transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] This message comes from Rosetta Stone. If you have travel coming up, like a spring break or summer vacation, imagine arriving actually understanding the language. Rosetta Stone has been the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years, with millions of users and 25 languages to choose from. Ready to start learning a new language this spring? Visit rosettastone.com/nprtoday to explore Rosetta Stone and choose the language that's right for you.

Speaker 2:
[00:26] This is Fresh Air, I'm David Bianculli. The multimedia artist John Waters has spent his life being a champion of outsiders, redefining norms and celebrating individuality and eccentricity. His career path has gone from outrageously standards defying filmmaker to popular avuncular TV host and elder statesman of bizarre pop culture. His 80th birthday is next week on Earth Day, April 22nd. And we're taking time today to celebrate John Waters. Waters was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1946 and filmed most of his movies there. As a teenager, one of his best friends was Glenn Milstead, an actor, singer and drag queen who, in his drag persona, went by the name Divine. Waters cast Divine in his early underground films, Mondo Trash Show in 1969 and Multiple Maniacs in 1970, and cast Divine again as the star of their big breakthrough film, Pink Flamingos, in 1972. The plot of that film had people competing for the title of filthiest person alive and it was a robust, sometimes scatological competition.

Speaker 3:
[01:39] These are obviously jealous people, jealous of our careers, of all of our press. Why else would they find that the filthiest people alive? Everyone knows that that title has become my trademark. Why do you use it in this way? It's only to insinuate that they are filthier than I. How could anyone seriously believe that? How could anyone be filthier than Divine?

Speaker 2:
[01:57] Divine also co-starred in the movie that brought Waters into the mainstream, 1988's Hairspray, in which Ricky Lake played a dance-obsessed teen in 1962 Baltimore. When she performs on a local TV show, her parents watch in bed, disapproving of some of the other contestants. The mom is played by Divine, the dad by Jerry Stiller, the actor who eventually would play George Costanza's dad on Seinfeld.

Speaker 3:
[02:25] I watch that tramp and I'm embarrassed to be white.

Speaker 2:
[02:29] You know, Edna, I've been reading about these kids. Maybe Tracy could be some sort of campus leader.

Speaker 3:
[02:35] Wilbur, it's the times.

Speaker 4:
[02:38] They're a-changing.

Speaker 5:
[02:40] Something's blowing in the wind.

Speaker 3:
[02:43] Touching my diet pills, would you, hon?

Speaker 2:
[02:46] As his films gained praise as well as notoriety, Waters found that celebrities lined up to appear in a John Waters film, and he was only too happy to oblige. He was addicted to stunt casting, too, so his ensembles were wildly diverse. The original Hairspray movie, in addition to Divine, also featured Sonny Bono, Pia Zadora, Ruth Brown and Deborah Harry. Crybaby, which Waters wrote and directed in 1990, featured Polly Bergen, Iggy Pop, Troy Donahue, Joey Heatherton, former X-rated movie star, Tracy Lourdes and Patty Hurst. And the title role of Crybaby was played by a young Johnny Depp, who made the most out of his outrageous role of a rebel with a cause and with a tattoo of an electric chair on his chest. In this clip, he's in a park making out with his girlfriend, Allison, when lightning strikes a nearby tree and shatters the mood, causing Crybaby to rip open his shirt in anger.

Speaker 3:
[03:48] What's the matter, Crybaby?

Speaker 6:
[03:49] Everything's the matter.

Speaker 1:
[03:50] It's just a thunderstorm.

Speaker 5:
[03:52] Heat lightning.

Speaker 3:
[03:54] It's sexy.

Speaker 6:
[03:56] It's not sexy.

Speaker 2:
[03:56] Electricity makes me insane.

Speaker 7:
[03:58] Why, Crybaby, why? Here's why.

Speaker 2:
[04:02] Electricity killed my parents. They died in the electric chair?

Speaker 6:
[04:06] That's right, Alice.

Speaker 8:
[04:08] My father was the alphabet bomber.

Speaker 2:
[04:11] He may have been crazy, but he was my pop.

Speaker 4:
[04:14] Only one I ever had.

Speaker 6:
[04:16] God, I heard about the alphabet bomber.

Speaker 7:
[04:19] Bombs exploding in the airport and barber shops.

Speaker 8:
[04:23] That's right. All in alphabetical order.

Speaker 9:
[04:26] Car wash, drugstore.

Speaker 2:
[04:29] From there, John Waters kept getting even more accepted. Hairspray became a hit Broadway musical, then was refashioned as a popular movie musical. He kept making outrageous movies, such as Cecil B. Demented and A Dirty Shame, and kept insanely busy in many other arenas. As an actor, he appeared in everything from Homicide Life on the Street to the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. This fall, he'll appear in the newest season of FX's American Horror Story, opposite Ariana Grande, Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates. Fittingly, it's the show's 13th season. He's written a memoir called Mr. Know-It-All, The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder. He's had exhibitions of his visual art at the Baltimore Museum of Art and at New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art. And he's hosted TV shows, from a true crime series to an overview of some of his cinematic favorites. He called that series John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You. The films included the dark cult movies Freeway and Baxter, and he hosted the show from his own Baltimore home.

Speaker 10:
[05:40] Hello, never mind who I am. No cops followed you here, did they? In today's climate, you can never be too careful. When I'm showing a sexploitation film, I get a little nervous. Come on in. We're going upstairs to my bedroom.

Speaker 2:
[05:56] In his memoir, John Waters writes, Suddenly, the worst thing that can happen to a creative person has happened to me. I am accepted. He spoke to Terry Gross in 2019 when he had published his memoir. He told her he came from a conventional middle-class family in Baltimore.

Speaker 10:
[06:14] My parents had a happy marriage for 70 years. They both lived to be about 90. So I really had, I'm wondering why I'm kind of as nuts as I am really, because I had a pretty good, pretty good role models to, from them.

Speaker 6:
[06:29] Well, speaking of as nuts as you are, you write that you were born six weeks premature, quote, a little boy slightly miswired, already not following the rules. All I know is I was born with a screw loose. So when you wrote that you were born slightly miswired, I didn't know how literally to take that. Like if you think you're cognitively different, you know?

Speaker 10:
[06:51] Well, I think right from the beginning, I didn't want to be like anybody else. And I think I was overly baptized because in the Calvin Church they keep baptizing you. And you know, I needed a little original sin and they wiped it all away. So I think that that was the problem. I was a teacup baby that was over baptized. But you know, the one thing like that great ad campaign for it's like there's one thing wrong with a Waters baby. It's a lie. And kind of, I think I was a little like that.

Speaker 6:
[07:24] But there's a difference between not wanting to be like everybody else and being incapable of being like other people.

Speaker 10:
[07:31] Well, I'm both. I couldn't, you know, I no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't play football very well. And I am so gay that tools, even the sight of a hammer made me cry as a child. That's the one thing I cannot do. Yeah. But we had to hammer the next day in school. And I remember waking up screaming in the middle of the night of this horror that I had to hammer. And I still can't hammer. And my father would take me down, show me, it's easy. This is what you had to do. And I know he was mortified that I was that panicked. That's about the gayest thing I ever did.

Speaker 6:
[08:06] This fits into something else you write, which is, I realize now how hard it must have been for my parents to understand my early eccentricities. So in addition to your terror at seeing hammers, what were some of your eccentricities when you were really young?

Speaker 10:
[08:20] Well, I was obsessed by car accidents and I played car accidents. And my mother would take me to junkyards and walk around with me. I'd think, oh, there's been a terrible one over here. Look at this. And I think, what did the junk man think? What is this little ghoul? So that kind of thing.

Speaker 6:
[08:39] What did your mother think?

Speaker 10:
[08:40] I don't know. That wasn't in the Dr. Spock book of what to do if your kid is obsessed by car accidents. And my parents were very straight. What straight used to mean was not gay or straight. Straight used to mean you didn't smoke pot or you were not following the rules in the 60s. But my parents were very, very conservative in a way. My mother was liberal later in life. But still, I don't know what they didn't know what to do really. But they didn't freak out too much. They were confused by it. And what parent would be happy their child made pink flamingos? Really, none.

Speaker 6:
[09:17] Yeah. Yes.

Speaker 10:
[09:19] At the time, really.

Speaker 6:
[09:20] At the time, absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah. So in your acknowledgments in your new book, you're right. And finally, great gratitude to my late parents, John and Patricia Waters, for giving me the foundation of good taste to rebel against. So what was that foundation? What was the good taste that they had?

Speaker 10:
[09:39] Well, the foundation is, my mother would always say, my favorite thing is, who is that creature? She used to say about friends that I gathered she didn't approve of. Or when I would hang rockabilly males singers like Eddie Cochran and Elvis and everything on my wall, my mother would always say, who is that creature? And some of the people that came home that I would bring home, my friends, she would just be horrified, but she was polite. I remember when we made multiple maniacs at my parents' house and filmed the cavalcade of perversion on the front lawn. Divine came in afterwards in a bloody one-piece white woman's bathing suit and carrying an axe, and my mother served us tea, as if Princess Di had come over, really.

Speaker 6:
[10:29] So, we were talking about your parents and your family and how differently wired you were and how you rebelled against, like, your family's good taste. So, you're right that you were raised to be preppy, you were sent to private school, but you yearned to meet the underclass. And you're right, I first saw real working class men when my dad took me downtown to see his new company building. My parents once took me to a bowling alley. They didn't at first realize it was also part pool hall. Here, I saw juvenile delinquents for the first time, boys with their shirt collars turned up, pompadours freshly greased, girls with tight black long skirts, LA slippers and head scarves, tied around their Deborah Paget hairdos. How I longed to be with them. Talk more about the influence of working class teen culture on you.

Speaker 10:
[11:22] Well, it was the opposite of me, and I still like to be around people that are the opposites of me. I'm attracted to people that are the opposites of me. So to go to that neighborhood and to see these kids together, they were like Elvis, they were like juvenile delinquents that I would read about all the time. We didn't have juvenile delinquents in my school, in my preppy grade school, but we did have one that lived across the street, and I made friends with a family, and really, he had a car and looked just like Crybaby. I basically based the character I wrote Crybaby on this person that lived across the street. And of course, my mother would say, who is that creature? The same thing. But I always was kind of just amazed to see these supposedly bad kids hanging out. And I went to the Elvis movies, Jerry Lee Lewis, all that stuff. So I knew about juvenile delinquency. I was always corrupted by Life magazine because we got it every week. And it always covered beatniks, drug addicts. Everything that I was interested in, I would read every word of it. And then my parents got the encyclopedia, the world book encyclopedia, I think. And that had everything in it. I would look up everything in there that you weren't supposed to. So I was corrupted by the things that my parents brought in for educational reasons in our house, but not for the educational reasons they had in mind.

Speaker 6:
[12:45] What are some of the things you looked up in the world book encyclopedia?

Speaker 10:
[12:49] I used to look up, was it the Wolfden report? That was the United Kingdom's study on homosexuality. I used to look up drug addicts. I used to look up, always Tennessee Williams, always Beatniks, always Bohemia, Leroy Jones, as he was known at the time. Everything about trouble in the arts, I looked up.

Speaker 6:
[13:12] So you loved Rockabilly, you loved Elvis Presley, and you're right that Elvis made you realize you're gay.

Speaker 10:
[13:18] Yeah, he did. When I saw him twitching and acting like a space person, singing those first early songs, that's when I realized. Then later, I was confused by it because then I loved Clarence Frogman Henry, too, and remember he sang I Ain't Got No Home, and he would sing like a man, and then he would sing like a girl, which seemed kind of gay, and then he started singing like a frog. But I was so young, I thought, is there trisexuality in people attracted to frogs? That hadn't happened to me yet, but I was open-minded to it if it was coming. Mercifully, it didn't.

Speaker 6:
[13:55] So I want to play a song that you write about, and this isn't going to be Elvis. Because you're right, I never wanted to be a drag queen, but if I had to lip-sync to a woman's song, even today, it wouldn't be Judy, Liza, or Cher. It would be Eileen Rogers, a nightclub singer and one-time understudy for Ethel Merman.

Speaker 10:
[14:16] Had you ever heard of her?

Speaker 6:
[14:18] No, I had not.

Speaker 10:
[14:19] Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[14:20] No, I had not, but this is what YouTube is for. I went on, I found the record that you write about, which is called The Treasure of Your Love. Let's listen to it and then we will talk.

Speaker 10:
[15:40] Oh, God. She was a drama queen.

Speaker 6:
[15:44] Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 10:
[15:45] I'm trying to picture her dress. I bet she was dressed kind of like Kate Smithish. Wouldn't you think? I don't think she was any kind of sex bomb, but she was understudy for Ethel Merman, so think of that, she could belt it out.

Speaker 6:
[15:58] So why is that the song you'd lip sync to if you did a drag?

Speaker 10:
[16:00] I don't know. I just remember hearing it as a child, and I had the record, and I played it over and over, but I was obsessed by, in my bedroom, I had a stage. My parents built me a stage, almost like Divine has in female trouble and the doctor would say, Oh, a little stage. I had a stage at the top of the steps with curtains and everything and a costume box, and I would put on self-indulgent plays for my one poor aunt who had put up with it. I can't imagine what she thought, where I would tape record all the top 10 off the radio and then perform all the numbers and stuff like a crazy person. But I was allowed to do that. So I got all that stuff out of my system early.

Speaker 6:
[16:45] So you had an art retrospective recently, like a couple of years ago, was it?

Speaker 10:
[16:49] No, it was last year.

Speaker 6:
[16:50] Was it last year?

Speaker 10:
[16:51] It was at the Baltimore Museum of Art and then it went to the Wexner Center in Ohio.

Speaker 6:
[16:54] Yeah.

Speaker 10:
[16:55] I had one maybe 10 years ago at the New Museum in New York.

Speaker 6:
[16:59] Oh, okay. So the one from the Baltimore Museum of Art has a nice hardcover catalog of the work from the show. And so I want to discuss a couple of pieces from the show. One of them is your imaginary tabloid covers. And so one of them is called National Brainiac. And the headlines are, Joan Didion hits 250 pounds. Philip Roth dates 70-year-old woman. It's about time, readers say. MFK Fisher has cellulite. Help, I've got writer's block. Joyous Carol Oates sobs. I mean, I think that's like hilarious.

Speaker 10:
[17:37] I would love to have that magazine for real. Yes, I know. I would love to be, but you'd be, we'd be after you, Terry Gross, swimwear pictures. I mean, you'd be hiding outside of intellectuals' doors, trying to get, they didn't have to die, you know. And I still do get the tabloids, although the Inquirer is nothing like it used to be. It used to be fun ever since it went on the Trump thing. Now it's the same pictures that are in the globe. It's not as much fun, except the meanest one they have every year is, who will die next? And it has the celebrities on it and the odds, who's it going to be? Which must be nice when you're just in the grocery store and see yourself on the cover. But I do think a tabloid like that would be fascinating. And I could do a good one. I wish I could really do that tabloid for real.

Speaker 6:
[18:29] So when did you start being interested in tabloids?

Speaker 10:
[18:32] Oh, always. I think I've had a subscription to Enquirer and the Globe for 30 years. And I remember The Midnight used to be the one even before that, that I think I wrote about in one of my books. I forget. But I still get six newspapers delivered every day. I still– I used to get a hundred and some magazines a month, but as you know, that is really dwindling. But I still get lots of them. I was really sad when Jet went out of business. I got that for 30 years. There was a lot of magazines that I got that I felt that I had a peak into a world that I would never know about or never be there. So I still get a lot of magazines. But the tabloids aren't as good. I mean, the New York Post is still pretty hilarious. I mean, the cover– was it today? A mayor running for president and had everybody looking at television laughing meanly. It was such a great New York Post cover.

Speaker 6:
[19:28] Have you ever been in a tabloid?

Speaker 10:
[19:31] Not– because what do I not admit to? What are they going to use it– what are they going to use against me?

Speaker 6:
[19:38] John Waters has a filthy mind.

Speaker 10:
[19:38] John Waters saw a romantic comedy this weekend.

Speaker 6:
[19:44] So getting back to your museum show, and there's a catalog of it. One of your series that was in the show was still photographs of things that can go wrong in movies, like hair in the gate. And that's when you see, like, one hair on the image.

Speaker 10:
[20:02] That's a ritual that you do. Whenever you're shooting a movie, and let's say you've done three takes, you've got the take, you're moving on to the fourth. Before you move on, the AD always says, check for hair in the gate. So they blow it and check. Well, I never in my life found a hair in the gate. So I tried to imagine what it would be like if they didn't find one in the biggest, most expensive scenes of the biggest epic. So basically, the Red Sea parting in the Ten Commandments with a big hair in it, or Clark Gable in the middle of Gone with the Wind embracing her, and it's a hair in it. So I just tried to imagine all the things that would go wrong.

Speaker 2:
[20:43] John Waters speaking to Terry Gross in 2019. After a break, we'll hear excerpts from another of their conversations. And Justin Chang reviews the new Steven Soderbergh film, The Christophers. I'm David Bianculli, and this is Fresh Air. I'm not a juvenile delinquent.

Speaker 9:
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Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[22:48] We're celebrating the 80th birthday of filmmaker and writer John Waters, whose birthday is April 22nd. He's violated many taboos and created intentionally perverse scenarios in his films, most notably in Pink Flamingos. His movie Hairspray was adapted into a family-friendly hit Broadway musical and then into a musical film starring John Travolta. When Waters was 66, he began a cross-country trip hitchhiking from his home in Baltimore to his co-op apartment in San Francisco. He chronicled his adventures and frustrations on the road in his book Car Sick. Terry spoke with him in 2014. Parents, this interview has a couple of moments that probably are not appropriate for young children, but hey, it's John Waters.

Speaker 6:
[23:36] John Waters, pleasure to have you back on Fresh Air. What made you think of Hitchhiking Across Country is the idea for your book.

Speaker 10:
[23:43] I don't know. I don't do dating sites. I don't do Facebook. I don't do any of that. I just thought I wanted to meet some new people and I wanted to have a midlife crisis that didn't involve buying a sports car or doing ridiculous things. So I came up with something more ridiculous, an adventure.

Speaker 6:
[24:00] So I used to hitchhike all the time in college. I used to pick up hitchhikers all the time. I never see anyone doing it anymore. I wouldn't dream of picking up a hitchhiker now. What made you think anyone would do it?

Speaker 10:
[24:12] Yeah, but the whole time when I hitchhiked across the country, from when I left Baltimore to San Francisco, I saw one hitchhiker and I was in the car with somebody else and I said, don't pick them up. I can't believe I did that. You think that would be such bad hitchhiking crime. But when you hitchhike alone, you don't want to share your ride with somebody. Believe me, I'm not a communist hitchhiker.

Speaker 6:
[24:37] So you assume people would think you were either an older homeless man or that you were John Waters. So how did it divide up between the people who recognized you and the people who thought you were a pathetic, sad, destitute person?

Speaker 10:
[24:50] There was a little of both because what happened is people would drive past me and think, well, was that John Waters? But no, why would I be standing there doing that? They'd come back and pick me up. Other people didn't know and pulled over and tried to give me money or help me, and realize and start laughing and screaming. And many people didn't recognize me. And when I did tell them during the normal conversation in the car that I was a film director, they just looked at me like I was so deluded as a homeless person that believed he was a cult film director. So generally, I didn't care because it didn't matter to me. I wanted to hear their stories. I was relieved if they really didn't know who I was. But yet I'm a hypocrite because when I get stuck, I would shamelessly use it if I could to try to get a ride.

Speaker 6:
[25:37] Oh, you even carried around a fame kit.

Speaker 10:
[25:39] I did, but that helped with the policeman. It was for if the cops stopped me.

Speaker 6:
[25:44] So what was in your fame kit to prove that you were really a movie director and not a destitute person?

Speaker 10:
[25:50] You know, Fame ID, which is your Director's Guild of America card, your Writer's Guild of America card, and the most ridiculous, my Academy of Arts, you know, the Oscar voting card, which I really wanted to like use that. Well, what do you mean? You can't put me in jail. I vote in the Oscars every year. But it did work the one only time I ever used it. No, I used it twice. Once I used it for the policeman that stopped me and he gave me a ride. The second one, I used it when I was stuck in a rest area, hanging outside of bathrooms, begging people to give me a ride, which really made me feel like a pervert.

Speaker 6:
[26:24] So there's three parts of your book. The first part is fictional stories. You imagine there are best-case scenarios of what would happen if someone picks you up. Then you have part two, which is fictional stories of what would happen in the worst-case scenarios, and then you have part three, which is what actually happened. So there's an excerpt of a story from part two, the worst-case scenarios that I'd like you to read. The setup of this chapter is that you get picked up by a member of a group that he calls React, and he says, it's a trucker, citizen-band radio, emergency channel organization made up of volunteers to assist other motorists in times of disaster. But it's actually this guy who really hates cult directors and wants to kill all of them, including you. He hates the Rocky Horror Picture Show, he hates Herschel Gordon Lewis, who did Blood Feast, he hates El Topo and Todd Solans, David Cronenberg, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodovar. And he's come to give you your last ride. And I'd like you to do a short reading about this ride.

Speaker 10:
[27:30] All right. I've never read this one out loud. Okay.

Speaker 6:
[27:33] And I'll say we've edited this for radio.

Speaker 10:
[27:37] Hold it, hold it, I yell, hoping to buy time. We are just writer-directors trying to do our job. I'm sorry if my films offended you. You think eating a dog turd is funny, Randy demands with terrifying hostility? No, no, I was just commenting on censorship laws at the time of Deep Throat, I beg. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Randy sneers, before whipping out a pocket knife and stabbing me in the leg. That, he roars, looking at the blade still stuck in my flesh, is funny.

Speaker 6:
[28:04] Ha, ha, ha.

Speaker 10:
[28:06] Just repeat after me, I plead. It's only a movie. It's only a movie. It's only a movie. But this old catch line from an exploitation ad campaign doesn't do the trick. And that birth scene in female trouble, he charges like an obscenity prosecutor, was absolutely disgusting. Before I can even plead my defense, he shoots me in the other leg. I howl in agony. I scream for my life. We pull into the Las Vegas city limits. Time flies when you're being tortured. I see the ridiculous skyline of the town, a place filled with tourists. I've spent my lifetime trying to avoid. Look, Randy, I groan through spasms of pain. Just let me out here. I promise I won't make any trash films again. I'll go make mainstream movies, I swear. It's too late for a career change, Randy snarls with murderous rage as he pulls his truck off the road into an abandoned drive-in movie theater. It's been a long time since any movies were shown here. There's not even a screen anymore, and the concession stand has been burned to the ground. The few remaining poles for the speakers have been stripped clean of working parts. Randy slams on his brakes with a sickening finality. Get in the back, Randy orders. Oh, Randy, please, I argue. Let's go see the Avengers. Let's go see Hollywood tent pole blockbusters. His answer? A bullet into my right foot. I almost pass out when he grabs me and throws me into the opening his car between the truck and the trailer he's pulling. Inside is a cult movie director torture chamber. Josie Cotton's cover version of the theme song from Who Killed Teddy Bear is playing on some sort of sound system. Beneath movie posters for El Topo is the decaying body of Joe Dorowski, whom I thought was still alive until Randy tells me differently and takes credit. I see George Romero's amputated head hanging in a basket surrounded by posters for Night of the Living Dead and all its sequels. Enough, is all Randy offers an explanation. Before I can scream, I trip over what appears to be a corpse clawed apart by wild animals. Randy kicks it and I realize this poor human is still alive. I try to look away but Randy grabs my head in a chokehold and forces me to gaze upon this nauseating face. Oh my God, it's Herschel Gordon-Lewis and he chuckles when he sees me. He's still got a sense of humor, even as he approaches death. Randy pushes me forward into the bloody pit of horror.

Speaker 6:
[30:38] That's from one of the fictional sections of John Waters' new book, Carsic, about hitchhiking across America. That's an example of one of the worst-case scenarios he imagines.

Speaker 10:
[30:49] Yes, hopefully it's not the best.

Speaker 6:
[30:53] That's right. How many of the things that Randy does to you in that fictional scene have you done to other people in your films?

Speaker 10:
[31:02] Oh, in my films. That's after she's been in real life.

Speaker 6:
[31:05] I thought Terry.

Speaker 10:
[31:08] In my films, well, I've certainly cut off people's heads. I've certainly, yes, I've probably done all of them in my films. But for comedy and in this writing your death as comedy is fun to do too. So I've probably done all of them except the sexual parts that you cut out. And I might have done them too in my movies, not in real life. That's a chart, Terry. You'd have to make me, I'd have to diagram this chapter for you to tell me what's real life, what's fantasy, what I have done and what I've done in my movies. That's a gray area.

Speaker 6:
[31:45] That's hysterical. So one of the best case scenarios in your book, one of the imagined best case scenarios in your book is that you're picked up by favorite porn star Johnny Davenport, the star of Power Tool. And he is or was a famous porn star in reality, who in reality did star in Power Tool, one of the great titles.

Speaker 10:
[32:07] There's some other good ones too, but I can't say I'm right.

Speaker 6:
[32:10] Yeah, no, exactly. Why would that be your dream ride?

Speaker 10:
[32:15] Well, because of what happens to me, I picked up by a porn star who also is friends with extraterrestrial aliens that take us aboard and have sex with us, and then I meet Connie Francis. So really, it's, you know, when you think up the best and the worst, that gives me freedom, you know? I mean, to imagine the best and the worst, those are extreme words, the best and the worst. And I have read many people that do really believe that they were kidnapped by spacemen and had sex with them. That's what gave me the ideas. And I read a couple of those books, just to see. And so I wanted to go to the most pitiful ones that look like the Jaja Gabor set, you know, of Queen of Outer Space. And they ate liver. That's the only thing I added. Like space aliens, before they had sex with you, they had to eat liver dinners.

Speaker 6:
[33:06] So I imagine you've actually watched a lot of porn films in your time. So what are some of the...

Speaker 10:
[33:11] Well, once, once I was the judge for the porn Oscars. So they sent cases of them. And I actually heard another judge say, I'm raw from the studio. And the porno Oscars were held in a Howard Johnson's that spun around. So people were like sick. Right. You know, you have a bunch of drinks at the porn Oscars. And the party was at Howard Johnson's in LA that spins. So you kept finding yourself, you had to be like a ballet dancer, make eye contact with one building every time it went around so you wouldn't get the whirlies.

Speaker 6:
[33:45] So is this the real version of the prize that Dirk Diggler wins in Boogie Nights?

Speaker 10:
[33:50] Well, there is the AVN Awards. I get AVN, which is the adult video news, which is the trade paper for the porn business, which is great. I mean, they have interviews where people says, oh, yes, my mother handles all my fan mail. I mean, she does, you know, and she's so happy that I'm in. And these titles are so ludicrous, you know. So I'm all for that magazine, which always gives me ideas and probably did help this chapter.

Speaker 2:
[34:14] John Waters speaking to Terry Gross in 2014. More after a break, this is Fresh Air.

Speaker 1:
[34:20] This message comes from WHYYs, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get WHYYs. Download the WHYYs app today, or visit whyys.com, T's and C's apply. This message comes from BetterHelp. As a dad, BetterHelp president Fernando Madera relates to needing flexibility when it comes to scheduling therapy.

Speaker 4:
[34:47] I have kids under 18, so like time is very limited. That's why at BetterHelp, our therapists try to have sessions, sometimes at night, depending on the therapist or during the weekend. So I think that's what we need to tell the parents. You're not alone. We can help you out.

Speaker 1:
[35:03] If a flexible schedule would help you, visit betterhelp.com/npr for 10 percent off your first month of online therapy. Support for NPR in the following message come from Warby Parker, the one-stop shop for all your vision needs. They offer expertly crafted prescription eyewear plus contacts, eye exams and more. For everything you need to see, visit your nearest Warby Parker store or head to warbyparker.com.

Speaker 6:
[35:31] Let's get to the real thing. What really happened to you, John Waters, while you were a hitchhiking cross country. You write, can I really give up the rigid scheduling I'm so used to in my life? Me, the ultimate control freak who plans weeks ahead, the day I can irresponsibly eat candy. And I never thought that you were that much of a schedule, that you actually planned in advance the week you would eat candy.

Speaker 10:
[35:55] I do. My hangovers are on my schedule three months in advance. I carry four pennies always in my pocket, so I'll never get more change.

Speaker 6:
[36:03] Wow. It's actually very smart, but very planning ahead.

Speaker 10:
[36:07] Yeah, I do plan ahead. I think I got that from my father.

Speaker 6:
[36:10] It's certainly nothing I ever would have imagined from your early movies that you would have been so orderly and precise in your planning, because the movies are just so transgressive and so like, if there's a boundary, I'm crossing it, I'm defying it.

Speaker 10:
[36:25] But how could I have made all those movies on no money with my friends if I didn't plan? That can't happen magically. It happened because we were obsessed the same time. Everybody said, oh, you must have been on drugs when you made those movies. No, we weren't on drugs when we made them. I was on drugs when I thought them up, and I was on drugs when we showed them. But I was never on drugs when we made them because it was too hard.

Speaker 6:
[36:51] So another question you ask yourself is, what is the etiquette of hitchhiking? If a car stops, but there's something you don't trust about the driver, do you politely decline the ride? Will you end up insulting the driver if you do that? Did you have to do that at all during your hitchhiking?

Speaker 10:
[37:07] Here's the thing. I wrote about that in the prologue. But when the real life and you're out there, as I said, I would have gotten in Ted Bundy in his Volkswagen with his arm in a sling in the front seat. You'll get in any car. Believe me, all your rules, all your things that you imagine go out the window when you've been standing there for 10 years in those Kansas winds or ripping your weather beaten face. It is the worst beauty regimen ever to hitchhike. I would go in the motels at night and look in the mirror. And I have in my office a little mirror, a hand mirror that I got from a joke shop where you pick it up and look at yourself and it screams. Well, that's what every mirror did when I hitchhiked across America. It let out a shriek of horror when they saw hitchhiking face, a new thing that I want to invent a product for. And I thought, no wonder people are picking me up because I had a hat that said Scum of the Earth, which was a dumb fashion choice to take with me. It isn't a weird little exploitation movie I like, but I should not have worn that hat. But Pecker would have been worse. That was the other one I had. And I thought that really will be a bad one.

Speaker 6:
[38:11] Another movie title of yours, yeah. So one of your rides, you got picked up in Myersville, Maryland by a 20-year-old Republican town councilman, and he drove you to Ohio. And it was a great ride. You call him in your book The Corvette Kid.

Speaker 10:
[38:26] He was only going to lunch, to get his lunch at the subway shop when he stopped. And it was pouring rain and gave me a four-hour ride, which was very nice.

Speaker 6:
[38:33] And then you met up with him again, and he gave you an even longer ride.

Speaker 10:
[38:36] Yes, he came back. He kept texting me, but I thought he was just kidding me that he wasn't going to come back. And finally, I got a really, I got stuck in Ohio and Bonner Springs, Kansas. So it took a long while and I was going to, he kept texting me saying, I'm going to come get you again. I thought he was kidding. So I got a great ride with this Kansas couple who, who is coming to the signing in Baltimore, by the way. And they took me really a long way, all the way to Denver. And he wrote and said, what do you mean? I've been driving 48 hours at 80 miles an hour to catch up with you. And he finally did. And then took me to Reno. And then I just gave him the keys to my apartment and said, go stay in my place in San Francisco. And he was great. His parents were horrified because if they Google me, it's not good. If you Google my name from a parent's viewpoint that your son is missing with in a car on the other side of the country, it is not comforting.

Speaker 6:
[39:28] So did the young Republican town councilman know your work? And what was his reaction when you described it?

Speaker 10:
[39:34] He didn't know my work. He did Google me on the way and saw at least it was true. I don't know to this day if he's ever seen my movies, but we certainly became friends. He stayed longer in San Francisco when we got there, and then he came to my Christmas party this year. I'm still in touch with him. I think it gave him confidence. He looked great. He looked great before, but we were just an odd couple. I mean, his friends were texting him saying, way to go, you're in Reno with a gay man in a motel. You know, that's great for your campaign, right? And he was, we just laughed about it because it was so ridiculous. The whole thing was completely innocent. We on the way met some swingers that kept trying to hook up with us by texting him, which really, in another hotel, the maitre d came and knocked on his door in the middle of the night. I thought, hey, what about me? It was kind of funny. We just laughed the whole time.

Speaker 2:
[40:26] John Waters speaking to Terry Gross in 2014. She also spoke to him in 2000 when he had just released his film Cecil B. Demented.

Speaker 6:
[40:35] Do you have any home movies at home?

Speaker 10:
[40:36] This one.

Speaker 6:
[40:37] No, no.

Speaker 10:
[40:38] Half my films.

Speaker 6:
[40:40] I mean, like movies your parents made of you growing up, your birthday parties.

Speaker 10:
[40:44] They had some of that was in Steve Yeager's documentary about me, Divine Trash, and In Bad Taste. They have some of that. Yeah, those footage are in there. Yes, 8mm movies my parents have, certainly. I don't have them.

Speaker 6:
[40:57] How do you feel when you see those?

Speaker 10:
[41:00] Well, you look at it, and it looks so happy. When you look at it, you think, why do I ever need to go to a shrink? You know, I'm with my parents in a nice house. My parents never do anything that horrible, I can remember. Why am I this nuts?

Speaker 6:
[41:12] What were your birthday parties like?

Speaker 10:
[41:13] Oh, themes. I had pirate parties where I got to be Captain Hook. I had a pirate party every year so I could be Captain Hook. And once I was the Wicked Witch of the West, the only time I was ever in drag in my entire life. And just because I wanted to be green, I didn't care about the dress. I wanted to have green skin. I was always a Disney villain every year. And I had costume parties a lot, certainly. And they do have pictures of that, the pirate party. And I was Captain Hook and I always put that coat hanger. It's a great game. I've taught my nieces and nephews to play. Take a coat hanger, you bend it and you put it up your sleeve, and you too can have a hook. And it's a good look. A hook adds a definite edge to a dull outfit.

Speaker 2:
[41:53] John Waters spoke to Terry Gross in 2000. The writer and director of Pink Flamingos and Hairspray turns 80 years old next week. Happy birthday, John.

Speaker 5:
[42:03] Happy birthday, fatso.

Speaker 3:
[42:05] You are no longer the filthiest person alive. We are.

Speaker 2:
[42:24] Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new Steven Soderbergh film, The Christophers. This is Fresh Air.

Speaker 1:
[42:30] This message comes from WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe. You can send, spend and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Be smart, get WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit wyse.com. T's and C's apply.

Speaker 9:
[42:48] Support for NPR and the following message come from Warby Parker, the one-stop shop for all your vision needs. They offer expertly crafted prescription eyewear plus contacts, eye exams and more. For everything you need to see, visit your nearest Warby Parker store or head to warbyparker.com. This message comes from Bayer. Science is a rigorous process that requires questions, testing, transparency and results that can be proven. This approach is integral to every breakthrough Bayer brings forward, innovations that save lives and feed the world. Science delivers.com.

Speaker 2:
[43:25] In the new dark comedy, The Christophers, Michaela Cole, known for her Emmy-winning miniseries, I May Destroy You, plays a gifted artist who takes a job working for a famous London-based painter played by Ian McKellen. The movie, which is now playing in theaters, is the latest from the director, Steven Soderbergh. Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review.

Speaker 5:
[43:47] After Steven Soderbergh's terrific 2025 double bill of presents and black bag, I almost wish that, purely for the sake of variety, I could say that his new movie, The Christophers, is a dud. But I can't. It's terrific. And it's the latest confirmation that Soderbergh is working with a nimbleness that no other American director at the moment can match. You might have to go back to the workhorse days of the old Hollywood studio system for such a consistent abundance of quantity and quality. The Christophers, which was written by Ed Solomon, is a spry and witty chamber comedy. Most of it's set in the ramshackle London townhouse of a famous painter, Julian Sklar, played by a superb Ian McKellen. Not long after the movie begins, Julian takes on a new assistant, Laurie Butler, played by Michaela Cole. What he doesn't know is that Laurie is a skilled art restorer and that she's been hired to infiltrate his home by his two greedy grown up children, played by James Corden and Jessica Gunning. Laurie's mission is to find several of Julian's unfinished paintings, all portraits of his former lover, Christopher, and finish them in Julian's style. The plan is that when Julian dies, perhaps someday soon, the forged Christophers will be discovered and sold for millions. Laurie will get a third of the proceeds. Soderbergh has a deft way with heist and home invasion movies, and the Christophers' is, as you'd expect, full of twists and reversals. Laurie has some moral qualms about taking on a forgery job, but she also has a personal gripe to settle with Julian that leads her to say yes. Also, she needs the money. As ever, Soderbergh is keenly attuned to his character's economic straits. When she starts working at Julian's townhouse, Laurie mostly keeps her head down and pretends to know nothing about her boss or about art. But Julian can sense that his new assistant is more clever than she lets on, and in this scene, he begins asking her about her personal life.

Speaker 7:
[46:01] Laurie, am I allowed to ask if she has a boyfriend?

Speaker 8:
[46:07] Er, I mean, er, no.

Speaker 7:
[46:10] No, she doesn't.

Speaker 8:
[46:11] Er, no, you're not allowed.

Speaker 7:
[46:15] Noted. Why not, though?

Speaker 8:
[46:21] Well, firstly, we're at work.

Speaker 7:
[46:25] Nonsense. It's not like we cease to be ourselves, simply by crossing some conceptual boundary. Here I am at work and here I am at home, task away at work. Oh, don't you dare. All yours.

Speaker 8:
[46:39] Er, you can't ask me in either place because you are my employer, which means you hold the power.

Speaker 7:
[46:47] And I should use it to ask if you have a partner.

Speaker 8:
[46:50] Er, if you'll explain its relevance?

Speaker 7:
[46:54] Well, the relevance is that I'm curious.

Speaker 5:
[46:57] It's no surprise to learn that Julian experienced a close brush with cancellation years ago, owing to some impolitic remarks he made about women artists. It's one of many reasons his career has floundered in recent years, that plus a general lack of inspiration and productivity. McKellen has a sublime ability to combine gravitas with mischief, and he gives his strongest performance in years as this incorrigible old soul. I was reminded of his great Oscar-nominated turn in Gods and Monsters as the Hollywood director James Whale, another queer artist in the twilight of a legendary career. But McKellen is matched, nuance for nuance, by Cole, an intensely magnetic screen presence whose work here is mesmerizing in its poise and restraint. It's no spoiler to note that Julian is too smart to be deceived by Laurie for long, and once the truth begins to emerge, their battle of wits doesn't just deepen, it turns inside out. Despite their differences, in race, gender, class, temperament, and world view, Julian and Laurie are more alike than they realize. And what's thrilling about the Christophers is the way it becomes a tart, yet tender portrait of two kindred spirits. Julian, for all his bloviating, turns out to be a more empathetic listener than he appears. And Laurie, for all her initial reserve, turns out to be Julian's rhetorical and intellectual equal. In the movie's best scene, Laurie dissects the history of Julian's entire Christophers project, balancing rigorous analysis of his materials and techniques with unsparing insight into what each painting reveals of his emotional state at the time. McKellen and Cole make such splendid company that I'd have gladly watched them simply trade insults for two hours. But Soderbergh and Solomon have grander ambitions, and every scene of the Christophers is spring-loaded with ideas. They know that it's never been harder for artists to make a living doing what they do. It's no coincidence that both Julian and Laurie rely on side hustles just to get by. The filmmakers also know the absurdities of the fine art world, where the price of a painting can fluctuate wildly according to the whims of the market. Soderbergh, not for the first time, seems to be commenting at least in part on the struggles of independent filmmaking. Not unlike the New York pro sports milieu in High Flying Bird, or the Florida male strip club in Magic Mike, the studios and galleries of the Christophers can feel analogous to the movie industry itself, a place where, against crushing odds, art somehow manages to find a way.

Speaker 2:
[49:45] Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed the new film, The Christophers. On Monday's show, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, on her life before and after she was shot by a Taliban gunman, payback for standing up against the Taliban and advocating for her right and the right of all girls to go to school. She's serious about her ongoing advocacy, but has a delightful sense of humor. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/this is Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld and Deanna Martinez. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

Speaker 9:
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