Screenwriter Guinevere Turner has won awards for The Notorious Bettie Page and worked on mainstream films like American Psycho and BloodRayne. We caught up with her at the opening of the San Francisco Women’s Film Festival at 12 Galaxies to get the skinny on her latest short film, Go Fish, her next project and her involvement in Itty Bitty Titty Committee.

You’ve worked in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles and repeatedly with many of the same people: Mary Harron, Christine Vachon and Rose Troche. Can you tell me about the bonds you have?
Obviously, my bond with Rose was what got me into Go Fish and that was the way I met Christine, and through Christine I met Mary. I’m lucky enough now, in L.A., to have a real support system of women filmmakers. We all sort of work on each other’s films and read each other’s scripts, so there’s even more relationships developing.

So, I have to ask this, it’s my job, and I’m sorry but…
Am I single?

Yep.
My answer to that question is “always.”

Then the next question is why don’t you ever dish about your relationships? Is it that you think it’s important to be discreet?
This is my standard answer. It’s so complicated that sometimes I can’t remember it but I think it’s funny. If I say, “Yes, I am single,” that means I’m not. If I say, “No, I’m not single” that means I am. I haven’t said either. Actually, now I am single. I don’t know why it bothers me to answer that question because it’s sort of like if a guy says to you, “Do you have a boyfriend?” and you want to say, “Nnno” that makes it sound like, “No, I’m available.” So if people say, “Are you single?” I say, “Yes,” but it’s not like, “Oh, yeah, I’m single ladies.”

I like being single. I think I was born to be single. Also, in terms of relationships I feel like just because I have an opportunity to speak and have other people hear what I say, I have to respect other people’s privacy—except Rose. I’ll always talk shit about Rose. I would hate it to read about my relationship drama in a magazine because my girlfriend was being interviewed.

So then it is about discretion out of consideration for your partner.
Yeah, it is. And I’ve learned from doing press and interviews, when I started out in 1994 I was so open I’d answer any question and that’s not a good thing to do. You don’t feel good at the end of the day. You have to create boundaries.

Does it feel like you’re giving too much away?
Yeah. And also it’s kind of creepy to read personal stuff about you in a magazine. I’ll say lots of personal things but there has to be a line. Though I am single. I’ve been single for some time and that’s how I like it.

I was surprised a bigger rumor wasn’t started after Kristanna Loken, the star of BloodRayne—a film you wrote—came out as bi after the film wrapped.
Did you expect a bigger rumor because she was gay?

More that she came out after working on a picture you wrote and maybe you two …
God, I wish! You’re always invited to go but I hate being on sets as a writer. I just hate being on sets if I don’t have anything to do. I should have been on that set. Romania sounded lonely to me, only now I realize I could have been making out with Kristanna Loken. At the time I didn’t know about her “gayness.” I’ve only met her once: at the premier and she was lovely and tall.

You recently received the CineKink festival award for Extraordinary Mainstream Depiction of Kink for Notorious Bettie Page.
Oh! I did? I didn’t know that.

Congratulations!
Thank you!

Is bringing fringe issues into the mainstream a goal of your work?
You know, it’s funny because it’s not really conscious or studied. It’s not only what I’m drawn to but also what is drawn to me. American Psycho wasn’t my idea, it was a book and then Mary Harron brought it to me and said, “Do you want to write this together?” The same thing happened with Bettie Page. Someone brought it to us. What interests me is the stuff in the margins in all the different ways that those things manifest themselves: as gay or as serial killers or bondage queens. The Bettie Page thing is special to me. The thing that really underlies that is feminism and I know that’s sort of antiquated and old school but really, how people fetishize her, the iconic look of her, and who she was are such different things. What she did: all the bondage stuff and nude posing; and what she was: a religious and kind of proper girl; and how she reconciled those two things: that’s what was fascinated me about [her]. The more we studied her the more enigmatic she got. I think if you met her when she was still doing that stuff, I think you’d be like “huh, who is that person?” She’s such a weird collection of things that don’t match up. I think American Psycho is about how gay straight men are. I was just at the College of Santa Fe showing the film and talking about it and it’s fresh in my mind. There was a woman who raised her hand and said, “This movie was just horrible.” She just hated it and had to get on some feminist theory soapbox about how it’s not just a slasher movie—bleh.

Is it true that you almost played Bettie Page?
Yes. I was actually attached to play her for the first six years we were making the movie. There are a lot of reasons why I didn’t. Basically I got too old. And they also needed a name to raise the money. Honestly, as sad as I was not to play her, because I really did think I was going to play her for the first six years, as a filmmaker and by the time we needed to cast, I wouldn’t have cast myself. The character needs to play from 21 to 35 and though I don’t think I look hideous I don’t look 21. Having Gretchen [Mol] attached to it got it the money it needed and it is a period piece. You don’t want to cheap out on period because you got to make it look right. I think Gretchen did an incredible job, she’s so, so good in the movie. Although I did cry about it when I first found out—that was about five years ago and I’m over it and I’m really happy the movie got made.

You’ve directed three shorts. Tell me about your plans for the fourth.
With the fourth short that I am making, I tried to challenge myself. Because I’m a writer at heart and directing is something I’m just learning, my films tend to be lots and lots and lots of talking and my last movie—that we’re actually showing here (SFWFF) tonight—I have six characters and like four thousand locations and I realized that I get so reliant on the cleverness of the dialogue that sometimes the aesthetic aspects of the medium suffer. Which is ridiculous; it’s a film. If I want to write clever things I can just do that. So the next film I’m doing there’s one actor and she’s dead and the only dialogue are the messages people are leaving her as she lies dead in her apartment. So it’s one location, one actor and all the dialogue I can record after I shoot the movie. All [this] so I can focus on the aesthetics to show all the ways that life is going on around her because you realize she died, or I hope it will be evident that she died suddenly and in the middle of her life. She slipped and fell and died.

What’s that film going to be called?
One Week Later.

You had a really crucial role in the production of The L Word. What are some of the differences between working in television and film?
I haven’t worked on [The L Word] for two years. I was, let’s just say, not asked back for season three. It’s totally fine. Aside from the money, I think I was really ready to leave. It was hard for me. I never worked in TV and when you’re used to working in film, and you don’t have a boss, it’s you and whomever you’re collaborating with. TV is hard because ultimately you do have a boss and you do work for them. So your opinion is heard but it’s a really different dynamic. It was like having a day job and a night job. I had a really great time and I learned a lot and I learned how to not be such a slacker and write fast. In TV if you don’t make your deadline you can’t do your job and someone else can. So I don’t work on the show anymore. In fact, I haven’t even watched the last two seasons. I know nothing. I can’t even complain about it, which is why I don’t watch it. People always complain to me about it like someone complained to me about a character on it called “Poppy” and I was like, “I don’t even know what that person looks like. I don’t watch the show.” I have nothing to say about The L Word¬ in terms of what it is now because it has nothing to do with me. It was great and it opened a lot of doors for me career wise, in TV and what not. I loved all the actors on the show and I loved acting on the show and that was really fun. Working with Rose again was fun. There were a lot of good things about it.

What’s the down low on POWER UP and Itty Bitty Titty Committee? Have you been involved with them for long?
POWER UP are friends of mine. They’ve helped me out with my films. They helped me get insurance when I did one of my shorts and they’re part of the whole LA, Indie film, lesbian community that I’m a part of. I’ve met a lot of people because of their organization and events and stuff. This is their first feature. I made up the title. I developed it initially with Jamie [Babbitt] the director when I was initially slated to be the screenwriter, but they couldn’t afford me. We developed the story with them and I made up the title. A lot of the stuff I developed is still in there like the title but other parts other people wrote. It was fun for me because I got to play an afternoon talk show host. I was being goofy with it because it’s fun to me to be cheesy. And I got to work with Melanie Mayron who used to be on <.i>Thirtysomething. There’s a scene where we run screaming out of a burning building together and that was fun to do in heels, 50 times.

Their first film is in theaters, Itty Bitty Titty Committee.
Yeah. I don’t know what their plans are for it—like, their theatrical hopes. I have not seen it. What I’ve seen is only what I saw when I did voice looping so I’ve seen chunks of the film I’m in but it won a prize in Austin and it won a prize in Melbourne so somebody’s liking it. I hope it’s good. I feel like we need a fresh, spunky little dyke movie. It’s been a while. It’s got an ensemble cast and a lot of potential and my friend Deak, she’s in two of my shorts: I’m single-handedly starting her little career. Jamie [Babbit] was like, “Where’s that little girl Deak from your movie? How can I get her in my movie?” She’s one of those people who are really cute in person but she looks really hot on camera. She has a face that photographs really well and she’s a really good actor and she’s a hot butch, so it’s good.


Is the script very different from your treatment?
My treatment was only like five pages. Thematically it’s the exact same thing. There’s a lot there that we all developed and I wrote, but the writers who worked on it are all sort of young first-timers.

Do you hope to direct any features in the future?
Absolutely. I’m continuing to make shorts, to learn, and I definitely want to direct a feature. Rose and I are working on Go Fish 2, which is making us laugh a lot. We don’t have any money but we decided we’re going to write the script without trying to get money so no one can influence the content. It’s kind of like The Big Chill. All of the characters are in a house for the weekend because one of the characters has to move to India or something, I forget what we decided—or if we have decided. Eli and Max, the two main characters from the last film, have long since broken up and at the end of the film they both end up together. We basically just cheat and tell the exact same story, just 12 years later. Just kidding. We haven’t decided if they get back together. It’s sort of a comment on whether or not there is such a thing as “the one for you” or if it’s just a moment that can pass and so “the one for you” isn’t “the one for you” if you don’t act on it in the right moment.

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