Gina Gershon and Bat Shit Crazy Killer Joe
Gina Gerhson is incredibly sexy, unafraid to take on strong roles, and she’s phenomenally talented too. You know her from “Showgirls”, “Bound”, “Face/Off”, as well as a particularly memorable guest starring role on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as a Hasidic dry cleaner. And you’ll know her even better in her latest role, in the film “Killer Joe” directed by William Friedkin. She recently stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk with Ron Bennington about Killer Joe. Excerpts of the interview appear below.
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Ron Bennington: I was attempting to explain somewhat of a background of this movie and it’s almost impossible. It is insane.
Gina Gershon: Isn’t it? I’m so glad that you saw it.
Ron Bennington: My producer and I saw this and we were with only movie critics. It was a stunned room. And yet major laughs.
Gina Gershon: Oh good.
Ron Bennington: And I bet they do not share that in their film criticism of it. I bet they’re almost embarrassed laughs because the film is…
Gina Gershon: No, it’s a comedy. It’s a dark..dark..dark..dark comedy. In the screenings that I’ve seen that have been at the festivals, especially South by Southwest you could only imagine, I mean people were roaring with laughter. I think it sets the tone at the beginning of the movie that you could laugh at this film. If you can’t, it’s just too intense.
Ron Bennington: You see here’s the thing. I think South by Southwest, people in Texas would see this as a documentary. (Gina laughs) I think this is exactly as crazy as Texas is, but you don’t have a character in the entire film who isn’t just completely off the rails.
Gina Gershon: Yeah. They’re very – kind of toxic people making really bad decisions.
Ron Bennington: The worst decisions anyone could ever make.
Gina Gershon: Yeah. And it doesn’t really play out well for them. Any of them. Except for maybe Juno’s (Temple) character, for Dottie and Killer Joe at the end, but you don’t even know about that.
Ron Bennington: I know. I’m trying to figure that out. Do you know what I mean? I was trying to figure out if for them anything worked out. But I’m even trying to go back to films that I’ve seen before because I know people are going to compare it to certain films.
Gina Gershon: What films do you think they’ll compare it to?
Ron Bennington: I think they’re going to compare it to some of Tarantino’s stuff.
Gina Gershon: Yeah. Well because it’s so out there and it’s very violent. But William Friedkin, he’s the original guy.
Ron Bennington: He’s old school.
Gina Gershon: Super old school. Forget pushing the envelope. There’s no envelope. Period. He’s really a master at what he does. It’s so well directed and I mean think about “The French Connection”. It was the first time we ever saw chase scenes like that. “The Exorcist”, I’m obsessed with. I’ve seen it probably over a hundred times and I still see things in there that make it so incredible.
Ron Bennington: When you’re in a film and I’m not giving anything away because I want people to go to see this movie the way that I saw it. Just slack jawed and going I can’t – wait, where am I? But you are in a scene with Matthew McConaughey that will be remembered for a long long time. Because it goes as far out as anyone can go.
Gina Gershon: Yeah. I’ve never done a scene in…you know, film, obviously…
Ron Bennington: Personal life.
Gina Gershon: Personal life. Well personal life, you don’t have to watch it later. (laughs) Hopefully. For the first two times I saw this, I had to close my eyes. I was like – ohhh my God. Now I watch it. Yeah, it’s going to go down in scenes as one of the historical scenes.
Ron Bennington: Now did you know that there was that many laughs when you read the script? Because so many of the laughs, I think have to do about timing and they kind of build as you get to know the characters.
Gina Gershon: Well this was a stage play before. And I became aware of it because it was brought to my attention and they were interested in me playing this part years ago. When I read it, I thought it was an amazing script, amazing characters. I got to that last scene and I thought there is no way in hell I’m doing this 8 times a week. I just can’t go there. And I never saw the play, but everyone kept saying this play’s hysterical. And they were laughing their heads off. I kept thinking did I miss something when I read it? Once I looked at it again this time, I, having that information that it is kind of a comedy, it actually is pretty funny, but something like this you don’t play for laughs. You play it straight and the laughs, they’re innately in there, like anyone when you play it for laughs, it usually doesn’t work out.
Ron Bennington: Right, you’ve got to trust the audience is going to kind of find out where the laughs are instead.
Gina Gershon: Well these people, their thinking process and the way they go from A to B – when you’re playing them, you can’t judge them. But when you’re watching it, it’s just so absurd at times. But it makes sense to them.
Ron Bennington: Now this is an NC-17 film.
Gina Gershon: Yes.
Ron Bennington: And I think mainly because you are a woman and there’s a certain kind of aggressive things that happen.
Gina Gershon: I don’t think it has anything to do with being a woman.
Ron Bennington: You don’t?
Gina Gershon: I think that if I were a guy and that same scene happened, I still think it would be NC-17. I think it was the culmination of the violence and the nudity and the scene between Juno and Matthew. I think it’s just a culmination of the whole thing. And to Billy’s credit, when they said – well, we could cut out a couple frames to make it an R, which certainly makes it much more commercially viable, he was like – I ain’t touching a frame. This is the movie I made. And at this point in his career, he has earned that right.
Ron Bennington: You’re always doing so much stuff. You put out music. You play shows. And now you’ve got a book coming out. What’s the book called?
Gina Gershon: It’s called “In Search of Cleo: How I Found My Pussy and Lost My Mind”.
Ron Bennington: What’s it about?
Gina Gershon: It’s based on the true story. These stories are true. About when my cat, someone took my cat when I was away. I was in Los Angeles and I came home and he had been missing for 3 days. And so I searched the streets of Los Angeles for 2 1/2 months looking for him. It’s about all the characters and the situations and the encounters that I had that when I was playing my album out here, I kind of – oh, I’ll just tell the story of Cleo and marry the songs together that way. Because they were thematically similar about what people do in order to find true love and screwed up relationships and all that stuff. And afterwards, everyone kept coming up to me saying there’s no way that’s a true story. I’m like – this is a true story and no one would believe me because it’s so outrageous. And so one thing led to the other, next thing I know I had this book company saying can you write this as a novel? And I added some other weird cat stories into it, that had actually happened as well. I’m telling you the 5% that I probably had to make up in this book is hands down the most normal stuff in there just because I thought I have to connect it and make it linear in some way. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Ron Bennington: Particularly when you live in Los Angeles.
Gina Gershon: (laughs) Yeah. Especially hanging in L.A. around 4:30 in the morning when no one’s out. There’s a whole culture going on. Like weird stuff goes on.
Ron Bennington: When is this book going to be out?
Gina Gershon: October 11th.
Ron Bennington: Now this is the first novel that you’ve ever done?
Gina Gershon: I wrote a book a couple of years ago with my brother. A young adult book called “Camp Creepy Time”.
Ron Bennington: Oh I do remember that.
Gina Gershon: And that was completely fictitious. It was an idea that he came up with. And over the years, he basically made me write it with him which was really fun. And really interesting. And this, I call the pussy book a novel, it’s really not. It’s me really trying to retell the story. And I actually think the audio is going to be better because it’s me telling the stories. So when you’re reading it, I’m not trying to be Dostoyevsky or one of these guys. I mean it’s the retelling of a true story, so it’s kind of in my voice.
Ron Bennington: So, no matter what you do, whether if it’s your music, your acting, the writing, it’s really storytelling. At the end of the day, that’s the one part of it. That you want to share stories.
Gina Gershon: Well, yeah. It’s weird. I’m oddly a private person. And this is probably the first thing I’ve done that’s actually based on a part of my life. It’s a very particular story that happened. I don’t go into too many personal things. I mean although everyone’s like – oh it’s so revealing. I don’t really reveal that much. I mean I guess to other people maybe I do. But no, I mean I like playing characters and I like playing people that are kind of messed up that I like to figure out. I’m interested in telling stories, but this is the first real personal story that I’ve actually revealed a little bit of.
Ron Bennington: Well this new film, it’s quite the character.
Gina Gershon: Yeah, “Killer Joe” is definitely not my life. Thank God.
Ron Bennington: Hopefully it’s no one’s life. Honestly.
Gina Gershon: By the way, it is. It’s based on, Tracy Letts wrote this based on a true story that he found and he changed it around a little bit. Wow. Read the papers man. Crazy shit happens. There’s insane things that go one all the time. I’m always saying truth is stranger than fiction and it’s true. But I think there’s a certain universal element to these characters. I think they want to survive and make a better life. They just don’t really go about it in the best way. (laughs)
Ron Bennington: It’s out in New York, July 27th. And then it starts to roll out around the country. And the book is October 11th. Gina Gershon. Thank you so much. It’s great to see you again, and I’ll see you next time through.
Gina Gershon: See you next time.
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Visit killerjoethemovie.com or more info and follow Gina on twitter @realginagershon.
You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio. Not yet a subscriber? Click here for a free trial subscription.
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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.
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