WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 627 - Lynn Shelton

Episode Date: August 9, 2015

Filmmaker Lynn Shelton works outside the Hollywood system. About 1,000 miles outside the Hollywood system, in fact. Lynn talks to Marc about living in Seattle while being a working director for film and television. She also discusses the creative evolution in her life that took her from writing to acting to photography to editing to making feature films. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lock the gate! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? How's it going? That's it. Today, I'm just going with what the fuckers. I'm tightening it up today, because today is sort of a... It's a pretty big day for me, and I want to be... I just want to feel it. I don't want to get off onto a rambling start. I just want to feel it.

By the way, I'm Mark Maron. This is WTF. Thank you for choosing WTF as your podcast to listen to in this moment. Today is Monday, August 10th. Yesterday was Sunday, August 9th. Yesterday was Sunday, August 9th. And on August 9th, I had 16 years clean and sober. This is astounding. It's astounding. There's a lot of things astounding about it, but just the number at this point is fairly astounding. There's a couple of ways to look at that. Like, that's amazing. I've had, I got 16 years sober sober the other way to look at it is like holy shit where the fuck did

all that time go it's weird when time just becomes a smear behind you and it's only you know you can just look back at it and see kind of a major events kind of popping in and out of the surface and like when what what, man? What happened? So much shit happened in my sobriety. Both good and bad. Obviously, the best thing is, is that because I did not drink or do drugs, I was afforded the luxury of sort of finding myself and owning who I am and sort of progressively getting more okay with that. Let's not go crazy.

Obviously, I'm not perfect. I'm not even sure I'm a good person necessarily, but I do know that I am 16 years clean and sober today and I did not do it alone. And as coded as I'm going to get, if it wasn't for the Secret Society, I would not have had it. If it wasn't for many people in my life, I don't think it would have been possible. Certainly not steadily. A lot of very supportive friends. And a lot of reaching out to others.

Asking for help. Listening to other people. Was a big contributor to my sobriety and maintaining that and continuing to do that. Thank you for being there for me because believe it or not, this podcast and the act of talking like this and talking to other people

and getting out of myself like that has helped me immensely on so many levels and most of them personal and emotional and psychological and I think it certainly you made my sobriety amazing and success over the years is a whole other thing to deal with I think that you know feeling proud of myself and that I've done something that people enjoy and that I have somewhat of a legacy with this thing has filled in a great void where the lack of self-esteem lived. There's still a little bit of a void there. It's still not filled to the top, but sometimes you might not. Might not. Might not. You might not fill it all up, but thank you.

Not just for listening, but for being there i appreciate it it's a it's a big day and i don't think that i i i'm fully capable of acknowledging things emotionally for as big as they are because now i'm completely paralyzed with fear and terror that i'm going to drop dead any second that's the new thing for me i've really refined my anxiety but again thank you very much today on the show, Lynn Shelton, the amazing independent film director. Maybe you've seen her movies, Hump Day or Your Sister's Sister, Touchy Feely, Laggies. She did. She's directed episodes of television, New Girl, Fresh Off the Boat, The Mindy Project,

Mad Men. She's an independent filmmaker, does a bit of TV. I like her movies and it was just sort of this random thing i i had asked her i'd reached out to her before to direct some of the episodes of meron but it didn't pan out but nonetheless i've watched her movies and i like talking to directors because there's a lot of ways you can go and i think we have very nice chat smart smart woman a doer a getting things done person i gotta get some stuff done i have a tremendous amount of anxiety around taking action around things i i don't know if you if i strike you as that kind of person but many of you have heard the trials and tribulations

of the hole in my driveway the inconsistent drainage situation i have the buckled concrete all the way down my house my house was built in 1924 it's falling apart how many years have i talked about my fucking driveway i have sandbags in front of the goddamn garage i need to get a new driveway why do i keep putting it off i don't know my deck my my beat up old fucking redwood deck was looking horrible that needs to be sanded and refinished why not why why don't i do that i've been talking about getting a new car because my car now is like you know the trunk is smashed in there's uh you know one of the rims is all fucked up it's a 2006 camry that car

is going to run for a long time the one i have but ryan singer needs a car and now he doesn't have a car and i've been talking about getting a new car for three years. So like all these things are hanging. So I just decided, let's just do it all once. Let's make it all happen in the same three days. Apparently, and I didn't know this and I don't know if other people experience this, but because of, I guess, what I come from, this sort of a boundaryless emotional chaos and erraticness, whatever, whatever I come from, this sort of boundaryless emotional chaos and erraticness, whatever. Whatever I come from, the fact is, and I'm not tooting my own horn or blowing smoke up

my own ass or whatever, you know, things have panned out for me. It wasn't easy. It happened late in life. Not late. I'm not 100, but you know what I'm saying. Things are okay. And that's a new place for me to be. So apparently when I do things that should make

me feel good about myself i find them terrifying and anxiety inducing and i just can't move through it sometimes what i'm trying to say is i'm having a hard time dealing with the the chaos of just doing practical things and things things that need to get done. And I'm trying to avoid, you know, five years from now, God willing or whoever willing that I'm still alive, that I'm not driving a 2006 Camry and still putting sandbags in front of my garage on a deck that is slowly crumbling in my backyard that I can't step on. So just trying to take care of myself. The last time I talked to you,

I had a health event. I tried running in 100 degree heat after not running for a while up a hill and my body just fucking gave out. Two people, after I talked about that, tweeted or emailed me, dude, those are are symptoms you're having a heart attack those are angina symptoms those are you know heart clogged symptoms i'm like oh fuck i hadn't put that one in my brain really oh look i know i got high cholesterol but i you know i'm 51 know, here's the problem.

It's very hard to distinguish the difference between anxiety symptoms and real problems. And after a certain age, you just have to honor the symptoms and go fucking deal with it. We went through this together with my tingling hands. Fine. But at some point, you just got to go. So I'm an anxious mess. That's a given. But maybe these are real well anyways that sent me into a panic because i couldn't breathe that day and i woke up i didn't feel

great either chest was tight the tingling whatever and then after reading those emails i'm like fuck i'm gonna i'm gonna make a doctor's appointment so i call the health center that my insurance is at the bob hope health center and i get the the the Bob Hope health center. And I get the, the, the operator, the woman who makes appointments for both of this health centers. And I'm like, yeah,

I, you know, I had an event, I guess, uh, was running and I, my arms went kind of numbish and, you know,

I couldn't breathe. And, and, uh, I just wanted to see if I can get in to see my doctor today. Uh, and she goes, you need to go to the emergency room.

And I'm like, no, no, I think I'm all right. I mean, I, I, she's like, can you breathe? Are you breathing? And I'm like, no, no, I think I'm all right. I mean, she's like, can you breathe? Can you breathe? And I'm like, yeah, I can breathe. I'm okay.

But I'm still like a little tight. And she, you should go to the emergency room. And I'm like, really? She goes, you might be having a heart attack and you might go to the doctor. There's an 845 appointment, but you might get there and they're going to send you to the emergency room. And I'm like, holy fuck.

Maybe I am. Maybe I'm having a heart attack. Maybe she knows something I don't know. And I'm you know i'm on the precipice so i'm like what emergency room she's like i don't know cedars-sinai and i'm like that's not close to me now i gotta look up an emergency room see that in that moment that was my biggest concern not like do i need to go but like oh my god where is it? I think you should know where your hospital in your neighborhood is. So after she freaks me out entirely, I get the appointment and I go and my doctor's out of town, but I get a good, nice doctor.

And we do all the tests that they can do, the EKG, the blood pressure, the pulse, the oxygen in the pulse, whatever the fuck that is, the breathing, the stethoscope business i'm fine there but i go look i you know i had this thing when i was exercising she goes okay you can go to a cardiologist so i'm going to cardiologist today let you know how that goes this is what i'm doing with my 16 years sobriety and my uh my I'm freaking out because I'm going to be digging up my driveway,

staining my deck. I'll be driving a new car that I'm going to be completely neurotic about, and I'm going to a cardiologist. Congratulations, Mark. Congratulations. Now let's talk to the lovely Lynn Shelton, film director. You know, I shoot movies in seven and a half, ten, twelve days. I like your movies.

Do you? I do. I was hoping you might. No, I do. And I watched one this morning. Which one? Touchy Feely. Ah.

I've seen like three, I think. And I watched one this morning. Which one? Touchy Feely. Ah. I've seen like three, I think. Three. I didn't see the big shot movie with big shots in it. Like now, now Lynn Shelton's a big shot. Hey, it was just, you know who was most excited and jealous about me doing a rom-com with Keira Knightley and Chloe Moretz? Joe Swanberg. He's like, are you kidding me?

I would love to do that. You're going to have so much fun. I was like, am I selling out, man? Are you selling out? Whatever. No, I really was like my... It's a question you asked, though. You said it.

Well, sure, of course I did. You said it. Well, I was wondering, it was the first movie I've ever directed that I didn't write. And I was like, is it going to feel like one of my movies? Like, what am I doing?

It's sort of new territory. It's a much bigger budget than I've worked with although because I've done so much TV I was comfortable with all the trailers and stuff but still you know it's like a different thing for my baby one of my babies and um he actually made me feel great you know he's like you can go back to doing your little shitty art things whatever you're like improv movies there but uh yeah this is going to be great. Said the guy who has not done that yet. Exactly. But who I think is dying to.

Do you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. He wants to try everything. He's a great guy. He is. We were in Chicago and we were taping my special at the Vic and Bobcat was directing it. Goldthwait.

And we just called Joe. How many Bobcats are there, by the way? I know. I don't know. You're from Seattle. You've been around. There might be a couple Bobcats. Yeah, for sure.

Someone who I don't know, who you only know as Bobcat. All right. But no, we called Joe and we were like, we want to do some backstage shit. I mean, there's just some stuff. Are you around? He's like, yeah. Yeah, I'll come down. So he was shooting on both.

He was just wandering around with me being Joe Swanberg. Awesome. But, okay, how do you differentiate then between like selling out and just doing television? Or is all the television you do like on the level of artistic and creative expression that you need for yourself? Oh, God, no. Oh, God, no. No, the TV directing was always meant to be, you know, a way to pay the rent and the bills while I... So give me the freedom that I can continue to make, you know, independent stuff. Here's the thing I love about television. It keeps me on the set. Like, I love being on set.

Yeah. I love directing. I love directing actors. You do? I live for it. It's my favorite favorite thing working with actors it's fantastic and when i do my own movies i'm like you know my my for a lot while there i mean i made six movies in nine years yeah you know a 14 months between them that's not a long time in in sort of filmmaking you know that's a pretty good filmmaking years in director years. Swanbury, you know,

aside. Well, he's making a movie while he's sleeping. He's got a camera on. He's making five movies at the same time. But even so, that's a year's over a year

that I'm not on set, right? Yeah, yeah. So TV gets me on set and as long as I'm ready, I've been really lucky because I've worked on all these shows

where people like each other and the work is fun and it's good and I get to work with people that, but I've made, I had a revelation. I think you'll appreciate. Okay. Maybe not.

No, probably will. I like revelations. I'm kind of obsessed with a little bit with Chopped, this show. You're just coming into that? I kind of am. I'm a little late to the party. Really? Yeah.

I mean, you know, the last, whatever, couple of years or whatever. Yeah, yeah. But I'll sort of binge watch it when I can. And I realized very recently, oh, my God, this is why I love television directing, because it's like chopped. It's like I come in and I'm given my basket of ingredients. Yeah, right. I got a script. I'm just handed a script.

I'm handed a bunch of cast. Here's a crew that you've never met. And a kitchen you're not familiar with. Yeah, exactly. I roll up my sleeves. I just got to make the best meal I can. And that really is it. It's invigorating and it's fun.

But I'm not the admiral of the fleet. I'm the captain of the ship because the writer is the king in TV. And I got to say, in Seattle, there's this great filmmaking community. Seattle is where I live, and there are a bunch of filmmakers, and all, you know, the crew that have crewed my films and all the other filmmakers, those are my buds. Like, those are everybody that I hang out with, and I love that. You never lived down here?

No. Huh. I just, you know, come down in my little Kia Soul and spend some time working and then go back up. You're from Seattle. Yeah. Raised in Seattle. Really, really, really kind of obsessively love Seattle.

Yeah. I spent time there. I know that place. Spent time. Yeah. I got an ex from there. Ah. You know my ex.

Yes, I do. And that makes me feel really dumb too because I worked with your ex for quite a while. Yeah. Only just recently somebody pointed out to because I worked with your ex for quite a while. Yeah. Only just recently somebody pointed out to me that she was your ex. I had no idea. She's certainly not going to volunteer it. Nope, she didn't. Are you making a movie?

I don't do deep Googling. We have been in the throes of developing a film and now she's kind of going back and reworking it. That's a good story it's an amazing story yeah and do you know that whole area did you grow up in that where'd you grow up i felt i grew up in a very white part of town always i moved around various i mean most of seattle is very very white um what part uh well let's see i was raised in when i was in high school i was living in maple Leaf and then Wedgwood. Yeah.

And Ravenna. Yeah. So kind of Northwest. Did your old man work for Boeing or something? No, no. Never had that connection. My dad is a lawyer who then turned into a mediator. He's now been doing mediation, which is even better.

Leave each other? That kind of mediation? is for people that want to even better leave each other that kind of no no no like like disputes between insurance company and right right and a grieved person or something like that and it's more diplomatic it's nice decent minded it is and a lot cheaper you know it avoids a lot of yeah it's great it's really and he feels so he's really good at it and feels really good it's's interesting. I didn't think that I had a real connection to what my parents do. Yeah. Until, you know, and then I realized, oh, actually, well, okay, that's like a people person thing. And, you know, being able to collaborate and stuff. You got it.

And then my mom. You sought that out. You retrofitted that. Oh, I am like him. I work with many people and I'm diplomatic. These revelations come to me a little. I'm a little bit late. How am I their child?

I don't have the brightest light bulb. Exactly. Well, because there's no artsy-fartsy stuff going on with them. But his two brothers are, one is a poet and one is a sculptor, actually lives down here. So I always identified strongly with them, you know, and my mom is the same way. She's got a PhD in developmental psychology and ended up working in administrating early childhood education funds and, you know, It all sounds very creative to me. You know, it is.

And then the psychology thing, like those are my favorite classes in college because I want to know how people work and how they tick. Well, that's what I like about your movies is that, you know, you don't hit anybody over the head. Like I always end up crying for some reason, touchy-feely. how people work and how they tick. Well, that's what I like about your movies is that you don't hit anybody over the head. Like I always end up crying for some reason, touchy feely. I was squirting out tears this morning at the end. Oh man, I can't even tell you what that means to me.

Really? Yeah, Josh Peiss, man. Yeah, it's like, at first you're like, what is he, like mentally challenged or infantile? But then you realize it's just this weird kind of highly emotional but closed it's hard to be closed off and highly emotional as it turns out yeah but but but he does it like he's an interesting actor he's a really interesting actor i mean he's the kind of guy if you start

digging into his filmography he tends to play these supporting character roles and his range is insane. Like he's one of those guys where you're like, oh, that guy. You know, like I knew I knew him, but I didn't know where from. Exactly. Yeah. And you find these, like the first time I became really obsessed with him was Mike White made this movie called Year of the Dog with Molly Shannon starring. And Josh plays his, her boss.

Yeah. And he just had this rhythm. He took all this time and he had, you know, Mike gave him all of this, all this room to be that character. And I just was like, who is this guy? I was so obsessed with him. You gotta use that guy. Yeah. And then we happened to meet, you know, in a green room somewhere.

And he, I sort of, I kind of gushed and gushed and gushed about him. And he was very you know he's very graceful yeah yeah oh you know and then it came out my I was with my editor my amazing editor Ned Sanders and he dropped that I had edited I had directed Hump Day which Josh had just seen and so he you know the tables returned he started gushing and gushing and so it was like well we have to work together you know and then uh so I wrote that part for him specifically and the other part for Rosemary DeWitt in Touchy Feely. And you've used her a couple of times. Yeah, she's also incredible.

Is she like an alter ego kind of person? A little bit. Yeah. I mean, that film was a film that Touchy Feely was a film that was inside of me that I had to make because it was very it was a very personal film. I've never felt more vulnerable making a movie. Really? Yeah. Well, where does something like that start?

How do you move through those feelings and come up with that story? Why that story? Is it so close to you? Well, I wanted to do a bunch of things with that movie. I wanted to try to make a film with more than two or three people. I wanted to have an ensemble.

Yeah. Yeah. And I wanted to interweave stories, you know, have parallel editing where you go back and forth between different storylines. You'd never done that before? I hadn't done it in my own work. I'd always followed a straight, one straight

linear story. Because you had more control, you were more comfortable with that? It was just what I did, yeah. It was just what I had done so far. It was the way you wrote. Yeah, it was the way I thought yeah the narrative worked um for me and so that so touchy feely was a way to do that and and to get out of the one location I mean I'd done a couple movies in a row three movies in a row actually because my effortless brilliance was my second movie and that was also which one in it

it's called my effortless brilliance yeah it's on you know amazon and itunes and stuff so just so my very first I've made six movies. My first one was like I wrote a script and I cast people and mostly all, in fact, all local actors in Seattle. They were all theater actors. And I had been in the theater. I had been an actor. And so I just kind of like really made them, I wanted them to feel loved. And even in the audition process.

I had been traumatized by going to auditions that made me feel like shit. Yeah, in Seattle when I was young and still. And then in New York. I moved to New York. I was in New York in the 90s. All right, so maybe we should go back and load this up so we can get to Touchy Feely, the most personal movie you've made, instead of talk about it out of the gate. So you're a little kid in Seattle.

Do you have siblings? I have a brother who's five years younger. And then when I was 16 or 17, my dad married my stepmom. So I was eight. My folks got divorced and ended up, it's one of those relationships, it's really hard for me to imagine them together right my mom and stepdad definitely yeah they're good my dad and stepmom

definitely people they love one side totally introverted the other side totally extroverted you know but they were reasonably good raising you separately i think so you know i it's funny because um i i have only very i don't have any traumatizing memories of the divorce but um i sort of remember thinking grown up things like oh it will be very interesting for me to be able to experience these two different environments you know like i just sort of don't remember have really having a problem with it and that whole idea of kids you know feeling like I just sort of don't remember really having a problem with it. And that whole idea of kids, you know, feeling like, oh, it's their fault. Like, I was like, why would you think it was your fault? It has nothing to do with you.

You know, I was like, I don't understand. So you knew that then at eight. That's what I, yeah, that's what I remember being very mature about it. And then in retrospect, I found out recently that I was kind of a little shit. And when we moved into this new house, or it was the first time maybe that my stepdad moved in with us, I drew a map. I don't remember this, but I supposedly presented my parents, my mom and stepdad, with a map of where they were allowed in the house to kiss.

You know, shit like that. Right. With the new guy. With the new guy, yeah. And my God, I mean, he was- He was fairly self-protective and a decent boundary for an eight or nine-year-old. I suppose, but- Why wouldn't you be uncomfortable with for an eight or nine-year-old. I suppose. Why wouldn't you be uncomfortable with your mom kissing some new guy on some level?

I know. It seemed to make perfect sense. I don't know that maybe it was empowered, not shitty. Yeah. I'm going to spin it. But if you want to see yourself as a little shit, you could do that. Thank you. They did end up with who they were supposed to end up with.

Was your brother like a save the marriage kid? My brother, I think, you know, my mother told me that she just had a really hard time getting pregnant. So I was a love child. They were really young when they had me. Got pregnant when they were both Oberlin College students. That's really young. Grad school or undergrad? No, no, undergrad.

I was my dad's 21st birthday present. Wow. My mom had just turned 22. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know if they would have stayed together if it hadn't been for me, but they decided to make a go of it. And then my brother came along a few years later and then, yeah, it all kind of went

How's he doing? It was all for the best, though. He's great. He's a transportation planner also in seattle um with a couple kids you know we were so i think we were far enough apart as we were growing up that we just never felt i never i don't feel like i got really close with him until we became adults that's good though it's not it's good now which is fine you got nieces and nephews and whatnot yeah you got kids and then i got i got one kid and he's got a couple of of kids so it's nice because i only have

one i only have the only kid and so it's nice that he has my kid milo has somebody to have a shared history with cousins and they get along yeah i never had cousins the same town it's nice that's what people used to do yeah they don't have to live together but they can see each other enough generations are your folks still there yeah my folks are all there my got grandparents kids are yeah everybody's there kids or your husband's got other kids no no no his his parents Are your folks still there? Yeah, my folks are all there. So they got grandparents and cousins? Yeah, everybody's there. Your husband's got other kids? No, no, no, no.

His parents. Okay. Yeah, my in-laws. Right. But you grew up before the tech money came in. So it was sort of like not that big a deal, that city. Yeah. I mean, you want to take a look at what Seattle used to be.

There's a great movie, Cinderella Liberty, with James Caan. It's a great movie. I love that movie. But it's sort of interesting, though, those 70s movies, they seem to be tonally appropriate for the Pacific Northwest. Because even if you watch Five Easy Pieces on the road, towards the end where he just gets on that truck, there's some dark, weird kind of thing. I have a real emotional, I don't even,

I can't identify the attraction to that. I spent two years in Alaska as a kid. Oh, really? But you feel like you're closer to the top of the world, but not in a good way necessarily. There's sort of a foreboding to it. Is there or is it me? No, I could totally,

I see what you're, I mean, yeah. Every time I even see Seattle, even looking at it in your movie today, there's an intensity to it. Yeah, there's a resonance. Yeah, with the big trees and the rocks and the shoreline and all that shit. Yeah, and the skies.

Yeah, gray. We have the most, it's gray, but it's not just a blanket. I remember really being surprised at how much I missed the skies in New York. I was there for almost a decade. And when it gets overcast, it's just like, it's just like, they have a lot of

really ugly, flat, glary skies. Right, right. And Seattle, it's never like that. Huge. It's just like,

it's this beautiful texture, you know, shapes of all different colors of gray, yeah, but also, you know, other hues in there.

That's what I feel like it's the top of the world. Like you feel like there's a weight to it all. I don't know, but I feel it. And you also have that. It's almost like Scandinavia in that you get these super, super long nights in the winter and then really long days in the summer.

And I'll do a pilot. I'll shoot a pilot or something down here. I'm here for a few weeks. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'll do, I'll do a pilot. I'll shoot a pilot or something down here. I'm here for like a few weeks and I'm like, oh yeah, it's not, it's not like that down here. Like, you know, it's much more even, you know, when you're. Yeah, no, it's bad. It's like eventually you just don't like, you don't even know time is passing and you're

like, where, where's my life gone? And the, yeah, the weather never changes. Yeah, no, it's just, you spend a lot of time in your car and then one day you're like, wow, 10 years went by. Did I do anything? Let me look myself up. So, all right, so you're this precocious kid giving your parents Boston and around in Seattle. Yeah, a little shit.

But apparently you're not a depressive. You don't seem to wear the weight of Seattle on you. Well, that's what Touchy Feely was actually dealing with. I did go through this period of depression. Later? About five years ago. Five years ago? Well, I've had, you know, like I've had my little bouts.

I mean, I remember there were moments in college when I was curled up in a ball in the back of the closet. You know, I definitely have had these moments in my life, but it got especially bad about, yeah, the peak of it was about five, six years ago. It was right around when I was making your sister sister oddly so weird that i was as i was shooting it and as i was editing it i the whole time i was just kind of going is this gonna be likable like i can't tell if this is a good that was your that was your style of depression not like what's the point of doing any of this no no i it was it was that i had that it was i was quite

it was it was very shameful for me because my work ever since i started making features yeah it was like oh my god this is what i was always meant to do i sort of totally and it was late in life i was 39 when i made my first feature and so everything sort of came to me in a um i sort of self-actualized quite late in life and and me too felt it's it's late bloomers unite i i love it um never thought you know all i know is going to be an artist never thought in a million years i'd be able to make a living at it yeah and i was fine with that you know i'd always part-time teach i'd part-time edit i'd whatever you know do to pay the bills and then just keep making my art and then i i have always been at my happiest and most deeply joyful right when i'm making my work right so here i am in the most

one of the most beautiful places on earth which is an island north of seattle in the san juan islands and i promised not to tell so i can't tell this is the way we were able to get access to that location was by not promising not to tell exactly where it was um and and with this unbelievable cast emily blunt rosemary duet mark duplass um we have a great you know i've written 80 pages of a of a script that we're you know it's going to be a great film i've got my favorite people my crew up there i mean it was the whole thing was sort of perfect. Yeah. And I would literally wake up in the morning and be like, what's the point of this?

Why are we doing this? Oh, right. Making a movie. Why? I mean, it was. But it wasn't dread. I mean, it was close enough. It was really, it was bad, you know?

And I felt so much shame about it because I was it was such a mystery to me. I mean, it was like everything on paper is going so beautifully. Right. Everything that you have your heart's desire and you can't feel the joy. I mean, it just drove me crazy. And that's what Touchy Feely really was, was about, you know, what is this thing that you can't talk about to anybody because it's so it feels somehow there's this deep shame associated with it and this mystery but what but you didn't were you quick to sort of even in exploring it decide that it was founded in like because in in touchy feely these are people that are not following their hearts or or had gotten locked off from them somehow, as opposed to saying, like, I have a chemical imbalance.

I mean, experiencing that weird feeling of emptiness when everything is going well is not that unusual for creative people. I know. It was new for me. It was horrible because it was new. I wasn't used to it. And it was definitely chemical, but it was interesting because I came at it from this very,

you know, like I've had, I've had, I had, I recognized the feeling from the one day I was really lucky for many, many years

where I would have one black day a month, you know, a day before my period or whatever, you know, it was like this sort of hormonal thing.

And my period would come and I'd go, oh, great, that's what it was. Thank God, you know. It's amazing how some women are surprised by that every fucking month every month every month something wrong with me what is wrong what's going on and then life is horrible oh right okay god you idiot yeah well we have an irregular cycle it's hard anyway but you know i i recognize

that so i was like okay this is clearly a hormonal thing. This is physiological. Let's look at what to do. And I remember I was like, oh, you're not eating enough protein. And you need the amino acids to make the neurotransmitters. And so I did all this stuff and took my multivitamin, my B complex, whatever. I did all that stuff. And I was still having a problem. And I remember somebody telling me, you know know i don't think it's just physiological you know really just and then i started exploring in a meditation and trying to like figure out

other things to you know just kind of other ways in like massage reiki actually i'd always wanted to do reiki and that was my excuse was oh i have to do it uh for um research because i'm making this movie where there's going to be reiki and so i was able to finally explore that but were you dark when you made touchy feely i was i was still i was sort of coming out of it so i wasn't super in the it like the peak of it really was your sister's sister. And then, you know, only after I'd actually finished completing making it, was I able to say, oh, I really love this movie. I'm really proud of it. You know, I, it was sort of, it was almost like.

It's good that you did the work. Well, yeah. It was almost like, I realized, I heard somebody talking about postpartum depression once. And she talked about how she sees this beautiful baby. You know, she saw it after it was born and was like understood objectively yeah that it was a lovable being and right she should love it and it was lovable and couldn't just couldn't feel that connection to it it was very much like that for me with that film where um and then only later was i able to actually but not

with your kid my kid i didn't have postpartum depression i loved him right away that's good yeah well i noticed though also in um in touchyely, because it's fresh in my head, that those weird kind of intense close-up shots of skin. And then there was another shot when she was kind of tripping of concrete breaking down. of concrete breaking down, and that it struck me as this sort of realization of temporal, that everything's sort of temporary and decay and life, and what does it mean? Yeah, and the connection.

Did I read into that? No, not at all. And the connection, I was trying to draw a connection between the cracks and the concrete and the cracks. Yeah, I got it. Super close-up cracks that you see in your skin. The only two close-ups. Delivered. Message delivered.

Thank you. But, yeah, she's, you know, she's not 20, you know, and there's a reason that character isn't 20. And what was going on for that character, Rosemary Dewitt's character in Touchy Feely, is that, yeah, my concept with her was that she had been in a relationship that hadn't been so, you know, she's sort of been suppressing her own identity and her own fulfillment, you know, in her 20s. Yeah. Into her 30s. And then was pretty. Entered the healing arts. Pretty newly.

Which is what they do. Well, she gets out of the, you know, she gets divorced. Right, hits the wall. And goes, you know, changes, hits the reset button at 36 or whatever. Right. Goes in massage school and just puts on a whole new life. This is backstory. She, you know, goes out with guys who are younger.

She's supposed to, the guy she's with, Scoot McNary, is, you know, younger dude, somebody who doesn't have all the cares of the world. You know, maybe her ex was like an insurance agent or something, whatever. She sort of had, you know, he was who her parents would have approved of, and this is somebody they wouldn't approve of working some stuff out yeah and so she's really like she's found this she's going through her own sexual revolution like she's really and she feels like yeah you know i'm doing it i've got a thirst for life and but this depression that comes on is

really like her soul knocking it's like oh not biological you're not this all this like you know live in life and screwing your boyfriend and brother's bathroom and trying to be a rebel. Like, it's really not what it's all about. Like, there's other other shit that needs to be attended to, you know. And so it was it's sort of like it's a it's a it's a weird feeling at a certain age where you realize that, you know, through habit and fear that you are disconnected from something. Yeah. Why? But let me ask you this.

Why? Because I have, there's another interesting part of the movie that I want to know if you thought of it. Mm-hmm. That, why a dentist? Oh. You know, I think it was honestly a holdover because Josh and I had been, that actor and I had been talking for a couple years about, had been throwing around ideas. And for a while, we actually were on the road of making another film, and the character was going to be a dentist.

And so we had talked a lot about who this guy might be. And, you know, it was this funny idea where he was actually going to end up becoming a cult leader. And so this is like a little bit of a reformation of this character we'd already been talking about. Right. And I can't remember who brought it up because we really were going back and forth about what the occupation would be. And he might have come up with dentist or I might have. I can't remember. But you know what's interesting about it?

Like I've talked about this with one other person whose father was a dentist. But there was a passage in I think John Updike's Couples. And it's about a dentist. One of the characters in it is a dentist. And there's this whole passage about how the immediacy and relentless nature of decay is something that dentists have to deal with every day over and over again. The, the sort of the, that's what you're fighting. Wow. Like that, that, like you see it in the mouths every day that this, this, this decay that, and it always struck me as a very sort of weird existential realization. I, I tried to get it out of my friend whose dad was a

dentist, but he just wouldn't have it. But, but. But I think, you know, metaphorically or symbolically, there's something about it within the movie that works like that. So if you want to say you were aware of that from here on out. I will. I'm stealing that. I do that all the time, by the way, because I just I make films on this very gut level. But, you know, doesn't that read? Oh, totally, totally scans. And the other thing i think somebody else probably pointed out to me as well was the intimacy of you know i mean it's for both of their occupations they have these incredibly intimate acts with strangers sure you know here she is your mouth and then open your mouth i'm coming in it's incredibly intimate yeah and yet you know

there's this issue with a real connection intimacy Intimacy. Intimacy. The trust and all that. And you just, so talking about intimacy, you just reminded me, even though we're not, we haven't, we've sort of skipped ahead somehow again. You did it. Very nonlinear. You did it. That's the way my brain works.

No, it doesn't. We just established that your brain works linearly. Linearly. Linearly. Linearly. Oh, I can't do it. I, the way I got through the vulnerability that I felt in making that movie was coming to both my crew and my cast and saying, I'm like laid bare making this thing. What about your husband?

What about my husband? What about, didn't you, does he enter the equation when you're all sad and laid bare with your crew? I mean, did you hip him to the issues? Yeah, yeah, sure. All right, fine. Yeah, no, absolutely. He's totally, but. He's on board.

He gets it. He's on the same page. But he's not on set with me. What does he do? He is, right now, he's making furniture in his in our garage um wood wood furniture work in the surfaces gorgeous it's not a large garage so he's able to make like coffee tables and i thought though i think he's going to make a bed frame and like and then assemble it elsewhere with uh with uh found wood with wood from salvaged barns and things.

Sometimes. He's good with the surfaces and the finishes. He is. He had a really interesting, you know, we've been together forever. Since you were a kid? Well,

I would consider that age at the time to be a kid. I think I was, we started living together when I was 24 and then got married at 28. And that was a long time ago. That's pretty good. Yeah. But that's four years.

It seemed like you meant it. Oh, yeah. You were in. Yeah. You didn't get married 10 years in. But the changes that we've gone through at the time, he had been plucked. His original plan was to get an engineering degree and be an industrial designer. But then he got sort of plucked from the masses and he became an MTV VJ.

Which one? Kevin Se seal is his name. He was on from like 89 to 90, no 87 to 91. Right. Um, and he, uh, we have a friend who, uh, no, no, he actually is from Seattle too. So we were, um, yeah, each other there. And then I kind of followed him out. Um, I was like, yeah, I'm going to work in the theater. I'm going to be an actress in the theater. And then it was like, and I'm going to also figure out what the hell's going on between me and this guy. So he was able to then after parlay that into like voiceover talent kind of commercial stuff. And I dragged him back to Seattle when I was quite pregnant. And there just isn't enough work of that sort to make a living.

So he went to industrial design school and now he's in the garage. And he worked in a real actual shop getting paid good money but then when i got really busy in my career he his that place he was working kind of went downhill went bankrupt actually and so when he was looking around for a new job it was he realized we realized the most important job you could be doing actually is taking care of our kid who's deaf and who needs you know is like is like, is going to a lot of different, you know, driving into the special school. Right. So, yeah, it turns out he's a much better full-time parent than I am.

Great. And, yeah, it suits him. They're like best friends. Yeah, it's great. It's so great. So I can leave without feeling, you know, like I know the. You know what you're doing? Here's the list.

Home fires are burning. Yeah. Right, right, right. You're the numbers. Exactly. All right. So you tell your crew that you're laid bare yeah so i remember the first day we did a we did a table read of this script that i'd written and there were parts of it that i um i was like i just want to skip over this part because it just made me feel like i felt like i was going to vomit you know really and then i was like no lynn it's okay like we're going to vomit, you know? Really? And then I was like, no, Lynn, it's okay. Like, we're going to do it, you know?

And I don't know. It was, and I just was really honest. I said, look, this, I, the revelation I had during this in a very deep way. Which part? The part where she describes losing her virginity. Right. Which is kind of. In the house.

From my life. Livingston. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of just. Right out of you. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. Made me Livingston. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of just. Right out of you. Yeah. Yeah.

Pretty much. Yeah. Made me feel pretty, yeah. So you were seeking closure with this script in a way. Yeah. In some weird way. I was a movie that I was like, okay, I gave myself permission to make a movie that was not going to be accessible or commercial or, you know.

One of the reasons that I was the editor was that I started as an editor and I wanted to see if I could still do it. But also I didn't want to. But it's interesting you would think that because it's got like three happy endings. Yeah, but the places it goes and the people, you know, it's hard to make a compelling narrative with really passive, aggressive, or just passive, you know, closed off people. It's just, and it wasn't everybody,

but half of the cast. But that's like, that's sort of a question of, you know, something you brought up earlier, which is on my mind, because I saw Annie Baker play in New York. I saw the flick. This idea of space and not over explaining. Yeah. And finding the truth in emotion in

you know in space. Yeah. Between people. Yeah. You're aware of that. So aware of that. So interested in that. So interested in not over spelling everything out. Like you know I just gave you a rundown on the backstory of this character like that's just a taste of the incredible you know up the wazoo backstory we have for everybody in every relationship but that's your relationship with actors you give it is but it's really important for me to to have them have these really a really clear sense of who they are so that when you know the chemistry between them is palpable or the back or the tensions from the past is is right there and you can feel it i don't want the audience

to know all that crap they don't have to know all that shit something you know like to get a touch a little but it's pieces it's fine but for me it's all about creating that when do you tell them that oh it's months we're we're usually or four shooting. Yeah. There's a lot of talking. You sit down with all of them. Yeah. Or a lot of phone. I'm up in Seattle, so I'm on the phone with them a lot. I mean, but like your sister's sister is a great example. I mean, I developed those characters with Mark and Emily, and it was actually another actress before Rose swooped in and saved us. But the script is the script.

But I do it in a kind of upside down, no, I do it in an upside down way where I'm sort of developing the script alongside the development of the characters because I want to know who the characters are. I have to know who the characters are before I can believably you know

write what they would believably do in a scene. What they would say, how they would act. And the more you know about the characters the easier it is to write what they would believably do in a scene. What they would say, how they would act. And the more you know about the characters, the easier it is to write what they would do. Because it's like then you can just sort of improvise the scene out in your head. Because you know who they are. But I don't like to throw people into an improv situation when they don't have any of that stuff. They're just like... And then it's like a little song.

Which a lot of people do. Yeah. And it drives me. I couldn't, yeah. Because I would think that most people that do those kind of movies where it's loose like that, they don't get that type of backstory. They don't get that type of direction. And you can sort of feel it. Yeah.

I mean, I feel like I can, yeah. Yeah. And also, like, I don't think that all, you know, that's a unique thing for a director to do to put that much collaboration and and and uh time into making these characters come to life most people i i've talked to or i've seen they there's a trust with the actor to just do his job right exactly and i don't know that that's always good it's less fun for me too i because again my favorite thing about making movies is working with actors so the more excuse i have to get in there with them and figure that stuff out. But again, it's going to feed the narrative. But is that because, do you see yourself as a failed actress? No.

Good. Not at all. Well, you wanted to be an actor. When I was an actor, I mean, I started taking class. I was very serious in my, you know, I started when I was like 11 taking classes and doing whatever I could do. That was when it started. I took a how to be a clown class. You did? Yeah.

And I was super shy. Do you remember any of that? Oh, yeah. What I remember is that the liberation of putting literally, you know, like, I mean, it was makeup, but it was a mask. Yeah. It was like, you know, like, I mean, it was, it was makeup, but it was a mask. It was like, you know, white face and, uh, and walking around Seattle center on my stilts and interacting with people in a way that I never, that was like our graduation or whatever. I, it was a way that, you know, yeah, they were like this high, um, that I never could have done in real life. And

so it was this outlet was a way for me to interact with people. And there were there were two things that I did, like safe ways that I found to interact with other humans and connect with other humans. It was through, you know, being I could be somebody else, completely utterly on a stage and make that connection with an audience and with other actors on the stage. You know, that was just like buzzy stuff. It was amazing. And then there was also photography. So in high school, again, super, I was I was in this brief period of mandatory busing. So you know, I grew just like buzzy stuff it was amazing and then there was also photography so in high school again super i was i was in this um brief period of mandatory busing so even though i grew up in white neighborhoods the reason i connected so strongly to um mission is i'm down is that i was bused to yeah uh from sixth grade through high school to the central district where the african-american

community was and that was it was a very, the culture was very African-American of those schools that I went to and middle school through high school. And so I went to the same high school, you know, Jimi Hendrix went to and Quincy Jones and Garfield High School. And you were a darkroom rat? And I was a darkroom rat.

And I remember I would hide behind my telephoto lens of my Pentax 2000 and I would like K1000 and I would and I would find these ways in, you know, I would capture these intimate moments of vulnerability, you know, across the gym with some guy, you know, and so it was the safe place to be. But I was still looking, always looking for connection like we always are. Yeah. But between that and then the acting, which enabled me to just become somebody else

and not worry, I was very self-conscious. That's interesting, though, that the photography was the outlet. I did photography in high school. Yeah. And I didn't think about it the same way because it's not really connecting. It's almost like stealing moments.

No, you're stealing and you're observing. Yeah. You're the freak with the camera. There's that girl with the camera. Yeah but i still felt connected i felt weirdly connected when you can find these moments of vulnerability you know unguarded moments you feel like oh i they're not so scary sure they are somebody i could you know maybe i could have a conversation with someday or whatever you know right and um yeah so that was a really important thing for me tool for me developmentally i think um and it's very odd though to see someone like sometimes when i

overhear conversations that you know are charged you know i feel like i'm i'm in violation of something like because for sure you know that's why i kind of stopped making docs because i was i did documentaries for a long time. And yeah, that's an uncomfortable zone for me where you're sort of – maybe you're shooting something that you – that the person doesn't even realize that they're exposing themselves in some way or the way you present it. It's like, oh, it makes me nervous. So there you are. You're doing the photographs and you're acting. The failed actress thing. So I get a BA in drama, school of drama, at the school of drama.

It was actually for a year. I was at Oberlin for a year and then went to the University of Washington. It's interesting because of what you're saying because I talked to Sir Ian McKellen in here. Oh, my God. But he, because it was interesting that what we came upon and whether he did it on my show or not for the first time was that because he was so heavily closeted culturally as a gay man at the time he was coming up that he identifies, you know, Shakespeare and acting as a way to have the emotions that people in relationships that they didn't have to be culturally ashamed of to have them. Wow. So I thought that was kind of... It is.

It's this conduit for stuff that, I mean, I found it to be extremely therapeutic to be able to do. And then when I moved to New York after college... You went to first Oberlin? I went to Oberlin for a year. In the acting program. The very first... In acting and also creative writing, I was a poet, too. So that was program the very first in acting and also creative writing i was i had all i was a poet too so it was actually my very first art form you know i feel like we have a lot

in common yeah yeah i'll show you some of my poems maybe awesome i have only two or three that i that i'm proud of i yeah occasionally write a poem now poems i wish i wrote poems i do and really you read poetry it's one of the things. I just went through and culled a whole bunch of books realizing, okay, this is ridiculous. I don't need. And I couldn't give a single poetry book away. It was like, no. No, they seem special. Absolutely.

You should always have as much poetry in the house as possible. But yeah, so I went for creative writing. I got a really bad experience where I found out later that the guy hadn't even read my samples, but I was dying for it. I'd been writing all through poetry. I mean, sorry, all through high school, and I really wanted some feedback, and the poetry teacher basically said,

you know, I never let freshmen in for a reason, but he kind of dismissed my poems. I found out later he didn't even read the ones that I'd submitted to him. How did you find that out? I can't remember. Some inside way. And then I stopped writing because of that for like a really long time. It was so dumb.

But yeah, I had a hard time. Anyway, so I was an actor. You had a hard time? What happened? Adolescence kind of did a number on me. Which it does a lot for a lot of young women.

Oh, okay. No, there's this book called Reviving Ophelia. Do you know about this book? No. It was a huge, boy, I talk about so many revelations on this show. It's a little embarrassing. But I was writing the script of my first feature, which is really about the way that we are different selves in different points in our lives.

And the pre and post-adolescent selves were something I was looking back on and was like, wow, that was fascinating because those were like polar opposite kind of personalities when I was in my late 30s, I was looking back at that. And then I was telling a friend about this script I was writing and she said, well, you got to read this book. And it was like, oh, I wasn't the only one. There's this thing that happens when you become sexualized for some girls, some women, a lot

of them um where i was i just felt like i was the you know peak the top of my game when i was like 12 13 and i was writing stories writing poetry painting confident playing music doing yeah acting doing all this stuff and taking photographs and um had such a clarity of vision and a confidence in my voice. Yeah. And then, yeah, cut to like 20. I just. But what about 14, 15, 16? Well, it was like a gradual grinding down, I think. And it wasn't anything to do with my folks. I was always told by both of them, you can do whatever you want.

You can be whoever you want. You can be president. You can be an artist. But it was about the culture of high school. Very feminist. And it was just, it was about the culture of high school very feminist and it was just it was society really you know and this kind of become like i i got really big boobs and i was i could very like people were i felt and i already had the tendency to be sort of self-conscious no that wasn't i don't think i did i was very androgynous and tomboy before then i felt sort

of betrayed by my body yeah like right what the fuck you know that isn't who I am and it felt like that was the first thing people everybody noticed about me even though I don't know if it was or not and I started wearing tents and then it got into this whole thing like you know oh are you looking at me don't look at me you know don't look at me you know that whole like look at me don't look at me that's the kind of a thing that

happens as well I think and then just the sexual charge I think of high school for sure. But yeah, I don't know. It's just really something about that really kind of ground out my sense of agency. And so there was really a period of time when all I really could do was act because somebody else was telling me it was like I was a puppet. I was saying what other people told me to say. And all this weird attention and self-consciousness diminished your confidence and creativity. It did. And so I felt like there was this trickle. I didn't start directing feature films until I was

39 for a reason. I don't think I was capable of it back then. And I needed to shed some of that self-consciousness and gain a sense of maturity and a sense of authority. It's funny. I have an ex from years ago who actually lives in Seattle. She's a sculptor. years ago who actually lives in Seattle. She's a sculptor. When I met her in Boston, she's a real tough Jersey girl. She used to bartend at a strip joint, but she wasn't a

stripper. It was not her bag. She quit. I said, why did she quit? She said, I got tired of men looking at me like I was meat. It gets a little boring. I knew so many women who could who could i remember this woman who was i mean women who just relish sure their bodies and you

know and i remember you know power class and people and i was just like i was so horrified by my body i was just really i don't know what it was it just for me it was really enough but why did it get over and why'd the writing writing go away as a form of expression just because that idiot shut you down basically I think a little bit because the idiot shut me down

and because I just sort of didn't have as much to say I didn't feel like I had anything to say or what I was you couldn't process what we're talking about now

not at all yeah because you weren't aware of it really exactly I was in it you know I was too close to it

so acting became the thing so acting became the thing yeah and it was a little bit my you know again my sort of secret shame that well is because it's really the only thing i can do right now like i have to be an artist i always knew i wanted to be an artist yeah but you know this was sort of it was down to this like this was all i could do and then when i moved to new york to do it it wasn't it was when i started trying to make a living at it just it was was like, oh, this sucks, you know? So you did a year at Oberlin. A year at Oberlin.

And then you go to New York and go where? No, no, I was at the School of Visual, I'm sorry, I was at the School of Drama. I got a degree, a BA in Drama at the University of Washington. Then I moved to New York. So you went back home after Oberlin. Oberlin for you, yeah. And then you went to New York with a degree in Drama. Yeah.

To be an actress on Broadway. Yeah. Although on Broadway. Yeah. Although not Broadway. I wanted to be at the New York Theater Workshop where they were doing Carol Churchill plays. And I saw my friend Garrett Dillahunt in Mad Forest. And I was like, oh, my God, this is it. That's what I want. That's what I want.

And then I found out how much those actors made. And that there was no way they could possibly pay the rent on that, on my dream job ever. And I was like, what the, how do you, I don't get it how is it what is this it sucks so how long were you in new york i was there for nine and a half years so you stuck with it no i didn't so what i did was after a couple years of doing a lot and i did a lot of fun cool downtown stuff and then and then really turn and it was it had always been an addiction like i you know that was really what it felt like i was have to be in a show. What's coming up next? I got to be in a show. And I really transferred my addiction to the darkroom.

That was when I became really serious about photography. So at the International Center for Photography in New York, I started taking classes. And like, yeah, and then built up enough of a body of work to get into grad school, School of Visual Arts. I went to the... For photography. For photography. So my MFA was in photography and related media. You got it.

You like the chemistry of it all and the light and the processing. Yeah, and being the looker and not the looked at was much healthier for me. And it was also a time where you had to know your chemicals and your papers and your films and your stocks. Yeah. Although it wasn't a super nerd out. Like what I loved about, and luckily, I mean, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing today if it weren't for the case that this was not a fine print it wasn't all about the fine print like i almost applied to yale but that was really all about getting the perfect but it wasn't digital it was starting digital was starting that's why it was called an mfa in photography and related media because they were

just starting to right to learn but you knew how to you knew your way around the dark room i did for sure and my and i was going in doing you know, the Vivian Meyer, I always forget how to say her name, style photographs, Helen Levitt, Robin Frank. That was how I started with street photography, black and white street photography. But then by the time I got out, I was doing, I was like, I was somewhere straddling the line, I didn't really know, between video art and experimental film. Because I was able to take those classes. And so I started by making these little, I started in filmmaking by making these little handcrafted movies that I did everything myself. And I was like, shaking a super aid and then blacking out my bathroom and cracking it up

with a hammer and hand developing and getting, you know, solarizing it and just doing, you know, really experimenting. It was pure self-expression. I wasn't trying, I wasn't thinking about an audience. I was, really wanted to be a serious artist. So you're doing like, you know, working the surface of the film and all that shit? Yeah, but also exploring other things. Peggy Awesh was my thesis advisor.

And so like... Who was she? It hit me to her. She was sort of the super eight film experimental film queen of the 80s. Did all kinds of really groovy, crazy stuff. And she was your mentor yeah you could they wanted they encouraged you or they required you to find an art a working artist that you admired to be your thesis advisor as opposed to somebody on the staff yeah it was

great and so i saw all of her work and she introduced me to a whole bunch of other experimental filmmakers and um and at the time you know i was also like going to see Bill Viola and Gary Hill and all these people. And so that was all kind of, I was looking for, you know, I was doing all my own had just gotten married and it was, I was sort of uncomfortable with that, sort of reckoning with the idea of entering the institution of marriage, which I had a troubled, you know, kind of. Sure. And so I was sort of, I made my husband dress up and I sort of wrapped him in this white, paper white wedding dress and had him, you know, swan around the roof of our apartment building and then shot it and then slowed it down and then re-scanned it. And I was just, you know, I was just fucking around. I was just trying to figure out stuff. Yeah. But, but, but, but, but the interesting thing is, is in your story that, you know, I don't always hear, which is that, you know, you were committed to art. Totally. And, and at some point you must've realized how obscure that would be as a life.

I did. It wasn't even, it was so there was a transition period. I came out of school digital editing was my marketable skill and I was able to freelance edit and then on the side I would build up and part time teach other people how to digital edit and then I would take that money and i would go make these little movies and in the meantime like i started there was a topic that i really wanted like my second feature film was about was this experimental documentary about the relationship between women and their body hair so you can see the kind of stuff i was like futzing around right my thesis film was like

you know looking at different levels of consciousness. But finally, there was this one piece that I wanted to make. This is what I'm trying to get at. There was a topic I wanted to actually have an audience. I wanted people to see it and I wanted them to get it. I wanted it to be accessible. And that was kind of a bridge for me. Right. So it wasn't like I got to make a living.

No. But it was more about like, you know, refining your art to a bigger audience. Yeah. Because when you're doing, you know, real experimental art, whether it's theater or film or whatever, and you really start to talk to people who are teaching, you realize like, well, you know, if I don't make the textbooks or the magazines, there's really no future in this at all. That it's such a small community. Yeah. And that was okay with me. Like, I really wasn't like, oh, I have to be Bill Viola and get big gallery shows.

I just wanted to be true to myself as an artist. Right, okay. And make stuff that nobody else could make and to explore territory that was really interesting to me. But it wasn't until, and I almost had to kind of give myself permission to make work that would reach people. Right. You know, it was almost, again, it was like a selling out thing. Like, are you selling, you know.

Oh, God, this is the worst. Right? It's like, every creative person does that to themselves the self-sabotage well i don't know if it's not in my comfort zone right i have to be it's an integrity thing like integrity yeah it's it's sort of like you know the idea when you're younger is that that you don't want to take the easy way but as you realize as you get older that mainstream there's nothing easy about it and and you know but serving yourself was more important you know even if you were fucking your life up right and i was happy to i mean i i tempted was a you know secret personal secretary

whatever up until throughout my 20s and then said okay at 30 i can't do that anymore and really like made a you know but the portal in was about body hair. That was your, that was your one that I wanted people to see was a couple of few films later. It was, but that's when he, obviously started experimenting with, with a documentary and your own,

you know, body issues and more feminine, you know, if not feminist driven stuff. Yeah. Identifying. I was pretty feminist. I mean, it was definitely about trying to dismantle showing the construction of gender like basically sort of pointing at how

much effort goes into making these smooth veneers of a feminine image on you know in a fashion magazine or whatever okay yeah oh that just seems like that's so womanly because actually it takes a fuck of a lot of work to make it look look like that you know and that's accessible yeah well that's true yeah but the movie wasn't because i didn't know what the hell i was doing so it looks okay and the interviews are great but like the sound quality is shitty i mean i was just like right really just sort of trying stuff out so um but the film that i really wanted like i wanted it to be on that pov series on pbs yeah have you ever watched documentaries on that POV series on PBS. I don't know if you ever watched documentaries on that series, but I saw a bunch, I was inspired by that.

And then I had this movie that I wanted to make about miscarriage because I was trying to get pregnant for years and years and then had a miscarriage on the way to that, in that journey. And I felt so like,

what is it? Blindsided. I didn't feel like- By a miscarriage? By the miscarriage, I felt it had beensided. I didn't feel like. By a miscarriage? By the miscarriage. I felt it had been so hard to get pregnant that I really thought once I was pregnant, I felt like, oh, I'm in a state of grace.

Like, this is amazing. This is magical. And then 20 weeks down the line, because it was a late miscarriage too, you know, I was cramping up and it's like, well, I mean, that's miscarriages for other people. Right. It's not for me. You know, this is a special pregnancy you don't understand like i earned this pregnancy so i was really really really um yeah blindsided

by it and really just it wasn't even in my and then once i had one all these people came out of the work it turned out i knew tons of people who had had miscarriage and i had no i had no idea and it's like a secret society you know the secret sisterhood and so many people either made you feel crazy by not acknowledging it all even though they had just days before been saying how's the baby you know whatever and then they didn't even acknowledge it because they were so uncomfortable with it it's like when your father dies people know to send you flowers like there's a way to deal with it but people don't know what to say to someone who's had a miscarriage. And so they either say terrible things. Oh, I was really devastated.

It was really hard. And I know not everybody is, but for me, I'd been trying to get pregnant so hard and it was awful. And the best thing anybody ever said to me was, I'm sorry you lost your baby. And that's all I needed to hear. Right. But people would be like, oh, you wouldn't have wanted to have a baby with a problem or whatever.

Just like really insensitive things. You know, it's God's way, you probably, you wouldn't have wanted to have a baby with a problem or whatever, just like really insensitive things. You know, it's God's way of whatever. I don't know. Well, that's how people protect themselves from just even. Uncomfortable discomfort. Yeah, and shouldering what they should be able to. Like, you know, a lot of times you just have to let somebody feel.

I know, it's hard for people. So I wanted to kind of, you know, I wanted to explore that and help people feel not so alone who've gone through it and also to educate people. And this was a full-length documentary? No, it was going to be a half hour because POV showed half hour.

So I made it specifically for that. But it was really the first time I ever thought about an audience and who am I trying to talk to and can I stay? I interviewed people just audio and then I made this beautiful visual landscapes or poetic. Oh, okay. So it wasn't actually filmed interviews? Right. And so that was kind of my way of saying, yeah, you're still having integrity with your visual aesthetic. And it was like a radio documentary.

This is almost accessible, but let's stop it there. Exactly. Don't go too far but let's stop it there. Exactly. Don't go too far now. Don't go crazy. If this were a radio show, it would be very accessible, but it's not. It's people talking against some poetic visual stimulation. Exactly. Well, the idea was that visual beauty would help them swallow the pill of this uncomfortable topic. But then that also speaks to your inability or your desire to connect

that you were clearly not ready to do visually in the way of letting people talk on the camera. Well, no, it hits people on a visceral level because cinematic language can be really, the associative imagery actually was, and it was a way to get people to open up because they didn't want to talk about this thing and it made them feel safer to not be on camera.

Were you doing acting jobs at this time no i think i was pretty much beyond after i went to grad school okay i just was you know i think although i did i did actually in grads in the middle of grad school i was um i went on tour with the five lesbian brothers um as an aunt and i was like but i'm not a lesbian they were like you'll be you're an honorary lesbian i was so sweet of them um so i did do a little i'm still doing a little trickle here and there or i would do you know my friend madeline olnek who now is a filmmaker as well was writing plays and i would occasionally do something with her but um yeah i wasn't pursuing it and auditioning and stuff that was all left in the dust and the thing that was

so beautiful when i made my first feature i edited a couple features when we moved back to seattle i was hired as an editor and that that was when when i edited my first feature um and you're just hired outpatient i was just hired that was your marketable skill it was my marketable skill and because i was in a smaller market i didn't have to go through years of being an assistant editor or something you know i just and i that it sort of that experience taught me cinematic storytelling you know narratively that's how you learned and i was like oh i think i'm ready to do this and i realized that all of this what had seemed like a hairpin turn before being an actor and putting all my effort into acting and then all of a sudden i'm dropping that and being a photographer it was like why who i'm so fickle you know and now i was like oh

it was all adds up and the editing and oh you know you trained yourself perfectly for exactly what you wanted to do exactly it was like a 20-year film school you know but but then that allowed me because i didn't go to film school and i didn't i wasn't told this is how you make a movie you know when i got on the set of my first feature which i had done the way you're supposed to do it you write the script. You find the people. Which movie? It was called We Go Way Back.

It's going to be out finally this fall. It was never released? No, sort of almost released. And then it won Slamdance and got Best Cinematography Award 2006. And now it's going to be released. Shot on 35. How do you feel about that? So happy. Yeah, it'll be almost the 10'll be you like the movie still oh yeah and they're still friends of mine who say i think

it's still my mom it's my mom but that's still her favorite that's good she's your friend she's my friend yeah she's my buddy um but yeah when i was making that movie it became all of a sudden about um it was my first time on a set. So two things happened. I became, just fell in love with the collaborative aspect of it. And I'm a total control freak. So it was terrifying, but it was also really liberating, you know, and to see, oh my God, it was beautiful. And so I knew I really wanted to make art with other people and in relationship with other people.

But it was so hard on the actors who I had like coddled and took in care of, you know, really took care of and brought the best out of in the audition process it was just me and them in a room with like one little video camera and then on set you know we had this huge hulking 35 millimeter camera and smoke machines and all these bodies and and they were just like ah you know and the whole thing all of a sudden and I was like oh my god this is because it was my first time making a movie on set I've been on the post side of things so I never right and it was like, oh, my God, this is because it was my first time making a movie on set. I've been on the post side of things. And it was like the way that the traditional way to make movies is putting up obstacle after obstacle in front of the most important work on the set, which is the actor.

Right. Because if the actor, no matter how gorgeously lit it is, if the acting doesn't resonate, doesn't feel real, you know. Not going to work. It's not going to work. Yeah. And so then I took a cue, you know, from Dogma 95, from the French New Wave, whatever. And then my second film, you know, I just ejected everybody from the set. And it was just me and my buddy, DP Ben, holding cameras.

And I was like flies in the wall. I developed those characters for the people. This is in the second movie. Yeah, My Effortless Brilliance. And we were in a cabin in the woods you know and i'm basically i wanted to feel like a documentary i wanted to feel so real you know i don't want it to feel written did you get it all improvised and i got it and it got into it went to yeah all i wanted to do was get into south by southwest it was in the it was in the you know narrative competition dramatic competition and it um ifc bought it i was like

what you're kidding okay and then my next movie which was hump day i knew okay i can make a movie this way and what do i want to do with this one and it was i wanted the tightness of the i wanted the momentum narrative momentum and the tight editing that puffy chair had the duplass movie duplass brothers movie, Puffy Chair. And I wanted it to be... Yeah, I wanted to have more of a plot-driven... Now, if I recall correctly in that movie, these guys were going to have sex. Indeed.

But they didn't. Yeah. Spoiler alert. Oh, sorry. No, it's all right. It's been out forever. Why didn't. Yeah. Spoiler alert. Yeah. Oh, sorry. No, it's all right. It's been out forever. Why didn't they? Because they were truly straight.

And it was... Here's what happened. We shot that movie in order. And we all agreed that we would only attempt to make this movie. And we would only put it out... I would only put it out in the world. Explain the premise again. Well, the premise is that these two guys who really bonded in college and were like the same wild yeah nutty

whatever mushroom trips and whatever breaking to the zoo and just all kinds of crap weird stuff and they were going to go on this motorcycle trip together and then one of them bags out and kind of goes into this he becomes completely domesticated so mark duplass's character is has a house and a wife and they're trying to get pregnant and meanwhile his buddy josh leonard's character is gone has just continued he's a nomad he's an artist he's traveling the world he's searching he's searching so they have two totally different trajectories and then it's about 10 years later when the artist nomadic artist shows up on the doorstep of the domesticated dude and they immediately engender this. What happens for Mark's character is basically,

oh shit, he takes stock of who he is. I'm really interested in that sense of who do we imagine that we are? And then when you have those moments of kind of jolts of who am I really now? Shit, because he sees himself through the lens of his friend. You know, oh, I'm in the doorway, I'm standing in the doorway

of this like nice house with coffee table books on my coffee table and you know, on my white, there's literally a white pecked fence out front.

And so, if he freaks out, he's like, no, no, no, no. I'm not that guy inside. I'm still this wild, crazy dude and I'm up for anything.

And they engender this sense of competition in each other. Like ridiculous. Right. Kind of out-duding each other yeah and so ultimately it ends up that yeah they end up trying to outdude each other by doing each other but you know they're daring each other to do each other so they they go to this crazy party like a day later they're at this party with this in this artist commune and they're all the all the people there are going to make movies for this local porn festival that is real that Dan Savage founded called Hump. And the idea of Hump is that you're making alternative stuff.

You're not just making straight porn. You're playing around with the form and having fun with it or doing something avant-garde or whatever. And so here's Josh Leonard's character as this artist. And he's like, well, I'm going to do that, you know. And they're like, oh, yeah, what are you going to do that's going to actually be worth, you know, putting into a festival like this? And they come up with the most out there idea they can come up with, which is two straight dudes having sex. And they're, you know, they're drunk and they're high and whatever. And so the next, so the whole rest of the movie is just this.

Moving towards that. And they're, you know, they're drunk and they're high and whatever. And so the next, so the whole rest of the movie is just this, this. Moving towards that. Well, it's moving towards the fallout of having agreed to the dare, you know, basically daring each other that first night. And they try and let each other off the hook the next day. But neither of them wants to be let off the hook because they're like, hey. They're competing. I'm cool. I'm cool enough to do this.

But you're the one. I think you're trying to get out of this. And it's like, I'm not trying to get out of this. And so it's just ridiculous because it's not, they want, they don't't want to do it it's like both of them are terrified to do it so it's it's uh right i remember that and then we shot the whole thing in order and and i had the whole thing outlined but except for what would happen in the hotel room and the idea was that we would get there and then i you know i said okay you guys really know who these dudes are and i'm going going to entrust you to really honestly enact this scene the way it would really play out. So really weird sidebar that there was a big French production company that bought the rights and made a remake of it.

It's like a $5 million remake of my tiny micro-budget movie. Is it out yet? It's not out here because it bombed there and they never cleared the rights for music to do it but we were able to get a french version of it yeah and show it and on a dvd special dvd player or whatever for like you know 50 people or whatever and side by side so we showed mine and then there isn't it's i mean it's fascinating it's so fascinating it's got kind of interesting charlotte gainsburg is in it and you know it's crazy was it good um i prefer mine but it's definitely it's fascinating i've noticed that there there is a class i don't know if it's a class but you know your community and your way

of life and the and the way of lives of the people that you're familiar with are in your movies. It's a very, I notice it as being sort of specific because I noticed it in Jill's movie in Afternoon Delight that you guys know the life you live, that the type of people that are in your movies are people you would know and have dinner with. But it is sort of specific. And I mean, I'm in that world too. But did you ever notice that though? Like a lot of people don't live like us. Like, you know, like even like it's just it's there.

There was something about even Ellen Page, you know, making muffins or whatever she was pulling out of cupcake tin that there is sort of an effort to authenticity that our generation seems to have. Yeah. that our generation seems to have. Yeah. You know, there's a book called Reality Hunger that is about that and about this hunger that people have to see authenticity. And for me, I mean, it just,

I've seen so many films. I mean, you take the wife character in Humpty. Even though she doesn't get nearly as much screen time as the guys, I wanted her to feel as fully, it's really important to me that she be as fully sort of fleshed out and three-dimensional as the guys, because how many cardboard cut out wife, you know, whether a harpy or the whore with the heart of gold, or I remember we saw the, not to dump on it, but when we saw Hangover and Ed Helms is getting screamed

at by his horrible fiance and my husband leans over to me and says, I think she's supposed to be the bitch. And I was like, really? You know, I mean, it's like, hello, you know, give me a break. And so that is, in general, incredibly important to me. No matter what, if I'm using a script or I'm using, you know, partially scripted and partly improvised or it's all improvised, or you have people who like really need the text as as the spine of their performance which many great actors are like that they're not writers they're actors whatever it is that the method is i always want it to feel like flesh and blood human beings on the screen sure that are um and that's because that's the

only way that it really resonates with me do you think you could bring what you do with actors to a period piece or do you have plans to sort of challenge yourself on those levels? I'm attached to actually a period piece that HBO, I'm not a creator,

but they came to me and asked if I would direct a miniseries that has Anna Paquin and Jack Black and that was announced a few months ago so I can talk about that. And I don't know

when that's going to happen. But one of the reasons was, yeah, I was really intrigued to explore that territory. And I actually am going to do a This American Life Story. It's not a period piece. Well, it's a little. It's a few years ago. It's based on a real-life story. One of their episodes that was very popular

called the mysterious, incredible case of the PI moms. And amazing, crazy story that's like a comedy caper reminded me a little bit of Dog Day Afternoon, you know, and that it's a real story, but it's it just goes everywhere. Anyway, very exciting. And I want to you know it's a different genre um and i want to continue to see how i can bring that same authenticity and honesty right and grounded character-based and all the humor needs to come from that grounded character-based place instead of like i'm not as interested to do just yeah, just a broad comedy that doesn't, you know. Those are hard in a way that it's making something that's completely unnatural seems slightly acceptable. And then you get like Bridesmaids, I thought was brilliant. Well, yeah, it's great because the women were real.

Yeah, exactly. And so they do get put into some, you know, there's the shitting and farting and vomiting you know scene but but throughout you really yeah you feel for them you feel with them because you believe in them and yeah like their relationships and stuff and how old's your son he's 16 and it's so fun to start showing him i mean i've been doing it for a while now but you know it's so great to be able to relive my favorite because what we do is watch movies right so um you know going to see mad max fury road was incredible go see all these every action movie yeah but um you know we showed him jaws recently it's like oh yeah you can see jaws

like and i hadn't seen jaws since forever equally as terrifying and afterwards he was like he was like yeah it was a good movie can we see a comedy comedy next? Like, can we see some Monty Python? And we saw, he'd already seen Holy Grail, so we showed him Life of Brian. And I hadn't seen, again, Life of Brian forever. He's never laughed so hard in his life, like continuously. He loves to laugh. And I was really impressed. I was like, oh, my God.

I saw all kinds of brilliance in it that I hadn't even been aware of before. In Life of Brian? Yeah. That's great. It's amazing. It's real smart. Such such a great comment and he's deaf your death yeah totally yeah he had meningitis when he was a year old we almost lost him terrifying it was jeez it was really really scary I don't recommend it but he stuck around and yeah and so what is that I'm with experience like how is how

is that sort of change of perception of reality? It changes. It changes everything. Both the experience of having him be like he was on a, he became basically unconscious. He was like on a heart breathing heartbeat machine for almost a week. And then slowly he was able to wean off it. And all the, in the ICU, you know, there are nurses who are just angels on earth. One year old he was able to wean off it. And all the, in the ICU, you know, there were nurses who were just angels on earth.

One year old he was? He was one, yeah. They said to us, as soon as he came out of it, they were like, we were really worried. Because usually they come out of it faster if they're going to come out of it. 10% of the babies that age die. Yeah.

And it totally changed our relationship to parenting. You know, like my mom is the first to tell you as an early childhood educator that a certain amount of benign neglect is a really healthy thing, you know, because you give the kid a space to explore their world and stuff. But in order to teach a deaf child language, like you, it has to all, there's no osmosis. They're not going to get anything over hearing a conversation at at the grocery store or the zoo they need to like look right at you and get it right and so and they're hungry for it yeah yeah and so and whether it's interpreting what conversation is going on over here or you know whatever it is and so it totally changed us as parents because we had to you know shift this thing yeah but also finding out like here he he was, this little tiny, you know, this little tiny body. There's, you know, it started with very dramatically with firefighters in our house all around him turning blue on the floor. And I mean, it was very, very dramatic. And then we rushed to the hospital and all that. And then he's there and we have our full-time nurse in the ICU.

It's like a five-star hotel. You know, you're just like. And then you take a walk around the hospital and you see the two month old next door, you know, and the baby's this big. And then you see the parents in the cafeteria and you realize and you just you're aware that babies die. Kids die. It's it's crazy. Like it never it's something that you really can't imagine because it's so unimaginable. So wrong. Yeah. But yeah, you know, kids die. Yeah. And and's so wrong yeah but yeah you know kids die yeah and um and so just to know that you know i mean i still to this day it's years and years and years

later and i still i go and look at him sleeping and just like i'm so glad you're here man i i can't even tell you and i tell i came across this journal the other day we moved houses and so i was like going through all these books and i just opened it here's you know milo's hospital journal it's like oh shit and i like looked up you know i was plunged back into that moment and i was just weeping and weeping you know and i go over and try and explain to him he's just looking at me like oh good mom really anyway so yeah no it changes a lot for sure and you know just that sense of how mortal we all are fragile yeah so fragile that's crazy yeah well are you okay mark yeah thank you so much thank you thank you so much for letting me do this and for crying well i'm at a weird point

and so i don't know what's going on with me it's not hard to make me cry oh yeah well but uh same way good talking to you it was really great talking to you mark thank you so much for having me that was a great conversation amazing kind of evolution of creativity that it all comes together and makes sense win shelton good movies go watch your movies i just watched touchy feeling i liked it a lot also wtfpod.com get your just coffee.coop to get the wtf pod blend the wtf blend i get a little something on the back end get you know just do your business i got the buddha out here the uh the 335. Thank you. ¶¶ Boomer lives!