John Waters in conversation with Victor Fraga and Alex Babboni

Part One /

[Victor Fraga] When we interviewed Peter Greenaway for our penultimate issue, he said “If I was beginning to make films now, I would concentrate on my first ambition, which was to be a painter.” You haven’t made films in a very long time. Do you agree with Greenaway? If you were to start making films nowadays, would you do something else instead?

[John Waters] I already have started doing something else instead! Really, I’m a writer: that’s what I do. I’ve written every movie, every spoken word show, all my books. What I do is write: it doesn’t matter to me in which area I do it, because they’re all the same to me. I’m just telling stories. I have got movie deals that didn’t happen since ‘A Dirty Shame’[2004]. I was paid three times to write different sequels to ‘Hairspray’ [1988]: the musical, the TV show, everything. And I’ve also had other projects that were developed but didn’t happen. So, I’m still participating in that system but the books do really great. My new book comes out in May, the first novel I’ve ever written. I have to write something every day. I have to think up something. It doesn’t matter which genre. And I’m glad that Peter Greenaway… because I love his movies. And I love his soundtracks too: they’re really haunting and scary and drive people away. You can put some of them on if you want guests to leave [laughs]. That and the soundtrack to ‘Irreversible’ [2002] by Gaspar Noé. Put that soundtrack on and you have people running out of the house. [laughs]

[Fraga] That’s great.

[Waters] And I had many careers, anyway. I had art shows. You always need a back-up career that is just as important to you. If I couldn’t make a movie, I’d write a book. If I couldn’t write a book, I’d do an art show. If I couldn’t do this, I’d do public speaking. I would never just have one career but I would never call them a hobby: that means you’re a dabbler. [laughs]

[Fraga] That’s very controversial. Can you expand on that a little bit?

[Waters] A hobby means that it’s not real. It’s not how you make your living. It’s not how you get up every day and go to work. A hobby is what you do when you’re off work. I don’t have hobbies: they’re for losers.

[Fraga] Do you think cinema has changed? Well, naturally film has changed a lot ever since…

[Waters] There are still great movies. Every year I make my “10 Best” movies list. You can look at it and see what I picked this year. ‘Annette’ [2021] was my favourite movie of the year. I like movies that are arty and cause trouble. I think there are still great movies. I very much fear for art cinemas because the one group of audience that has not come back is people 50 and over and that’s who went to art movies, I’m afraid. I don’t think young kids care two hoots about art movies, to be honest. It proved it when they all did go back to see ‘Spider Man’, which I have no interest in. So, I am being a snob, I am a snob. I’ve never played a videogame in my entire life, and I hope I never do. I don’t understand science fiction. I never saw ‘Star Wars’: it’s probably good but I don’t get it. I did watch ‘Dune’ [2021] because I try to be fair voting for all the awards and I liked it. I had no idea what they were talking about, the whole movie. But I liked the costumes. And I think Timothée Chalamet pulled it off without being a twink, which is tough for him. And I would think, after watching him be in that child-molesting movie [laughs] that everyone loved.

[Fraga] You recently said that you feel pessimistic about American independent films but not about European ones.

[Waters] The difference is in Europe the government helps you pay for them. In America, the government tries to stop you: it’s very different. Even in Canada, David Cronenberg can get money to make a movie. In Europe all the directors I love – Gaspar Noé, Bruno Dumont, François Ozon – they all get some money from the government, which I think is good. I’m glad they do: I wish they did it here. That’s the difference.

[Fraga] Does that mean that only European movies can be truly independent? American movies can never really boast independence?

[Waters] As far as independent film finance in America, you have to pretend that they’re going to make a lot of money – and talk like they’re going to – even though you know they won’t. [laughs] In other words, you have to believe they could. I believed every one of my movies was going to make money and, to be honest, I’m surprised some did and some didn’t. But I did my best to make them make money. You can’t really expect to keep going if they don’t make money. In America, the executives that green light your movie: if it doesn’t make money, they get fired. They’re not doing it for art. They don’t care about film festivals. Their job is to make money. So, I understand it’s a very different business. Europe was always incredibly good to me – specially France, more than anywhere, and England too. Cannes was so great for me, Gilles Jacob used to pick all my movies for Cannes. I have no complaints about show business. I was treated fairly in Hollywood too. They give you a lot of money. If they give you a lot of money, they’re going to say stuff: it’s just a common math problem that you should learn in 6th grade. The more money you get, the more they’re going to say. If you don’t want any notes, make a movie on your cell phone. If you want to buy a house, you’re going to get notes.

[Fraga] If you were to remake ‘Pink Flamingos’ [1972] nowadays, how would it be different?

[Waters] Oh, I wouldn’t remake it. I would’ve done the sequel ‘Flamingos Forever’: it came out as a book, it never did get made as a movie. That’s what I would do. It would be even harder today to make because it would definitely be NC-17 – what used to be an X-rate – which nobody wants anymore. ‘Pink Flamingos’ just got named for the National Film Registry as one of the greatest American films in America, I don’t know if you saw that, which is hilarious to me, hilarious! It’s probably even worse now than it ever was because of the so-called political correctness. You’re not even allowed to call someone ‘fat’ now. And in ‘Pink Flamingos’… in all my movies people say horrible stuff to each other. They’re the villains! I think they should be allowed to say horrible stuff. They get punished in my films. They always lose in my films. The right people win in my films. So I think even ‘Pink Flamingos’ is politically correct. I would never kill an animal in a movie like we did in that movie, but we bought a chicken at a place where people killed it to eat it and we did eat it and fuck it. And made it famous. Well, is that morally wrong? I don’t know. Maybe now, I wouldn’t do it today, but I’ll stick up for that scene. Danny Mills, who played Crackers, ate that chicken. So, the cycle was complete. As long as you’re not in PETA and don’t eat meat at all.

[Fraga] Fair enough.

[Waters] I actually think PETA is right. Even though I eat all… I have no food issues, I eat steak tartare, I eat foie gras! But at the same time it is barbaric to eat animals. I think eventually, one day, people won’t, when they get more sophisticated. But then PETA goes crazy – it makes me laugh. This year they said that the word ‘pet’ is derogatory to your animal, the same way that ‘chick’ is to women. [laughs] You can’t call your dog a pet: that’s politically incorrect. Now that, to me, is hilarious but I like the extremes they go to. Except Ricki Lake once was a PETA member and she was picketing a Karl Lagerfeld shop because of fur and they arrested her with her boyfriend and PETA got her out but left the boyfriend in jail because he wasn’t famous. [laughs]

[Fraga] You just said it’s barbaric eating animals. Is it barbaric eating animals’ feces?

[Waters] No, because that’s recycling, isn’t it? [laughs]

[Fraga] If you were doing ‘Pink Flamingos’, who would you cast as Babs?

[Waters] Johnny Knoxville.

[Fraga] I thought you were going to say Donald Trump.

[Waters] No, I would never put him in anything. I would never even make fun of him in a movie because it dates it. It completely dates the movie. ‘Pink Flamingos’ is difficult to place fifty years later. There’s one Nixon shot in there as a joke that still works. But if you use current-day politics in any movie, you date it. You make it harder for it to be timeless – even in a bad way.

[Fraga] What about Crackers?

[Waters] I tried to get David Mills to be in ‘Female Trouble’ [1974] and he wouldn’t do it because when he made the movie he was hiding from draft dodging and he never knew that it was going to get all this attention all over the world, so, he was really nervous when it came out. So, he had had it with show business: he didn’t want to go further. I would find somebody new, another unknown actor. I always thought that Britney Spears’ boyfriend Kevin Federline, the one that everybody hated, I said in the press that I wanted to have a date with him. I thought he was cute, and he called! He thought it was funny. So, I always liked him. When Federline was young, maybe he could’ve played Crackers.

[Fraga] Maybe he could be Crackers – is that what you’re saying?

[Waters] He’s a little elderly to play Crackers. I did a kiddy version of ‘Pink Flamingos’ [‘Kiddie Flamingos’_ 2015], maybe I could do one in an old age home, and have all old people playing the parts. Mamie Van Doren is still alive: maybe she could play Divine. Who would be Crackers? Umm, that’s a good one… Joe Dallesandro! He could play Crackers.

[Fraga] What about the Marbles?

[Waters] The Marbles… Linda Hunt [laughs] I think she would be good. And we could always have the resurrection in it, they could come back. You know, I always have spirituality in my films. Who could be David Lochary from beyond the grave? David Niven.

[Fraga] Who is the filthiest person alive right now?

[Waters] You’re asking on February 28th. I would say Putin would be the filthiest person alive today. And Trump definitely was but neither of them are funny or original. Hillary wasn’t funny. All those types are not funny. David Lochary and Mink Stole’s characters were so ridiculous: they dyed their pubic hair punk colours before there was such a thing as punk. They sold heroin to children in inner-city elementary schools. That’s so ludicrous, I don’t even know that anybody does that today. So, in a way, they were original in their villainy. Putin and Trump just follow a fascist line that’s pretty predictable and boring.

[Fraga] Despite your affection for European auteurs, you have never made a film in London, in the UK or in Europe. Why is that?

[Waters] Because Baltimore is a character in my movies. The very first thing I do when I’m writing a script is figure where they live in Baltimore and go to those houses. Baltimore has just been such a character in my films and it’s so hard to make a movie anyway. It’s so much easier to go home to your house at night: I know where everything is. Pat Moran [who cast all my movies] and Vincent Peranio [who did all my production design] lived here. So, the main players lived here too and New York wasn’t that far away. I would’ve made a movie in a foreign country… I mean, a French distributor paid for ‘Cecil B. Demented’ [2000]. Nobody ever wanted me to make it anywhere else: that was never an issue, even with the studios because we’ve had good film offers, we had the city really cooperating when you’re making films here. I think it was later, when I was trying to get this children’s movie called ‘Fruitcake’ made, that there was competition with different film bureaus, it was like a yard sale. Michigan was the cheapest, so I thought “well, I guess if I had to make it in Michigan I would.” I always said there’s no place that looks like Baltimore but when they made the remake of ‘Hairspray’ [2007] with John Travolta, they found a place in Canada that looked exactly like Baltimore [laughs], so that sort of ruined my argument because there was a place there that did almost look exactly like it.

[Fraga] If you were to make a movie in Europe, which place has most affinity with Baltimore? Does Baltimore have a twin city in Europe?

[Waters] After Covid, they all look a little like Baltimore [laughs] but I would say it’d be easier in London – at least they speak English: that would help. England has the same sense of humour, it has rockabilly, it has that 50s kind of thing. So, I would think London would probably be the closest to Baltimore – although I don’t know other places well enough to know that. I know Baltimore so well. I love Italy and I’m sure there are places in Rome that are like Baltimore but I don’t know them. I don’t know the right places: so, it was just easier because in Baltimore I know where everything was. I know all the locations.

[Fraga] Baltimore is a character in your movies. How would you describe that character? Is it a villain or a hero?

[Waters] Baltimore is a hero. Everyone knows my films are made in Baltimore. And audiences that are my age and have grown up with my films, they’ve grown up with Baltimore the same way they’ve wanted it in all my movies. They’ve grown up with her, they’ve gotten older with her on screen. Baltimore is just a giving kind, that I would feel disloyal if I made a movie somewhere else, I would feel like I was cheating, really, on a lover.

[Fraga] It isn’t such a bad thing cheating on a lover every now and then, is it?

[Waters] Oh, I never do that. If I’m with somebody I’m pretty faithful. What’s the point then? Don’t be with them, you know. I don’t get open marriages.

[Fraga] You can be polyamorous. What about free love?

[Waters] I don’t know. I’m not the type.

[Fraga] When I interviewed you in 2016, you said “If we ever remade ‘Pink Flamingos’, I would get Trump to play Lady Divine.” Is that still the case?

[Waters] I’m surprised I said that because I think Trump ruined bad taste. Even bad taste isn’t funny anymore after him. He did it so badly and his taste wasn’t clever or funny. It was just dreary. He’s the ultimate ‘hair hopper’. A ‘hair hopper’ is someone that pretends they have more money than they do; spend too much time on their hair; and likes to brag about their non-existent wealth. That’s him.

[Fraga] Lady Divine did dream of world domination, didn’t she?

[Waters] Yes, she did. I think Trump should play Edith’s character in ‘Desperate Living’ [1977], the fascist queen. I mean, Trump almost did ride around his limousine going “Hi stupid”, “Hi ugly”. There were things online that would show that scene of ‘Desperate Living’ of Edith doing that and then cut to Trump waving from the limo. It was very simple. I think Trump was way more like Queen Carlotta than he was like Divine.

[Fraga] You have made very little money from your films, from what you said.

[Waters] That isn’t true, I made lots of money on the Hollywood ones. Hollywood didn’t make money. [laughs]

[Fraga] One way or the other, you are considered an auteur and you have often talked about not getting enough money to make your films. Your early films were paid on a shoestring budget…

[Waters] No, I never said that I didn’t get enough money: I made them. You never have as much money as you want to make. Even Spielberg: he probably didn’t have enough money to make ‘West Side Story’ [2021]. If it is a one hundred million dollar budget, they always need a hundred and ten million to make them. You always need a little more. I look back, ‘Pink Flamingos’ cost ten thousand dollars, which today might be forty thousand. That’s not nothing. Specially because my father lent it to me and I paid him back. I don’t have many complaints about what happened to me. When you start out you have to struggle to make money: it’s the kiss of death. In Hollywood what happens is you make one hit and it makes money: then Hollywood studios offer you to direct ‘Batman’ or something for some huge amount of money. Of course you say ‘yes’, you don’t know enough to say ‘no’. Then they think they control every movement, and every bit of originality they hired you for is taken away: the movie flops and your career is over.

[Fraga] Do you think there’s a correlation between money and subversiveness? That the most subversive films are the ones made on a small budget?

[Waters] No, I thought ‘The Joker’ [2019] was subversive. I think you can be subversive and make money. ‘The Human Centipede’ [2009] didn’t cost nothing. I think ‘Salò’ [1975] didn’t cost nothing. No, I don’t think it has anything to do with money. It has to do with nerve and just the urge to startle in an original way.

[Fraga] Do you think that if you made ‘Pink Flamingos’ now, you’d be allowed to have the singing anus, the dead chicken, and the coprophagia – i.e. eat shit?

[Waters] If they were going to make ‘Pink Flamingos’ there would be no point not to have that stuff in it because that’s what it’s famous for. The singing anus was joyous. The real obscene things are the artificial insemination scene – that’s pretty disgusting. The incest scene with Divine and her son was so ludicrous but that would be very politically incorrect today. ‘Pink Flamingos’ was hippie incorrect, the same thing as political correctness, just a different time. It was made for hippies, we made fun of hippies but we lived in the hippie world and we were hippies. We were just punks and we didn’t know it yet. The same thing today: I make fun of political correctness, but I think I am politically correct. I make fun of myself first, and that is the first thing you have to do if you want to get away with being subversive, I think.

[Fraga] I feel like you can’t be politically incorrect in American cinema. However, there is a precedent on TV: ‘Family Guy’ is incredibly subversive and they do take the piss of everything. I don’t see an equivalent in American cinema.

[Waters] ‘Red Rocket’ [2021] by Sean Baker. I really love the movie and I think he got robbed for the Oscars because it brought back the male gaze. Really, it was one of the only movies that dared to have the male gaze anymore. But there is such a thing: that means it shouldn’t be off. I think that movie was penalised for that.

VF: Did you like ‘Tangerine’ [2015]?

[Waters] I loved all of them! Well, I think the most politically incorrect thing of all is trans people calling women ‘fish’. To me, that’s even more offensive than anti-trans jokes.

[Fraga] Did you meet Pasolini?

[Waters] I never met him, no. I did meet Fellini but not Pasolini.

[Fraga] On March 5th it’s Pasolini’s 100th birthday. Let’s imagine he was still alive. Don’t tell me he wouldn’t be working, because we have Manoel de Oliveira, a Portuguese filmmaker, working well past his 100th birthday. If Pasolini was still alive, what type of films do you wish he would be making?

[Waters] That’s a tough one. I wish he would go get all the young beauties. You know, Pasolini loved boys with pimples. I did an art piece about that. All his boyfriends that he liked had pimples. So, maybe he would make a movie called ‘Pimples’ that would be about the cutest young men that have pimples, alive today, having an orgy and reliving their times. I read recently interviews with some of the kids [and they were kids, they were under 18] in ‘Salò’ naked, eating shit which – unlike ‘Pink Flamingos’ – it was chocolate. They talk about what a great time they had, how Pasolini was so nice to them. And they’d say ‘Cut!’ and everybody would start laughing. They had such a great time making ‘Salò’. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful movie to fictionalize – the making of ‘Salò’ like you were there? Can you imagine that happening today? My god, you can’t kiss somebody in a movie today without coaches there, making sure you are comfortable. So, it would be a very different time but Pasolini was so handsome, he would’ve aged incredibly well. And I wonder: is Froggy alive? The house servant that killed him? [Giuseppe ‘Frog” Pelosi, 1928 – 2017]

[Fraga] I don’t know.

[Waters] He was ugly. Pasolini had better nights than that one. It’s too bad he had to die with that one. That was the ugliest trick Pasolini ever had. But still, I think he definitely got out. I wonder if he’s alive. I hope he dies on the day of Pasolini’s birthday. No, maybe the day before.

[Fraga] I’ll tell you who’s still alive: Terence Stamp from ‘Teorema’ [1968].

[Waters] Oh, I saw Terence Stamp once. I got on an elevator at the Chateau Marmont and we were going out: the door opened and Terence Stamp walked on. And it was so great. I felt like I was in ‘Teorema’ [laughs] I thought he was going to start going crazy, levitating and everything. He still looks great. That’s what I mean, Pasolini would get all the young beauties that were in his movies and have a reunion. And have all the kids there that ate shit in ‘Salò’ and they can have a party.

[Fraga] Wonderful. How has your work been received in Italy?

[Waters] It was the hardest place. First of all, American comedies work the least in Italy. They always dub them. They always change the title. ‘Hairspray” [1988] was called ‘Fat is Beautiful’ – that’s the Italian title. ‘Punk Story’ was the name of ‘Desperate Living’ They always change the titles, which is unfortunate. I’ve had a great time there: I was honoured in the Rome Film Festival in the middle of the Pandemic. But, for me, of all the European countries, Italy was the hardest to cross.

[Fraga] I don’t think any filmmaker has ever done again some of the things in your movies. For example, the shit-eating and Divine literally fucking himself.

[Waters] There would be no point in someone literally eating dog shit again. [laughs] Unless it was really arty. That idea would work in the art world, not in the movie world. I love when Gus Van Sant remade ‘Psycho’ [1998] with the same shots: that was really an arty idea that he did. He should have done that more in the art world than in the film world, but I thought it was a brilliant art idea.

[Fraga] Isn’t it a little boring?

[Waters] I didn’t say what it was like to watch it. In the art world, it’s the idea that counts. In the movie business, it’s the experience that counts. It should have been in an art gallery, not a movie theatre.

[Fraga] Yeah, and it’s shot by shot.

[Waters] That’s what makes it even better: that he didn’t try to change it. He did the exact same thing. Gus Van Sant had it as a really good art idea. Some people rewrite their books over and over and they’re never finished. Gore Vidal always did that. To me, once it’s done it’s done. Then the audience gets mad if you change it: they say it’s not the original one and blah-blah-blah.

[Fraga] Town & Country magazine interviewed you for their 175th anniversary issue. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[Waters] Town & Country is one of the most old-school, old-money fashion magazines. It was so ludicrous that I was on the cover of that: it was like a joke, it looked like a parody. Town & Country is famous for old money and good taste. And to be on the cover of that would’ve made my mother extremely happy because I was raised to try to be that. And that was everything I rejected, but I had to learn those rules to understand how to make fun of good taste.

[Fraga] Your movies have more to do with the redneck culture.

[Waters] Well, certainly I celebrated redneck culture more than I did Town & Country culture. If anybody was like Town & Country in my movies, they were always the villains. Mink Stole in ‘Desperate Living’, basically, was kind of that in the beginning and then she decides to run away to Mortville, the worst place where she could possibly live. I think that the redneck culture was pretty much always glorified and turned into high fashion in my movies, definitely. The pink flamingo was a thing that a lot of rednecks do have on their front lawn. But I didn’t think Divine acted like a redneck at all. Divine’s character was… confident – that’s what I would say. Confident and happy with their choices, which is all my heroes have, even if those choices are very wrong. In ‘Pink Flamingos’ they weren’t rednecks, they were upper lower class. [laughs] They didn’t care about money, they cared about filth. They were middle-class filth whereas Divine was high-class filth.

[Fraga] In ‘Desperate Living’ the characters are rednecks and they have a black maid, Griselda.

[Waters] It was filmed in my parents’ house. [laughs] I would say that it was upper middle class. And we had a black maid, yes.

[Fraga] When she takes a telephone call at the beginning…

[Waters] That’s my parents’ bedroom. And my parents allowed me to use it. Do you know when that ball smashes through the window? That was antique original glass in that house. But my parents were very understanding. They loved that whole scene. That’s my parents’ house, that’s where I grew up.

[Fraga] And who were the naked children having sex?

[Waters] They weren’t really having sex.

[Fraga] Of course not! But that’s the line in the film.

[Waters] But that scene could never be filmed today. The boy was Pat Moran’s son Brook, who now has a very successful career as a prop master in big Hollywood movies: he works all the time. The little girl, I don’t know, she was someone’s friend. I don’t know her name. And she was paid: I think everybody got twenty-five bucks each. They never cashed the checks: they have the checks somewhere as a souvenir. I guess it’s her first pay. And that scene was totally innocent: when we shot them, Mink Stole wasn’t even in the room. She wasn’t yelling at the children, you know, it was totally that one shot. It could never be done today, never ever.

[Fraga] We live in an age when an increasing number of people are calling themselves non-binary. At the Oscars, it’s still ‘best actor’ and ‘best actress’. But other festivals [Berlin, San Sebastian] give performance prizes – no longer male and female prizes. Is that a step forward or a step backwards? Are we becoming more accepting or more intolerant?

[Waters] I think it’s a step forward for sexual politics and a step backwards for humour. First of all, I watched the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards last night. Why is everyone an actor? Why is there no such word as ‘actress’ anymore? I don’t understand. And then they say ‘best female actor.’ Isn’t that an actress? Is ‘actress’ now a word that’s politically incorrect? I don’t understand that. However, I go along with it. It’s not the end of the world. To me, it’s even more confusing when they say ‘best male actor’: an actor is a male. However, I do understand where ‘best acting’ maybe would have no sex. That it would be, say, Meryl Streep run against De Niro as ‘actor in a lead role in a movie’ – that I can see, for political… That is the future, I think. But changing words, I don’t get what’s the matter with it. The reason they changed it is not because of trans, it’s not because it’s a different thing. I mean, that would be ‘best them’ or [laughs] I don’t know, it gets really confusing. And I do believe that everybody should be open to play any role. I think a gay man should be able to play a straight man. They’ve been playing straight people for years and nobody complained. I think a straight man should be able to play a gay person; I think a non-trans should be able to play a trans – as long as the role was open to trans actors.

[Fraga] Almodóvar did that, didn’t he?

[Waters] Yeah, I think Divine would’ve wanted to play the dog in ‘Pink Flamingos’ if he could. I think everybody should be able to do it. It’s called ‘acting’, you should be able to play any part. I think everybody should be up for it. I think you should read everybody for it. You don’t have to be a man to read for a woman’s part either: everybody should be open to it but not ‘have to do.’ ‘Halston’ [2021], the TV show, was pretty great. I thought a straight actor playing Halston was totally fine.

[Fraga] You don’t really have a problem with what they call ‘transface’. It’s the transsexual equivalent to ‘blackface’. It’s when you get a ‘cis’ actor to play a transsexual character. Something Pedro Almodóvar did in the eighties 80s.

[Waters] I don’t have anything against a cis person playing a trans, a gay. The only thing I do sometimes wonder is why they get people in fatsuits – that is the ‘blackface’ for fat people.

[Fraga] LGBTQIAP – it’s eight letters right now. Have we become more accepting of non-normative sexualities and genders or is this just virtue signalling?

[Waters] It’s a class issue. [laughs] I think I’m for everybody being whatever they want. I don’t care, I think you can change your mind: this day you want to be a woman; this way you want to be non, but this you want to be that… I don’t care as long as you’re happy being what you want to be! I have this in my spoken word show. I’m happy! I didn’t know half the world was trans but… Good! Am I a woman? It’s too late, I never thought that. I always say that I look for the right pronoun to check and the one I would have if I could is the royal we. It’s not one that you can pick. I’m for everybody being what they want. Everybody’s sexuality is funny except your own.

[Fraga] Why is that?

[Waters] Because everybody’s more touchy about their sexual personality, I think. It’s much easier to make fun of other people’s sexuality than it is to make fun of your own sex life.

[Fraga] Is that the reason why you’ve never been a major character in any of your movies?

[Waters] I don’t know. I was in ‘Hairspray’ and I hated being in it – I mean, going to get costume and make-up while I’m trying to direct a movie is just inconvenient for me. I don’t mind being in other people’s movies: I do that all the time. But my own movie, no, it’s hard enough. I got enough duties on the set today – as a writer, director, oh god. Yeah, I only did it once in ‘Hairspray’ and never did it again. That was the reason: it just added too many duties to the middle of a day while I’m trying to work as a director.

[Fraga] And it’s not because of your sexuality?

[Waters] Sexuality has nothing to do with casting. When I cast somebody, it doesn’t really matter to me. In ‘Cecil B. Demented’ those who played gay people were straight and those that played straight people were gay. I did that on purpose just to confuse people, to create confusion in sexuality. And I think it adds to comedy.

[Fraga] Ulrich Seidl, the Austrian filmmaker, is my favourite living director. I know you’re a huge fan as well. I see Ulrich Seidl as John Waters minus the campness. Would you agree?

[Waters] Well, I’m a fan of his, certainly. I’ve met him in the Baltimore Film Festival. We also had the woman, the star from one of his movies. We brought her over. I think some of them are a little camp. I mean, that one about elderly women fucking all the young…

[Fraga] ‘Paradise: Love’ [2012].

[Waters] That had some campness to it. I don’t think my films are camp. To me, camp is a word that doesn’t work anymore. To me, ‘Showgirls’ [1995] was camp. Movies that are so bad that they don’t know it – that they’re great. We always try to be exactly what we were, and so does he. No matter what he [Paul Verhoeven] said, he didn’t mean ‘Showgirls’ to be funny. He says it now to save his face. That’s camp to me. Something that is so bad like the movie ‘Boom!’ [1968] with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Some of these movies that are very serious that are laugh-out-loud funny and they didn’t mean to be. That’s what camp means to me.

[Fraga] But do you think there’s an affinity between your work and Ulrich Seidl’s?

[Waters] Yes. I think so. In a very different way: mine are more obviously comedies but, at the same time, they’re extreme cinema that is spotlighting under the rug. [laughs] Places where most people don’t want to go or definitely pay to see a movie about it. So, I think he always startles me. He always makes me laugh, though, because he picks things… Oh, he made a movie that I love, where all the people are praying and he records it. It’s called ‘Jesus, You Know’ [2003]. That’s all serious, religious people that say out loud their prayers and you realise how selfish people are. They’re never praying for the end of cancer, they’re just praying about one specific thing that makes their life better. It’s really good.

[Fraga] He made ‘Paradise: Love’, ‘Paradise: Faith’ [2012] and ‘Paradise: Hope’ [2013].

[Waters] The three of them were all good.

[Fraga] Do you like any British filmmakers?

[Waters] Oh, let me think… You know, I just love all the ‘kitchen-sink dramas’. I just love the name of that: ‘kitchen-sink drama’. I love the Ken Loach films. There’s lots of English ones that I like. I’m a fan of Terence Davies: I like his movies very much.

[Fraga] Is your new book, ‘Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance’, too dirty for the silver screen?

[Waters] Yes. It would get an NC-17. It would be very hard to make and it would also require a lot of special effects.

[Fraga] ‘Multiple Maniacs’ [1970] was reissued five years ago to outstanding results and it’s now on HBO.

[Waters] I can’t imagine how it’s on HBO – that is so ludicrous. And if you look on Rotten Tomatoes it is 100% good reviews: right on up there with ‘The Last Picture Show’ [1971] and ‘Battleship Potemkin’ [1925]. That is really ridiculous because when that movie came out… Now it looks like a bad John Cassavetes movie. They did a really good job on restoring it. Come on, the movie cost five thousand dollars, it was made in 1968. It was made to shock hippies because it was violent: it was the opposite of peace & love. That was my apartment, where I lived. That was my living room: you could still see some of the same posters that I have in my house. It was a movie that I’m proud of but there’s a lot of mistakes in it. I didn’t know what I was doing when I made that movie. Maybe that’s why it worked: technique is failed style. There’s almost no technique in that movie. It was the first time we had lip synch, first time we had real sound. Everyone was shouting at all times, because I just didn’t think the sound equipment was good enough: I wanted to make sure you heard my dialogue. It was all over-acted but that was the style that we were looking for at the time – that was influenced by the living theatre, the ridiculous, I don’t know: all that cruelty, all that kind of crazy avant-garde theatre that I was reading about at the time. That influenced, of course. Today no one knows or thinks about it, really. It was a hippie-exploitation movie, basically. [laughs]

[Fraga] Is there any chance that all of your early films are going to be available for anyone to watch?

[Waters] There is a chance that another film is coming out very soon. Thank god for Criterion: they put the class back in show business. So, we’ll see. Certainly there is one more definitely coming that I’m not allowed to announce for a couple of months. After that, I hope it is ‘Desperately Living’: it’s the toughest one because it’s the most politically incorrect, to some. Even though recently it showed in a theatre in New York and it was all young trans in the audience: cheering it, not being mad about it.

[Fraga] And do you think that maybe it’s because Divine is not in it?

[Waters] Yeah, that’s true but – you see – that’s the thing. If Divine was a gay man playing a woman who gets a sex change into a man: that’s kind of politically correct. But a straight woman played it: she cut off all her hair, and her children left her, her boyfriend broke up with her. That’s woke, to me. [laughs]. At least in my world, you know. I stick up for the movie. She says, “I want a wang and I want it now!” That sounds militant to me [laughs], that’s revolution. I don’t know. I think the film is probably the toughest one for today, though. We’ll see what happens to it. I don’t know.

[Fraga] Gay cinema and gay culture have changed enormously in the past 50 years with the assimilation movement: gay marriage, kids, the military and so on. Is that a good thing or has it made being gay and gay cinema more boring?

[Waters] I would say gay is not enough. It’s a good start but it’s not enough. There are bad gay movies: and that’s progress, to admit that. I do a whole thing in my spoken word show about this – that I think it’s time we should be dangerous again. I think gay men should start fucking lesbians and we should really freak out straight people, if we did that. [laughs] And go to new limits. Because I’m very pro-lesbian: they’re the ones that helped to start ACT UP [AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power]. They’re the ones that weren’t dying of Aids, and put up everything to fight so that the medicine could come through. I’m a ‘les-bro’ as they call it: that’s a ‘fag hag in reverse’.

[Fraga] Have you encountered problems with the assimilation movement? Do they think you’re a threat to them?

[Waters] No, not really. I don’t want to get married but I’m happy that people should. And anybody that would be against gay marriage, I would be against them. At the same time, it’s kind of amazing now that the gay parade that they used to have in New York, which was outlaws and people from Stonewall and everything… Now it’s just straight families showing their tolerance – which is good – but it doesn’t even seem like a gay parade anymore. Sometimes I miss scaring straight people. [laughs] But I don’t want to go backwards: I think it’s certainly a lot better than it was when I was growing up. To me, I was never a separatist. The people who were my audience for the first movies, it was just as straight as it was gay: it wasn’t all gay people. ‘Straight gay’ people hated it, I mean, ‘normal gay’ people were horrified, just like ‘normal heteros’ were. It was more about what kind of sense of humour you have and how angry you were and with who. And my audience is still angry but they have a good sense of humour about themselves, first. I think. I hope.

[to be continued]