"Laughter is the antidote to fear": a talk with Stuart Gordon By Jonathan Marlow and Patrick Mathewes October 27, 2003 - 6:12 AM PST "It's a good surprise for the audience." PM: You've definitely developed along with the technology although you stuck with stop-motion for a long time. Was Dagon your first film where you used CGI? SG: No, Space Truckers. JM: There were models in that as well, though. SG: Yeah, there were. It's funny, because if I had to do it over again, I don't think I would have used any of the models. JM: Really? I think it gives a real charm. PM: Yeah. SG: The models? I guess. It was funny, because it was all new to me then. The way that we did it was that Dennis Hopper's truck was a model, but the big pirate ship that swallows them up was entirely CGI, and that, I thought, looked great. One of the things that I wanted to see happen was, he was pulling this cargo, these long trains of containers, and I always wanted them to whip around like a sort of serpentine, which we couldn't do with the models. The models were these kind of straight lines. If it were CGI, all of that could have been possible. We could have done more with it, I think. PM: There's always Space Truckers 2. SG: Yeah, that one that isn't a franchise yet. JM: It's such a great premise. Was Dennis Hopper always your first choice? SG: Yeah, he was the first guy that we sent a script to. He really liked it. He told me that his little boy, Henry, wanted him to do it, too. He told me that when he did the Super Mario Bros. movie, he took Henry to see it. He was about five-years old at the time and after the movie was over, Henry said to him, "Dad, why did you make that movie?" He says, "I did it so I could buy you some new shoes, Henry." And Henry says, "I don't need new shoes that badly, Daddy." [laughs] PM: What was Henry's reason for wanting him to do Space Truckers? Did he know your films? SG: No, he didn;t. He liked the idea of Space Trucks. He's a little boy and he likes to play with toy trucks. Dennis Hopper was telling him about it and Henry said, "Yeah, you should do that movie, Dad." JM: Like Robot Jox, was this an idea that was kicking around in your head for a little while? SG: It was. I like those toys and I thought it would be a good kids movie. I was sort of thinking that the audience for that movie was ten-year-old boys. JM: That explains why I liked it so much. Part of me evidently hasn't developed since then. SG: [laughs] It's funny. I'm teaching directing right now and some of the students I get come up to me and go, "Did you do Robot Jox? That was my favorite movie when I was a kid." PM: That was the one that took me by surprise last year when you were at the Grand Illusion Cinema. I realized that you had a lot of cult films in your career but there were so many people coming up to me and saying, "I just love Robot Jox. I've seen it 40 times!" I suddenly realized how much bigger a cult phenomenon you are. SG: That's great to hear because that movie was such a huge undertaking. Then it just kind of came and went. It played in theaters for about three minutes, but the fact that an audience has found it is great. JM: How do you feel about King of the Ants and its chances for a theatrical release? Three minutes or no minutes? It's a little too sadistic for the multiplex but perhaps too conventional of a revenge picture for the art houses. Yet, if it were in Japanese, a la Takashi Miike, audiences would have less difficulty getting beyond the subject matter. SG: Or French. Gaspar Noe is a friend of mine and his recent movie Irreversible shares some similarities to King of the Ants. JM: Definitely, in that it takes violence to a certain point and then takes it a little further, and then takes it a little further beyond that. SG: It's like that one is an "art film" because it is in French. In a way, what you're saying about Robot Jox makes me feel good because what that says is that they're going to see your movie one way or another eventually anyway. If you get a theatrical release, the word gets out faster about the movie, but even if it doesn't, people will see it. JM: Can you talk a little about your friendship with George Wendt and how he came to give you the book which King of the Ants is based on? SG: We met in Chicago when we were doing theater there. He was in Second City and I had the Organic Theater Company, and there was one time when Second City, because they like to do parodies and satires, decided they were going to do a take-off of the Organic Theater. They asked me to come in and direct it! [laughs] We ended up doing a version of the Three Little Pigs as a horror movie. It had lines in it like, "What's outside that door?" George Wendt played one of the little pigs, I can't remember which one, and we got to be friends. He was in Space Truckers and it was during that time that he brought me the book. JM: It was that long ago? Was it always, subtly, that he wanted to be the Duke Wayne character? SG: It was funny. I thought, as soon as I read it, that this was a part for him. He was like, "If you get someone else, it's ok." There was a whole period when we did a reading of it at his house and his wife [Bernadette Birkett], who is an actress, read the part of Susan. After the reading was over, she turned to George and said, "I don't know who you are any more." Then George was going, "I don't think I can do this movie. It will destroy my marriage. I have a choice. I can either do the film or I can stay married." I said, "Well, you've got to get your options straight here." JM: He bought the rights to the book. SG: He did. I said, "Let's option it." Then we worked with [author] Charlie Higson on the screenplay. He is Duke Wayne. To me, it was perfect casting because everybody thinks of George as Norm from Cheers, and he's great for the character because he starts out as a funny guy and starts turning during the course of the movie. I think it's a good surprise for the audience. JM: It's good to have him in that part to play against type because the audience automatically roots for him even though his behavior seems a little odd. You know that something is not quite right but the audience is still with him... until the shed, I guess. What's nice about the way that you've directed this script, like all of your films, is that, with all of the performances that you get, even Daniel Baldwin, you sympathize with all of the characters' unique motivations, even if what they want - and what they're willing to do to get it - is entirely immoral. Was the casting process on this film difficult? Obviously, for the lead it was... SG: It was really hard. That was the hardest part, finding Sean [played by Chris McKenna]. JM: He's terrific. SG: Isn't he great? PM: You've got a knack for that. In Dagon, you had a new... SG: Yeah, Ezra Godden. He's wonderful, too. My daughters are in love with both of them. They keep saying, "Dad, you've got to come up with idea where you can get both of them in the same movie!" JM: Weren't your daughters caterers on King of the Ants? SG: All three daughters worked on it. JM: And your wife? SG: Yeah, my wife, too. I got home cooking every day on the set. JM: A real family affair. back to past articles >>> Index "I thought I knew Lovecraft pretty well." "I kept waiting for somebody to make a live action big robot movie." "He's this very haunted figure." "A lot worse than any horror movie." "It's a good surprise for the audience." back to past articles

Jonathan Marlow and Patrick Mathewes Jonathan Marlow occasionally writes but more regularly reads. He frequently makes little-seen films of varied durations when he isn't watching (and criticizing) the work of others. Marlow is also a composer of some repute, although he would probably deny it. A new arrival at GreenCine, Patrick Mathewes formerly resided in Seattle where he was Inventory Manager at Scarecrow Video during its formative years. Later, he programmed and projected films at the Grand Illusion Cinema, where he hosted notable film directors such as Takashi Miike, Alex Cox and Stuart Gordon. February 6, 2007. Mark Savage & the D.I.Y. Aesthetic by Jeffrey M. Anderson February 3, 2007. Seeing the Humor in Sexual Identity by Michael Guillen January 29, 2007. Smokin' Aces with Joe Carnahan and Jeremy Piven by Sean Axmaker January 26, 2007. Include Me Out: Interview with Farley Granger by Jonathan Marlow January 25, 2007. Grindhouse: Chapter Four - The 1960's by Eddie Muller January 19, 2007. Charles Mudede: Zoo Story by Andy Spletzer January 19, 2007. Mark Becker: Merging the Personal and the Political by Sara Schieron January 19, 2007. Micha X. Peled: The Lives of the Sweatshop Youth by Hannah Eaves January 16, 2007. Djinn: A Taxi Driver Dreams of Perth by Jeffrey M. Anderson January 12, 2007. Clint Eastwood: Flags and Letters From the "Good War" by Jeff Shannon view past articles