Friday, January 11th 2013
![The best quotes from the FANTASTIC article from the New York Times about director Paul Schrader, writer Bret Easton Ellis, Lindsay Lohan and porn star James Deen making the independent film The Canyons.
____________
The three were set to make “Bait,” a shark thriller, based on a screenplay Ellis wrote, but the Spanish financing vaporized.
____________
The first child of a drug-abusing, felonious stock trader and a failed dancer, Lohan survived her Long Island childhood, moved to Hollywood and became America’s newest sweetheart with winning turns in “The Parent Trap” and “Mean Girls.”
____________
Thirty years ago, he directed an alcoholic George C. Scott in “Hardcore.” One day, Scott wouldn’t come out of his trailer. He called Schrader into his booze-soaked sanctuary. “You’re a great screenwriter but the world’s worst goddamned director,” Scott said. “Promise me you’ll never direct another movie, and I’ll come out.” Schrader dropped to his knees and promised. A few weeks later, Scott read in the trades that Schrader was going to direct “American Gigolo.” Next time he saw Schrader, he bellowed, “You’re a liar.”
____________
[Bret Easton Ellis] had recently become fascinated with James Deen, a 26-year-old known as the Porn Star Next Door. Deen, whose real name is Bryan Matthew Seville, is the Jewish son of Pasadena rocket scientists.
____________
Schrader mentioned that he was still trying to cast a psychiatrist, a small but pivotal role.
“I called Jeff Goldblum and Willem Dafoe. They’re not available. So, any ideas?”
Lohan squealed and said, “How about Jared?”
Schrader nodded approvingly.
“Jared Harris?”
“No, Jared Leto.”
____________
As a teenager, he learned to be comfortable performing for a crowd by “getting freaky” with a girl in front of his friends before moving into another room, as a way of getting comfortable with having sex in public. Once he began working, he took pride in being professional: he was never late, and his behavior was always fastidious. (He could be seen on set making sure the garbage bags were correctly hugging the trash-can lids.) But there was a certain loneliness about him. He told me that his lawyer, a bearded Gandalfian figure, was one of his best friends. On the “Canyons” set, he was the sole cast member who never had pals stop by.
____________
She retreated to a walk-in closet a few feet from the bed where the scene would be shot. Lohan had just fired her assistant and was now holed up with an old friend named Gavin.
____________
As equipment was reset, Lohan retreated to the patio for a smoke. She still had her mike on, so anyone wearing headphones could hear her.
“I’ve got one assistant passed out at my house and the other one in the Palisades saying he wants to hang himself. Life’s great.”
____________
“Goddamn it,” Schrader said. “He agreed not to shoot porn during the shoot. Now he’s out of town making porn. I told him things could change; he had to stay in town. Now a whole day is wasted.”
____________
“I needed time to figure out all the crap in my life that I’d created for myself, essentially, and I kind of realized, What am I doing? I like doing this. I like being here. This makes me happy. There was a line in the ‘Elizabeth’ movie where she says, ‘I’m so bored, I’ve never been taught what to do when I’m not working,’ and I’m kind of figuring that out now.”
____________
We adjourned to a nearby bar. He was certain the film would get into the Sundance Film Festival. Maybe they’d recoup their investment tenfold.
“We thought this was going to be ‘My Dinner With Andre,’ but it’s a real film. We [expletive] did it.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/dcf61d49ce68967c0c242b70395a5903/tumblr_mggfb0eXK51qz9qooo1_1280.jpg)
The best quotes from the FANTASTIC article from the New York Times about director Paul Schrader, writer Bret Easton Ellis, Lindsay Lohan and porn star James Deen making the independent film The Canyons.
____________
The three were set to make “Bait,” a shark thriller, based on a screenplay Ellis wrote, but the Spanish financing vaporized.
____________
The first child of a drug-abusing, felonious stock trader and a failed dancer, Lohan survived her Long Island childhood, moved to Hollywood and became America’s newest sweetheart with winning turns in “The Parent Trap” and “Mean Girls.”
____________
Thirty years ago, he directed an alcoholic George C. Scott in “Hardcore.” One day, Scott wouldn’t come out of his trailer. He called Schrader into his booze-soaked sanctuary. “You’re a great screenwriter but the world’s worst goddamned director,” Scott said. “Promise me you’ll never direct another movie, and I’ll come out.” Schrader dropped to his knees and promised. A few weeks later, Scott read in the trades that Schrader was going to direct “American Gigolo.” Next time he saw Schrader, he bellowed, “You’re a liar.”
____________
[Bret Easton Ellis] had recently become fascinated with James Deen, a 26-year-old known as the Porn Star Next Door. Deen, whose real name is Bryan Matthew Seville, is the Jewish son of Pasadena rocket scientists.
____________
Schrader mentioned that he was still trying to cast a psychiatrist, a small but pivotal role.
“I called Jeff Goldblum and Willem Dafoe. They’re not available. So, any ideas?”
Lohan squealed and said, “How about Jared?”
Schrader nodded approvingly.
“Jared Harris?”
“No, Jared Leto.”
____________
As a teenager, he learned to be comfortable performing for a crowd by “getting freaky” with a girl in front of his friends before moving into another room, as a way of getting comfortable with having sex in public. Once he began working, he took pride in being professional: he was never late, and his behavior was always fastidious. (He could be seen on set making sure the garbage bags were correctly hugging the trash-can lids.) But there was a certain loneliness about him. He told me that his lawyer, a bearded Gandalfian figure, was one of his best friends. On the “Canyons” set, he was the sole cast member who never had pals stop by.
____________
She retreated to a walk-in closet a few feet from the bed where the scene would be shot. Lohan had just fired her assistant and was now holed up with an old friend named Gavin.
____________
As equipment was reset, Lohan retreated to the patio for a smoke. She still had her mike on, so anyone wearing headphones could hear her.
“I’ve got one assistant passed out at my house and the other one in the Palisades saying he wants to hang himself. Life’s great.”
____________
“Goddamn it,” Schrader said. “He agreed not to shoot porn during the shoot. Now he’s out of town making porn. I told him things could change; he had to stay in town. Now a whole day is wasted.”
____________
“I needed time to figure out all the crap in my life that I’d created for myself, essentially, and I kind of realized, What am I doing? I like doing this. I like being here. This makes me happy. There was a line in the ‘Elizabeth’ movie where she says, ‘I’m so bored, I’ve never been taught what to do when I’m not working,’ and I’m kind of figuring that out now.”
____________
We adjourned to a nearby bar. He was certain the film would get into the Sundance Film Festival. Maybe they’d recoup their investment tenfold.
“We thought this was going to be ‘My Dinner With Andre,’ but it’s a real film. We [expletive] did it.”
