Tank Girl (1995)

Hey, it's Rachel Talalay and I am the director of Tank Girl. So I'm going to start out by saying that this is one of the first battles I had with the producers was over this song and that I wanted a female singer for it and one of the producers didn't like her gravelly voice. Wow. There was a big battle over that, and ultimately the studio came across and loved this choice of song. And you were victorious. I was victorious here. And there'll be many battles discussed over the next hour and a half. But that was one. And every time I hear the song, I just am reminded how much I like the choice of both the music and having the female singer and the gravelly, slightly off-tone voice. I'm very pleased as well with these animation titles. I just think they're incredibly effective and really show some of the best of Jamie Hewlett's work. Love it. And they animate different scenes throughout the film, so it's kind of like a montage before the movie starts. It's really cool. I have a couple of these posters actually in my house. some of these stills. And I'm reminded what an amazing, amazing cast we ended up with. Thank you Pam Dixon for putting together just an incredible cast that's gone so far since the film. Oh yeah. And seeing Stan Winston's credit and all the things that he did for us, which when we get to some shots of the Rippers, we can talk about. But how much I learned from that man. Ariana Phillips, one of the greatest costume designers. And Catherine Hardwicke, a production designer who has gone on and become quite the amazing director. She twilighted the world. Yes, exactly. And has a huge selection of Tank Girl memorabilia among her own films. She also has an incredible collection from Tank Girl, so I know she's proud of the film. I had to fight very hard to get her on the film because she wasn't in the union. And it was a huge battle. And at one point, one of the producers threw her resume on my desk and I said, you just have to meet her. She is the person. and won that battle, too. Aaron Warner, who has an Academy Award for producing Shrek, and Tom Oster, who started the whole Tank Girl craze, owning the comic book himself, and completely promoted the concept of Tank Girl. Initially, when Teddy Serafian wrote this, he wrote this sequence on a horse, And Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin said, no, no, no, no, you can't be conventional here. None of this film can be conventional. And it was their idea that you should be riding a water buffalo. Or my double would be riding the water buffalo. I seem to remember that you rode the water buffalo, too. I sat on it. I sat on it. I didn't really go very far. Well, it wasn't exactly, it, like the tank, was not exactly a fast-moving, easy-to-maneuver vehicle, animal. The comic book panels that come throughout were something we added later on. Hero shot, wait, hero shot. Pow! Okay, go ahead. Yeah, hero shot, light, another hero shot. We shot all this in White Sands, New Mexico, where it was at least 104 the whole time. Yes, I do remember that. It was an incredibly beautiful location, but you couldn't have one iota of your skin exposed or you would burn. I remember going to set every day and seeing the government airplanes that would disappear and reappear and disappear and reappear. That was pretty interesting that they even let us out there. It was incredible. And we built this house, and people thought, oh, my God, you've uncovered a house in White Sands, New Mexico. Right? I know. And that's the genius of Catherine, that she made it actually look like we uncovered the house. No, she's a genius, just a complete genius. And she worked, because a lot of the designs were done as a combination of Catherine and Jamie Hewlett. Right. So masses of the designs and masses of the details were Jamie's work. sketches. So a lot of the discussions about where things came from were a combination of the two, and they worked together brilliantly. Right. We are taking something two-dimensional and making it three-dimensional, you know, with people in their different strengths. I mean, it's just fantastic collaboration with everybody. And same thing with, because Jamie was very involved in costumes as well. So the collaboration with Ariane Phillips was also very, very strong. Ariane's been nominated several times, I believe. Besides creating Madonna's 10 billion looks. Yes. I think the biggest battle for me was hair. So what's your memory of getting your head shaven? I had 40 different wigs. I remember that. 40 different hair pieces. I thought it was fun. I love it. It's all part of creating the character. I loved all those insane... We used to look through the black hair magazines with the crazy church lady hair. It was really awesome for 1991.

I feel like we were so ahead of our time. Yeah, baby, join the train. I like to watch people try to redo things that we did in Tank Girl. Like, I don't know, Lara Croft. People like that. Don't you love it now when people come up to you? People come up to me now and say, I watched that film. My mom showed me that film. We watched it together when I was... That makes me laugh. No, I was saying earlier, there's three generations of Tank Girl fans. There really are. There really are. There are. There are 10-year-olds, there are 30-year-olds, and there are 50-year-olds. And it's kind of cool. That makes me feel awesome. Isn't it great? They come out of the woodwork, all three generations. I live in Venice, and I'll be walking down the street, and I'll hear, I love you, Tank Girl! And I'll be like, I love you too, baby. And that makes me happy. the first introduction to Malcolm McDowell I have a very strong memory of, which is this was the first scene I shot with Malcolm. We'd been rehearsing together, and he was fantastic and very enthusiastic about doing the show and very happy to be off. He'd just done Star Trek, and he was happy to be doing something much more in tune with his past. But he walked on set in the scene and said... I have some ideas of how you can shoot this. And I went, deep breath. And I watched the crew, like, look at me and say, what's she going to do? And I remember saying, let me just give you an idea of how I was intending to shoot it. And then you can give me your point of view. And I pitched the idea, starting with that shot of the glasses of water. And he just went, that's fantastic, and never told me how to direct after again. I shouldn't put it that way. Never made suggestions of how it should look. You passed the test. That's a test. He passed the test. It was a full-on test, unexpected. Who's going to be the boss, me or you? But thank God I passed the test. Because I remember just sweating, and I remember watching the crew just sort of back up, like, okay, this is the testing point. I loved working with him. You know what? I love professionalism. I love people that are, you know, 20 minutes early and stay 20 minutes late. I mean, that's what I got from him. He was always prepared, always fresh. You know, just loved him. I just loved him, too. And every single woman and girl on the set had a crush on him. It was great to watch. Well, those sparkly blue eyes you got. I know, to die for. And, of course, I'm this massive fan of Clockwork Orange. So a lot of our inspiration came out of, a lot of the additional production design inspiration came out of Clockwork Orange. Right. You want to talk about being ahead of your time, you can look at Malcolm McDowell. Yeah. I mean, his early films and that in particular. And I watch it every year and I'm blown away. So I couldn't believe how lucky we were. And he has been a huge support and fan of it. And the hardest thing was just everybody being so hot 24-7 on the show. I remember being comfortable one day of 92 when we were in Liquid Silver. One day. Oh, that's right. Oh, Liquid Silver. I can't wait until we get to that part. Yeah. Oh, he's gonna die. You're gonna get it. I'm gonna suck the water out of you. These were some great props that we had designed and built that came both from Katherine and Simon Burton and Jamie and Teddy's imagination.

But then you build them and you're like, wow, they work and that's incredible. I know that Malcolm kept all his wardrobe. He did? He kept all his costumes? Yeah, he loved what Ariane designed for him. And he just kept it all, which is pretty complimentary. Oh, I remember when Gwen Stefani came out and someone called me on the phone and said, Lori, I love, I didn't know you were a singer. I love your music video. I said, what are you talking about? So all of that to say that Arianne and you and the makeup people and myself included created this, you know, and Jamie and everybody with Tank Girl. She had so many emulators. I mean, to this day, I still think Gwen Stefani has a little Tank Girl debt to pay. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Which is fine. No, I'm not mad about it. You know what I mean? I'm not mad about it at all. No, it's cool. It's totally cool. But people call me and they think it's like I'm in a video. I'm like, no, that's Madonna being Tank Girl. No, that's Gwen Stefani being Tank Girl. Exactly. No, that's... And, you know, we're responsible for creating the Spice Girls as well. Because when we did these open casting calls... I remember that. ...which... three of the Spice Girls got tired of waiting in line to be part of the open casting call and said, screw this, we're going to start a band. And they always talk about it. They always credit it as how they got together because three of them met just waiting in line for the open casting call. Oh, there's our homage to Clockwork Orange right there. Yep. You mean the bowler hat? Yeah, the bowler.

and all of Jamie's design props. That little kangaroo. I'm like, that's a real bear. Ew. And you have to remember that when we made this, it was... pre-digital, so the majority of the effects were all optical, not digital, which was a huge deal. So all the models, we had to build models and do it the old-fashioned way. Shot on film, cut on film. Things that people don't even know what they are now. I'm sad that the studio didn't give us more than 10 days in the theaters.

Oh, and also the fact that they rated the damn thing R. Yeah, that was a big deal. I mean, now, you would barely... But so wrong. I'll tell you the reason they rated that damn thing R. If I'd have known that, I'd have been naked through the whole damn movie. Because if you're going to do that to us, you know, take all of our audience away, you know that Tommy Boy opened at number one because everybody paid to go see Tommy Boy and went to see Tank Girl. Because they couldn't get into Tank Girl. So that's just fucked up. And it's funny now, because it would never in a million years be R. But I've always said the reason that it was rated R is because it was a female hero, and I mean that. There's nothing R in this movie. What's R in a movie? Seriously. A lot of innuendo, but, you know, it's female innuendo, and that's what they were frightened of. That's what I think so, too. I think it's the fact that a woman's going, feeling a little inadequate. You know, they're like, fuck that. Shocking. Now it's like a joke. Oh, yeah. This is PG now. This is PG, not even PG-13. Such a joke. Yeah, I should have just been butt naked the whole time. You know who this soldier is? I don't know if we're at the same place. Richard Schiff from... He just won an Emmy for... God, I'm having a moment. You're having a senior moment? Now I'm embarrassing myself.

Richard Schiff. So, Laurie, did you ever audition? Oh, yeah. Oh, I have a really good, I have a really great audition story. Because I read the script and I, you've probably heard this story before. I read the script and I said, oh no, I'm Tank Girl, that's it. That's what's going to happen, right? And I was doing another film at the time, and I had Tank Girl cartoons and comic books all over my trailer. I had posters of Tank Girl. And then I didn't get the part. Someone else got the part. And so all my co-stars came in and said, Lori, we need to have a little intervention with you because you still have all this Tank Girl stuff up on the walls. I said, you don't understand. I'm going to be Tank Girl. That's it. And they said, no, this other girl is going to be Tank Girl. And they showed me the Hollywood Reporter. I said, I'm telling you right now. I'm telling you. I'm going to be 10 girls. That's it. And then what? Like two weeks later, I got a phone call. I said, I told you guys. I just knew it. That's so great. That's such a great story. I auditioned like twice. I auditioned like twice. And then it was really funny. The intervention was funny. Lori, you're crazy. You've got to go to the 5150 because someone else got it. And you're like, nope, nope, I know. I'm telling you right now. That's great. I do remember when I pitched the project, I had two really funny moments. One was when Don Steele, who was then a studio head, stood up on a table and said, I am Tank Girl. And that's how people, I mean, women respond to that. They just cannot look at that image and not go, I want, I am this person. I mean, that's how I felt when I first saw the comic too. I have to do this. This is the most important thing I could possibly do. And you had the same response. And then I went and pitched it to Jim Cameron's company. And I didn't have Jim, James wasn't there, but I, you know, I pitched it to the executive and they said, we already have a film with a female lead. And I was like, what? So I was so nonplussed by that comment, I couldn't even believe it. And I go, well, what is it? And they said, Joan of Arc. And I'm like, oh, Joan of Arc, Tank Girl, they're the same films. So I'm like, okay. And I think Jim Cameron's done so much for women and actors and the strength of women, I couldn't believe that they would say that. And, you know, but Joan of Arc those were very memorable moments and we had three offers to make the film but we ended up going with all together deciding to go with United Artists because we thought we'd had because they offered us the most money to make the film and still we were completely limited I mean I can all the time I look at it and say I wish we'd had more money for this and this and this especially to get a tank that actually ran So the flyers and all those are models that the SCOTACs did. And now they would all be digital and there'd be a bunch of them and there'd be great smoke. I mean, every one of those images was so much work.

There's a really cool GIF of this online. Rachel? What? There's a really good GIF online of this. You know what those are? They're like these little mini movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I take my legs and break his neck. Oh, yeah. This is one of my favorite scenes. Yeah. Starting with this is me unconscious.

One of the reasons we added the comic book panels was entirely just to add some extra action in that we couldn't afford to do. Because I think one of the biggest limitations was what we could actually afford in terms of now digitally you would do so much, it would be so much easier to do it. But because the combination of the fact that the tank... Didn't move backwards. Couldn't be backed up. And every time, you wonder how armies run when every time sand got in the tank's tread, it died. Well, you know that he almost killed me once. You guys didn't even see it. I literally almost died riding on the turret of that damn tank. Because, you know, he was supposed to be going, like, five miles an hour. And as you know, whenever you say action to a boy, he does it, like, a thousand times faster or harder or breaks your nose or something. So I was sitting on the turret, and you guys said action. He slammed on the gas, like, pedal to the metal. I fell off the turret, landed on the wheel well of the tire. It was like a movie, and my face was inches from the treads. And he kept going, okay? And then finally when he stopped, I was hysterical, and I said, why didn't you stop? He goes, I couldn't see anything. No, he actually said I couldn't see anything. That's why he kept going, because I was laying over the hole where he looks through. My body was laying over the hole, so he kept going. Unbelievable. No, I almost really, really died, like for real, for real. And then I'm telling everyone, and everyone's like, yeah, whatever, you didn't die, we're busy. And I'm like, but, but, but. I don't remember that, so I... No, you were probably busy doing stuff. It was one of those longer shots, and I was sitting... I'll show it to you. But you guys were far away. And so by the time I got there, you guys were moving on to something else. Right, we were like, oh, whatever, that worked. That's good, you didn't die. Okay, keep going. You know, you did a lot of your own stunts, so... Oh, yeah. I mean, a lot. Because I remember you saying, you know, it's a bit like being on Glee. I sing, I dance, I do my own stuff, except harder. It's beyond the triple threat. I was like, why not? Who else am I going to get to do it? That one poor girl, though, she did jump from the tank to that semi. Good Lord. That was unbelievable. Surfing the tank turret. We'll get to that. That was insane. I was like, you can't do that. She was awesome. Oh, and once, no one had told me, no one told me that you guys had rigged the semi to go a tiny bit over the edge of the cliff. So I'm up there acting away on top of the semi, and I see that we're going over the edge of the cliff. So I jumped off the top of the semi because I wasn't going to go over the edge. Well, no one told me that it was rigged. And the stunt coordinator goes, good fall, Laurie. Good roll. Because I hit the ground and I did a roll. And he's like, nice job. Okay. I want to back up and talk about some of the stuff that they cut out at the beginning of the film. Because they cut out the whole pre-credit sequence where they explain about the comet. They cut out... One of my favorite things that they cut out was the bedroom set. Because I recently talked... I recently talked to this, and they cut out the bedroom set because we decorated her bedroom all with dildos. That's awesome. And I just recently talked to the guy who actually had to buy all the dildos. He went to the pleasure chest and had to go buy like 40. The dildo buyer? Yeah. He's now a writer. And he said, no, I had to go buy 40. I was sent to the pleasure chest to buy 40 dildos. He said, I can imagine. I needed two shopping carts full of dildos. And, but MGM, UA, they didn't care that the plot didn't make sense. All they wanted was, they were just embarrassed by the dildos in the background of the scene. Oh, they should grow up. I know, and I'd just been in England where there was like dildos on network television. Right. So, so we're in the shower scene. I love this. I'm watching the shower scene and this song, this Portishead song, one of my absolute favorites. And this was actually written in the script that she scrubs her body and it was very abrasive and very hard. And we went against, you and I decided to go against type and make it actually quite romantic and sensual that she could handle this abrasive material and actually turn it into something. And it turned out to me to be one of my favorite scenes as well that managed to make this awful situation into something. And then we get into everything in this next scene is a turnaround from what is to be expected. Yeah, it's beautiful. You did a great job. And the song, just a fantastic song that worked so well. And here's Naomi, who, when we did this, was so shy. I remember you saying to her, Naomi, you have to actually be... In the picture. Oh, that's right. You've got to stop hiding behind me. It's true. She did. She would do that. She would hide behind you. She would find the only... And Gail, the cinematographer, would say, you can't find the only dark spot in the room. You actually want to be lit and on screen. I told her. I said, you won't be in the movie if you can't see the camera, okay? So if you can't see the camera, then move to where you can see it. Yeah, she was just lovely, but like you said, she was very shy and just wanting to do a great job and sweet, and she was wonderful. She was absolutely wonderful and still is, but it was so funny to think of her as being that incredibly shy girl that she was then, given who she is now, who needed to be guided toward the light. Right, now she's got one of the biggest films of the year coming out. I don't know if it's going to come out theatrically but that Princess Diana movie yeah I was looking at just in the magazine just yesterday pictures of her compared to to die and here we are with the with the tank moment and I love that we got to use the music from Shaft that was just a piece of a momentary it just delights me every time oh me too And again, you never know whether you're gonna be able to afford these things. You never know what's gonna be acceptable. And so every time, everything is a little victory when you get to, when things like that end up actually in the film. What was your budget on this? It was about 25 million. Wow.

But that was nothing with, I mean, visual effects, the cost of visual effects. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for what you got, no. I mean, because we did have to cut out a lot of things that we wanted to do. And now I look at things and think, oh, I can see, I'm just inside the tank and all the ad-libs you did, Laurie, that were so brilliant. I was just a goofball. Yeah, but what joy is that? Go, go, you know, there's easy direction. Get in the tank and have fun. Okay. Okay, whatever you say. I mean, go, go. Isn't that how you make a tank go? Just tell it? Yeah.

It's always depressed me that the only version of the film that MGM put out... Well, for the longest time, it was just... The only widescreen version was the LaserDisc, which I have. And then for the longest time, they only had a 4x3 version. So almost 50% of the film was missing offscreen. Wow. And you'd talk to people and you'd be like, you know, come on, we composed for widescreen. Because that was one of the things that Aaron fought really hard for was... And Gale was to be allowed to shoot in widescreen, not just regular. Yeah, it's kind of like in A League of Their Own on the DVD. You just see my shoulder in most of it. Because they shot it anamorphic. Yeah, no, anamorphic when it's taken down. So I have the widescreen version. It's great to see it the way we really framed it. It's hard not to be, it's hard not to care, you know. And say to people, I mean, I was always making copies of the Laserdisc so people could see it in its full glory. I just watched the film before, I mean recently. You know, I haven't seen it in a long time. And I looked through my DVDs and I couldn't find it because I'm sure someone stole it. So I went on Facebook and I go, does anyone have a copy of Tank Girl I can borrow? Yeah. And I had, like, four people go, yeah, if you'll sign mine, yeah. And then I went on eBay or Amazon or something trying to find it. People want, like, $25, $30 for this stupid thing. I guess there aren't that many of them out there. You know, like, I don't know where people bought them up. Well, all the... There's a guy in Pennsylvania who bought all the props that were available. And he has like a museum of... He bought the flyer. He couldn't buy the tank because they stripped the tank down. But he bought the flyer. He bought basically all the props that weren't either stolen or Catherine doesn't have or Ari doesn't have or I don't have because I still have a few things. And he has this massive museum of... of Tank Girl Props because he was, and he's like a dentist and a totally great guy. Stayed in touch. But every time, all the t-shirts, because we had that great t-shirt that after I pitched to Spielberg and they said to me, thank you very much for coming in and pitching, but... You know, we thought that we're glad you think we're hip enough for this, but we're not. Right. So Jamie designed a T-shirt that says, Too Hip for Spielberg. Wasn't a booga on it? I can see it in my mind. Don't remember. Don't have a copy anymore, sadly. There is one, though, he designed that has a face of tankle and it says vagina. Oh, yeah. One abuga that says penis. I remember those. But I wish I had all that stuff. I have the duster, that iconic Tank Girl duster, that long coat. Do you have the boots? I have a pair of boots. I have a pair of boots, too. But I have the bullet bra. Oh, cool. That's dope. that's my only really now here we're in the cold room and this is a scene that makes me really sad because uh here's where the studio just cut the scene to shreds and the first time we the first time we tested this scene it was one of the most liked scenes and they just came in and and they said you look too ugly because of course you're shot full of cholera and and you know that was the point they go oh she looks too terrible i can't look at her I know. And they said, she looks too ugly, I can't look at her, and they cut the scene way back. And a lot of the... She's so ugly, I can't look at her. So, yeah. I mean, those are the moments. Those are the things you get from studio executives. So they cut the scene way back. You can see that we're more on Malcolm than you. And then we tested it, and suddenly it wasn't everybody's favorite scene. So I went back and said, come on, guys. Here's the numbers. This was everybody's favorite scene before you cut it back. And I put it back, and they said no. So it's one of those lost scenes that I'm sad about. Because there's a lot of really great jokes in it. It's an okay scene now, but it could have been great. That's so sad. When you've got the writers and directors and producers and actors... all making one thing and then you've got some guys in a room going, she looks ugly. And you're looking at other movies and you're like, that's gutsy. You had no fear of looking destroyed. It's a cartoon. She got her ass kicked. That, you know what, this going down this damn tube tunnel thing, I'm claustrophobic. I almost had a panic attack in there. I really had to hold it together. I had to use all my superpowers and all my meditation and all that shit because that was real. That wasn't CGI, you know? Yeah, exactly. Now, there was some tough stuff in that piece. Yeah. In that tube bit, yeah. I'm in the baseball bat bag. I'm going in the thing. That was horrible. Yeah, that was not fun. Look at your eyes. One green, one blue. I know. That was fun. That was gutsy. That was fun. Well, we almost shot this in a missile, in a real missile silo. But then we couldn't get permission to use it. But that was really an awesome location. They were the most incredible locations around there. Yeah, this is me freaking out. Yeah.

I love the girl who played Sam because she was real. They all come in and audition like they're going to be in a Disney film. And they're all like, Broadway, babies, shows up. And you're like, no, I just want somebody who can actually care and act. I always thought this was hot. I always liked this location.

Such a huge deal when you, you know, getting locations like this ready. I mean, hours to get all the fires running and the smoke and all that stuff. Such a big deal. I mean, that's a, yeah. Take me out of that tube. This is a scene I like a lot, too. Oh, yeah. He's just going to pick it out. Yeah. I bet kids use that now. People that weren't even born yet. Yeah, that's so, I know. Isn't that cool? It is cool.

It's good for my kids, too. Because I got pregnant in the middle of shooting this, if you remember. Oh, gosh, I remember that. So she's 18 now. She's 18 now. Wow. And we call her Tank Girl. That's awesome. And we yell, suck on this dirt bag in the house. Now this shot of the tanks coming forward and you being, was just one of the, and you coming from between the tanks. Absolutely beautiful shot. And one of those things that was just, you couldn't have planned. That it became so surreal. Just the way the smoke worked with the film. Just beautiful. I loved it. I remember that so well, vividly. I remember that walking up there and getting pushed from behind. And also a great location. Yeah. And Gail just did such an amazing job with making sure that there was so much texture in everything we shot. Well, there's so much texture, and everybody looks gorgeous. Nowadays, they have texture, but people don't look like movie stars, in my opinion. You know what I mean? They make people look ugly, and they're trying to make things look so high-def or whatever. But no, I like movie stars that look like movie stars, like even him. I mean, everybody looks fabulous. If I want to see the girl next door, I'll go next door, you know? I want to see, you know, this big, beautiful, well-lit, you know, film that you made, you know. That, I remember that. So we were at this mine, this copper mine, to shoot a lot of these huge, so that a lot of the equipment was already there. And then Catherine just moved it around to make it. you know, make each location look even more awesome. I'm detecting ripper activity.

Here's another place where I had an argument with the studio because I wanted a lot of this to play on the screens so that we didn't give away very much about the Rippers. And they wanted as much on-screen material as possible. To me, it was important for it not to be obvious at this point because you're supposed to be frightened of them and not know who they are. That battle armor, all that Ripper material that was designed by Stan Winston, I mean, just brilliant. It was funny. I was always in makeup for 900 hours in the morning, and then the Rippers were in makeup in another room for 900 hours in the morning. I never saw Ice-T and all those guys without their costumes on. No, for months, never. But they saw me in real life, right? But I never saw them in real life, but they didn't know I couldn't see them. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. But they'd come up to me afterwards and say, like, hey, Lori, you want to go have a drink? And I would have no idea who that was. And, like, you know, he's, you know, Reggie. You know, it's Reggie Cathy. And I'm like, I think I know your voice. He's like, what are you talking about? We've been working all day. But I never would see them because I would have to get my hair taken out and my makeup off and then I'd have to go work out and I'd have to eat and I'd have to shower and I'd have, you know, you know how it was. So I never saw them socially. And then, you know, I'd see them a year later and they're like, you know, Ice-T's like telling me what's up and I'm like, oh, that's right, I worked with him. But he was a kangaroo. Yeah. And he was so funny because he's like, you know, I read these scripts and they say I'm going to be a kangaroo guy, but I don't really believe I'm going to be a kangaroo guy. And here I am, you know. Right. Remember when he wouldn't dance? Wasn't that awesome? The scene where we all had to dance? And I was just like, yeah, I don't dance. He was very determined what he would do. It was awesome. He's like, yeah, I'm not dancing in a circle. That's not going to happen. Not going to happen. Yep. And he was right, too. Oh, no, it was perfect. He designed his character. It was interesting, though, because as we were designing the Rippers, I mean, you know, they designed all their look based on the looks of the actors, obviously. So they weren't just, I mean, it was not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where you only couldn't tell the difference and all they had, you know, except for what color they're... Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Their headband was. But the fact that each guy had two people to run their costumes the whole time. So if you had all eight Rippers, you had 24 people in the room. It was, how can I direct this? They made their ears move and their tails move and all that stuff. Right, and their eyebrows move. It was amazing, all the expressions. So here we have our first real animation sequence, and this came out of the fact that we could not do big action. We could just not afford to do big action with the tank and the flyer. So I came up with the idea that the most fun way to do it would be to animate the whole thing, because we couldn't get the tank to go fast, and so we could never get the feeling. of speed and things happening together. And so we came up with the idea of putting the animation into it as well. And it was really fun putting these scenes together.

remember our premiere at the man chinese theater yeah that was awesome this guy's bodyguard had to carry me across the street over his head the whole street was packed it was amazing that was amazing do you remember the premiere in london no i was must have been doing another movie no you were there I was not. I was in London. Oh, yes, I was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember. Because it was at the Roundhouse in Camden, and they had people on stage making huge sparks. Oh, yeah. I remember that. It was fantastic. I remember very vividly now. I forgot. And there were posters. I mean, all the bookstores had the comic books for sale with posters of the film. And the clothing line they had over there in London. Yeah.

And the comic book's still going strong. Oh, yeah. Alan Martin still writes it. He has different artists for it, but there's a whole bunch of new volumes of the comic. Oh, yeah. So now we have, this is also a prop that I really like, the fake arm, his razor arm.

And I love the design of the nurse's hair. It just added to her coldness. And then we go to the scene where we meet Subgirl, and this is one of my least favorite scenes. Well, it was... Honestly, it was oddly shot and lit. And that's because... You know why? No. It's, you know, because I'm... First person to admit to failure. And the regular camera operator wasn't with us that day. And we just didn't get in sync. Right. And so it just didn't quite work out. And I feel it, too. I mean, I look at it and, you know... Well, and like you said about the depth, how it usually looks, you know... Yeah. The foreground and background. But... You just... It just goes to show. But Annie's amazing, isn't she, though? Annie's fabulous. Oh, she's so great. So funny. So much fun. It's tough, too, because the sub-girl character, you really wanted to have her more involved, but how are you going to do a submarine in addition to... If you can't do a helicopter or a flying... Yeah, you've got these flyers that are on wires for the jet, and then you've got... You know, a tank that doesn't run. And now where are you going to put the submarine? So we just had to... She did a lot with the character. We had a lot of people who wanted to play this role. Courtney Love really wanted this role. And then she had the tragedy with Kurt, and so... But she loved the project so much that she came back a little bit later, because she obviously couldn't come and audition. But then she came back a little bit later and said, can I supervise the music? So that was incredible. So I sat with her a bunch of different times, and she would send me scraps of paper from hotels in Australia with ideas. I have amazing ideas and songs, and I obviously learned so much from her. And this montage of putting the tank together again, I mean, doing it all animated, just rather much less boring than watching you screw screws in in reality. Right. And all the tank designs were Jamie's. He'd spent forever designing details of the tank. Mm-hmm. You know, including the eight ball and the mascot on the front. I love my barbecue pit in the back with the lawn chair. I love that stupid thing. We shot this, like, after. Yeah, that's an ugly story that I don't think I want to talk about. Because somebody else shot some of this material that I don't like. So I'm a little bitter at this moment about that. So weird. But I'm still a little bitter about it. Of course. But everything in the blue is my material. And you can tell a difference because there's no smoke. Everything in the white T-shirt was done as promo, not... And I didn't want in the film. I think that's what I thought it was, promo. I didn't think it was going to be in the movie. It wasn't going to be in the movie. And then he wanted my job, and he came in, and he cut it in. And I said, you can't do that. And they said, well, if you make a fuss, we'll fire you. So there's the dirty laundry. Well, I directed a film a couple years ago, and I asked Penny Marshall, I said, do you have any suggestions? And she goes, no. if you don't want it in the movie, don't shoot it. Because they'll put it in there. I said, oh. Well, that's it. And I didn't shoot that stuff. And there's no smoke in those shots. But he was, you know. This idea of cutting Kessley's head off came from Aaron Warner. And then we had, okay, now we've cut his head off. Now what do we do? And we designed all these different versions of what to do with the decapitated, none of which we could afford. And I have some beautiful designs of things. And, of course, here's guys in lederhosen, and lederhosen is something that's always funny no matter what. That's definitely a Catherine Hard... That's a Catherine and Ariana edition. And here we are in liquid silver, and all this material was choreographed by Adam Shankman. Now... The awesomely famous, amazing Adam Shankman, who directed The New Hairspray, which comes around in my whole world since I produced the original. And he used, the interesting thing about the Liquid Silver dancers is he used two men among the women. And Sharon Stone, who was visiting because she was going out with one of the crew members, came up to me and said... She came up and said, it's really unfair that he used men because their thighs are perfect. I remember coming out of my trailer once and seeing her sitting on a stoop, and I was like, what's Sharon Stone doing here? Doing here, exactly. We're in Phoenix at an abandoned mall. That was an abandoned mall that we filmed in. And we didn't have time to go, I didn't have time to go back to my trailer to change my costume. So they said, Laurie, there's a whole bunch of... Empty, you know, stores. Just go in one of those and change. I went in, closed the door, and it locked. And no one knew where I was. Like, no one could find me. And I couldn't get out. I was in there for, like, 20 minutes alone in an abandoned, you know, like an abandoned baby gap or something. It was really scary. It was funny. But I really remember, the best thing I remember about Liquid Silver was it was clean and cool. Oh, yeah, very. And just being so happy to be in a clean, cool, this scene where you get dressed and this is all just genius ad-lib. That was so much fun. And you know that girl in the box was in Vogue, in the group in Vogue? Yeah, in Vogue, yeah. I just saw her at my nail salon in Venice. She's like, Lori. I'm like, what's up? Wow, that's funny. I know. Because I remember watching you do this and thinking, God, you are like Lucille Ball in this scene. Thank you. It was certainly a blast. Like, this is genius comedy. And, you know, underrated genius comedy. Oh, thank you, baby. And here's Iggy Pop, who I had met doing Cry Baby. And was just... Fabulous to work with. Oh, he was delightful. And I'd see him at the hotel every day. And he'd always have a peanut butter sandwich. And I would be like, good morning, Iggy Pop. He'd say, good morning. And I would say, why are you eating a peanut butter sandwich every day? He'd go, because I like peanut butter sandwiches. And he worked out all the time. He just worked out all the time. Oh, yeah, constantly. These guys, you know, he was just one big muscle. It was amazing to watch. And so funny. And great, you just can't believe that you've got Iggy Pop, that you've got Anne Magnuson, you've got these amazing people just showing up all the time. Look at her costume, Anne Magnuson, wow. Yeah, that's great. Nothing subtle in the costumes. No. Oh, and then Naomi's glass helmet. And then we get into this. Now, this dance number is a big issue for me because, first of all, There's absolutely no excuse to have this dance number in the film. And it's, of course, my absolute favorite thing because I was just a huge fan of Busby Berkeley when I was... Well, still am, but really as a kid, I just loved musicals. And so I'm like, I'm going to do a Busby Berkeley, and I don't care. I don't need any justification. I'm just going to do it. I love this Cole Porter song. And we made up new lyrics to the Cole Porter song, and nobody ever said anything. Ouch, right there I cut my finger off in real life. Oh, that's right. You were really bleeding. No, really. And then you'll see me hiding my cast. But fortunately, of course... It didn't matter that you could have a cast and band-aids and anything you wanted. But when I showed up looking like that in the hospital, they were like, I've got the leg. I've got the head. I'm like, no, I cut my finger off. Because they thought I had blood all over me. And then the guy was going to take part of my butt and put it on my finger. I'm like, no, I'm not going to mess up my butt and have a messed up finger. So I called my doctor in L.A. He goes, Lori, put a band-aid on it. Take some Advil. Go back to work. Yay, doctor. Yeah, exactly. They wanted to... To cauterize it? No. I'm not messing up my booty for that. So this scene, which I wish that they had kept in full because there's several... Initially, when the studio recut the film, they cut it into an absolute disaster. And they were particularly... This is too long, this is too long. And they cut out some of your best material. But they left it so that the... chorus it didn't even scan like they took half bits out of it and stuff and um you know i'm fighting them and fighting them and fighting them to i said this doesn't even make sense you don't even have good music cuts right no we don't care and i'm like we don't care and and ultimately the music supervisors came in and said you cannot leave this cut this way and i because i didn't even have the power to make sure that the music made sense so ultimately um But you did everything, I mean, you know, in this dance number. Girl, who you telling? And then you said to me, you go, no, you'll just do this part and then we'll cut. No, we'll just do this part and then we'll cut. I would look over to you and you would go, like, keep going. I puked my guts out because you were like, keep going, keep going. I was so exhausted. That's because you were so good, but I didn't, you know, it was impossible to say cut because it was so awesome. It was really fun. And it was my favorite part. Right. Yeah, Adam was wonderful, wasn't he? Yeah, he was so wonderful. He's so into it. He so loved it. And he was so patient. And it's like, okay, now you're going to do this punk version. Now you're going to do this punk lyric. And as I said, we made up lyrics. No one ever said a thing. Like, poor Cole Porter.

Hey, you in the bathrobe! I love that line. I'm so retarded. Look, there's all these girls in thongs. Now nobody would think twice. Like, every girl would have a thong. Oh, right.

And then we had to, like, we took Sam away, and then we had to make the flyer go up in the air, and it went, you know, all the cables broke, and just, like, all those moments where you're just, like, you know, miserable, awful things are going to happen. Like, oh! And you want, like, massives of smoke, and instead you've got, like, little wisps of... There's Naomi in that plastic outfit. Oh, yeah. Which was really funny. We got some miniatures.

And then we did all this stuff where we didn't show Malcolm Tesley's face because we didn't want to give away what had happened to him for all this time. After he got his head cut off. So you don't know what's trying not to give stuff away. I remember this shot of you guys going down in the filthy, dirty pit. Oh, yeah. And... I just remember that was when I was the most pregnant and the most morning sick. That's just a weird, bad memory. And then beautiful shots of white sands. Near two rocks. And then where are you? Where are you? And now we're about to meet the Rippers. You guys are amazing. Rebecca! Rebecca! And there's a shot where we had to name Omi into the sand. And I don't know, I mean, I had done stuff where you have to sink people into sand. Boy, that is hard stuff. And you're always choking them. And then this is a tour de force from Catherine's standpoint, that we found this location that was a disused bowling alley. So we had all the bowling balls and we had all the... materials to work with and just turn that into the ripper hideout. I love the room of bowling balls that we were resting in. It just cracks me up. Which we just found. We're just asleep on bowling balls. And then we reveal the rippers as goofballs. Right. Lovable goofballs.

But yeah, the bowling ball room just worked great. And then we reveal the Rippers with a totally cliched, you know, using that bending lens that in those days wasn't used all the time in every MTV video. And those guys were so hot because they said it was like wearing a couch all the time. Because not only did they have tons of makeup, but every suit they wore was wool. And they were so hot. And I remember Ice-T, somebody saying, how come you never complain, Ice? And he said, better than prison. Exactly. Exactly. And then we do that at my house, too. I have two words for you. Brush your teeth. Brush your teeth. Which always makes kids go, huh? That's three words. And you're like, oh, God. And Reg Cathy has done incredibly well for himself. Oh, yeah. He works a lot on Broadway, too. So interesting. He's such a good actor. But I swear, any one of these scenes that we had all eight of the Rippers in, I mean, behind the scene were... 16 guys running their faces and their ears. And it's brilliant because every ear expression and every eyebrow expression is what makes it work. And every piece of the nose, just incredible work from Stan's point of view. And we couldn't afford Stan Winston. He did it because he wanted to do it. He invested a lot. into the film without anybody knowing because we couldn't afford this kind of material from him. And we didn't pay him what he... I love my Coolio hair right there. I love your Coolio hair there, too. My Coolio hair is awesome. He was prone to ad lib as well. Oh, was he? Reggie? Yeah, but in a good way. Like he's always just that. I mean, ad-libs that you wanted. Because initially the Rippers weren't written particularly distinctive in their personalities, so we developed them a great deal through the characters, which you wouldn't know. And Scott Coffey, the little horny young one. He's never seen a girl before. Right, he always wants to see naked girls. Or he loves Jet Girl. Yeah, that's a great bit. And the sweetness that Jeff Kober brought to Booga. Do you have baseball cards? The fact that they left their eyes open so you can really feel their eyes. The hardest thing to manipulate, of course, was the tails. Well, they were huge. Yeah, because they were huge. And everything had to fit through all the clothing. It would be like three hours before you could get them all on set, minimum. Well, and then it took an hour to take all that stuff off. At the end of the day. Yeah, and I'd done Freddy. I mean, I know how long it takes to do that makeup, but then you've got to add all the animatronic stuff to it. And it always worked. I mean, that's the other thing with Stan. Unlike the tank, you know, you're building all this stuff, you're putting it all in on, and all the animatronics worked always. So just Stan, genius. And I always loved that he kept a copy of all the Rippers in his museum next to the Alien and the Terminator. Oh, wow. He had the Rippers in the Stan Winston Museum, and I was so, I loved that. I felt really so honored by that. That is, that's something special. Because you're looking at Terminator, you're looking at the aliens, you're looking at Stan's most classic work, but he loved the personalities.

They even got those crazy teeth. Yeah. And Reg Kathy just bringing all that music. The bongos and the clarinet, I mean, just all the musical stuff he added to it. They all added so much of their own personality to it, which is what you want. Mm-hmm. Well, and it's also nice to have, you know, four guys. It becomes like a jazz group or a baseball team. You know, they make each other better because, you know, they lift each other up, and everybody wants to be better, and it's really cool. It's like you see somebody go deep. You're like, well, I can do that. I'm going to do it, you know. They just make each other better. You taught me that. I remember you telling me that on League of Your Own that she asked you to always come with more things, to always come with more ideas than not just expect. And I use that all the time now when I direct with young actors. Penny used to say to us on the bus, she's like, okay, what are you doing on the bus? I'm like, well, I'm not in the shot. She's like, I don't care if you're in the shot. What are you doing? So I decided that my character wanted to travel and wanted to leave the Midwest, and I used to draw pictures of New York City while I was sitting on the bus. No one ever saw that, but it adds to the layers of the character. It makes you a better performer. And I still use that when I direct. I still use that example because it's so great, just so that people are always bringing stuff to the table. and telling them it's okay. And you don't have to use all that, but it's, you know, and sometimes I'll say, sometimes you'll have directors who won't want all that stuff, but you need to be thinking that and bringing things to the table. So thank you. Thank you, Penny Marshall. And thank you, Laurie, for telling me that story. And these guys just, you know, and that's where Ice-T, if some stuff was written in the script that didn't feel like his character, you know, no way was he. There's a great moment coming up where he's pissed off with you guys. And he, right at the end of the scene, instead of, he's supposed to just grunt or whatever, and he says, women. And I go up to him and I think, okay, because I was, you know, quite intimidated by him. And I loved him. And I was also a fan of his music. But I was, so I go up to him and I say, we can't really, I'm trying to think, how do you say it? We can't really end, you know, this feminist treatise with women. And he looks at me and he goes, I don't suppose I could change it to bitches. Bitches are trippy. And I'm like, no, I don't think you can. Right here, this is where I almost died. I fell off. Sucker. Ice-T was, Ice-T's awesome. I mean, you know what a good actor he is. We'd sit there and discuss stocks, you know, in between shots. And then he'd turn into a badass again, you know. I was like, did you buy Google? I think you should buy Google. Yeah. People expect them to be one way, and it's like, no, that's acting. He came in. It was right before he did the Cop Killer song. Oh, yeah. And he came into the mix and did Cop Killer for us. Wow. One of the great moments. Just, like, me and the mixers. No, it was not the mixers. It was the ADR. Me and the ADR guys. And he raps the whole song. And you're like, okay, this is why my life is so awesome. I can't believe it. Wow. because I just had a solo performance of Cop Killer. And all these little details on the screen with Scott Coffey with the Donner character of the naked girl on the screen, all those little details. I mean, I feel like I cheated Catherine. If I made this again, I would be better at... There's about two million details that never ended up on screen. And I feel like I would be better at being able to represent the amazing additional things that were also there that never, that you don't even see. But it was hard. I mean, it was a, you know, it was a hard film. I was gonna say, girl, I think you did a pretty great job. It was grueling. Look at all this, look how huge this cast, look how huge these sets are. It was so hot. You had a limited budget. I mean, come on. It was a huge undertaking. I know, but it's still your job to look at what isn't quite right. This scene, the calendar scene, where you just fell into your element, Lori. Where I'm just, once again, just being completely retarded. And I'm like... I don't have to do anything here except stick the camera on you. The super has left the model. I'm like, really, Lori? I know, it's genius. And these guys out of the blue just being calendar boys, just complete piece of cake. Any place we turn the camera, anything we do, just so easy. Thank you, it was fun. A men of water and power calendar. Goofball. And, of course, you know, and also you get to choose, like, the scariest guys and work with them, which I love, too. I mean, growing up in Baltimore, it's just like, find me some Baltimore guys. And if I remember correctly, these guys are really into it. They loved it. Yeah. They thought it was hysterical, you know. Again, you want your extras to just be... And then Naomi has her moment where she's like, Jet Girl just has the moment where she's like, she actually comes into her element as well. And then we get into this whole subplot about The worst thing for me about the film was the fact that we had to have this complicated subplot about guns and Johnny Prophet and stuff that was really irrelevant to the film and just was action stuff to make it seem like it. Because this is what the film is about, these moments. Tank Girl was what the film was about. Every time they asked me... you know, what's her backstory and what's her motivation. And I just wanted to put a, yeah, I just, ugh. Once I said, you know, her motivation is to tell people like you that that's a dumb question. Her motivation is to go to lunch. Goodbye. Her motivation, you know, it's like, this is a comedy. I don't need a deep, what made her into Tank Girl? Those are the questions that I just, just wanted to kill myself over. And now we're into this huge scene with the semi, which was so hard, so big. And a lot of second unit in this. A lot of combination of, and then we go in the tank. And this caused a great deal of argument with the studio as well, because they're like, why isn't she shot? And they made me out a line where you had to say, you guys can't shoot. Oh, you can't shoot for shit or something? Yeah, you can't shoot for shit, which we had to add for no reason. And you did brilliant ad-libs in this. You put a condom on a banana and threw it at them, and they were like, oh, you can't do stuff like that. That's offensive. And God knows what else is missing. I don't remember that's missing from brilliant ad-libs that will never see the light of day. Thank you. I like it. Jet, what are you wearing tonight? That was funny. They were such prudes. And then they were so literal. They were just like, we want the action scene to be. And I'm like, how come you want, you know, because they're, how could she be cooking a hot dog while they're shooting at her? Well, we'll make it better by saying you guys can't shoot. Because it's a movie. It's a movie. It's a comic book. It's tough when you're, it's tough when your executives don't understand your film. It's a comic book. That was awesome. I mean, she actually did that surfing on the... That's a stunt girl surfing on the tank. She actually did that without safety. I know. I'm just... That was... And then the leap, and that was incredible. Yeah, that leap just scared the Jesus out of me. And even the stunt guy's like... And the stunt coordinator was like, wow, that was really incredible. Roadkill. You know you're doing okay when the stunt coordinator's impressed. This is where I jumped off in real life. Not that shot, but it scared me. I didn't know that we were going over the cliff.

some incredible stuff, but we did, now, when I talk about mistakes, we spent really a long time shooting this stuff, and I think that we probably could have made it a little bit shorter and had a couple of the other action sequences be bigger, but given that we had to cut a lot, we ended up cutting a lot of stuff. And then they cut plot, you know, and then they started cutting plot stuff and saying... It doesn't matter. So like the Johnny Prophet stuff makes no sense now. People come up to me and say, I don't understand. I'm like, well, we should just cut it out entirely because it didn't need to make sense. That's the kind of people who say, why does her hair change in every scene? You're like, okay, if you're asking that question, you should not be watching this movie. This visual effect where we look down over the cliff, one of my favorites. One of the ones that worked incredibly well. I forgot about the scope of this sometimes. This stuff was scary. Yeah, there you are, partway over the cliff.

A little homage to Spielberg jumping across the moon. That's cool. Backwards E.T. The too hip for Spielberg moment. That's awesome. How sweet is boo-boo? I know. Then we get into the banquet. This was fun. I like my little flip, too. I like my little... My little 60s flip. So much fun to just costume. I mean, and everyone who we hired who was involved in the show was utterly, completely engaged in every element. I mean, they all, you know, knew that there wouldn't be a lot of opportunities where you could do this again, where you could, you know, any costume, any hair, any just embracing. the craziness. Yeah, there's just nothing better than going to work and knowing that there are 200 people doing their absolute best. All they'd want to do is please you and to please themselves and to make a beautiful product. It's such a great feeling to wake up in the morning and see that. It's like, wow. And it's so great to know. I mean, what I do know about the film is that it has life. Well, yeah. I would not want to have made a film... It was always going to be a film that was either... a zero or a ten on people's radar. Anybody who gives it a five, I don't know what movie they watched, because you either had to love it or hate it. And that's always what I wanted to go for. Because it was the same time that Judge Dredd came out, and it just didn't have the distinctive feel that we at least went for originality and... Just something you've never seen before was the hope. Well, that's what I was going to say. You know what? It's not art if people are comfortable with it. Then that means they've already seen it. Then that means, who cares? It's another plaid shirt, you know? But like you said, love it or hate it, but just don't go, eh, okay, don't say that, you know? Yeah, that was all I wanted. That's why, you know, when Jamie and... You see my homage to Michael Jackson tape on my fingers I have in every movie? That's where he came. Those are my Michael Jackson tape fingers. I have Michael Jackson tape fingers and I'm League of Their Own too. Because that's how nerdy I am. And here's the Ripper dance, which Ice-T was like, there's no way I'm dancing. Ice-T was like, yeah, I'm not doing that. I'm just sitting in the chair and that's it. And I'm like, okay. Because Adam's like, he won't come to the choreography scenes, the choreography sessions, rehearsals. And it's like, okay, now I know why. And he was right. It's much funnier with him not being involved. He was totally right. And there's Booga just humping Naomi. Well, now Booga's, sorry, Donna's just twerking. This is so nasty. He just starts humping her. Yeah, total twerking now. And just sitting on their tails.

Then we had these two scenes, as I remember, with you and Booga together. And I can't remember whether this is the first or the second, because they only let us keep one of them. And this is my favorite Jamie image ever, the bullet bra. Just the greatest bra prop ever. Thank you, Rolling Stones. Thank you, 1950s. Thank you, Jamie Hewlett. But we did... Stan Winston built this completely naked booga. Oh, I know. I have a photo of him. Do you remember that? I have a photo with him. Yeah, I have a photo with naked booga in my house. You do? Because I can't find that material. I'm dying for... No, I'll send it to you. Can you send it to me? Yeah. Yeah, no. So after that, we actually had a post scene. Yeah, the post sex... The post-sex scene, right. And Stan built a full-on naked booga. No, I know, and his penis was like 11 inches long. I have a photo of it. Okay, well, good, because no one else seems to be able to find this, so please send it to me. I can't believe I don't have the dailies from it, because we actually shot it naked as well. But then, it's not that I would ever want to use the full naked, but they wouldn't let us keep the scene in at all. Right. Which is ridiculous because, I mean, William Shatner got to sleep with everything in the universe. Why can't I sleep with the Ripper? And they go, well, you know, somebody, I remember some kid writing me and saying, it's not like we don't know that it's not men in costumes. It's not like you're sleeping with actual kangaroos. What are they thinking? Like, yeah, okay. I like how all the Rippers kind of have vitiligo. Yeah, they do. You know, it gives them, like, see that? It gives them, like, three dimension, you know, in their skin. It's beautiful. And then we use the overhead. We went into the bowling alley and used the overhead. I have that poster. It's huge. That pan you just saw. Of the plan. Yeah. It's huge. It's from one of the parties. I have it in storage somewhere. Wow. So you've got stuff that I haven't seen in 18 years. Catherine, though, showed me, she showed me some of the, I sent over some of the original designs she did for some of the stuff, and stuff that ended up cutting out. I remember that in Liquid Silver she designed this see-through waterbed which had breasts inside, totally clockwork orange. It had like fake breasts inside the see-through water bed. It was always so bummed that we didn't get to do it. You have to give stuff up, though. Here's the bitches scene, where Ice-T said, women. No, Ice, we can't quite do that. And then you parasail in. It's like, oh, there's another cheap... Oh, girl, that made me sick as a dog. When we had to do that with the green screen... Because there's no, as you know, there's no, what do you call it, horizon or anything? Oh, yeah. So when you're flying through the green screen, oh, just that sense of vertigo and not having a place. I don't like roller coasters and crap like that either, though. I don't either. Point of reference. To have, like, no point of reference and just be floating around is awful. You know, you never complained about anything, so... No. I didn't know how miserable you were. No, I'm happy. Like you said, you know, I mean, would you rather be home or would you rather be at work? I'd rather be at work. This guy who plays the day player at the control tower is a biology professor at UCLA who asked me for a role. Really? Yeah. And I'm like, okay. Wow. And he came out. It was totally great just having somebody completely arbitrary. He taught Trey Parker and Matt from South Park as well. And they designed one of their characters after him as well. A total personality. Wow. One of the mad scientists in the early South Park who makes the monkeys with the four butts was based on him as well.

putting all those guys in the flyer. I mean, imagine, like, you know, these close-ups with Naomi and the tails and the, you know, there's no room to put people in that flyer, let alone with full-on costumes and tails and, like, hell. But it meant we didn't have to green-screen things in the corner because there wasn't any room. Right.

And then we have these miniatures of the jet flying in and stuff. Those still, to me, don't look as good as I wish they... I wish they looked better. Because to me, now they look a little Mickey Mouse. But again, I mean, you're talking about miniatures. Now they'd be digital and amazing.

This was 20 years ago, girl. I know. I can still be critical of my work. No, but I wish we had, I wish, yeah, well. Yeah. We had a lot. I mean, you know. And this location, when we went upstairs in this room in the mine, I mean, there wasn't a bad angle in it. Mm-hmm. Oh, gosh, I remember that. Just every single thing is, I mean, you could have just stayed in there for, you know, five months to...

It was pretty rickety, though. I remember having some fight scenes on those narrow passages. Yeah. No, this just freaks me out, too. That's funny, because I think, to me, it's a bit of a failure, the business of drowning her, but not. I always felt like it wasn't, you know, oh, we've got a cliched ticking clock and it doesn't really work. You never really feel she's in danger. No, there's a shot of it like up next to her, past her ears. Good. It's good to know later on that it actually isn't lame. Having all of us ready at the same time, boy, I remember that being a difficult thing. Oh, yeah. And all the guards and, you know. Even like the shoes they had to wear and stuff on the catwalks and stuff. Just everything was a problem. And then there were shots with all ten of you. And I'm like, how do I compose this? How do I get all these people in the movie? And, of course, it's fine in widescreen. But then when they cut it into, you know. 4x3, it's not everybody in the movie. I love that helmet with the fur all over it. Of course, that must have been cool. A fur helmet. In the mine. Yeah, and Naomi's also filled with sheepskin. And the Rippers, now they're in battle armor as well. Good Lord. So they've got an extra couch that they're wearing. A couch and a recliner. Exactly. Some minor stunts there, jumping through with all the explosions and just rigging all that stuff and doing all those big jumps. That stuff's really time consuming and hard work. I forgot how much of this we did. Do you remember how many shooting days it was? I think it was 92. Wow. 92. The last, like, two weeks we were in L.A. on stage doing, like, all the Greenstone stuff. And this scene where he dies, it's like, I always thought it's amazing that he could do a death scene with all you really see that's his, his eyes, and yet he still makes... I mean, it was just a moment of acting where you're just like, wow, he still made his eyes make you really, really believe. It's not that he's still. It's what he did with his eyes that made you really believe that he was dead. And that's some acting. Some of my favorite shots are just the wide shots in that place, too. just looking over the top of those. And when we first arrived and just looking at it, then you get there and you think, are we ever going to be able to light this and shoot this? And then there you are, and it's, oh, wow. How lucky am I to get to make this movie on every level? It took me a year, though, to option the project initially. I spent a year convincing them that I would be respectful to the project. Wow. And that I was the right person to get the option. And when I'd finally given up, That's when they came back and said, okay, you can have it. And we got it together pretty quickly. I mean, within a year after them giving me the option, we were making the film, which is unheard of now. That was scary. Yeah. And then we reveal there's Kessley with, and his head's absolutely fine. And that's only because we couldn't afford... so we create this we create this digital head for him that exactly looks like him because we couldn't afford to do we'd initially come up with these designs for all these television screens and the head was going to be made of tons and tons of television screens and we just couldn't afford it so the ultimate solution was to make him look absolutely normal until he reveals that his head is completely a digital projection. Right. But there you go, budget, you know, sometimes budget decisions are, you know, make for better solutions. And sometimes they're just disappointing. So in my head I still have these images of this, multifaceted television screen. Yeah. It was sort of Picasso-ish. One screen had an eye looking left and one screen had... Well, you can still make a movie with that in it.

This is where I do my Muhammad Ali impersonation. Yes. I'm such a retard. Oh, I'm so pretty. And then we reveal that his head is... It all gets pretty silly here.

But I'm amazed. It's been a long time since I've looked at how much we did. You did a whole bunch, girl. And how much of it works. Hey, if people are screaming, hey, Tank Girl, I love you to me every day, 20 years later, you did something right. I can't, you know. And then people are like, you made Tank Girl to me. They're like, uh-huh. Deep down, I still got, actually, my younger daughter just bought Doc Martens last week. And I'm like, yes, yes. We continue the legacy. Right. And I wish that, you know, we'd had even more punk music in it. Mm-hmm. original punk music, I would have loved to have had. I mean, the soundtrack, I think, turned out amazingly. But I would have loved to have had, you know, Elvis Costello and early Elvis Costello in it and the Stiff Records people, too. But we also were aiming to make it a little more contemporary. We had Green Day for a while in the temping it. Oh, really? And that was before nobody knew who they were. Wow. And then they became... They became famous just before. And then we couldn't afford them. But I got Joan Jett in it, so that was... Kind of awesome. Yeah. I was like, oh, my God, Joan Jett. Those moments when you're like, oh, this is... My life is cool.

Sometimes when I go up for jobs now, people say, how do I know you can do action? Oh no, I forgot in the last 15 years what I did before. One of the things I'm pleased with is that we managed to make you guys, when shooting guns, really look like you were handling them properly. I think that's really a big deal is when girls look like their guns are too heavy and can't handle them. Right. So when Naomi's shooting, you know. Feeling great. Yeah. And yet didn't go crazy with I have to go and, you know, like guys do. I have to go practice for, okay, I can just do this. Right. You know, I can just act. We made all kinds of really hysterical labels for the beer cans. Like we had spunk beer, fast beer. A lot of time spent on logos and really cool designs for everything. Well, it's that whole cartoon theme that just lives through every single prop. Yeah. It's the world that everything lives in. That's just amazing. Ugh.

Malcolm was really uncomfortable as well, especially in this scene. Because he also was in a massive wool suit. And I remember he was so right on. You never had to give him any direction. So if you ever had to do more than two takes because things were out of focus, he was like, I'm not. I will be right here in this space in time, in this three-dimensional space. Measure me, and I will be there. And he really told the camera guys, keep up with me. Right. I remember that, actually. And it was, you know, it was good. I mean, because he could find his exact space. And that's, you know, amazing. Just amazing.

Oh, Jet, girl, go and get him. Yep. Fuck me. I don't want to. That's where, you know, Naomi looking like a movie star right there. Doesn't she? Yeah. Gorgeous.

I forgot how huge this ending is. I'm surprised they could even run and the Rippers could even move in their suits at that point. And then we wrote this really funny ending. That they cut out. Which ended up with you burping at the very end. With it raining and you burping. I like that. I like the rain scene. Yeah, that finally it creates rain. Oh, and I had an umbrella hat. You had an umbrella hat, exactly. I love that. I love that, too. I love this animation, too, but we could easily have had both. Because it was a funny... They had that... You know that's on YouTube, the original ending's on YouTube. Well, good. I'm glad people have found stuff from the original cuts. I'm sure there's an hour of footage that's missing. Really? Wow. And I love the animation, but it was great to have that. It was great to have that umbrella hat and rain and the burp. Yay, Tank Girl! Pa-pa-pow! Pa-pa-pow! Well, Rachel, thank you. This is, I mean, it's a huge part of my life, and it'll, you know, it'll live long after you and I. Pretty cool, girl. Good job. Good job. Amazing, Lori. I have a little... It's a little overwhelming to... Yeah? To look at it all the way through. Although, I guess I have to show it to my kids again. Anyway, Lori, amazing. Thank you. Thank you for coming and doing that, too. Oh, please. Thank you. Look at all these people. That's what's so cool. It's like when you look at the credits, you see all these people gave 100%, you know? Yeah. Walter Scott, the stud coordinator, I need to give a shout out to, too. He did, you know. And an old, you know, old school stunt coordinator, really fantastic. But, you know, having to really change his whole style to get into Tank Girl. And just, you know, it's so great to see people just, you know, get that the stunts have to have humor as well as work. And that's what we had, people who really... loved, just loved everything about it. What's the music here? I think we put, didn't we put Let's Do It at the, we put another refrain of Let's Do It and then we have the, then some song I buried at the end. No, this is Ice-T right now. What? Oh, the Ice-T? This is Ice-T that I hear. I'm hearing Ice-T. she walks softly but she carries a big gun oh right that was good it was good of him to do a song for us too even though we can't use rap I'm like why not that was like the rule the minute anybody said to me we can't it's like well that's all the more reason to do it right I guess that's sort of what we live by you give her trouble and she might cut your head off or something that you like Dope. Love it. She says she got it cause she says a lot of ladies want. She says she got it cause she says a lot of ladies don't. She says she got it cause she says a lot of ladies can't. She says she got it cause she knows a lot of ladies. Romance the thoughts of giving men their own medicine. Electrocute them, light them up like Con Edison. She got no fear, five rings in her ear, holes in her nose, way out closed. Living life to the fullest, buckshot and bullets. Triggers, she'll pull it. Earth, she want to rule it. Maybe she will cause she's quick to kill. The city lights make her dresses tight. Yes, she bites. You never know where she'll come from. She walks softly, but she carries a big gun. There's no way that she can fade her son. She walks softly, but she carries a big gun.