Q: Do you believe in a higher power? (Love, God, Universe, Grace, Spirit, whatever) Why? Why not?
A: Yes but as a teen, I wasn’t so sure, since what God would let me, a hungover Catholic schoolgirl, teach Sunday school to kindergarteners without sending a bolt of lightning my way? My beliefs changed in my twenties, when my sculpture teacher, Nino died of congestive heart failure. He was a crotchety old man who had alienated his adult daughters but amused the hell out of me with his wild stories about his landlady who gave happy ending massages, his battles with his five wives (he never divorced his first so technically he was a polygamist), his raucous partying in Pietrasanta, where he sculpted marble from Michelangelo’s quarry. I became his surrogate daughter, he my cherished friend. When he got sick, I visited him often in the hospital but never told him what he meant to me because he was so vibrant that I thought he’d outlive us all. His death shocked me. His son gave me Nino’s rubber mallet to remember him. One day soon after, I picked up the mallet and felt a rush of energy whoosh through me. A vivid image of a healthy, happy Nino appeared in my mind. He beamed at me and I beamed back. Then the energy was gone and so was Nino. For the first time, I truly believed in a higher power, one that enables our energy to exist after our bodies give out and enables beloved friends to say goodbye.
Q: Why must you make films? (I mean, let's be honest, only a crazy person would choose to do it)
I make films because nothing I’ve ever done – sculptor, photographer, singer, actor, legislative aide, assistant director – has ever made me feel as whole and alive as filmmaking does. When I’m directing, I feel like all my synapses are firing in synch, even when things go wrong – as they inevitably do. I have a clarity of vision and sense of calm I rarely have anywhere else. Of course, everything leading up to actually being on set often makes me question my sanity, but once I make it to set, I’m home.
Q: If you were at a dinner party and had to pick one of these topics for the group to discuss (sex, politics, money, religion, death, food, reincarnation) -- what would it be and why?
A: Food because to me, so much of life – sex, death, religion, politics - revolves around the food we eat, how we make it, how we eat it, when we eat it, why we eat it. Maybe it’s my Italian heritage, but to me, food is an expression of self.
Q: Make up a question for me to ask the next director I photograph. You can ask ANYTHING — just please be respectful.
A: How do you handle those moments of despair when you doubt yourself and your choices and wonder how the hell you ended up doing what you’re doing with your life?
Question from Lulu Wang: Do you remember the first story you told and what was it?
A: I can’t remember the true first story I told because my sister Colette and I, who are identical twins, told each other stories from the beginning, probably in utero. I do remember that as kids, before we’d go to bed each night, we’d discuss what we were going to dream about and we wanted to wear and do in each other’s dreams. So I guess that’s how we began collaborating. Now she’s a fiction writer and I’m a writer/director and we’re each other’s first readers. We’ve worked on projects together, but not in a long time, so we’re overdue.
It makes sense then that the first story I vividly remember telling is one that I told with Colette. We were six or seven and our younger brother, John was two or three. John was an active kid, to say the least, and on this particular night, was refusing to go to bed. Colette and I decided to tell him a bedtime story about Pinocchio, the part where Pinocchio grows ears and a tail and turns into a donkey. When we reached the end, we told John that if he didn’t stop being a bad boy and go to bed right away, he was going to turn into a donkey, just like Pinocchio and all the other bad boys Pinocchio hung out with. We then crept from John’s room, certain he’d be asleep in seconds. Instead, we heard him wailing, telling our mom that he could feel his tail and ears growing and she had to make it stop. We giggled until Mom figured out just where he got those crazy ideas. Nobody got much sleep that night.
Q: The last time you had deja vu? What does deja vu mean to you?
A: I don’t remember the last time I had déjà vu but when it happens, it’s so crystal clear that I can’t believe it’s not real. When I was younger, my déjà vu moments often were about offbeat incidents with my identical twin sister but now that I have kids, they have to do with offbeat incidents with my boys. Makes me wonder if déjà vu is our minds’ way of reinforcing bonds with people we love.
Q: What made you laugh last? When was the last time you cried? Why?
A: The last time I laughed: Tonight, when one of my boys pissed me off and I dove for a glass of wine, prompting him to ask, “Mom, am I driving you to drink?” Thank god they’re funny kids. Parenthood is hard enough but without laughter it would feel like a jail sentence.
The last time I cried: Probably an hour ago, when I wrote about my friend Nino for this interview. I cry a lot. When a character I love in a book or movie dies. Or I see a sappy commercial or hear sad song. Little things and big things make me cry. But I’m a stealth crier. I cry when I’m alone or when no one is paying attention. About four years ago, one of my boys told me that he’d never seen me cry. That surprised me and made me notice that they didn’t cry much either but none of us has any problem being angry. Which made me realize maybe part of all that anger was unexpressed sadness. I decided then and there to cry more freely around them and in general so that my kids learn it’s okay to be openly sad. We’re still working on it.
Q: Lastly, tell the people about your next project and where they can see your work.
A: I’m working on financing my first feature, SIX LETTER WORD, which is based on my short film about autism, SIX LETTER WORD, that I wrote and directed through the AFI Directing Workshop for Women. You can download that short on the AFI Conservatory Online Theater at http://www.afi.com/conservatory/online_theater/films/six_letter_word.aspx. My short film PRICK is making the festival circuit rounds now. I’m directing another short I wrote, based on M.C. Moore’s short story, HEIMLICH (it’s great – go read it here: http://www.wordriot.org/archives/6766) in the spring and writing a TV pilot about gonorrhea (my dad is so proud of me).
Thank you for your time and sharing your thoughts!