Shortbus (2006)

Hey, everybody. It's John Cameron Mitchell, the director of Shortbus. And with me is... Justin Bond, the mistress of Shortbus. I'm Suk-Yin Lee, and I play Sophia Lin in Shortbus. I'm Paul Dawson, and I play James. And I am PJ Dubois, and I play Jamie. I'm just noticing some of our investors there. Q Television, the gay television channel that actually went bankrupt before the film got finished. Thank God for Q Television. I mean, really. This, I might say a few words about this. We originally were going to do a scale model of the city, and we couldn't really afford that. We wanted to have a, you know, there's a blackout in the film. We can't really afford to have a real blackout. So John Bear, who did a little digital stuff on Shortbus, did this beautiful animation. I told him, can you make it look like a scale model? And he did, I think, rather brilliantly, because a lot of people still think it's a model. Did you mean he did... stuff on the head wig? He did the bouncing, do you remember follow the bouncing wig? Right, but you just said you did it a little unshort. Oh, I meant head wig, I'm sorry. This was actually a really fun part, wasn't it, Paul? Remember when we did the fart? Yes. Did you really fart? Now, when I originally saw that, I thought that was digital yellow urine coming out, but then I was Surprised to find it was all natural. I believe it was vitamin B. Vitamin B. Nice. We spent a lot of time on the pee and the fart. The fart was a tube. I don't know if I should spoil the mystery about the fart. I think we just did. We did. I did. The magic of movie making. Personally, I think it's more admirable to know that you had a clear plastic tube. Between your lips and attached underneath your leg. It's always clear. It was hard to get a take without me, especially, cracking up during it. I think that was, in some ways, the most fun moment of the shoot. There's Lindsay Beamish. This is Severin. Lindsay Beamish, we met later in the rehearsal process in Los Angeles when an actor dropped out and I wanted a totally new character to fit into that slot of the film. And she gave an incredible audition, made me crack up, she made me cry. But it was really a year into the workshop process, which is the way we created the film, which was through improvisation over two and a half years with all you guys.

And Adam Hardman's so great, man. Adam Hardman plays Jesse, the trust fund kid. Is his name Hardman? Hardman. Really? Not Hardman? It's actually, it's Hardman. Hardman. But we like Hardman. So much double entendre in this movie. Adam actually is a film director also. I met him in a record store, working in a record store. Rebel Rebel. But of course, some of your best discoveries have been in record stores, right? That's right. Or video stores. And Adam is actually directing a film now. Oh, geez. Oh, hi. Oh, my... What the... I love your eyes in this scene. Your eyes kill me. Even to this day, I have to turn away laughing. I can't... Aren't you used to it yet? No. What the hell? Oh. That was a hard one. Yeah, I was wearing a female condom right there. That's the wonderful thing that... That we all learned about. We all learned about. I had no idea that there was the female condom under the big top. A large... It's like a big baggie. Baggie inside me. Ooh, like a wizard's sleeve. That's right. We didn't want to have him wearing a condom because, you know, they're married for five years. It's odd for him to wear a condom. Yeah, why would he do that? But now that I look at it, the way it was shot, we were doing it shooting from the hip, so to speak. And he was in silhouette anyway. Yeah. So he could have worn a condom. He could have, yeah. I just remember his face above me looking... completely violated by the female condom, and you're like, perfect, that's exactly the mood. Exactly. They're desperate for connection. Paul, you had to make this look harder than it was. Oh, my God, this is such an amazing moment. Yeah, Paul was actually very good at this certain activity, and too good. You know, without conflict, there is no drama, so I said, can you make it look harder? Then it is. I always have that problem when I'm in bed with people. Can you make it look harder? I love Peter Stickles, the voyeur. Yeah, he didn't have to do a damn sexual thing in this movie, you realize. Oh, geez. Not on set. He was ready for it. Maybe on set, not on screen. Well, John, wasn't it your whole idea to, like... Ooh, that's the part I like. Yeah. To, like, blow the audience away with lots of stack... Or break the hymen. We wanted to break the audience's hymen here, let them know what we were about, what language we were using, but also with jokes. I mean, look, a yoga ball. Isn't that funny? The sound there, you can hear her cheeks separating. That was Ben Chia, our sound guy, came up with that sound. It's actually a natural sound. The yoga ball is an iconic, iconic accoutrement of our... Which we'll talk about in the deleted scenes a little bit more. Should we talk about the yoga ball there? Yeah. Okay, your comments. Sook, your comments. Oh! There we go. Deal breaker. Conversation starter. Ordeal breaker. As Mick Rock said, you took it to the bank and left a deposit. Were you hopped up on zinc? Okay. No, okay, this is... Oh, I... That's something that we did do, Sook, that some people might be happy to know, is that... Well, that... That, uh... That was very kind of the Museum of Modern Art to lend you that power. Yeah. That's actually not real cum, because we had to keep getting the perfect drip, so that's cornstarch and water. But for Paul, it's James here, we really wanted, you know... Before I get back to the cum... You realize that I did a little color correction so you could see your tear better. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. That was John Dowdell, our colorist. Later we'll have to point out the tear that you removed. Oh, yeah. You removed a tear from him, too. But as we were talking about before, we really wanted Paul's cum to show up, and we only had so many takes, and we wanted to make sure it was working. What did you take, Paul? Zinc. Zinc and vitamin B. It's a secret. Or oysters, which is a natural source of both. PJ, coming in, wondering why his four orgasms that were in the original script were completely eradicated throughout time, and now I'm forever blue-balled. Is that a Neil Diamond song? That's a blue-ball face right there. Aww. This is my favorite moment of Raf's right here, is when he... suddenly. It's so good. Raphael Barker, yeah, that's a terrific reaction. Because he really was asleep. Feeling his eyes boring in the side of his skull. He was asleep. He was actually asleep. You succeeded in... He always looks a little surprised, though. Yeah. And that's a great moment, too. It's like, hi, I'm nervous. I'm your lover for five years, but I can't... can barely look at you. Oh, I know. Such a... Clustered discomfort. His Burberry boxers, really. That just says masculine. Burberry is considered chav. Chav, yeah. Rock and roll, you know, very... Here's that woman that you love that only had one nostril. Oh, yeah, Daniela Westbrook. Daniela Westbrook. She dressed her children, her baby carriage. Everything was Burberry. She probably had Burberry tampons. It's considered very working class in Britain. Here it's... Upper-class New England. That's wild. Isn't it? Well, you know, if you consider lower-class English people and upper-class New Englanders, it's about the same. That's true, right? Yeah. They came on over and... They were the trash that got thrown out of the UK in the first place. The tartan has actually been banned in some clubs because it's a sign of trouble, of violence. It's kind of like red and blue, you know, handkerchiefs in LA. So much clever coding. It's like a gay rumble. Oh. We should get back to short bus. Okay. This is a great moment. That short bus was totally random. It just happened by accident. And we did that shot three times. It just went by. Oh, and the yoga ball. Hilarious. We did that shot three times that zoom in on the character of Caleb the stalker. It happened three times. with the short bus going by as we zoomed. It was actually when school was out when we started shooting that. How? Maybe they had a little summer trip. All buses in New York City are short buses, actually. Which means... Except for the one that's just about to pass in the background. Okay, so you see those two Chinese characters behind me? Oh, yeah. They are... The Chinese characters for John, what is it again? Help me. We were very careful about all of our characters' decor. All the actors had input. I really like the lighting in this scene for some reason. I just love those. This is our first day of shooting. This is our very first day of shooting. We're so excited. First scene. It was a rough day. I loved arriving on set with you guys in the van. Seeing the chip wagon annoying, uh-oh, here it goes. There's the long bus. Yeah. But remember, we shot so much footage because we were just learning how to work in this improvisational way where the script was set, but I encourage you to paraphrase. Is that Central Park West? Yes, that's around 110th Street. Okay. I love your reaction there, Suki. I want to see when it goes monogamy is for straight people. It's totally stolen from another part of the scene. Yeah, it looks like it to me. I thought there was some handiwork in the editing. In some ways, this scene had the most editing work on it than any other scene. You're kidding. Because it was our first day, we really didn't quite have our rhythm yet. You guys were nervous. I was nervous. Frank was nervous. And the scene was very long. The original scene was 14 minutes. A lot of the scenes were a lot longer. This goes to one of, we're about to cut to one of my favorite days of shooting. Mine too. At the gym where Paul's character works as a lifeguard for a jacuzzi in probably a more gay gym than not. And we couldn't find a big enough jacuzzi in Manhattan, so we had to go deep into Jersey. There it is. to find an actual jacuzzi that was big. Look at you looking down like a lord from on high. To your right there is Jeff Witte, who wrote the musical Avenue Q. To the left is Dave Pitu, who's a wonderful director and actor from the Atlantic Theatre Company. And I asked them to be cheap... Sluts. Gym sluts. They do it so well. And it doesn't... Do you think it's really that much of a stretch? And the dead person in the soup there is Mickey Cottrell, who is a well-known actor, publicist, and producer in L.A. He was in the film My Own Private Idaho, playing one of the Johns who gets River Phoenix to clean up his house. He does it rather brilliantly. He's so fun to hang out with. And how good is he? Dead. Very convincing dead man. Watch his eyes. Wait for this moment. He was such a trooper. going underwater. There's no stuntmen there. Covered in red makeup. There he is. Okay, he's not even, there's not even a trouble. He's dead. And in the script I said he has to be benignly and benevolently dead. And look at that. He had that beautiful expression on his face that helps James go where he wants to go or he thinks he should go. This was a, remember every time we had to do the flicker of the light was always a problem and we'd lose power and everything would fall apart. Yeah. It's a metaphor that seemed really useful for the film since we did experience the New York City blackout together. Suk wasn't here, but I spent time with three of the people in this room, PJ, Paul, and Justin that night. Wasn't it a beautiful night? It was a gorgeous night. I was telling my friend who was visiting from London last night, we were walking down the street. You could see the stars last night. I was telling him just to imagine. all those lights out and complete silence. Because we also, it happened when it was day, so we actually got to see the night fall on the end, which is a rare thing too. It was so magical. I remember how Jersey's lights were still on. Really? No, I don't remember that. Yeah, it really was, it seemed as if only New York was gone, but of course it went straight up to Toronto, right? So... that you experienced a blackout at the same time? Sadly, I was in the middle of Canada in Winnipeg, and I was envious. I wanted to be in the blackout. I was in the bright light. It was a beautiful night. People were so kind to each other. We actually missed each other. We actually had our own personal window scene, which we'll see later in the film. I ran to Paul Dawson's window, actually, and he went to where he thought I was going to be, and we actually swore to each other that we would get our window scene right in short bus. Paul and PJ were in a relationship before they were cast in the film. And, you know, the beautiful energy was... I just remember when I heard that you guys got together before the film got cast, and I was like... I just had this thrill in my heart. It's like, because I loved you both and admired you both as actors so much, and I'm like, oh, my God, they're together. And look, they're together there. And it's like this... You know, I didn't want to tell you, but, like, I wanted all of you guys in the film before I started auditioning. But I wanted you guys to go through the audition process just in case something felt wrong or the other actors didn't have a rapport. But all four of you, I wanted you guys in. Wow, that's amazing. That's so cool. That's a confession right here on the DVD. I want to jump on you and hug you. You can't. But I have my headphones on. I love this song. I know, me too. I love this scene with this lady. Oh, me too. That is Mary Beth Peel, who you might recognize from Dawson's Creek. She looks a little bit like Carolina Herrera, the fashion designer. I'd like to see her doing that. I did a play with Mary Beth by Craig Lucas, and she's a wonderful person. I wanted her to do that character, and there was a little scene where she actually talks about what she's looking for in the drain there. It's her husband's gift to her, a necklace, her husband who had died, and she can't believe she's lost this. Because in editing, we had to shorten everything here, but she was such a trooper to stick her hand down a drain for... three hours in West End Avenue. Who's this artist? Ezra Ray. Ezra Ray, who are in Saddle Creek. A friend of mine used to produce some of their songs, which is how I met them. I didn't meet them, but I met one of them, but I didn't. I was listening to the soundtrack, the Shortbust soundtrack last night. It was really... It's really great. Yeah, it's gorgeous. I love those nighttime shots, because it really, I want to do the wave every time that comes on. It just makes you want to jump. Oh, jeez, the most beautiful couple in the world, Shanti and Jan. Shanti and Jan were, when I met them, I was, again, my heart leapt. I'm like, this has to be the couple that Sophia sees and doesn't, feel that she can measure up to. Who could? Yeah, who could? I don't know. They're artists. She's an actress. They do performance together. They juggle fire, fashion designers. Dance stuff. Jan makes beautiful leather clothing. Oh, Christ. Dr. Donut. That is Bradford Scobie, who plays Dr. Donut, who is one of his many vaudeville characters. And of course, Justin Bond playing himself. I remember Justin, I was like, do you want to use your own name? And you were like, hmm. Thought about it for a second. How come you wanted to? Because I've become so well known as Kiki and I like to perform as Justin Bond. I figured people will see that and then they'll know. I mean, it's not that far from the reality of me in that sort of situation. I mean, I have fun by the handful. That was Sean Bellman's painting of Justin as Madame X, a famous... Oh, did you know that that wizard sleeve joke is in Borat, too? I saw that. Really? That's crazy. Borat says, does she have a vagine that hangs like the sleeve of a wizard? I know, it's so funny. That was Murray Hill on the swing. Murray Hill on the swing. And my friend Alice, who has the cunt like a wizard sleeve, is going to see the movie for the first time. On Friday, probably, right? Yeah, in the U.K. It opens on Friday in the U.K. That little baby is my friend James Coppola's cousin, cousin's baby, Severio. Good to see you. Hi, James. Hey. I'm so glad you came. I just had to switch the films. We're going to do a three-hour Gertrude Stein documentary. That sounds like a real weenie shrinker. Come on, let's go get laid. You going to be all right? We have a lot of people from the downtown New York scene stuffed into this film. Murray Hill was on the swing. Murray Hill is a wonderful... comedian, performer, Dirty Martini, Exotic Dancers coming up later. Miss Exotic World. Miss Exotic World, 2005, I believe. The Va Va Sisters, who are the girls in the trapeze, coming up in the song Upside Down. And this place, this warehouse, has some history behind it? Yeah, this is all shot in a place called Dumba. which is a play on Dumbo, which is the section that the actual short bus and the fictional short bus take place, which stands for Down Underneath the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, Dumbo. And Dumbo was a play on that as a queer... Hello. Yeah, that was... Hello. That was what? They're so beautiful. There's so many great bodies of all shapes and sizes. Well, this place, Dumba, a queer arts collective, would have parties like this. Those women up on the bomb live there. That's true. That was Sienna and Pamela. Everyone's having a lot of fun in this room. They were so lucky. So fun. I was kind of a little mad that I wasn't a Sextra. I was a Sextra, but I couldn't relax. There he is. Johnny. And that's Brent. And that was Stephen Kent with the camera. There's Will. There's Will. All of our friends are in here. Shanti and Jan. Stephen Kent, who plays Creamy in this, actually had, you know, Sex Not Bombs parties and a salon called Cine Salon that inspired Short Bus, where there was films shown. Oh, him. There he is. There he is. Stephen Kent Jusek. He's the mother of us all. So he was the creator of the Real Life Salon. The Real Salon that this was based on, he would show 60mm films. There's Jonathan Couette. Jonathan Couette, who directed Tarnation. He auditioned for Shortbus, and that's how we met him. And he had elements of his film Tarnation in his audition tape for Shortbus, which is how I became aware of it and tried to help him out. Oh, Jay Brennan. How cute is he? So adorable. The Yenta was something that was based on something in reality. I'd heard about a handheld device to help you date. I think it was called Gaydar originally in the U.S., but it sort of collapsed. But I thought it was a great idea. Do you remember that when we were filming that, I just met Jay, and I thought he was the cutest boy in the world. So every scene we had to do together, I'd try and see how many times I could kiss him in one scene. You did a pretty good job, because I don't kiss him very many times in the film. Uh-oh. It's Paul Stovall, who actually used to go out with a Swedish guy and wanted to play a Swedish guy named Magnus. And we have a deleted scene that's going to be on the DVD with the two of them. You wonder what happened to them when they go off after this. Jay's not here right now, but he would tell you how much he hates looking at his hair. I love his hair in the film. Now he has very, very short hair. And that little joke he just did with the camera is something that he used to do in real life, and I said that is going in the movie. It's a great moment. Okay, so now I'm supposed to be drunk. That's why suddenly my face is covered in red makeup. Well, you got the red light all around you, too. I don't think... Peter Stickle's in the back. Peter Stickle, if you see him, he's the guy who plays the stalker. He's standing in the back. Some people don't notice. that he's there. This is Reg Vermieu. Gentleman Reg. Gentleman Reg is his band, who he has a song on the soundtrack that's actually playing right now. And he's not an albino. He's not an albino, but he's representing. If you look, there is pigment in his eyes. Yeah, he's sort of related to an albino, but not quite. He's like half albino. He's albinesque. He's albinesque. I hope albinos aren't offended by that, but I don't know. I played straight in my day. This is Ray Rivas, who is the most awesome performer playing Shabbos Goy. He's amazing. He's funny as hell. Remember the rehearsal where he got shot the week before? Yeah, he got shot. We're going to talk about that in the deleted scene. But he is a performance artist. He told me that he did a performance in that exact space in Dumba where he was, like, hanging from hooks and... involved blood in some way, and he's just the most incredible counterculture performance artist. He's so kind. Straight tranny that I know. Straight tranny. Incredible. Very expressive. He doesn't really fall into any easy... No, which is why I love him. Oh, and here comes the one we all love. Here's Alan Mandel, who is our hero and our spiritual godfather and sugar daddy. He introduced me to Samuel Beckett. We had coffee together. He worked with Samuel Beckett. He started the San Quentin Prison Drama Workshop where they did Beckett in the 60s. Wow. I met him on a... in the worst play I've ever done in my life in L.A. in the 80s. And he, I love him more than anybody. And I said, this has to be Alan who plays the former mayor. And he had such a blast. Such a good time. He's so great. He's like this perfect mix of like high class and low class. No brow. That's what I am for. No brow. Totally. Which he actually has used menstrual blood as makeup in his shows. He loves the ladies. He loves women of color, especially. Yeah, and over 250 pounds. No, no, no. He's equal opportunity for women, but it's like he is the ladies' man. And he's gorgeous. He was hot on you, too, honey, you told me. He was? Why doesn't anybody ever tell me that in person? Well, you know. But he is so beautiful, too. You know, stunning. I love fighting with him. This was the funnest scene to shoot. You guys were so great at improvising here. When his purse spilled out, he had pot, and then all his pot spilled out. That's an... That art on the doors that was actually there was painted by Sienna. Oh my God, it's so funny. Just that look. Can we all do it together? But this is Sienna's bedroom in Dumba. It's actually an old photographic developing room. There's a giant... And her name is Bitch. Hi, Bitch. That's Bitch, who's playing Bitch. All kinds of friends. There's Lindsay, who plays Severn. Bitch's girlfriend, Daniela C., who's... Right there to her right is on the L word now, playing a trans character. That's Lex. Lex Vaughn. Who's in various bands, and she's a comedian. Hidden cameras. Hidden cameras. That's Yolanda Ross, who's a wonderful actress. She gives that iconic image. We've got Rachel there. Rachel. Rachel, who's a wonderful actress living in L.A. now. And the other person who will show up in a second is J.D. Sampson, who is in the band La Tigra and is touring actually with Peaches right now. wonderful musician and performer. What did your very best orgasm feel like? This scene was really long. The original version was like 15 minutes. And we improvised our heads off for this, right? So it was such a looseness. There's JD there. That was just so comfortable. We have a nice long version on the DVD. Um, it was really hot, I remember. She cracks me up. Lex. Yeah. So funny. So funny. Little mischief maker. Mm-hmm. Those are the actual walls. They were painted that way when we got in there. And Jodi Asness did a lot of great decor work. I mean, these people have such fantastic ideas of what it was like. I was talking to the gods and all this stuff. I'm like, whew. Pretty impressed, really. I always feel like, oh, Jesus, don't let me make them, you know, do something ridiculous or embarrassing, like, you know, fart in their mouth the other day or something. I know. I'm usually just too busy concentrating on the act to get all spiritual. That comes after or before. It's usually used as a sort of excuse, really. Justification. Before or after. This is my favorite part of Sooks. Oh, my God, that cracks me up every time. That expression of Yolanda's like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Bitch's face. Fuck, Severin. Excuse me. Severin's name comes from the... masochistic classic called Venus and Furs. Oh, wow. I wondered who it was, that or Belle de Jour. Belle de Jour, I realized later, was the name of Catherine Deneuve's character who was a masochist, but I thought it'd be good to have a dominatrix with a masochist name. From the film, I just saw the film Venus and Furs not too long ago. It was a film? Yeah. It's really bad, but it's kind of great. Well, of course, it's a great Velvet Underground song, too. This is Scott Matthew, who I met through Mike Potter, who did the wigs and makeup for Hedwig. He gave me a CD, and I heard this gorgeous voice and said, I want you to write songs for Short Bus. He's from Australia. He's half Sri Lankan, and he is angelic with a melancholy and ravishing voice. Complexity in his voice, complexity in his emotions always gets me. This is still probably my favorite scene. Mine. The one that still affects me. I can't feel anything when I see any of you anymore. This is your love letter. This is the one scene that you wrote verbatim, right? That the actors performed. Yeah. Alan said, I don't want to improvise off of this. Let me just do it as written. I'm like, okay. But most scenes were... were tightly written, but I encourage everyone to paraphrase. They had such good chemistry. This is just so moving, your face here. I know, when she's looking at the orgasm. What have you done wrong? Now this, you'll see in the extra scenes too, is how we shot this. Talk about a trooper. I mean, she's acting, totally having sex at the same time, having to do this very emotional moment. I mean, you all had to do that. Wow. We had more time to rehearse with you guys. These guys, Jan and Shanti, really jumped right into the short bus stew. Didn't hold back. In the middle of an orgy. Yeah. It was so funny when you were talking about watching the group sex there. Remember it? Well, yes, right. Well, when I first saw it, it was like, oh, my gosh, I'll never have the opportunity to ever watch this again. It was beautiful. But then about 20 minutes later, I started getting hungry. It was sort of stuffy in there, and then I went to craft services. I know. It was funny. At first, it was like, oh, my God, this is so gorgeous. It's so hot. They're all so beautiful. They're so great. I need a cigarette. And also, it did start to smell a little funky after a while. You can't describe the scent. Bentley and Yolan, who are props people, had to clean up after. I was like, oh, honey, let me just clean this up for you. Just big old buckets full of sloppy mops full of bleach. That's what my bedroom smells like anymore. Mr. Clean comes walking in. Yeah. Oh, God, this moment. just when Alan confesses to his sins. Can you imagine? If a real mayor might have done something like this? Yes, or if the real mayor saw this and thought, wow. I hope he does. They let me off the hook big time with this one. Well, we don't really say it's based on anyone, but we leave that up to the knowledge of many. See, this is an amazing scene in that when she's looking at me, Because pretty much she's looking at the audience. Like, I think in some ways it's a very interesting moment of connection where Shanti is also not just looking at me, but sort of addressing the audience. Exactly. And also passing on some forgiveness to a stranger, oddly. You know, it's like, settle. You know, settle down. There's mercy in the world. You know, all the characters here, including Severn. apologize or give forgiveness. Ta-da! Here we go. And the mayor is... Left to his own devices. And now that look he gives there is so good. It's a real death in Venice moment. It is, isn't it? It's like he's built his own life, hasn't he? Let's listen for the whale noises here. Oh, it's dog noises. What were those noises? I love those noises. We missed it. It's right there. It's the little sad dogs in the courtyard sounds. Did you get that from a CD of special effects? It's Ben Chia or something. That's a good one. It creates a good mood. I seem to remember what you guys, yeah. Tell the story, PJ. Well, we were shooting this scene, and we knew sex was going to happen. We didn't know when it was going to happen, and we hadn't discussed it. the taking of Viagra for when that was going to happen. So at one point before lunch, I just looked at the guys like, well, it must be coming up in the next hour, so let's just pop one. And we popped one. So we popped one. So our lips were like a little red. Is that why? I was wondering, the makeup artist put the town on your lips. It increases blood to all your extremities. So... And it makes you a little like, ooh. I was furious, because they didn't tell me they were taking it. I could have told them that the schedule was being pushed back. And meanwhile, you guys, do you all have hard-ons right now? What's going on? They're not just rosy-lipped, they're flushed, sweating, and their acting in that is highly... Everything was blue to us. My colorist, John Deladel, actually had to take the red out of their face in that scene. That is insane. I had no idea. This is Jay Brandon's actual song. We all know and love him as a singer-songwriter of great talent, and I wanted him to showcase a little bit of that in this scene. As you can see, Paul's character, James... encouraging Jamie to connect with Seth. You know, it's part of his fucked up plan to get them together. And he does. He does. Jamie finally breaks through and... I mean, how can you not fall in love with that? I love this scene. Look at that face. That was really fun to shoot, actually. Jay was like a lost model when we met him. He was just roaming the streets of New York. He only modeled a little bit and did indeed hate it. His character used to be a personal assistant for an R&B singer named Chevelva. That's right. Chevelva. So this was a very long night. We shot all night. Yeah, it's like 80 degrees in that room, right? Real hot. And then we had to get to this. And everyone was a little bit nervous, but it was like probably 3 a.m. when we got to it. Had the Viagra worn off by this point? The Viagra never really worked, I don't think. You still have to be in an arousing situation, and it just wasn't, despite these beautiful boys. But you said that you actually had a good time. I had a great time filming this scene. It was six hours. I mean, I didn't really notice it. The six hours of just the sex. The Viagra really started working that night when we got home after the shoot. I remember on this set, Jay was all nervous because he was like, oh, God, I really hope my asshole's cleaning up. And you were like, oh, it's okay. I like it a little musky. Didn't work so well. There was a lot of... He kept... Showering going on, I remember, too. He kept bucking back and might make my nose red, so makeup... How did you guys come across this idea of the Star Spangled Banner? Well, we did one rehearsal that was sexual with the three of them, and PJ ended up singing a Beatles song to his butt. It could have been. A hard day's night. And, of course, you know, the music clearance rights for a song such as that would have been prohibitive, so... It was a combination of public domain. And Jay's domain. And Jay's domain. And also, as you'll see in the deleted scenes, originally the stalker is on the phone while watching the national anthem. We have some patriotic themes in this film. Sook-Yin Lee demanded we shoot this before we had finished lighting. Because why? Well, because I wanted to, you know, I wanted to be for real. You know, it's all for real, right? So I had drunk, like, three bottles of water, and I couldn't take it anymore. I was going to pee my pants. So I was like, guys, get in there and pee. We ended up using fake pee sounds. Thanks for this position, by the way. It gives us all great abs. Yeah, John, thank you. The rotate. No one can hear you saying carpet burn. Because everybody's laughing at rotate. Oh, Jay got carpet burn, didn't he, on his bum? This... He had a terrible time shooting the end of the scene. Because you guys used like a burlap carpet and got burlap bum burn. And this was probably the most, you know, it was so intricate about getting all these emotions right without hardly, you know. Saying a word. Saying a word and really feeling it. And if you're, you know, a gay man out there listening and you've been in a threesome before, you kind of, you know where they go sometimes. Yeah, it's a complicated emotional thing. terrain that I remember a lot of this footage we're using right now we did in these long 20 minute takes. Remember you would be sexual and then it would settle and then it would go into the scene and I let you guys go very free and Frank DiMarco the cinematographer and Dave were very free with the camera and letting you guys move around. It's a beautiful night actually. Yeah it was. You guys are doing some real nice work here in terms of the acting. I remember Frank Was doing the insert of the condom in the hand. He's like, just hand it to him like it's a 20. That was the martini shot that night. That's hot. Martini shot meaning the last shot of the day. It slayed us all. We were on the floor laughing. Our Karen, our AD, had to order us to get up. It was a long night. This is actual footage from the road trip, yeah. That was actually a beach in, believe it or not, Wisconsin. A nude beach in Wisconsin. Paul and PJ went on a... cross-country trip and in the middle of our two and a half years of shooting, Howard, our producer, gave him a video camera and I said, just shoot stuff along the way. We might use it for James' film. And we did. Including those goose bumps. There's actually a lot more footage from that beach.

This scene here was based on... I did a lot of research on how to achieve the O. And one of them was, you know, strip for yourself and you alone. And in our case, John and Frank were squashing the... bathtub area watching me. I have to clarify, Sukhin, that you are an orgasmic woman and that you're only playing a non-orgasmic woman. Thank you, John. Was that the bat dildo? No, that's the mommy baby beaver. It's a fantastic unit. I was very sad to find out that they've discontinued that model since the making of Short Bus. But people around the world have contacted me and they are sending me vibrators and one person found an out-of-stock black Mama Beaver for me. So happy. Nice, nice. eBay? And this was all improvised in the moment, the leg cramp and all this ridiculousness. So funny. We were screaming with laughter and we had to hide it because the boom mic was in there. This is all real vibrator sounds. Oh, I know, actually, these are from Blake. Blake made these sounds, the peeing and the vibrator sounds. I love this scene because I didn't have to do anything but just let you go. Oh, dear me. Then we come out to, oh. You know, this was hilarious, because I wasn't, I was all worried about the actors keeping it up, and, you know, we had some real porn going on there on the computer so we could keep it going. And between shots, he came on my shoe. Yeah. He came on your shoe, right in your shoe. And I had to, like, adjust the camera so that, because he could, you know, after you come, usually it's hard to get a heart on, and he almost ruined my film. Again, that was stuff that you told us to scream at each other. We thought that it was going to be before the beginning of the scene. This is trying to get us into the mood, and then you used it in the final cut. You never know. You sneaky little thing. You know, Brian Cates, master editor, he used every ounce of common sweat in the editing of this film. So the screams that we used to give you guys energy... Ended up in the scene. This scene cracks me up still. Because we rehearsed it for so many years. Remember? It was one of the original scenes from two years ago. This whole scene creeps me out. Why? All that touching and communicating. It's just not natural. It's sensei focus. Sammy and I at one point, my ex-boyfriend, he was like... We could go in for couples counseling, but everyone that goes in for couples counseling ends up breaking up. Do you want to break up? No? Well, then let's don't go for counseling. And we didn't break up for a few more years after that. But if he touched my bosomy biceps, I don't know. I might have dumped him right then and there. You know what? Yes, I own that. Raphael looks so cute in the scene. He's adorable. This is shot in our friend Michael Warner and Sean Bellman's apartment. They kindly gave us their apartment. Don't ever give your apartment to a film because you never know what they're gonna do in it. Or what they're gonna do on your piano. Yeah, and those are all their real books. Those guys are a couple eggheads for real. Brainstuds, we call them. They're brilliant. Brainstuds. They also have a salon every once in a while. They had one last Sunday. Brilliant performances. It's been great with Sherpas, too, because people have met on set who are now collaborating in different ways. For example, Scott Matthew, our bearded composers, performing with Rachel Friedman, who was the voice of the Yenta. No way. And Shanti Carson, half of the Beautiful Couples, is doing a film directed by... Adam Hardman. Adam Hardman, who played the Trust Fund kid. Bullshit. I... This was a big editing job, I remember, for Brian, because we had to shorten it a lot. Get to the essence of what you needed to communicate. You guys did so good there, though. Right, Sook? Do you feel good about that scene? Do I feel good about that? I don't know. It's so hard for me to watch myself, really. No, you should stop that. I know, I know. This is also in Michael and Sean's bathroom, which is one of my favorite bathrooms in New York. It's like... How to make a movie when you have financial constraints. Borrow your friend's place. This set was built for the film. It's like in some ways our greatest accomplishment of Jodi Asness, our production designer, and the people who worked with her to make an actual sensory deprivation tank. This was a long day, too. Oh, God, these were two days. By the end of the first day, that water looked like sludge. It was tepid. There were things floating around there. Lindsay would not go in there. There was a lot of coaxing. Yeah, but it was because all the cameramen are standing in it over you. Yeah. I love these scenes. They're my favorite scenes. Look at Lindsay's knockers in that scene. Beautiful. Yeah, well, Lindsay's a dancer. She's a fantastic dancer. She's got a really great body. The first thing that we did, actually, on the day that this was shot, was we had to go back and record my money shot from the first scene, which had been missed. Oh, yeah, because you had done your money shot in the beginning twice, and the cameras, they missed it because they were giving you a personal time. Well, we had to, you know, keep the cameras on for a while to let him warm up into it. He got a little tired and he didn't want to, like, make yourself conscious, so he turned the camera away. And then you came. Camera missed it. Gave you six hours to reload. The actor and the camera. And then we shot it again. Camera missed it. Let's come back tomorrow. Never say die. So it was added to this day. It was added to this day. Remember, I had to run off and do this. You were going back and forth. I mean, this was an interesting scene. We were burning so much tape because, you know, we were trying to... Because you were terrible. Well, yeah, we were terrible. We were trying to perform it as it was written in the script, and we went through so many different takes, and then you took us aside during the lunch break and you said, it's not working as it was written. When we come back for lunch, you know, I want you to purely improvise. If you say anything from the page, you're fired. Remember, you gave us that ultimatum. But because the scene was already sort of in your muscle memory... you often hit the same beats. Yeah, we knew where we were gonna go. But this is an example of how you open it up to the improvisational process within the structure. I remember we often did like really, you guys went way off the script, and then sometimes we kind of came back a little bit closer to the script later in the day. But it was a difficult day, even though the camera was very stationary. It was that perfect example of an actor trying to get back to the way it was in rehearsal. Which is always a problem. You should always let go of that. And remember that today is today, not yesterday. You got them from... They're both so good in this scene. I know, I love this scene. It's the best conversation I've had all year. That's so great. To me, this is the essence of Lindsay's character. She's such a good actress, and her choices are so clear in this scene, especially. I love... I love the way that they... are trying to help each other, but they don't overdo it. Maybe in a Hollywood version of this, they would have said everything, but you talk a little bit about the characters' family, a little bit about each of their problems. And this stuff was pretty widely improvised. This is stuff Beamish is coming up with about the pouring milk all over you and this drawing on your sneakers. It's great, great, great dialogue. So I basically gave them the goal, okay, you have to help her fantasize, and it fails at a certain point, and you move on. But whatever they did was completely, was a little bit of the script and a little bit of themselves. Where did this come from? The padding here. Well, you know, I wanted, because Sophia's always... you know, trying to teach and learn wherever she can. And so she watches pornos, right? And in the pornos that I watch for, you know, background knowledge for the character. Of course. The straight pornos, people are always slapping their wahoos, you know? Their what? Their what? They're either spitting on their snatches or slapping their... Ka-ho-ho. You know, there she goes. This is all I learned from straight porn. Oh, there we go. That's what they do. Don't they do that in gay porn? Slap it. You guys don't slap? Don't slap and tickle. It's universal. Oh, gosh. I was chafed. I was chafed by that. Whose idea was this? Of the Jennifer Aniston? Yes. Well, originally it was like some other... kind of simple, you know, name that's as far away from Severn as possible, just a very normal name. And I like the idea of Jennifer as a name that, you know, Severn would hate. And I was like, well, who's the person that Severn would be least identified with? Of course, America's sweetheart, you know, Jennifer Aniston, who is one of our friends. You know, it's like Severn who's just like the, you know, the art bitch from hell. You know, who does she really not want to admit that she is like, in a way? And is just as cuddly, deep down, Jennifer Aniston. I think you made that up in that moment, because I recall opening that piece of paper, you didn't want me to know what the name was. I wanted it to be a surprise. I think it might have even happened in that process. I can't even remember. Cracks me right up. Now, this is more of a... Some of James' film we shot before principal photography, like his face in the water and the band-aids and all kinds of little bits and pieces. I remember me biting my nails and letting them bleed. How much was inspired by Jonathan Coet's Tarnation? Well, you know, Paul documents his life also with photography over the years, and there was a little bit of that and a little bit of Jonathan... A little bit of you. A little bit of me. Forgot about me. Don't forget about Dre. No. Hmm. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Now more medication. Here we go. It's going to be a good night. Yeah, it's funny. Some people think that might be AIDS medicine, but I've always thought that antidepressant... That is such a wrong assumption. I know. But you know what? I don't think it hurts if people think that either. Yeah. It's just... Okay. We were in rehearsal. We went to Toys in Babeland, the sex shop, and we saw a remote-controlled vibrating egg. Remember, Suk? We saw the... Yeah, we saw a remote-controlled egg. It wasn't quite so eggular-shaped. We thought, this is funny. This has dramatic potential. And I had fun coming up with those names. Yeah, you phone me up and you're like, what do you think of Busy Kitten? You came up with those, John? Oh my God, I have bumblebee kisses. I thank you for that. Trapped hummingbird. Pounding surf. Come back, bitch. Tectonic. Shift. That could only be done by somebody who has a white noise machine. People have asked. I do have one. Oh, there's a Va Va Sisters. There they are. They were fun on the set. People have asked if there is such a thing as the Realm of the Senses egg. We should possibly copyright that. Well, you know, in the Realm of the Senses refers to the famous Japanese film of the 70s. It was highly explicit and had common hard-ons and sexual obsession going on that was banned by the U.S. Customs. in the 70s, eventually it made it to these shores. But it still hasn't been played in Japan in its full, unexpurgated form. Wow, it's a Japanese movie. Yeah, by Oshima. So that was kind of like a... And in the film, a man puts a hard-boiled egg up his lover's kohuha and then asks him to lay it, which is why later on, when the egg sort of gets laid outside, was perfect. You're doing an homage there. That was a filmic reference. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to make you self-conscious about laying, but it happened anyway. Remember, it just fell out of your panties. Look at how gorgeous Justin looks. This is not a shot of Justin. That's Justin. That's Kurt and Bart. I have to say, yes, thank you, Kurt and Bart. They did a good job on making me these fantastic costumes. I was so jet-lagged and tired and I'd just gotten in from London to shoot these scenes. I look, you know, as good as I could under the situations. You look so good there. The Cheshire Cat to me. Remember the big fight? Not fight, but remember the 200 people that were trying to do your black eye makeup? Oh, my God, I should have just done it myself. It turned out well. It did turn out very well. Everyone, I was supposed to have this, I wanted it to look like a shiner, but a stylized shiner. Everyone had an opinion on how to make it work, you know? But, oh, Michael Stipe came up to me after and he complimented me on my eye makeup in that scene. Because he always wears all that kind of crazy fucked up eye makeup. Oh, the sparkles. He's Mr. Sparkle. Yeah, and he wears the, like, mask. So that was nice. Sook, I love your flower that's choking your throat. We were in rehearsal and you had something sort of like that. I walked down, I walked into one of our early rehearsals. I had gone to Girl Props in Soho. I bought a big freaking flower and then it started to become part of our improvisation and we ended up incorporating it within Sophia's ensemble. Kurt and Bart are costume designers who were known for their rock and roll stylist's work and videos from Britney Spears, etc. This was their first film. And they were incredible. Yeah. So much fun to work with. Loved them. Loved their work. We'll work with them again in a second. Oh, remember that? Do you remember that, Justin? I do remember that. You were a little nervous, weren't you, Justin? I was totally nervous. Were you a little nervous? I was nervous about my chins. But I was nervous, and, you know. Well, we had only met a few times before that. Yeah. You'd made out before in rehearsal. No, not really. No, not really. We didn't have that many rehearsals. I was in town very much. I flew in from Palermo. But I'll tell you, I've had a lot of girls come in on this scene. I know. Yeah, you've been lucky with the ladies. Yeah. It's a double-edged sword, you know. It's always, you know. This was a scene that we also went way off script to have fun with and just loosen it up. And remember right after it, I ate pussy for the first time on that same couch. You did. I'm glad you did it after. I'm so anti-woman. I'm telling you, John, we're going to get ourselves some nice girls out of this thing. In the background is Dirty Martini, a Miss Exotic World 2000-something. She is so gorgeous. We love her. She's so... It's just like whenever you're around her, it's like someone's giving you a glass of champagne. She's so sparkly and bubbly and gorgeous and smart. Impeccable performer. Yes. I felt guilty that we only had her in the background, but... I think she's... I always see her. She's happy. She's the only part of this scene I pay attention to. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Gertie. Yeah, she totally pulled it off. I do believe you guys are getting upstaged by Ms. Martini. I mean, I'm from Baltimore. I've known since the age of four I can't compete with propellers. Pasties, you mean? Pasties. There they go. Take off. I can only dream. You were about to say she really pulls it off in this scene, right? If you notice, her dress actually comes back on at this point. Continuity problem. It's a backwards strip. Yeah. That's neat. But here's the famous shot where we remove the tear. Oh, God, that's great. Oh, really? Because we had a continuity problem where he was... Is it that one? Yes. No, no. When he goes... No, it's after. I'll show you. He says, do you love me? Yeah, and we had to remove a tear because... Oh my God, that gets me every time because I can completely identify with that. My mom watched the trailer online and she saw that part and she goes, I watched it and when you said, do you love me? I'm like, well, do ya? Do ya? Oh, I can totally relate that horrible feeling of having to put your heart out there when you're just not certain. I want to. Yeah. And then that tear. So that you digitally remove the tear. Well, it's because it was a perfect shot, but it... Was too heavy. Yeah, that's the interesting thing. Sometimes it's like, I mean, Paul, you have this amazing ability to access your sad emotions. The tears just flow, you know? Everywhere. That's life for you. But it's true. It's like when things were falling apart, camera-wise or whatever, it was like Paul was always on emotionally. Not just the tears, but every scene, he was right there. And it's like we never had to worry. We had to worry about PJ sometimes. Well, I was a little loopy. You were on Viagra. He was the man of steel. Oh, yeah, that's what Frank DiMorto called me. Are you saying a double entendre there? He called him Iron Man, but meaning he could deal with any circumstance around him and keep the emotional life going. Let's stop patting ourselves on the back. You're great. You're great. I wanted to adjust your bra there. Why, what happened? Because one of them rode up a little bit. I love the way that Lindsay's bra is. Really pushed up. Talk about a scene stealer. Yeah. This scene was a hard one because we shot it right after the bitch's bedroom scene. This is at the end of a long day. Very long. And we let you guys go quite a bit on this scene too. Yeah, it took a couple of times for us to get the right feel. And Frank and Dave were amazing. Iron men with the camera kind of capturing everything. Outside of the perimeter of what we're seeing, there's two guys with cameras strapped to their bodies. Doing simultaneous multiple camera work. Yeah. Which is hard to do without running into each other's shot. Mm-hmm. Oh, this was a difficult scene for Lindsay. I remember we had a special... quiet moments together to prepare for it. And it was very, she was very powerful in this scene. And, of course, we're telling the audience what to think. Yeah, we are. They're like, what? I was actually not moved at all. I like that she sounds like Minnie Mouse. Her voice goes really high. You know, I was just, in Sweden, someone was like, well, you know, there's one scene that was obviously more erotic than others. And then he went on to talk about something else. I was like, you have to tell me what that scene is. And he goes, Well, Sever and Sophia, of course. The scene. Of course. The least explicit. Of course, we're not really trying to turn people on so much with this film with the sex as much as illuminate other things about their lives, because most of the sex is actually pretty disastrous. This, to me, is like the saddest scene, though, in some ways. It's just like, I feel like Sophia's kind of being raped. In a way. Really? Let's discuss that for a second. Can you imagine having this vibrating egg? But also, she's totally unaware of what Sophia's feeling here. We've all been there. Oh, yeah. If that is rape, I wouldn't know. You're in the other position. I'm usually the thoughtless one. You can't rape the willing. Exactly, but you're not always sure that the people you're raping are willing. Coalition of the willing. I remember I had to do a looping sound for Lindsey to say, don't move, don't move. And I did it over the phone with her in LA. She's alone with a sound technician in a room. And I said, I don't believe it. I said, get up on a table. rub your crotch into it and say the lines, and it's like, there's a technician in front of me. She did it, and it sounded real. It's still kind of amazing. This is a moment where it goes from, like, funny, erotic, to bummer, like, so quickly, like, the emotional movements. And I can hear the audience laughing, and then they're, like, kind of confused the next moment because they can sense there's something quite not right. That happens, doesn't it? Yes, it is. That's why it's so real. Especially post-orgasmic, post-orgasm. Yeah. Post-non-orgasm. I told you that I loved you, now get out. Um, is everyone really fucked up? And in the throes, you can't control that sometimes, you know? Can I just have a moment for Anita O'Day, who just died last week? Yeah. Sings this song, and Is You Is at the beginning of the film, one of our... Justin and my favorite jazz singers of all time, right? She's fantastic. The only time I ever saw you lip-sync, Justin, was to Nito Day. That's right, at Wigstock. Right? She's the only one worth that. We loved her, and we even got to meet her. Yes, we did. Singing in her 80s. Where's the world-famous Bob? Bob, who's a wonderful burlesque performer working in New York. who does incredible martini dance, makes a martini with her bubalas. She's gotten more and more beautiful over the years. Yeah, she's gorgeous. This was a hard day, wasn't it? This scene kills me. Yeah, I love this scene. It always breaks my heart. We had what was a nightmare for many of us, which is why I called Paul the Iron Man, is that we had many planes going by, trucks ruining The emotional takes. It's a film running out, too. Oh, my God. And every time Paul hit his emotional marks perfectly, Lindsay was very much there as well. I mean, she was just, like, completely rose to the occasion, too. Yeah. But I remember it was, like, 108 degrees in there, no air conditioning. Yeah, Lindsay was a great help to me in this scene, actually. She was really there for you. And you were there for her. I remember oftentimes off-camera, when an actor's off-camera doing... helping the other actors on camera, they don't always go all the way to the limit of their emotions for the scene because they either want to save it up for their shot or they're finished. And each of them did the scene perfectly off camera for the other actor to respond to. It was wonderful. Yeah, that's great. People always go, I guess that's Justin's closet. I don't even have an apartment. How could I have a closet? Let alone a sit-in closet. Good Lord, well, my apartment that I used to have was basically a sit-in closet. But I don't wear chartreuse. That's not one of your colors. This is the Idaho reference. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's why I really wanted Mickey to play that part. Mickey, who is the actor? And this is true? Is this true, Paul? he was one of the actors who Mickey Cottrell who was the dead man in the he was in my own private at home it's true it was a very influential movie on me in different ways than to James but it's a wonderful film I just saw it again recently it is beautiful Phoenix is like Jenna Rollins or something yeah speaking of which this scene always reminds me of kind of a Cassavetes scene Yeah, in the acting and in the way they look. Really? Yeah, for some reason. Well, he often shot in close-up and had help for films like Faces. And we watched a lot of the films in rehearsal process. Yeah, just like her face in the dark, just like kind of, it's not perfect. It kind of feels, it's just beautiful. I love what Frank did with that. We watched Minnie and Moskowitz, Woman Under the Influence, Bits of Faces. Yeah, I think it reminds me of Faces. This moment here where she gives me the Polaroid with the numbers written on it is something that I don't know if you guys had come up with it before, but I didn't find that out until the day of. I didn't know that's what she was going to write it on the card, and so when I was handed that, that was new for me. Yeah, that's intense. Yeah, we wanted to... make that a surprise for you. And on the, we had a great night, a guy named Wolfie who made all the Polaroids. And he does that with his art. But we didn't really know till that day what exactly we were gonna put on there and we wanted it to be something that affected you. The scene kills me. We also did that with PJ. The first time he saw the suicide tape was the first time we were shooting him reacting to it. He wanted to save his reaction, and that was very difficult for you. Extremely. That's a really wonderful moment with that light coming in. Stopping this very intimate moment. Why, thank you, sir. This is a ridiculous scene. Yeah, like all that drama and now hijinks. Crazy hijinks. This was so hard to shoot this fight sequence, wasn't it? Yeah. We had a stunt coordinator. Yeah, a stunt coordinator showing us how to throw a punch. And I kept trying to throw myself on Jay and kiss him some more. Manny was our fight coordinator who was infinitely patient with all of us. It's as hard to shoot a fight as it is to shoot sex. It's harder. Harder. Cat fight. And suddenly we're in Three Stooges land. Well, why not? Why not, hey? Oh, there's John! He is doing that for the very first time. It was delicious. Because all of us had to do something for the first time in this movie. Yeah, and I ate pussy and it was... bed of the craft service was Jasper James, who has a song on the soundtrack, brilliant performer, whose pussy I ate, and we were very shy with each other, but then felt closer after. I just noticed everything matches. The remote, your shirt. Yeah, we all wear sort of coordinated to a color. It's a palette. Right? Mine was... I think my color was pink. Coral. Coral. Mine was beige. Blue. But I don't really wear beige except for the final scene. Now, this is an interesting beat here, too, again, where it goes from ridiculousness to angry. And, you know, audience is just still reeling. And then it goes into a very dark place. I like the way you just tear apart my house. Just take a leg, whatever. Oh, this was tough. Here's the In the Room of the Senses laying egg moment. Oh, God. I remember just losing it here on this scene. It was so hard for you. It was so hard. And then watch this. The leg actually hits my face. I know. I saw that. I was like, oh. Oh, God. It looks like it hit really hard. Oh, there it did. And I looked down and there was blood. Oh, no. And then I started making stupid dad jokes because I looked up and everybody was like, oh, my God. Honey, I didn't know there was blood. Yeah, I went somewhere crazy, and man, was I ever happy when you yelled cut. I remember you also hit that lamppost really hard with your hand. Acting is therapy. This is actually shot outside Dumba, the space, the arts collective that is now closed because the neighbors didn't like the idea of sex and art happening in their building. Well, who does? Back to Jersey. And now we take a real dramatic turn from all that stuff. Yeah, this is the part where I leave the screening because there's no more laughs. There's laughs at the suicide nurse. Yeah. And for Miriam Shore who plays the therapy patient. She's funny. But that's about it for laughs, right? Sorry. I tried to make it funny. How closely those two faces are, the comedy and tragedy. How lucky was this? What was going on? We were shooting the actual video. Periodically, Paul turned it on without us noticing. No. Because we kept forgetting, and we were able to use it. Okay, that's very... Very lucky. Very lucky. Paul, talk about shooting this. Oh, God, it was kind of frightening. No stuntmen. Yeah, and... Yeah, it's... I love that heart there. Yeah. They used that for a publicity photo in Czech Republic. Oh, yes. But in order to sink down like this, I really had to hold my breath a long time. And you had a bag over your head. You must be a very good swimmer. You can hold your breath pretty well. I was very careful, you know, just saying, Paul, please rip the bag off. Don't push it. But then you had to. You felt you had to. That was scary. I can't believe that the air stayed in there. Was it airtight around your neck? Pretty much. Yeah, uh-huh. When I breathed in, it was completely empty. So he's really recycling his breath. Goodness. Frank was... That was actually... a fun day to shoot despite all the tragedy because all the underwater camera stuff. Yeah, I like seeing all the crew in the water with us in their little bathing suits. And it was really warm all day, so we were in the hot, you know, the warm jacuzzi. Outside, people were working out just outside that door. Oh, yeah, so I could actually go out there and pump up a little bit between shoots. Do not. Goddamn faggot. It's interesting, this sort of erotic touch that... Peter Stickle's character gives him at that moment. That is what he touches him. It's like so creepy. It's so fabulous. Now, more of the 3D animation. It looks like a model. I mean, he does such a great job. This was a moment that Howard Gertler, our producer, and I had to go back and forth on a lot because we have to get a real phone number that doesn't look like a stupid 555. So we had to, like, just use a few digits of it and then actually get that email address, which is a U.S. government email address, if you can read it. So you finally agreed to this? Well, the hair had to cover up a certain number of the numbers for us not to use 555. My lawyer, Jody, was always back and forth on the phone. You can have four letters. I mean, four digits. Five, maybe. Four. Hello?

Oh. Hey. How are you? This was shot in the actual apartment that overlooked Jamie's apartment, because we didn't have the money to fake that view. These wonderful guys who were young artists who lived there gave us their apartment to shoot in, which was so kind. Oh, we missed the suicide nurse moment. That was Grace Kong, who I went to college with, who's a producer for 60 Minutes. Pulling in all the friends. Right, there she is. She gets the only laugh in the second half. This was a lot of improvisation. Remember, PJ? Yeah, it was. And a lot of it isn't in the film. But that's why you need her moments. Yeah, it was great.

We're shooting in the New Yorker Hotel, which is a landmark in the city. And this is our last day of shooting. Mm-hmm. The SWAT. Such a good SWAT. She's like, she's not a dominatrix in real life, but she sure took to it. Yeah. Look at this. Yeah. It accelerates the film. Okay, here's Miriam Shore and her husband, Justin, or boyfriend, Justin, who... play the... His expression. She was in Hedwig, right? She was in Hedwig who played Yitzhak. She played a guy in the film. She's hilarious. This is just her going, making it up. Going off. I was like, tell me a story. And they were so funny together. You'll see a longer version of that on the deleted scenes that we'll talk about later. This is one of my favorite revelations of the film. That was Conrad Venture's Photography, beautiful shots from the window. And this scene was done afterwards? We reshot the scene because we didn't have much time to do it on the day, and we wanted to do a little rewriting. Also, we had a lot of airplanes going overhead, which whenever Paul had an emotional scene, there was a plane. And we shot this in our friend's Heath... friend Heath's apartment in a basement so there wouldn't be any planes. Do you have a boyfriend? And this is when Peter's character had changed, right? That's also a hair extension on Paul's. At the back of my hair. His mullet, basically. Fabian did a great job. Yeah, Fabian who did the hair made it look... Perfect, because he had cut his hair between principal photography and the reshoots. I can't believe Frank made that look like that was actually a basement. I know. With a little, that's like a little well. Wow, the sound is so good. When Peter's... What are you doing? I can't hear his voice. I think we did that. We looped that. I remember Frank, the photographer, was all like, now what time is it in the film? God. He's always thinking of everything. Yeah. Peter's color was yellow. Yeah. What was your color, Paul? Blue. Mine was green. Jealousy. But Peter, who played the stalker there, he wanted his collar to be post-it yellow. And that was something we added in the reshoot, is to clarify that the Seth... What it was about. He was trying to get Seth so Jamie wouldn't be alone after the suicide. And also giving a purpose to the... the suicide tape as a suicide note to explain why he did it and why it's not his boyfriend's fault, which I thought was kind of implicit, but I realized he needed to say it. This part here. And it's... That makes me cry every time. That makes me think about all the characters. You know? You know, all the characters in the film. That problem, it stops at the skin. They're all kind of numb from whatever experience they've had. Yeah. 9-11 and Bush and... Growing up gay. Growing up gay, growing up in a cultural environment where your body is bad, where what's natural is immoral. in a world where you're bombarded by media and sex all the time, but there's no connection to humanity in it. This is when Sophia finally starts to listen to herself, I think. I love it, too, that she's saying, I don't want to lie anymore. And then Sophia decides that, too, that she doesn't want to lie anymore. And she doesn't want to be this. James says. Yola Tango did this wonderful sound cue here. And this is where it goes to film. It's kind of so cool. 35 millimeter film. We use 35. This detour into some subconscious netherworld. The rest is super 16? This is actually 16 proper. And then when we go out on the beach, Again, we go to 35 because we wanted to bump it up to a more detailed view of the world for Sophia. Now we're in 35. We use mini DV, digital video, high def. We use Super 8, we use Super 16, we use 16, and we use 35. Where is that? in this film. That's Staten Island. And the lamppost, John, where did that, like, come from? It came out of desperation. Remember Howard? We didn't have it, like, six hours before we were shooting. Oh, this was a difficult day, too, because we wanted that to be a crane shot, and the crane operator got wind of what the film was about and didn't show up because he was a Christian fundamentalist and took exception to what we were doing. We had to get another... I can't believe that. It's not very professional. In the video. As if it's a dirty movie. It might be dirty to some dumbass. Howard, you're not making note of that, are you? Peter's naked. Finally. Finally. This is so beautiful. That lamp stuff is digital. John Dowdell also made the grass greener. made you pinker, made the sky more mauve. And we did a lot of stuff in color correction to help it. There were these crazy primitive crabs that were the size of a football, all mating in the ocean. One day a year, the horseshoe crabs mate, and that was the day. So if you look in this shot, close to the lamp, there's a little crab moving across towards the lamp. Looking to get laid. They're all jumping up on our feet and on the lamp thinking there were other horseshoe crabs to fuck. Peter looks like such a little boy in that scene. Are you sure? Some people say He got less and less explicit as he go along in the film, which is something that we planned till really the sex has sort of been zoomed in on faces only. It starts out, the view of sex is like far away from another part of the room, but then it becomes right into eyes.

When we were shooting this, PJ watching this for the first time... It was extremely emotional. It was very intense. Marin, our assistant editor, edited it secretly. He was with me that day, and after the tape, I would break down because it was like watching your lover's suicide tape again and again and again, and yet so beautiful. Cyril's classically rendered cacophony that it all sort of interlocks, this idea of, like, you're looking at me. You know, all this sort of tension that so many of the characters are experiencing simultaneously. I mean, for me, when you talk about Sophia's father, who's looking at her, and then Severin hears screams, don't look at me, and it seems that Sophia is actually hearing Severin say that, this is a point where I feel all the characters become the same character. The challenge of... This is the point where, as if you hear her there. And that was something that came in editing with Brian that really made sense. We wanted to fuse all the characters into one. And in a way, they all collectively cause the blackout. Because of their emotional... Their need to connect is so strong that it overloads the system in a way. I love the shot that John did. Yeah. And Ben's sound on this. We took a long time with that. And this one, which we call our Planet of the Apes shot. Yeah, I love especially the sound of the river coming up when we cross the river. Yeah.

We had a wonderful mixer too, Laura Hershberg, who works at Skywalker, who did the mix for this, and also mixed Borat. She must have slipped him that wizard sleeve joke. She's seen a lot of asses here. And I love this little transition that John came up with. This is a nice shoot day too, isn't it, Justin? It was. I remember the heat was on and it was really hot. I like it hot. Some like it hot. Such a good kiss. That moment always made me cry. Because I was like, if only it could just be like that. Yeah. It can be just like that. It's just like that. Well, it is in this movie. It was just like that that night. It is in, you know... In our moments in our lives, you know, we've all become... I know what it's like to be in love. Why are you yelling? Look, I'm just saying. No, because remember, initially that was supposed to be my real boyfriend. Yeah. Right, we removed him. We removed each other for a little while. He's in the deleted scene. Of your life? That was Ethan. But Ethan wasn't my real boyfriend. No, not... It's gorgeous. There were so many candles burning on those hot days. I'm amazed that we didn't burn something down. Well, we had a fire marshal there. He was very careful. We had everything in terrariums to keep it safe. This was very difficult to shoot. I remember you came running up to me and were gonna say something to me about how to do it, and then just said, oh, no, you're there. You got it. Yeah. Paul was outside the window. Yeah, I was really in the other window. Really? He was right there. That lighting is so gorgeous. I know. I was trying to figure it out so they could actually look into each other's eyes. They did for some shots, but others they had to imagine, but luckily they imagined really good. Yeah, it's like John Travolta and the Boy in the Plastic Bubble. But look at how angelic you look. Glowing. So beautiful. I always think of this moment as the one when James breaks through the skin. And he has to do it. They have to be apart. They have to have that membrane of the window and the distance between them in order to see each other more clearly. He's been trying to see it through the film all along, but it really takes being actually separate and looking into the window. A distance. We're all for people looking at each other's eyes and turning off the computers and turning off the cell phones. God, it's so, I know. This was also a beautiful night to shoot. We had all our friends there. Scott playing guitar and Bitch playing violin. She played A lot of violin in the soundtrack. And this is a reprise of all the people that we saw. That's your friend? There's Eric Gilliland, who's one of my buddies. Went to college together. He wrote for Roseanne. He was the executive producer of Roseanne, if you can believe it. I can. There's Paul Stovall in the back. And then... Here comes J.D. and Yolanda. Mm-hmm.

And it was very easy to get into the moment just because the music gets in you. It's so lovely. Yeah, Scott wrote the song in the end, and Louis Schwadron, who's actually just off-camera playing French horn, did the arrangement and production, recorded all of this. It was just a very simple song, and he created this suite for string quintet and the marching band. lewis who's an incredible performer in his own right and so we had all the music beforehand so we could play it while doing these shots which really helped emotionally yeah sure did it was so much fun going in and recording this song because the song is so beautiful it was really intimidating because scott's such an amazing singer and i heard him singing at first but i feel so lucky that i got to sing it because it really does say something about being a performer and being an artist and being a part of a community and people's expectations and whether you can fulfill them or, you know, whether they're even worthy of your attempt to fulfill them, you know? That thing they're all waiting for you to fall, but everyone does. Rachel.

I love how Kurt and Bart made you look in that scene. You're like a Pierrot from Children of Paradise or something. It was so hard for me to lip sync to that because I don't usually... Lip sync? Yeah, I'm so usually just so in the moment when I'm singing that it was very difficult. Oh, how cute. Wouldn't you want to have a three-way with Belle? Is that red wine spilled on your sleeve, or is that designed that way? It's designed that way. Believe me, if it was anything, it wouldn't have been wine, it would have been whiskey that we had been drinking in the bar across the street, waiting for you to set the shot up. That was a convenient watering hole. It certainly was. I was very excited And nervous. About that scene? Yeah, I've never made out with two people as beautiful as Shanti and Jan. You haven't? You should. I know, I should. Only in the movies. I always saw them as like these silent, I don't know, like angels. You know, people who knew everything, but... didn't need to use words, you know, who were almost like guides. And that's, I don't know, they just have such great energy in real life, too. I really like this moment with Raph here. It's almost like, you know, you release each other. Yeah. It's funny, people always say, are they going to stay together? You know, are Jamie's going to stay together? It's like, who knows? You never know. But we see some connections, some beauty, some mercy in the scene, and we see some people moving on, you know? We see Severn even taking a step towards perhaps some happiness for her. And yet Severn is the character that is alone in this scenario. Yeah.

Now this is the Hungry March Band, who is a real marching band from, based in Brooklyn. And they were marching around the night of the blackout. Mike Kocha told me about them. Mike who worked on the film early on. And so I was like, of course, they have to be part of this. And their magic. They're wonderful people. What a great group of people. That guy I went to college with. You what? I went to college with that guy. The guy with the beard? Yeah, Quince Markham. No way, he's so cool. He's great. This is my favorite. Remember, Justin, we had a giant bullhorn that was as big as two heads, and we had to find a smaller one because it was blocking you. This note you hit here, Justin, coming up. He hasn't hit that note since Right. What are you talking about? I had that note in the shower every day. With your mouth? And this was such a good party, you know? All these people were always there, working together and taking care of one another. This was just like what the wrap party was like. And the parties at the premiere party in New York and Cannes and Toronto, they were just like this. We should have one a year. We really should. I think we should have a blackout every year. Yeah. I mean, I have one at least once a month. You mean a planned one. I love that shot of Rachel. I like that scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's where she's laughing in one minute and then crying the next. Now, that was the last shot we shot in the entire principal photography, right, Sukhian? It's true. And you wanted to have a real orgasm. I was like, you can fake this one, honey. You're like, nope. It's like, she's been faking for years. I gotta have a real one. So we put Sukhian alone in a room with a camera on a rig above her head. We had a, you know, remote control. And I was like, Sukhian took out her vibrating beaver and... did six orgasms in a row. Let me be free! Is that the one that's in all the publicity? Yeah! That's hot. We talk about how this was developed with the cast, and it really was. I mean, we didn't have a story before we cast the people, and we created all the characters in the story through improv. Over two and a half years, I wrote a set script from their raw material, and then we used The script is a very detailed blueprint for shooting. So the way we rehearsed was the way we shot. It was as loose, there was less time and more crew members, but all that time I think really paid off for being as relaxed as we could. I wanted that to say, and Justin Bond as Alexis Carrington Colby. Then you should have called yourself Alexis Carrington Colby. That would have been very funny. Yeah, you know, so wonderful this whole process has been. I can't imagine having an experience like this again. Very wonderful. You're all spoiled. We are spoiled. Spoiled! Well, thank you for watching. Tell your friends. Show it to your trusted confidants. And if they don't like it, you shouldn't be their friend anymore. Peace. Bye. Just do the last note. Ready? It's coming up. Okay. Ooh. Yeah.