of carried itself 2500 miles to the west a little more often. The people that are really my friends are the people I'm able to learn from and if they didn't like something, understand why they didn't. Far too often I encounter people who are afraid to tell you their opinion. It really gets in the way of learning, improving and getting ahead. It all comes from a position of fear; people don't want to bite the hand that may possibly feed them later. That's the biggest negative.


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