Filmmaking | Interviews

Boys will be Girls

1 Nov , 2003  

Written by Kevin McCarthy | Posted by:

Filmmaker Richard Day talks about his hilarious drag extravaganza 'Girls Will Be Girls,' screening this month at the EROS Film Festival.

Richard Day is a funny guy.

And, fortunately for audiences, (like the pretty girl in high school who only hangs out with other pretty girls) he’s got a caboodle of funny friends. And when those funny friends also perform as cross-dressing alter egos named Evie Harris, Miss Coco Peru, and Varla Jean Merman? then "Girls Will Be Girls" happens.

So here’s the premise: Hard drinking Evie, in the "twi-dark" of her acting career, lives with Coco. Coco dreams of having a child with the doctor who performed her abortion. Varla, a little old country girl with an eating disorder, moves in with Evie and Coco. Issues? These ladies have them.

And here’s the twist: While the characters are women, the actors are not. Richard Day makes sure that the wigs never come off.

With the film, Day finally found a way to capture the outrageous talents of Jack Plotnick, Clinton Leupp, and Jeffery Roberson — three occasionally cross-dressing actors who have been entertaining audiences in cabarets, theaters, and onscreen over parts of the last decade.

Before making the film, Day cut his teeth as a producer and writer for "The Larry Sanders Show," "Mad About You," and "Ellen," among other shows. He also wrote and directed the Off-Broadway play "Straight Jacket" — the film version of which he has also directed (and is now in post-production).

Screening at the 2003 EROS Film Fest in Hartford later this month, "Girls Will Be Girls" also begins a local run at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge starting November 7th. NewEnglandFilm.com reached the California-based writer / director to find out all about the film.

KM: Judging from the previews and the marketing campaign for your new film, "Girls Will Be Girls," I feel like the recipe for the movie called for a pinch of "Sunset Boulevard," a dash of "Absolutely Fabulous," and a whole lot of Richard Day. Where did the idea for "Girls Will Be Girls" come from?

Richard Day: The film grew out of my friendship with Jack Plotnick. Jack is a whirlwind of creative energy — always putting on a show. I became obsessed with his Evie Harris character, and started helping him write jokes for benefits he would do as Evie with Clinton Leupp’s Coco Peru. They had amazing chemistry together, and everyone was telling them they should do a TV show.

My background was in TV, so I came up with sort of a drag "Golden Girls" idea featuring Evie, Coco, and Jeffery Roberson’s Varla Jean Merman. But when I brought the show to the studio where I had a deal, the head of TV there said, "Why not just do a show about cannibals?" and, "If we go out with that pitch, we’ll lose all credibility as suppliers." Which — and I’m no mind reader — I’m pretty sure was a pass.

So I tried to get the thing going as a play, but when I called to enlist Clinton, he said, "I’m not getting into that dress and wig for $15 a night — just do a movie." I figured, how much can it cost to shoot a little thing in my house? (Stay tuned for the surprise answer!) And we were off. Unfortunately, the only dates we all had free were one month from that fateful phone call, so — finally, your answer — I never had any time to figure out what the best story for these characters might be, or how to best tell that story. I just threw together a lot of bits from the trunk and did my best to give it the appearance of cohesion.

Sometimes I wish I’d had more time to really hone the script, but then again if I’d taken that time, the whole thing might well have never come to exist in any form.

KM: "Girls Will Be Girls" has been screened at festivals across the country — ranging from its "world premiere" at Sundance to the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival (where it won numerous awards) and its upcoming showcasing at the Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on November 12th. (Not to mention that it is gradually being released this Fall at theaters in markets across the country.) Not too shabby.

Did you think that the film would have the legs that it seems to have? Of interest to the filmmaking community, how much did the Sundance debut help draw interest in the film?

RD: We just made the film to amuse ourselves, with one eye on maybe a tiny screening at Outfest, so at each stage of the film’s success we all just kind of look at each other and giggle (we’re gay).

The Sundance affiliation ended up being hugely helpful, which was sort of a surprise considering the degree to which we were ignored while there. Sundance shows about 90 films each year under its various umbrellas (we were a "Sundance at Midnight" film) but everyone’s focus is really on the 16 in competition. Once the festival is over, though, all anyone knows is that your film was at Sundance, which carries a lot of weight. Some articles even referred to us as a "Sundance hit," which we very emphatically were not, not that I’m complaining.

KM: "Girls" has already screened at numerous screenings at Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals in the U.S. and abroad — to great success and popularity. In the marketing of the film, has it been difficult to get the folks who hold the purse strings to understand that the film might appeal to a wider mainstream audience? (After all, funny is funny.)

RD: IFC has been doing everything they can to get the word out to mainstream audiences, but sometimes I wonder whether our film has that much crossover appeal after all. Straight people seem to like "Girls" well enough when they see it, but then they usually ask, "why not just use real women?" Which I guess is a smart question in the same way a four year old is smart for asking "Why is the sky blue?"

Still, in both cases you mainly just want to slap the person into a coma.

It’s interesting to discover that a sensibility that seems so obviously hilarious to my friends and me can be so alien to almost everyone else. The conventional wisdom seems to be that it will do great on video; we’ll see.

KM: The Gay and Lesbian Film Festival circuit seems more alive than ever. Having circulated your film widely in that arena, what’s your assessment of the state of the GLFF in general?

RD: The Gay and Lesbian Film Festival circuit may be thriving, but look at what these festivals end up showing — foreign films, TV shows, and a lot of miniDV stuff shot by dedicated amateurs. After a spate of independent and even studio gay films in the mid-90s, the genre has just gone away. In fact, when we were selling "Girls" at Sundance, our film reps kept trying to drill it in our heads that we were not to refer to our movie as a gay film, lest it be "ghetto-ized." I guess there’s a difference between straight people accepting that members of the same sex kiss and paying cash money to see it.

And without them, the most a gay movie seems to be able to muster at the box office is two million dollars, which is not worth the "indie’s" effort. Fortunately a lot of the amateur gay stuff is pretty good, what with recent advances in digital filmmaking and a pretty deep bench of bored fags. Still, it’s hard to ignore the implied message being sent when their efforts are all there is to play.

KM: For the struggling filmmakers out there in New England: How did you fund your film? (I think I read somewhere that you worked on some of the animation for the film yourself.)

RD: I did the chapter titles and made Coco shatter into little pieces, but the bulk of the animation and effects were done by people with actual aptitude. Still, it was a very home-made movie, even apart from the fact that it was made in my home. Jack supervised the sets, all the actors provided their own costumes, and the whole thing was produced by two friends.

Having said all that, the film still cost (drumroll…) four hundred thousand dollars. I never would have undertaken this movie if I’d known at the outset that it would cost so much. Still, I recognize that the fact that it was even a choice for me kind of lets the air out of the whole Cinderella fairy tale people like to construct about our movie — although I am, as I mentioned, a fairy.

I guess my advice to struggling New England filmmakers is: Come to L.A. and whore yourself as a sitcom hack for 15 years, then blow your life savings on a film.

KM: Is there any chance that the theme song of the film, "Girls Will Be Girls" written by Steve Edwards, will hit the charts? (It’s ridiculously catchy.)

RD: Steve is a genius, and some smart country should adopt that song as its national anthem. My big crusade right now is to get it nominated for an Academy Award, which isn’t so crazy when you consider the competition. And by the way, anyone who wants to hear it without having to see our film can download it for free at from the IFCfilm website.

KM: Your film’s now playing in theaters on the East and West Coast. Have you sat in during a random showing? How has that experience differed from watching it at a festival?

RD: Festival audiences are so uncritically appreciative that you kind of lose respect for them. And, in the trade, they spoil you, making the more measured reactions you get from paying crowds kind of a letdown. Still, it’s a kick to think that these people opened their paper and decided to see my movie instead of some nine-figure-budget blockbuster. Come to think of it, are they retarded?

KM: The Cheez Whiz scene: Special Effects wizardry or just incredible esophageal control on the part of Jeffery Roberson?

RD: That is a bit lifted straight out of Jeffery’s act, and if you want a quick, free wave of nausea, contemplate this: We used take two. Once, driving him home, I asked where that bit came from. He said when he was first starting out, he was much larger and used to eat a whole block of Velveeta, but had to stop. "You couldn’t face doing that anymore?" I asked. "No," he said, "It got too expensive."

For more information about the film, visit www.girlswillbegirlsmovie.com. ‘Girls will be Girls’ will screen on November 12 at 7:30 pm as part of the EROS Film Festival. For more information on the festival, visit www.ctglff.org.


For more information about the film, visit www.girlswillbegirlsmovie.com. 'Girls will be Girls' will screen on November 12 at 7:30 pm as part of the EROS Film Festival. For more information on the festival, visit www.ctglff.org.

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