Fresh Air - John Waters, 'Pope of Trash,' turns 80!

Episode Date: April 17, 2026

We celebrate the 80th birthday of the filmmaker known as ‘The Pope of Trash’ and ‘The Prince of Puke,’ John Waters. He's spent a career violating taboos and pushing boundaries. His films include the cult classic ‘Pink Flamingos’ and the relatively mainstream ‘Hairspray,’ which was adapted into a hit Broadway musical. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2014 and 2019. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

This is Fresh Air. I'm David Bean Cooley. The multimedia artist John Waters has spent his life being a champion of outsiders, redefining norms, and celebrating individuality and eccentricity. His career path has gone from outrageously standards-defying filmmaker to popular, avuncular TV host and elder statesman of bizarre pop culture. His 80th birthday is next week on Earth Day, April 22nd, and we're taking time today to celebrate John Waters. Waters was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1946,

and filmed most of his movies there. As a teenager, one of his best friends was Glenn Milstead, an actor, singer, and drag queen, who, in his drag persona, went by the name Divine. Waters cast Divine in his early underground films, Mondo Trasho in 1969, and multiple mediacs in 1970. and cast Divine again as the star of their big breakthrough film, Pink Flamingos, in 1972. The plot of that film had people competing for the title of Filthiest Person Alive,

and it was a robust, sometimes scatological competition. These are obviously jealous of our careers, of all of our press. Why else would they sign that the filthiest people live? Everyone knows that that title has become my trademark. Why do you use it in this way only to insinuate that they are filthier than I? How could anyone seriously believe that? How could anyone be filthier than Divine? Devine also co-starred in the movie that brought Waters into the mainstream,

1988's Hairspray, in which Ricky Lake played a dance-obsessed teen in 1962 Baltimore. When she performs on a local TV show, her parents watch in bed disapproving of some of the other contestants. The mom is played by Divine, the dad by Jerry Stiller, the actor who eventually would play George Costanza's dad on Seinfeld. I watch that tramp and I'm embarrassed to be white. You know Edna, I've been reading about these kids. Maybe Tracy could be some sort of campus leader.

Wilbur, it's the times. They're a changing. Something's blowing in the wind. Catching my diet pills, would you, hon? As his films gained praise as well as notoriety, Waters found that celebrities lined up to appear in a John Waters film, and he was only too happy to oblige. He was addicted to stunt casting, too, so his ensembles were wildly diverse. The original Hairspray movie, in addition to Divine, also featured Sonny Bono, Pia Zedora, Ruth Brown, and Deborah Harry.

Crybaby, which Waters wrote and directed in 1990, featured Polly Bergen, Iggy Pop, Troy Donahue, Joey Hetherton, former X-rated movie star Tracy Lords, and Patty Hurst. And the title role of Crybaby was played by a young Johnny Depp, who made the most out of his outrageous role of a rebel with a cause, and with a tattoo of an electric chair on his chest. In this clip, he's in a park making out with his girlfriend, Allison, when lightning strikes a nearby tree and shatters the mood, causing Crybaby to rip open his shirt in anger.

What's the matter, Crybaby? Everything's the matter. It's just a thunderstorm. Heat lightning. It's sexy. It's not sexy. Electricity makes me insane. Why, Crybaby.

Why? Here's why. Electricity killed my parents. They died in the electric chair? That's right, Alice. My father was the alphabet bomber. He may have been crazy, but he was my pop. Only one I ever had.

Oh, God. about the alphabet bomber. Bombs exploding in the airport and barbershop. That's right. All in alphabetical order. Car wash. Drugstore. From there, John Waters kept getting even more accepted. Hairspray became a hit Broadway musical, then was refashioned as a popular movie musical. He kept making outrageous movies, such as Cecil B. Demented and A Dirty Shame, and kept insanely busy in many other arenas. As an actor, he appeared in everything from homicide life on the street to the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. This fall, he'll appear in the newest season of FX's American Horror Story, opposite Ariana Grande, Jessica Lang, and Kathy Bates. Fittingly, it's the show's 13th season.

He's written a memoir called Mr. Know It All, the Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder. He's had exhibitions of his visual art, at the Baltimore Museum of Art and at New York's New York's New Museum of Contemporary Art. And he's hosted TV shows from a true crime series to an overview of some of his cinematic favorites. He called that series John Waters presents movies that will corrupt you.

The films included the Dark Cult Movies Freeway and Baxter, and he hosted the show from his own Baltimore home. Hello, I'm... Never mind who I am. No cops followed you here, did they? In today's climate, you can never be too careful. When I'm showing a sex exploitation film, I get a little nervous.

Come on in. We're going upstairs. To my bedroom. In his memoir, John Waters writes, Suddenly, the worst thing that can happen to a creative person has happened to me. I am accepted. He spoke to Terry Gross in 2019 when he had published his memoir. He told her he came from a conventional middle-class family in Baltimore.

My parents had a happy marriage for 70 years. They both lived to be about 90. So I really had, I'm wondering why I'm kind of as nuts as I am, really, because I had a pretty good role models from them. Well, speaking of as nuts as you are, you write that you were born six weeks premature, quote, a little boy slightly miswired, already not following the rules. All I know is I was born with a screw loose. So when you wrote that you were born slightly miswired, I didn't know how literally to take that, like if you think you're cognitively different, you know. Well, I think right from the beginning, I didn't want to be like anybody else. And I think I was overly baptized because in the Calvin Church, they keep baptizing you. And, you know, I needed a little original sin, and they wiped it all away. So I think that that was the problem. I was a teacup baby that was over-baptized.

But you know, the one thing like that great ad campaign for it's love, there's one thing wrong with the Waters baby, it's a lie. And kind of, I think I was a little like that. But there's a difference between not wanting to be like everybody else and being incapable of being like other people. Well, I'm both. I couldn't, you know, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't play football very well. And I am so gay that tools, even the sight of a hammer, made me cry as a child. That's the one thing I cannot do. Yeah.

We had to hammer the next day in school. And I remember waking up screaming in the middle of the night of this horror that I had to hammer. And I still can't hammer. And my father would take me down and tell me, it's easy. This is what you have to do. And I know he was mortified that I was that panicked. That's about the gayest thing I ever did. This fits into something else you're right, which is I really.

realize now how hard it must have been for my parents to understand my early eccentricities. So in addition to your terror at seeing hammers, what were some of your eccentricities when you were really young? Well, I was obsessed by car accidents, and I played car accidents. And my mother would take me to junkyards and walk around with me. And I'd like, oh, there's been a terrible one over here. Look at this. And I think, what did the junk man think?

Well, what is this little ghoul? What did your mother think? I don't know. That wasn't in the Dr. Spock book of what to do if your kid is obsessed by car accidents. And my parents were very straight. What straight used to mean was not gay or straight. Straight used to mean you didn't smoke pot or you were not following the rules in the 60s. But my parents were very, very conservative in a way.

My mother was liberal later in life. But still, I don't know what they didn't know what to do, really. but they didn't freak out too much. They were confused by it. And what parent would be happy their child made pink flamingos? Really, none. Yeah, I...

Yes. At the time, really. At the time, absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah, so in your acknowledgments in your new book, you write, and finally, great gratitude to my late parents, John and Patricia Waters, for giving me the foundation of good taste

to rebel against. That's completely true. What was that foundation? What was the good taste that they had? Well, the foundation is my mother would always say. My favorite thing is, who is that creature? She used to say about friends that I gathered she didn't approve of. Or when I would hang rockabilly males singers like Eddie Cochran and Elvis and everything on my wall, my mother would always say, who is that creature? And some of the people that came home that I would bring home my friends, she would just be horrified. But she was polite. I remember. when we made multiple maniacs at my parents' house and filmed the cavalcade of perversion on the front lawn, Divine came in afterwards in a bloody one-piece white woman's bathing suit, carrying an axe, and my mother served us tea, as if Princess Dye had come over, really. So we were talking about your parents and your family and how differently wired you were and how you rebelled against like your family's good taste.

Yeah. So you're right that you were raised to be preppy, you were sent to private school, but you yearned to meet the underclass. And you're right, I first saw real working class men when my dad took me downtown to see his new company building. My parents once took me to a bowling alley. They didn't at first realize it was also part pool hall. Here I saw juvenile delinquents for the first time.

boys with their shirt collars turned up, pompadores freshly greased, girls with tight black long skirts, ballet slippers, and headscarves tied around their Deborah Padgett hairdos, how I longed to be with them. Talk more about the influence of like working class teen culture on you. Well, I was so, it was the opposite of me, and I still like to be around people that are the opposites of me. I'm attracted to people that are the opposites of me.

And so to go to that neighborhood and see, well, to see these kids together, they were like Elvis, they were like juvenile delinquents that I would read about all the time. We didn't have juvenile delinquents in my school, in my preppy grade school, but we did have one that lived across the street, and I made friends with a family. And really, he had a car and looked just like Crybaby. I basically based the character I wrote Crybaby on this person that lived across the street. And, of course, my mother would say, who is that creature, the same thing. But I always was kind of just amazed to see these supposedly bad kids hanging out. And, you know, I went to the Elvis movies, Jerry Lee Lewis, all that stuff. So I knew about juvenile delinquency.

I was always corrupted by Life magazine because we got it every week. And it always covered beatniks, drug addicts, everything that I was interested in. I would read every word of it. And then my parents got the encyclopedia. the World Book Encyclopedia, I think, and that had everything in it. I would look up everything in there that you weren't supposed to. So I was corrupted by the things that my parents brought in for educational reasons in our house, but not for the educational reasons they had in mind. What are some of the things you looked up in the World Book Encyclopedia? I used to look up, was it the Wolfton Report?

That was the United Kingdom's study on homosexuality. I used to look up, drive. drug addicts. I used to look up. Always Tennessee Williams. Always beatniks. Always Bohemia. Leroy Jones, as he was known at the time. Everything about trouble in the arts, I looked up. So you loved rockabilly. You loved Elvis Presley. And you're right that Elvis made you realize you're gay. Yeah, he did. When I saw him twitching and acting like a space person singing those first early songs, that's when I realized. And then later, I was confused. by it because then I loved Clarence Frogman Henry too. And remember he sang, I ain't got no home. And he would sing like a man. And then he would sing like a girl, which seemed kind of gay. And then he started singing like a frog. But I was so young, I thought, is there tris sexuality? People attracted to frogs? That hadn't happened to me yet. But I was open-minded to it if it was coming.

Mercifully, it didn't. So I want to play a song that you write about. And this isn't going to be Elvis. You're right. I never wanted to be a drag queen, but if I had to lip sync, if I had to lip sync to a woman's song, even today, it wouldn't be Judy, Liza, or Cher. It would be Eileen Rogers, a nightclub singer and one-time understudy for Ethel Merman. Had you ever heard of her? No, I had not. Okay. Yeah. No, I had not, but this is what YouTube is for. So I went on, I found the record that you write about, which is called the Treasure of Your Love. Let's listen to it, and then we will talk. Like the stars above, the treasure I would most be longing for would be the treasure of your silver ship to sand in their sea.

Oh, God. She was a drama queen. Yes, yes, yes. I'm trying to picture her dress. I bet she was dressed kind of like Kate Smithish, wouldn't you think? I don't think she was any kind of sex bomb. But she was an understudy for Ethel Merman, so think of that. She could belt it out.

So why is that the song you'd lip sync to you if you did a drag out? I don't know. I just remember hearing it as a child, and I had the record, and I played it over and over. But I was obsessed by, in my bedroom, I had a stage. My parents built me a stage, almost like Divine has in female trouble when the dash would say, oh, a little stage. I had a stage at the top of the steps with curtains and everything in a costume box. And I would put on self-indulgent plays for my one poor aunt who would put up with it.

And I can't imagine what she thought, where I would tape record all the top ten off the radio and then perform all the numbers and stuff like a crazy person. But I was allowed to do that. So I got all that stuff out of my system early. So you had an art retrospective, like recently, like a couple of years ago, was it? No, it was last year. Was it last year? Was it last year?

It was at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and then it went to the Wexner Center in Ohio. Yep. Yeah. And then I had one maybe 10 years ago at the New Museum in New York. Oh, okay. Okay. So the one from the Baltimore Museum of Art has a nice, like, hardcover catalog of the work from the show. And so I want to discuss a couple of pieces from the show.

One of them is your, like, imaginary tabloid covers. And so one of them is called, like, National Brainiac. and the headlines are Joan Didion hits 250 pounds. Philip Roth dates 70-year-old woman. It's about time, readers say. MFK Fisher has cellulite. Help, I've got writers block. Joyce Carol Oates, sobs.

I mean, I think that's like hilarious. I would love to have that magazine for real. Yes, I know. I would love to be, but you'd be, after you, Terry Gross, swimwear pictures. I mean, you, you, you, you. You'd be hiding outside of intellectuals doors trying to get. They didn't have to die. And I still do get the tabloids, although the inquirer is nothing like it used to be.

It used to be fun ever since it went on the Trump thing. Now it's the same pictures that are in the globe. It's not as much fun. Except the meanest one they have every year is who will die next? And it has the celebrities on it and the odds, who's it going to be? Which must be nice when you're just in the grocery store and see yourself on the cover. But I do think a tabloid like that would be fascinating. And I could do a good one.

I wish I could really do that tabloid for real. So when did you start being interested in tabloids? Oh, always. I think I've had a subscription to the Inquirer in the Globe for 30 years. And I remember the midnight used to be the one even before that that I think I wrote about it. One of my books, I forget. But I still get six newspapers delivered every day. I used to get 100-and-some magazines a month, but as you know, that is really dwindling.

But I still get lots of them. I was really sad when Jet went out of business. I got that for 30 years. There was a lot of magazines that I got that I felt that I had a peek into a world that I would never know about or never be there. So I still get a lot of magazines. But the tabloids aren't as good. I mean, the New York Post is still pretty hilarious. I mean, the covers, was it today,

of the mayor running for president and had everybody looking at television laughing meanly? It was such a great New York Post cover. Have you ever been in the tabloid? Not like, because what do I not admit to? What are they going to use it? What are they going to use against me? John Waters has a filthy line.

John Waters saw a romantic comedy this weekend. So getting back to your museum show, and there's a catalog of it, one of your series that was in the show was still photographs of things that can go wrong in movies like hair in the gate. And that's when you see one hair on the image. That's a ritual that you do. Whenever you're shooting a movie and let's say you've done three takes, you've got the take, you're moving on to the fourth. Before you move on, the AD always says, check for a hair in the gate. So they blow it and check. Well, I never in my life found a hair in the gate.

So I tried to imagine what it would be like if they didn't find one in the biggest, most expensive scenes of the biggest epics. So basically the Red Sea parting in the Ten Commandments with a big hair in it. Or Clark Gable and in the middle of Galma the Wind embracing her. And it's a hair in it. So I just tried to imagine all the things that would go wrong. John Waters, speaking to Terry Gross in 2019. After a break, we'll hear excerpts from another of their conversations. And Justin Chang reviews the new Stephen Soderberg film, The Christophers.

I'm David Bean Coley, and this is Fresh Air. We're celebrating the 80th birthday of filmmaker and writer John Waters, whose birthday is April 22nd. He's violated many taboos and created intentionally perverse scenarios in his films, most notably in Pink Flamingos. His movie Hairspray was adapted into a family-friendly hit Broadway musical and then into a musical film starring John Travolta. When Waters was 66, he began a cross-country trip hitchhiking from his home in Baltimore to his co-op apartment in San Francisco. He chronicled his adventures and frustrations on the road in his book, car sick. Terry spoke with him in 2014. Parents, this interview has a couple of moments that probably

are not appropriate for young children. But hey, it's John Waters. John Waters, pleasure to have you back on Fresh Air. What made you think of hitchhacking cross country is the idea for your book? I don't know. I want, I don't do dating sites. I don't do Facebook. I don't do any of that. I just thought I wanted to meet some new people and I wanted to have a midlife crisis that didn't involve buying a sports car or doing ridiculous things. So I came up with something more ridiculous, an adventure. So I used to hitchhike all the time in college. I used to pick up hitchhackers all the time.

I never see anyone doing it anymore. I wouldn't dream of picking up a hitchhiker now. Well, I would. You would, yeah? Yeah, but the whole time when I hitchhiked across the country, from when I left Baltimore to San Francisco, I saw one hitchhiker. And I was in the car with somebody else,

And I said, don't pick him up. I can't believe I did that. You think that would be such bad hitchecking crime. But when you hitcheke alone, you don't want to share your ride with somebody. Believe me, I'm not a communist hitchhiker. So you assumed people would think you were either an older homeless man or that you were John Waters. So how did it divide up between the people who recognized you and the people who thought you were a pathetic, sad, destitute person? There was a little of both.

because what happened is people would drive past me and think, well, was that John Motors? But no, why would I be standing there doing that? And they'd come back and pick me up. Other people didn't know and pulled over and tried to give me money or help me and then realized and started laughing and screaming. And many people didn't recognize me. And when I did tell them during the normal conversation in the car that I was a film director, they just looked at me like I was so deluded as a homeless person that believed he was a cult film

director. So generally, I didn't care because it didn't matter to me. I wanted to hear their stories. I was relieved if they really didn't know who I was. But yet, I'm a hypocrite because when I get stuck, I would shamelessly use it if I could to try to get a ride. Oh, you even carried around a fame kit. I did, but that helped with a policeman. It was for if the cop stopped me. So what was in your fame kit to prove that you were really a movie director and not a destitute person? You know, fame ID, which is your Director's Guild of America card, your Writers Guild of America card, and the most ridiculous, my Academy of Arts, you know, the Oscar voting card, which I really wanted to, like, use that. What do you mean? You can't put me in jail. I vote in the Oscars every year. But it did work the one, only time I ever used it. No, I used it twice. Once I used it for the policeman that stopped me, and he gave me a ride. The second one, I used it when I was stuck in arrest area, hanging outside of the time.

bathrooms begging people to give me a robber which really made me feel like a pervert. So there's three parts of your book. The first part is fictional stories you imagine that are best case scenarios of what would happen if someone picked you up. And then you have part two, which is fictional stories of what would happen in the worst case scenarios. And then you have part three, which is what actually happened. So there's an excerpt of a story from part two, the worst case scenarios that I'd like you to read. And the setup of this chapter is that you get picked up by a member of a group that he calls React. And he says it's a trucker, citizen band radio, emergency channel organization made up of volunteers to assist other motorists

in times of disaster. But it's actually this guy who really hates cult directors and wants to kill all of them, including you. He hates the Rocky Horror Picture Show. He hates Herschel Gordon Louis, who did Blood Feast. He held El Topo and Todd Solon, David Croninbur, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Al McDonovar, and he's come to give you your last ride. And I'd like you to do a short reading about this ride. All right, I've never read this one out loud. Okay. And I'll say we've edited this for radio. Hold it, hold it, I yell, hoping to buy time. We are just writer-directors trying to do our job. I'm sorry if my films offended you. You think eating a dog, Bird turd is funny. Randy demands with terrifying hostility. No, no, I was just commenting on censorship

laws at the time of deep throat, I beg. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Randy sneers before whipping out a pocket knife and stabbing me in the leg. That, he roars, looking at the blade still stuck in my flesh, is funny. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Just repeat after me, I plead. It's only a movie. It's only a movie. It's only a movie. But this old catchline from an exploitation ad campaign doesn't do the trick. And that birth scene in female trouble he charges like an obscenity prosecutor was absolutely disgusting. Before I can even plead my defense, he shoots me in the other lake. I howl in agony. I scream for my life. We pull into the Las Vegas city limits. Time flies when you're being tortured. I see the ridiculous skyline of the town, a place filled with tourists I have spent my

lifetime trying to avoid. Look, Randy, I groaned through spasms of pain. Just let me out here. I promise I won't make any trash films again. I'll go make mainstream movies. I swear. It's too late for a career change. Randy snarls with murderous rage as he pulls his truck off the road into an abandoned drive-in movie theater. It's been a long time since any movies were shown here. There's not even a screen anymore, and the concession stand has been burned to the ground. The few remaining polls for the speakers have been stripped clean of working parts. Randy slams on his brakes with a sickening finality. Get in the back, Randy orders. Oh, Randy, please, I argue.

Let's go see the Avengers. Let's go see Hollywood tent pole blockbusters. His answer? A bullet into my right foot. I almost pass out when he grabs me and throws me into the opening his car between the truck and the trailer he's pulling. Inside is a cult movie director torture chamber. Josie Cotton's cover version of the theme song from Who Killed Teddy Bear, is playing on some sort of sound system.

Beneath movie posters for El Topo is the decaying body of Jodorowski, whom I thought was still alive until Randy tells me differently and takes credit. I see George Romero's amputated head hanging in a basket surrounded by posters for Night of the Living Dead and all its sequels. Enough is all Randy offers an explanation. Before I can scream, I trip over what appears to be a corpse clawed apart by wild animals. Randy kicks it, and I realize this poor human is still alive. I try to look away, but Randy grabs my head in a chokehold and forces me to gaze upon this nauseating face.

Oh, my God. It's Herschel Gordon Lewis, and he chuckles when he sees me. He still got a sense of humor, even as he approaches death. Randy pushes me forward into the bloody pit of horror. And that's from one of the fictional sections of John Waters' new book, Karsik, about hitchhiking across America. That's an example of one of the worst case scenarios he imagines. Yes. Hopefully it's not the best. That's right. How many of the things that Randy does to you in that fictional scene have you done to other people in your films? Oh, in my films. That's actually she's been in real life. No. In my films. Well, I've certainly cut off

people's heads. I've certainly, yes, I've probably done all of them. in my films, but for comedy. And in this, writing your death as comedy is sort of fun to do, too. So I'd probably done all of them, except the sexual parts that you cut out. And I might have done them, too.

In my movies, not in real life. That's a chart, Terry. You'd have to make me, I'd have to diagram this chapter for you to tell me what's real life, what's fantasy, what I have done, and what I've done in my movies. That's a gray area. Yeah. That's hysterical. So one of the best case scenarios in your book, one of the imagined best case scenarios in your book is that you're picked up by your favorite porn star Johnny Davenport, the star of Power Tool. And he is or was a famous porn star in reality who in reality did star in Power Tool, one of the great titles.

There's some other good ones too, but I can't say him, right. Yeah, no, exactly. Why would that be your dream ride? Well, because what happens to me, you know, I picked up by a porn star who also is friends with extraterrential aliens that take us aboard and have sex with us. And then I meet Connie Francis. So really, it's, you know, when you think up the best and the worst, that gives me freedom, you know. I mean, to imagine the best and the worst, those are extreme words, the best and the worst. And I have read many people that do really believe that they were kidnapped by spacemen and had sex with them. That's what gave me the ideas.

And I read a couple of those books just to see. And so I wanted to go to the most pitiful ones that looked like Zaja Gabor set, you know, a queen of outer space. And they ate liver. That's the only thing I added. Like space aliens before they had sex with you, had to eat liver dinners. So I imagine you've actually watched a lot of porn films in your time. So what are some of the... Well, once?

Once I was the judge for the porn Oscars, so they sent cases of them. No. And I actually heard another judge say, I'm raw from this dude. And the porno Oscars were held in a Howard Johnson's that spun around. So people were like, sick. You know, you have a bunch of drinks at the porn Oscars, and the party was that Howard Johnson's in L.A. that spins. So you kept finding yourself, you had to be like a ballet dancer,

make eye contact with one building every time it went around so you wouldn't get the whirlies. Wait, so is this the real version of the prize that Dirk Diggler wins in Boogie Nights? Well, there is the Avian Awards. I get AVM, which is the adult video news, which is the trade paper for the porn business, which is great.

I mean, they have interviews with people who says, oh, yes, my mother handles all my fan mail. I mean, she does, you know, and she's so happy that I'm in. And then these titles are so ludicrous, you know. So I'm all for that magazine, which always gives me ideas, and probably did help this chapter.

John Waters, speaking to Terry Gross in 2014. More after a break, this is fresh air. Let's get to the real thing, what really happened to you, John Waters, while you were a hitchhiking cross-country. And you write, can I really give up the rigid scheduling I'm so used to in my life? Me, the ultimate control freak who plans weeks ahead, the day I can irresponsibly eat candy. And I never thought that you were that much of a schedule that you actually planned in advance the week. week you would eat candy. I do.

My hangovers are on my schedule three months in advance. I carry four pennies always in my pocket, so I'll never get more change. Wow. It's actually very smart, but very, very planning ahead. Yeah, I do plan ahead. I think I got that from my father. It's certainly nothing I ever would have imagined from your early movies, that you would have been so orderly and precise in your planning, because the movies are just like

so transgressive and so, like, if there's a boundary, I'm cool. crossing it. I'm defying it. But how could I have made all those movies on no money with my friends if I didn't plan? That can't happen magically. It happened because we were kind of obsessed the same time. Everybody said, oh, you must have been on drugs when you made those movies. No, we weren't on drugs when we made them. I was on drugs when I thought them up and I was on drugs when we showed them. But I was never on drugs when we made them because it was too hard. So, you know, another question you ask yourself is what is the etiquette of hitchhiking if a car stops. But if there's something you don't trust about the driver,

do you politely decline the ride? Will you end up insulting the driver if you do that? Did you have to do that at all during your hitchhiking? No, here's the thing. I wrote about that in the prologue, but when the real life, when you're out there, as I said, I would have gotten in Ted Bundy in his Volkswagen with his arm and a swing in the front seat.

You'll get in any car. Believe me, all your rules, all your things that you imagine and go out the window when you've been standing there for 10 years and those Kansas winds are ripping your weather-beaten face. It is the worst beauty regiment ever to hitchhike. I would go in the motels at night and look in the mirror. And I have in my office a little mirror, a hand mirror that I got from a joke shop where you pick it up and look at yourself and it screams.

Well, that's what every mirror. That's what every mirror did when I hitchhiked across America. It let out a shriek of horror when they saw hitchhiking face. A new thing that I want to invent a problem. product for. And I thought, no wonder people are picking me up because I had a hat that said scum of the earth, which was a dumb fashion choice to take with me. It isn't a weird little exploitation movie I like, but I should not have worn that hat. But Pecker would have been worse. That was the other one I had. I thought that really would be a bad one of yours. Yeah. Yeah.

So one of your rise, you got picked up in Myersville, Maryland by a 20-year-old Republican town councilman, and he drove you to Ohio. And it was a great. ride. You call him in your book The Corvette Kid. He was only going to lunch to get his lunch at the subway shop when he stopped, and it was pouring rain and gave me a four-hour ride, which was very nice. And then you met up with him again, and he gave you an even

longer ride. Yes, he came back. He kept texting me, but I thought he was just kidding me that he wasn't going to come back. And finally, I got a really, I got stuck in Ohio and Bonner Springs, Kansas. So it took a long while, and I was going to, he kept texting me, saying, I'm going to come get you again. I thought he was

kidding. So I got a great ride with this. Kansas couple who is coming to the signing in Baltimore, by the way. And they took me really a long way, all the way to Denver. And he wrote and said, what do you mean? I've been driving 48 hours at 80 miles an hour to catch up with you. And he finally did. And then took me to Reno. And then I just gave him the keys to my apartment and said, go stay in my place in San Francisco. And he was great. His parents were horrified because if they Google me, it's not good. If you Google my name from a parent's viewpoint that your son is missing with in a car on the other side of the country. It is not comforting. So did the young Republican town councilman know your work? And what was his reaction when you described it?

He didn't know my work. And he did Google me on the way and saw at least it was true. I don't know to this day if he's ever seen my movies. But we certainly became friends. He stayed longer in San Francisco when we got there. And then he came to my Christmas party this year. I'm still in touch with him. I think it gave him confidence. He looked great. He looked great before. But he was, we were just an odd couple. I mean, his friends were texting him saying, way to go. You're in Reno with a gay man in a motel. That's great for your campaign, right?

And he was, we just laughed about it because it was so ridiculous. The whole thing was completely innocent. We, on the way, met some swingers that kept trying to hook up with us by texting him, which really loved. In another hotel, the matri-D came and knocked on his door in the middle of the night. I thought, hey, what about me? It was kind of funny. We just laughed the whole time. John Waters, speaking to Terry Gross in 2014.

She also spoke to him in 2000 when he had just released his film, Cecil B. Demented. Do you have any home movies at home? This one. No, no, I mean. Half my films. I mean, like movies your parents made of you growing up, your birthday parties. They had some of that was in Steve Yeager's documentary about me, Divine Trash and In Bad Taste.

They have some of that. Yeah, those footage are in there. Yes, 8mm movies my parents have, certainly. I don't have them. How do you feel when you see those? Well, you look at it, it looks so happy. When you look, you think, why do I ever need to go to a shrink? I'm with my parents in a nice house.

My parents never did anything that horrible, I can remember. Why am I this nuts? What were your birthday parties like? Oh, themes. I had pirate parties where I got to be Captain Hook. I had a pirate party every year, so I could be Captain Hook. And once I was the Wicked Witch of the West, the only time I was ever in drag in my entire life,

and just because I wanted to be green, I didn't care about the dress, I wanted to have green skin. I was always a Disney villain every year, and I had costume parties a lot, certainly. And they do have pictures of that, the pirate party, and I was Captain Hook, and I always put that coat hanger, it's a great game.

I've taught my nieces and nephews to play it. Take a coat hanger, you bend it, and you put it up your sleeve, and you too can have a hook. And it's a good look. A hook adds a deaf, edge to a dull outfit. John Waters spoke to Terry Gross in 2000.

The writer and director of pink flamingos and hairspray turns 80 years old next week. Happy birthday, John. Happy birthday, fatso. You are no longer the filthiest person alive. We are. Happy, happy. Coming up, Justin Chang reviews the new Steven Soderberg film, The Christophers. This is Fresh Air.

In the new dark comedy The Christophers, Michaela Cole, known for her Emmy-winning miniseries I May Destroy You, plays a gifted artist who takes a job working for a famous London-based painter, played by Ian McKellen. The movie, which is now playing in theaters, is the latest from the director, Stephen Soderberg. Our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review. After Stephen Soderberg's terrific 2025 double bill of presents and black bag,

I almost wish that, purely for the sake of variety, I could say that his new movie, The Christophers, is a dud. But I can't. It's terrific, and it's the latest confirmation that Soderberg is working with a nimbleness that no other American director at the moment can match. You might have to go back to the workhorse days of the old Hollywood studio system for such a consistent abundance of quantity and quality. The Christophers, which was written by Ed Solomon,

is a spry and witty chamber comedy. Most of it's set in the ramshackle London townhouse of a famous painter, Julian Sklar, played by a superb Ian McKellen. Not long after the movie begins, Julian takes on a new assistant, Laurie Butler, played by Michaela Cole. What he doesn't know is that Laurie is a skilled art restorer, and that she's been hired to infiltrate his home by his two greedy grown-up children, played by James Corden and Jessica Gunning.

Laurie's mission is to find several of Julian's unfinished paintings, all portraits of his former lover, Christopher, and finish them in Julian's style. The plan is that when Julian dies, perhaps someday soon, the forged Christophers will be discovered and sold for millions. Laurie will get a third of the proceeds. Soderberg has a deft way with heist and home invasion movies,

and the Christopher's is, as you'd expect, full of twists and reversals. Laurie has some moral qualms about taking on a forgery job, but she also has a personal gripe to settle with Julian that leads her to say yes. Also, she needs the money. As ever, Sotaburg is keenly attuned to his character's economic straits. When she starts working at Julian's townhouse, Laurie mostly keeps her head down

and pretends to know nothing about her boss, or about art. But Julian can sense that his new assistant is more clever than she lets on. And in this scene, he begins asking her about her personal life. Laurie, am I allowed to ask if she has a boyfriend? I mean, no?

No, she doesn't. No, you're not allowed. Noted. Why not, though? Well, firstly, we're at work. Nonsense. It's not like we cease to be ourselves, simply by crossing some conceptual boundary.

Here I am at work, and here I am at home, ask away. At work, don't you dare? All yours. You can't ask me in either place, because you are my employer, which means you hold the power. And I shall use it to ask if you have a partner. If you'll explain its relevance?

The relevance is that I'm curious. It's no surprise to learn that Julian experienced a close brush with cancellation years ago, owing to some impolitic remarks he made about women artists. It's one of many reasons his career has floundered in recent years, that plus a general lack of inspiration and productivity. McKellen has a sublime ability to combine gravitas with mischief, and he gives his strongest performance in years as this incorrigible old soul. I was reminded of his great Oscar-nominated turn in Gods and Monsters

as the Hollywood director James Whale, another queer artist in the twilight of a legendary career. But McKellen is matched, nuance for nuance by Cole, an intensely magnetic screen presence, whose work here is mesmerizing in its poise and restraint. It's no spoiler to note, that Julian is too smart to be deceived by Laurie for long, and once the truth begins to emerge,

their battle of wits doesn't just deepen, it turns inside out. Despite their differences, in race, gender, class, temperament, and worldview, Julian and Laurie are more alike than they realize. And what's thrilling about the Christophers is the way it becomes a tart, yet tender portrait of two kindred spirits.

Julian, for all his bloviating, turns out to be a more empathetic listener than he appears. And Laurie, for all her initial reserve, turns out to be Julian's rhetorical and intellectual equal. In the movie's best scene, Laurie dissects the history of Julian's entire Christopher's project, balancing rigorous analysis of his materials and techniques, with unsparing insight into what each painting reveals of his emotional state at the time. McKellen and Cole makes such splendid company that I'd have gladly watched them simply trade insults for two hours. But Soderberg and Solomon have grander ambitions,

and every scene of the Christophers is spring-loaded with ideas. They know that it's never been harder for artists to make a living doing what they do. It's no coincidence that both Julian and Lorry rely on side hustles just to get by. The filmmakers also know the absurdities of the fine art world, where the price of a painting can fluctuate wildly according to the whims of the market. Soderberg, for the first time, seems to be commenting at least in part on the struggles of independent filmmaking. Not unlike the New York pro sports milieu in High Flying Bird, or the Florida male strip club in Magic Mike, the studios and galleries of the Christophers can feel analogous to the movie industry itself, a place where, against crushing odds, art somehow manages

to find a way. Justin Chang is a film critic for the New Yorker. He reviewed the new film The Christophers. On Monday show, Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yusufzai on her life before and after she was shot by a Taliban gunman, payback for standing up against the Taliban and advocating for her right and the right of all girls to go to school. She's serious about her ongoing advocacy, but has a delightful sense of humor. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at NPR Fresh Air. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash This is Fresh Air. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger.

Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorak. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld, and Deanna Martinez. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David B. and Cooley.