Wheeled Wonder Women: Producing and distributing Blood on the Flat Track: The Rise of the Rat City Rollergirls

**Below is the unpublished article written for boxoffice.com**

If you’ve been raised in this country with even a smidge of liberal education you’ve undoubtedly been subject to the ongoing struggle for women’s equality. Those with an even more extensive liberal background have even Majored in Women’s Studies, where one is frequently immersed in intensive essay, lecture, and testimonial inscribing the suffering brought on by the weight of a very male dominant culture bearing down upon the Feminine identity.

But attend one women’s Roller Derby bout, and all those essays, all those testimonials, and all that worrisome oppression becomes a distant memory, if not a questionable and foggy fantasy. Attend one Roller Derby bout and you may very well wind up fearing for the sanctity of your fragile, liberal-educated soul. And like most, you’ll ultimately find yourself reveling in the audacity of spirit, the ferocity of competition, and the raw, uninhibited theatricality of a spectator sport that, for nearly a generation, went into a strange dormancy and was all but forgotten by American Popular culture until a handful of outrageous women, some promoters, some punks, and some savvy business people came up with the notion of revitalizing the sport, hence the inspiration for the Leaky-Sleazewell Production’s recent documentary, Blood on the Flat Track: The Rise of the Rat City Rollergirls.

The rebirth of Women’s Roller Derby and, in particular, the emergence of the Pacific Northwest’s eminent league, The Rat City Rollergirls, has been as fast and as furious as the very nature of the game. So let us thank the gods of modern technology that as this new subculture bloomed, sprawled, and entrenched itself in popular consciousness, that several young documentary film makers had the means, the time, and the inspiration to detail the event from the inception.

“If you’ve ever seen Roller Derby and, especially, if you are someone interested in the spectacle of cinema—how would you not want to film this?” Lacy Leavitt, one half of the Leaky-Sleazewell Production’s duo, who with her co-director Lainy Bagwell, state they saw the potential of a powerful documentary subject within moments of viewing their first Rat City Rollergirl bout, “it’s so big and beautiful an sexy and funny. It was just obvious immediately to both of us that we had to make a film about this.”

But for all the above noted flamboyance of this fresh, new subculture, it is Leavitt and Bagwells’ delicate documentation of the leaguers’ individual stories that enhances the vitality of this community for the viewer, an aspect of Blood on the Flat Track of which many league fans were critical, but as Bagwell says, “You see these women and you figure they must all drink beer and kick ass and take heroin…but this film takes away all that because you get to know them and see what they do for a living and what their families think and the things they go through.”

With the same grit and vigor that so inspired their filmmaking, Leavitt and Bagwell set out two years ago to capture the evolution of this roller derby league with more than one facet to their agenda. Intent on keeping costs and crew to a three-person minimum, they shot, with the assistance of editor and videographer Wes Johnson, over 250 hours of footage with a production budget subsidized by two temp jobs resulting in a very tight, very dynamic 95 minute film. The filmmakers admit their funding was sporadic, “It came from our bank accounts. We worked temp jobs…the nice thing about doing a documentary about roller derby is that roller derby is not the girls’ full-time job; they’re playing and practicing on nights and weekends so we were there nights and weekends.”

Blood on the Flat Track premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival on June 15th, 2007. It was a gala event for the Seattle roller derby community; red carpets, chandelier earrings, shimmering, open-backed dresses revealing a whole tapestry of tattoos, flashbulbs and video cameras galore but sadly, no war paint. Granted, the premiere evening audience was ramped to unconditionally support the film, but even those not deeply indoctrinated into the roller girl community could not deny the documentary was an impressive piece of independent film. Since then, the film has made the rounds to at least eight film festivals nationwide and garnered positive reviews, and even though an independent film producer could not ask for a more eager viewing audience, firm distribution the film is still forthcoming.

“Through working with at IFP (Independent Feature Project) and Film Market,” Bagwell points out; “I’ve contacted several people…there are a couple (distributors) who’ve seen screeners who are interested. We’ve sent it out to some of the larger film industry festivals and are waiting to hear back. Of course, we’d love to have a small theatrical release or DVD release, but if not, we’ll do it ourselves…”

Indeed, not all independent filmmakers would have the luxury of tapping into such and eager and enthusiastic audience, the benefit of choosing such a dynamic community as the subject or your film. Says Leavitt, “Obviously any filmmaker would love to be in the position where they have several people banging on their door wanting to distribute their movie. The only real major concern is having to go with a distributor that’s going to try and sell as some schlocky sex-piece.”

Yet, unlike many other films, Blood On the Flat Track has a very unique fall-back position for distributing their film, “We have potential to tap over 200 leagues worldwide…,” says Bagwell, “You average over 70-80 girls to a league, 200 leagues—somebody in there knows somebody that runs a theater or who works in distribution…We get so many emails from derby leaguers wanting to know he the DVD will be done so they can sell it at their merch (merchandise) tables, but we wanted to wait and make sure we had exhausted all our options before we look into self release.” One wonders why these filmmakers would even hesitate to go directly for the roller derby attendee market, and bypass the whole gauntlet of conventional film distribution.

“The biggest challenge,” Bagwell confides, “is that we are up here in the Northwest without a lot of resources to be traveling down to LA or New York. I think if we were in LA right now, it would be a lot easier to get this done. Right now everything is over email and the phone, but I don’t think is anything that’s insurmountable.”

For updates on film festival screenings of Blood on the Flat Track: The Rise of the Rat City Roller Girls, please visit their website www.ratcitymovie.com.

-Cole Hornaday, January, 2008

Dangerous Women: The Kind to Bring Home to Mom

Hey All,

I don't know if I've blathered on quite enough about the high level of DIY documentary film being made in the Pacific Northwest of late. Its a dangerous breed of filmmaking, as all it takes is modicum of patience, an ounce of discipline, at least one video camera, a love of puzzles, and a sterling sense of vision.

As of last night I've seen three documentary films within the last year, produced in the Pacific Northwest that moved and rattled me beyond measure; PIRATE RADIO, USA, BLOOD ON THE FLAT TRACK, and GIRLS ROCK!

While writing for boxoffice.com I had the opportunity to pitch my own articles and not simply wait around for the editors to call me with an assignment. Being the champion of the undergod I feel obliged to to be, I sought every opportunity to promote two of the films listed above.

One article that was entirely aborted thanks to the editorial collapse of boxoffice.com was my coverage of the Leakey-Sleazewell production, BLOOD ON THE FLAT TRACK: The Rise of the Rat City Roller Girls. You can find out more about the film itself at the site below.

http://www.ratcitymovie.com/betasite/

I had the good fortune to have friends in common with the filmmakers, Lainy Bagwell and Lacey Leavitt, so convincing them to meet me for an interview was rather uncomplicated. My interview session with these two women was a peak moment for me, a peak moment of Seattle living; sitting in a faux-punk/cabaret club, drinking beers, talking with two brilliant, creative women about making their movie about Roller Derby chicks and their culture.

Man, it don't get much more "Seattle," than THAT.

I'll post the interview transcription below, with the intent of posting the actual article drawn from it at a later day.

Enjoy.

Interview, Lainy Bagwell, Lacey Leavitt
Writer/Director Team of BLOOD ON THE FLATTRACK: The Rise of the Rat City Roller Girls


Q: Tell us a little about your background(s) in documentary filmmaking. So, were you two AV Club Geeks high school?

Lainy Leavitt: I totally wasn’t (an AV Geek) I was a journalism student. I edited my school paper at Lake Stevens High School (just north of here). I’ve always been into writing. I wrote for the Everett Herald when I got out of high school. I always thought that I would go into journalism, but at a certain point in high school I realized films were more something that you could do—you could actually make films. I was like, “Why wouldn’t I want to do that, that’s a lot more fun and creative,” so I immediately set my sites on screen writing. I went to UW and did the cinema studies program but determine that I am just too bossy to let someone else take my script and do what they want to do with it. But I also wanted to direct. My mom had daycare kids in our basement and I got them together with a video camera and got them to do a re-enactment of A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN which we still cannot find the VHS tape for…. it’s going to be an Easter Egg on one of my DVDs someday.

Oh—sort of a side note-- But while I was home for the holiday, my mother found these old Barbersol commercials I’d mocked up with Barbies when I was nine—remember those awful Barbersol commercials? Barbersol mated with Barbies, it was awful with my home phone number as the phone number to call.

After graduating I went to New York and worked on The Squid and the Whale. Seattle didn’t have a lot of film stuff going on so I decided I would just move to New York! I became assistant producer on The Squid and the Whale, I started working film festivals and I worked for the IFP New York, I’m on the board here in Seattle now, but I’d been working and then I went to Slamdance because I knew someone out in LA which where I met Lainy who was also from Seattle. I was living in LA by that point, but she was in Seattle. I had a couple of screenplays, but we kept in touch and I went back to New York and was working a documentary production company that was a really terrible experience because the guy was crazy and I hated it. So, I decided I would come back to Seattle for the summer and work on a documentary project. We decided to go check out the Rat City Roller girls and that’s kind of everything up until this point and how that all worked out.

Lacy Bagwell: I’d been a film fan since I was about 10 or 11 years old. Didn’t do anything in high school other than smoke a lot of pot and drink a lot of beer.

I was not in the AV Club; I was kind of a bad kid. My parents didn’t really know I was a bad kid because I hid it well.

After high school I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. All I knew is that I really like film, so I went to the video production program at Seattle Central Community College for two years and after that there just wasn’t a whole lot of work in Seattle so I went out and did a variety of other jobs, still thinking, in the back of my mind that this (film) is what I want to be doing at some point. I started working for film festivals; volunteer for SIFF for six or seven years and then got a job with them. I’ve worked for them, now, for five years and I knew the woman who was the director of the film festival at Slamdance because I had worked with her in Seattle. I went out to work with her in Park City and that’s how I met Lacy.

I didn’t work on any productions up to that time at all. I think I had this fear for a while that since I didn’t have a resume, who was going to take me? I don’t have any experience; really, all of my experience is old. I figured I might as well start from scratch, and start on my own, and come up with an idea and work with someone who has experience and knowledge and go from there…I just thought it would be easier to do something with someone else start from there and gain experience that way.

That’s really it. I PA’s on a film in the middle of working the Roller Girl film to get some knowledge on how film sets work. I didn’t get paid for it or anything…


Q: In reading your biographies, you mention you had begun work on a documentary on Meth addiction. That sounds like a very ambitious project for two new filmmakers.

LL: It would be a big thing. I still want to do it some day. I’m from Snohomish County and my dad used to work for the Granite Falls school district and I think at one time they were the number one Meth capitol of the whole of the United States. My aunt actually runs the anti-Meth coalition in the Ellensburg area so I had been talking with her. But I actually know someone from my hometown, my next-door neighbor’s son-in-law. I once had the biggest crush on him; totally attractive, totally good looking, had a wife and two beautiful kids, they were adorable, just like the perfect family, and he ended up getting a Meth addiction. It started out and he was doing cocaine and went to meth while he was doing construction jobs to stay awake. He wound up just completely throwing everything down the tubes and ended up in jail for armed robbery after he held someone up at knifepoint—a whole family up at knife point, actually, after he broke into their house.

I’d been talking to my neighbor and thought I would do this documentary over the summer. That turned out to be a much more ambitious project. We actually did one interview with the police chief at Lake Stevens and with the wife. That was intense. Of course they are friends of the family so that was very intense—I also have some cousins who are meth-addicted-- I want to do it at some point but it’s pretty big.

So, then I figured I was just there for the summer we’ll just shoot the Roller Girls and we’ll be done in three months. I figured I’d just stay until the end of the season, and by that time we’d just begun to learn about what was going on so then we decided to wait until the end of next season and so on and here we are two years later. I’m still here.


Q: What drew you to this particular project?

LL: We brought Lainy’s camera to the first bought we ever went to—I’d been back in Seattle for a week and I heard about the Rat City Roller girls least three times within the week I was back. We were turned on to the idea of doing a film about them so we decided to bring a camera to our first bought and see what happens. If you’ve seen Roller Derby and, especially if you are someone interested in the spectacle of the cinema—how would you not want to film this, its so big and beautiful and sexy and funny—it was just obvious, immediately, to both of us, that we had to make a film about this.


Q: As a duo, how did you negotiate a single vision that was going to go into the film?

LL: Man, if we’d only done Deal Memos back in the day.

LB: Loaded Question.

LL: Being a writer I loved documentary filmmaking, but never had any idea I would go into documentary filmmaking. Going into the second season we talked a lot and we had a pretty clear idea of what we thought the story should, what we wanted to show people about the league. We used some footage from that first year, but it was only after being around the girls for so long that we could put together the parts that we wanted to show. There are so many girls that we wanted to show that aren’t in the movie because there were just too many amazing personalities. Going through and strategically looking at each of the teams, looking at the relationships this makes the most sense to show this part of the league and that relationship makes the most sense to show that part of the league. Eventually it ended up that we were in the culture for a long time and we came to a decision on what we wanted to do.

LB: I think even more of it came out toward the end after we’d shot everything. After looking at all of the interview footage we got a better idea of where we could go with this—its almost like the story kind of writes itself with the girls from what we got out of the interviews and the things that they do. A story can take a 180 degree turn depending on the situation.

LL: And along those lines, sometimes of the footage would inform the interviews. We’d seen something and asked them to talk about it or in an interview they’d sometimes they’d point out things that we never even noticed about the league or about a game. That turned out to be interesting too. We had a clear, but fairly nebulous idea but of course in documentary you’re kind of at the mercy of your subjects

Q: A great deal of time in this film is devoted to the players’ personal stories, in particular, their relationships to their partners in and outside the league, rather than the actual blood and guts aspects of the sport. What type of feedback did you get after the fact with regards to these choices?

LL: The majority of the feedback I’ve received has been that people really liked the amount of time we spent on the players. I’ve only heard two nay-sayers talk about how much time we didn’t devote to actual bouts and plan strategy—but they were the most hard-core derby fans they know a lot l about roller derby already and really get in to the strategy. You may not get it from our film and I don’t think you get it from watching just watching two bouts, but once you start to really pay attention to roller derby, the strategy is so amazing and actually very subtle. It’s a very subtle sport that is actually really funny when you are watching all that is going on, but there are actually some very subtle strategies going on. But the vast majority of people we talked to really like the amount of time we spent with the girls.

One of the reasons I wanted to spend so much time with these girls was when you think of roller derby, you automatically think they must all be crazy, they must be drunk, bartenders, barflies and aren’t doing anything else with their lives—just crazies—of course, there are some of those of those—but they’re lovely, too, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. But there is just such a wide spectrum of women who are in roller derby and for us to have been involved in the league for so long we really wanted to capture that. We were as interested in the girls personally as we were in the stuff going and hoped that would translate to the audience.

LB: I think what we did was do away with a lot of the stereotypes. You see these women and you figure they must all drink beer and kick ass and take heroin or whatever. But this film takes away all that because you get to know them and see what they do for a living and what their families think and the things that they go through. I only heard one or two people complain about the bout stuff, and it was the same thing, it was people who were already derby fans. But we weren’t making a movie for derby fans we were making a movie for people who don’t know what its like to play derby and don’t know what these girls are going through. A lot of people had never even heard of roller derby who came to see the film, so they got an education at the same time. And it’s across the country, its everywhere, that’s the nice thing about it, you can go see it anywhere even outside of the country.


Q: Roller Derby went into a lull for several decades as a popular spectator sport. What’s your take on the process of reviving roller derby as a part of a subculture?

LB: I do know that what culture in which it has never lost its popularity is Japan. In Japan its men and women combined. They’ve been around constantly there’s never been a break for them. That’s the only place that I know of and I’ve done a little bit of digging. They started, again, in Texas in 2002.

Q: How long did principal photography take?

LB: We shot for two years and we shot a little over 250 hours of footage. We shot everything that the girls did—followed them around; we went to practices, we went to meetings, we went to the bouts, we went to the bar nights that they had—karaoke, everything that they did, that we could possibly go to, we went. We went out of town with them a couple different times. We shot every single thing that they did.

Q: Tell us about some of the unforeseen challenges in making this film?

LB: That we shot way more footage than we could ever use. There was a point where I’d tell Lacy, “We’ve got to go shoot this, and she’d be like, ‘Why?’” And there were time’s she’d say “We’ve got to go shoot this, and I would ask, ‘Why?” It was because we had enough footage and we needed to stop at some point. Finally we did, but there were so many things out of 250 hours and film was 95 minutes. Do you know how much crap I have at home and she has at home? We have a ton left over, and a lot we’ll use for the DVD. That was it for me—we shot a lot of really, really good stuff, but a lot of it we’ll never use. I guess the only other challenge would be that we really should have looked into raising some sort of funds before we got started.

LL: Just to ad to what Lainy said, I wanted to say that, toward the end, I was more about what I didn’t want to be shooting because I had an idea of what we were using and what we’re not going to be using and we’re not going to use that. So I had to ask, “Do we really want to be spending another $20 on tapes because I know we’re not going to use it.

One of the challenges for sure, when we first started out, we brought our cameras to our first bout-- we’d called ahead to make sure it was okay. We just show up saying, “Hey we’re two people who want to make a movie about you guys so you’re going to let us film everything you do, right?” And they were like, “No.”

In the beginning, especially, Darth Skater who was the head of media at the time, was very much, like, “Wait minute, who the heck are you people, what the heck is going on…” and was very concerned about what we were doing and what we were all about. The Roller Girl reality show has just come out and there was a lot of concern about just letting strangers film them all the time—“Look what they make those girls look like all of the time—we don’t want to look like that kind of thing.” But finally, by the end of the first season, we finally had won over enough trust, they knew who we were, they knew what we were about, they knew we totally respected their community, and the fact that we were women also really helped, by that time we had finally established enough of a trust that they invited us to a lot of the stuff too, certain teams more than others. We would get calls, “Hey, we’re doing this, do you want to come out?” “Yeah, thank God, we didn’t know about that,’ when in the beginning we would have been dying to know about those things.

Q: And how long do you think that took to get incorporated into their family?

LL: We started shooting in June of their very first season, so basically, half way through the first season. Four to five months? We were totally in by the second season.

LB: By the time we stared the second season, we were gold. And Darth Skater now is like our greatest advocate. She was the one person in the beginning who was most leery of us.

LL: She was just doing her job. We kind of got on just before the big media wave hit-- right when we came they started getting bombarded with media requests and photography requests, it was way too much and nobody could really discern what was going on. At the premiere we did a private screening for the girls before we showed it. It was in our contract with them. It went really well. Darth Skater came up on the stage and said, “I’ve just got to say that I gave these girls so much shit in the beginning and look what they’ve done –they’ve done such a great job!” It was sort of the perfect little bow to tie up the package at the end of the story.

Q: Where did you get your financing?

LL: It came from out bank accounts. We worked temp jobs. The nice thing about doing a documentary about roller derby is that roller derby is not the girls’ full-time job. The girls are playing and practicing on nights and weekends so we were there nights and weekends. I worked on two films during the production as location manager here in town. But at a certain point I decided I couldn’t be spending 10-12 hours a day on someone else’s film because we needed to devote time to our own film. So, financing came from other crappy jobs.

My parents gave me a couple of bucks.

The nice thing was that Lainy owned a camera and our second cameraman, Wes, owned his camera. We had to rent green screens a couple of times for the credits, which was, like, $20 from a camera store. We have gurus, like my friend Joe who helped us out on all the post-production stuff. Otherwise we did everything else on Lainy’s computer or my computer.

LB: That’s the beauty of modern technology. DV Tapes are cheap.

LL: We’ve had three fundraisers so far where we had a bar night; we had two at the Funhouse, one at the Highway 99 Blues Club, the Socket Wenches Bar—one prior to completion and two after the fact. Really, the biggest cost for us has been in transferring it on to screeners, besides road-tripping down to Vegas or flying to Tuscon for the tournament.

Q: Did you consider the cut screened at SIFF to be the final version, or have their been cuts since that point in time?

LB: We’ve edited since then, but it was minor, very minor. We just fixed a couple of things. We had the sound redone, and maybe two or three little edits.

LL: When we did the last edit, or eyes were pretty blurry—we couldn’t see straight. We only finished editing it four days before we showed it and SIFF was like, “Alright, give us your tape NOW or we’re not showing your movie.” There was like one pause we thought was a little too long and two others that we shortened. Other than that it’s the same movie.


Q: How many festivals has the film traveled two thus far.

Both: Eight, so far.


Q: This film continues to make the rounds to film festivals, but how are you planning to distribute to the general public?

LB: Through working at the IFP and Film Market I’ve contacted several people through those organizations. There are a couple people who have seen the screeners who are interested. We’re obviously not too coy about handing out screeners because obviously we’ve had our premiere. Of course we would love to have a small theatrical release or DVD release, but if not, we’ll do it ourselves. We get so many emails from the derby leaguers wanting to know when the DVD will be done so they can sell it at their merch (merchandise) tables, but we wanted to wait and make sure we had exhausted all of our other options before we look into self release.

Q: That being said, is there a criteria you are following when it comes to shopping the film around to distributors?

LB: We’re just sending it out to film festivals right now. We sent it out to some of the larger film industry film festivals and waiting to hear back from them right now. The other scenario is that we have potential to tap is that there are over 200 leagues worldwide. You average 70-80 girls to a league—somebody in there knows somebody that runs a theater who works in distribution. I think we can get some kind of, at least, minor theatrical run.

LL: I’d say in terms of criteria, obviously any filmmaker would love to be in the position they have several people banging on their door wanting to distribute your movie and you can pick who wants to spend the most on P&A. But the only really major concern is that we wouldn’t go with a distributor that’s going to try and sell it as some schlocky sex-piece or something like that. Just as long as it’s not someone who would try to treat it like a B-Movie, and was someone who was willing to treat it well.

Q: What have been some of the biggest stumbling blocks in getting this film distributed and how did you overcome them?

LB: The biggest challenge is that we are up here in the Northwest without a lot of resources to be down in LA or to be in New York a lot. I think if we were in LA right now it would be a lot easier to get this done. Right now everything is over email and phone, but I don’t think its anything that’s insurmountable. There are so many documentaries about roller derby popping up.

LL: At this point we need to beat everyone to the punch.

LB: I don’t want this to be pegged as a regional film, that it’s just a Seattle film. I don’t think many realize that there is this awesome subculture of derby going around. I guess it’s about making sure people realize what big potential there is here. I think this film is very accessible to all sorts of people, just as roller derby is more accessible now to more fans than you think. The fans are pretty diverse, just look at how diverse are the fans in the movie.

Q: Where do you go from here?

LB: I’m producing a feature film featuring Aiden Quinn and Alicia Silverstone. I’m also writing a fictional script about roller derby and another comedy script as well. I think documentaries are great fun, but not really part of my skill set. I do want to got back to the Meth project some day.

LL: I have ideas on my brain and on paper, but nothing solid. I want to do a horror film. Totally 180 degrees.

An Interview with Margaret Avery

When I was but a lean and wan little punk, dreaming of being a professional actor, I knew from the get-go I didn't want to be a star. I wanted to be known, sure. I wanted to be respected and appreciated, sure. But I knew from observing at a cool distance that to be a celebrity was to submit to some form of self-imposed madness, if not torture.

No. I wanted to act, but preferred to conjure romantic fantasies of Shakespearian ensembles performing out of doors, to appreciative audiences in semi-rural Pacific Northwest, low-budget, Independent films that scored accolades at little film festivals at area wineries...

Honestly, I preferred the notion of the Working Actor, the Actor's Actor, that guy that never wanted for regular work, but who's presence fell just outside the scope of popular attention-- A good actor, a competant actor, an actor who was crucial to fleshing out the healthy body of an ensemble, but a guy who's role was no big deal and could wander in and out of the 7-11 after a case of Guinness without getting mobbed. I thought that sounded just about right, and I kept my eye out for actors I whose careers I thought rested upon a similar plane of professional success; Keith David, Brad Dourif, Clancy Brown. You may know their faces, or even their voices, but not their names--that is, unless you make it a conscious efforts, because the talk shows and tabloids are not and will not be burning their likeness into your brain.

Such an actor is Ms. Margaret Avery. Granted, her balloon went up above the herd in 1985 when she was nominated for an Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Shug in THE COLOR PURPLE, but not long after said balloon dropped below the eye-line once more. Ms. Avery never stopped working, and her contributions have been steady and strong. Ms. Avery has participated in a veritable spectrum film genres, and she has had the career I would have liked, had I grown up to be a real-live actor.

Below is an interview I conducted with Ms. Avery for the boxoffice website in January, 2008. Her most recent film, WELCOME HOME ROSCOE JENKINS, a comedy featuring Martin Lawrence, was set to release in February. Initially I was very frustrated in my efforts to successfully research Ms. Avery's career. I found lists, blurbs, and bullet points acknowledging her accomplishments, but no interviews with her on the internet. I was very excited, as this meant I may be the first to have the opportunity share her thoughts, insights, stories, and glories with the world wide web. Sadly, the editorial control of boxoffice.com went down the crapper shortly after I transcribed my interview with Ms. Avery.

I am posting the interview below, in the hopes that others will enjoy the incredible scope of experience in Ms. Avery's career as much as I.

On a more personal note, it wasn't until mere moments before I spoke with Ms. Avery on the phone that I discovered she'd been in one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE SF films, the public television adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's THE LATHE OF HEAVEN. I watched the film multiple times in high school, but was surprised to realize that I had not seen a re-broadcast for, well, decades.

POST INTERVIEW I discovered that THE LATHE OF HEAVEN was not only public television's most frequently requested film for re-broadcast, but the original prints had all been destroyed when PBS found they could not afford to renew copyright on the film. Why not? Because a key moment in Le Guin's story, and subsequently the film, featured a tune by THE BEATLES and we know how simply priceless a BEATLES tune has become in the marketplace of popular entertainment...

Yes, you can now find copies of THE LATHE OF HEAVEN on DVD (released in 2002) but, believe it or not, they are remastered the feature from the murky, tinny home video of a very devoted fan. A hallow, muzak-quality version of the original BEATLES tune now stand in place of the original tune.

In retrospect, I wish I'd spoken at greater length with her about THE LATHE OF HEAVEN past her passing comments...but such is life.

Anyway--enjoy.


Interview: Margaret Avery
Interview, 1.10.2008
Cole Hornaday


Q: You have an amazing resume that covers a breadth of experience that expands not only several different eras of filmmaking but eras of cultural transition as well…

A: The work I’ve done goes back quite some time, because when I look back I realize there are many people that are no longer with us. I think, “Oh my god, I’ve been at this a long time…”

Q: It is often heard that actors consider themselves a “success” as long as they’re working. Do you share this sentiment?

A: Its interesting you as that because when people say, “Oh, you’re an actor,” I say, “Yeah, when I’m working…” But, in another sense, Acting is something you’re doing all the time—You’re always observing people—as the actor. Sometimes you’ll meet interesting people and you’ll think, “I’ve got to use that in a role.” We sometimes—particularly as we get older, we’re doing more character work…somebody’s laugh or the way they look at you when they’re in doubt—its good stuff and its real stuff and if you can incorporate that into an interesting character its very enriching.

Q: Anymore, in this country, a highly successful actor has become the equivalent of royalty and the barometer to that level of success seems to be the level of harassment they receive from the paparazzi. That being said, what denotes a successful acting career in your eyes?

A: I think of the paparazzi as a nuisance myself. You think of people like Michael Jackson—some of the real icons—they cannot go anywhere without being bombarded by people. There is absolutely no privacy. I can see how they would wish to live in isolation. And money-wise, if you use that as an indication of success obviously they’ve got it, but who would want to live they way that they live. I like being around people, but I know that when we were shooting The Color Purple, if Michael (Jackson) was to visit the set we were all excited to meet him because he was very much involved with Quincy Jones at that time on several projects together. Before long word got around that he could not come because it would be too much of a disruption to the set, people are going to be following him and we thought, “That’s too bad.” Also, Whoopi Goldburg had just done her one-woman show for HBO, and I didn’t realize she had become so popular. We went to a concert for Patti LaBelle and Steven (Spielburg) insisted that she take his bodyguards because he wasn’t going to be in town for that weekend. Whoopi insisted; “Oh no I’m not going to need any body guards!” Well, we’re settling in for the concert, waiting for it to begin, and somebody discovered that she was in the audience, and this was before she had the notoriety that she has now—Oh my God—its seemed like the whole arena just came down on us—this mob that was just frightening to see come. Those experienced bodyguards just whisked her out of that area.

I’ve also had the experience when we went to screen The Color Purple in Alice Walker’s hometown, we were walking into the theater and there were all these people behind the ropes. I was walking a little too close to the ropes and some woman just grabbed my clothing, trying to rip it off me. I’m sure she was doing it to get a souvenir, but when you have this whole crowd of screaming people it can easily get out of hand because it can start feeding into the excitement of, maybe, somebody who wasn’t excited in the beginning but is now following along with the crowd—its like a riot. That’s very scary. So, would I like to have that happening to me all the time? No.

Q: There is a transition for some actors where acting goes from being your job to a livelihood to a Way of Life…

A: I would imagine that’s part of the upside or downside of you career choices. Everything has its upside and downside. People ask, “Don’t you get tired of people always referring to you as Shug?” The Color Purple was twenty-one years ago, and that’s a compliment. In one sense you ask, is that the only thing I’ve ever done? Well, no I was films and television for twenty years before The Color Purple and now its twenty years later, and I’ve still been working, but people remember me as Shug and I’ve come to accept that if that’s what they love about me then that’s okay, that’s a blessing. There are some many, many fine actors and people never remember them. I still get work because of being Shug (laughs). You accept what is, and just not let it get out of hand as far as letting it interfere with your personal life and know who you really are.

Q: You worked steadily during that period of cinema history we now call Blacksploitaion filmmaking…

A: Absolutely, I started out in that ear and was happy to get those films. It was like the beginning for black actors to work on film.

Q: We know that titles, or labels, for an era or time-period is a retroactive process, did you or your peer attribute a title to the type of films your were making at the time?

A: No, we were all glad for the opportunity to work. We were mostly experienced actors from theater. A lot of the actors were trained in New York. Myself, I’m a West Coast person and my training came from San Francisco and a lot of Free Theater in Los Angeles, though I did have a little training in New York. So, by the time we had the opportunity to do these films, we were trained actors first.

Q: Therefore, when you were working in this area of film, did you ever have a moment when you felt what the films called for was beneath you?

A: I think nudity was something I didn’t care to do. And at that time there wasn’t a lot of vulgarity as far as language—I think that just started within the last fifteen years. There was one incident where they were using a bible in the scene and I didn’t appreciate that and I did make a comment to the director and he said something like, “Oh, don’t be so prudish…” But I take religion seriously and I don’t think it should be integrated with entertainment all of the time.

Q: Tell us a little bit your acting background?

A: My mother, who was a hard-working, yet uneducated woman--she, when I was a child instilled in me that education was the most important thing. As a child I wanted to learn to dance and to sing and that to her was not acceptable, she felt; “Okay, we have enough black people dancing and singing and grinning—you need to be educated. It was always a priority that I go to college. In the 1960s women of color weren’t thinking about getting into corporate businesses or anything like that—black women—or all women, really, were looking at careers in teaching or nursing or social work. Those were basically the choices. So I chose Education.

My mom always told me, “Get your education first. No one can take that away from you...” So, I used that—I eventually did decide to go into acting, but I was substitute teaching during the day. I had four years of teaching experience before I decided to move to Los Angeles for film. I had taught first and second grade. That was one of the best things for me because it allowed me to work during he day as a substitute and then I did all these things at night in preparation for acting career—there was a lot of free theater, but you need money for your pictures and the acting classes, dance classes, voice training—its all very expensive. What else could I have done? I could have worked as a waitress, but that’s not always steady work either, and you’re depending on tips. At that time in the 60s and early 70s women of color didn’t have the same opportunities to work in the better restaurants and hotels as a waitress where you’re going to get more tips.

A lot of things have changed. I started out working about the time when credit cards were becoming common. At that time women couldn’t even get credit without a husband.

Once the Blacksploitation films started up, I was really ready. I had an agent at that time, they took me on, when they did sign me up, as a favor to a friend but they really didn’t think they would ever be able to cast me because Blacks weren’t on television, they weren’t in the movies other than Sydney Poitier and Cicely Tyson. Diane Carroll had a series but that was very rare. So when Black Exploitation films started up and it became Black Exploitation because we were exploited in the sense that it was the white producers, writers and directors getting the money and we were so anxious to work we didn’t quibble over not getting much money. Then they took the films and showed them in the black neighborhoods. So who was benefiting from the films? Yes, we were getting the experience, but you want to work for money too. That’s how exploitation started. As far as the films made today goes as long as people are being paid sufficiently then its not exploitation. If they’re not paying the actors or putting all the money in their pockets from the box office receipts or the video sales, then that’s exploitation—regardless of color—it’s the same thing.

Q: Coming up to the present, you appear in a new film, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins?

A: Yes, and its definitely not an exploitation film. I think everyone got decent money on this one—I know I did.

Q: Tell us a little about your experience in this film…

A: It was awesome. I think the director sets the tone for the set and my hat’s off to Malcom Lee or director/writer/producer. He came around each morning and personally said, “Hello,” and asked how you were and it was genuine. If you had any anxiousness sitting in that make-up chair before going out in front of the camera, it was kind of a soothing thing that occurred. And it was not only with the actors, it was a genuine feeling on that set with the crew all the way down from lighting to the people who handled the catering. With the actors, I never felt there as any competition among us, it was a true, wonderful, ensemble group. We genuinely liked each other and were happy for someone to come into a scene and give it that cap line that it needed. And Malcom welcomed that in anyone’s ability. You know, looking at that cast, you have quite a few comedians; Mike Epps or Monique—we just rolled with them. The problem was that Malcom couldn’t get some of them to pick up a line at the same place—they were all so spontaneous—so at the end of the scene we’re all laughing and they all wondering, “What did I do?” Which is a little different from actors—James Earl Jones and I would just look at each other in awe and thing, “Is this not incredible what these young people can do?” Sure, we brought to it a little more stability of the “old school” acting, but I was very excited and impressed to hear people say that they had learned from me, to hear Martin Lawrence say, “Gee, I’ve learned so much from you Ms. Avery.” That made me feel really good.

Q: A film you did several years, that received quite a bit of critical response, but appears to have not been re-issued on DVD was the PBS adaptation of Ursula Le Guins’ The Lathe of Heaven…

A: Oh, yes—Well, I actually got a notice from the public television broadcasters seeking permission to broadcast it again. It was one of the first films I ever did as a leading lady, acting across from Bruce Davidson. I saw it late one night on television. I’d fallen asleep and woke up to the sound of my own voice coming from the television. I looked up and all I could think was, “My God, look how little my waist was!”

Q: The film has since been remade and broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel, but its unfortunate that the earlier version has not found a more permanent audience, as your work in it was quite significant and effective.

A: That’s the thing about film acting. When we’re acting on stage, we get immediate response from the audience. But on film you just never know what the response was because we don’t have the contact with the audience in the same way.

Q: You recently visited Ghanna and that brought up some valuable revelations and insights for you.

A: This was more of my own adventure. I initially thought I’d try to visit Acusla Busla who played Nettie in The Color Purple. I remembered her, a couple of years before, saying I should come and visit. Eventually I did get to hook up with her, but only by happenstance—communication didn’t work out, giving her prior notice—she didn’t know I would be arriving until I was actually there. But as far as my experience there was concerned, going to Ghanna, I just can’t explain it. To see where my ancestors were in the slave caves and those dungeons, to look out on the ocean where slave ships came in to get them was indescribable.

Q: Is this an experience you are planning to utilize in some way in performance or writing?

A: I don’t know-- that remains to be seen. But I certainly understand now, if inner strength or a sense of faith or hope—if its passed from generation to generation, I can understand how I’ve gotten my strength to survive the many obstacles in life that I have. Can you imagine trying to survive such a traumatic event in you life? Fifty percent or more of those people taken in to slavery died of disease or whatever.

You sometimes must look at your past, to see where you’ve come from in order to see where you’re going to go. And I understand that so much better now. The whole experience has made me a much better person. And if you yourself can become a better person and share that part of yourself with someone else and help them—that’s the other part of me, being a psychotherapist. You kind of begin to understand who you are and why you are the way you are by the path that you’ve traveled. As a counselor and psychotherapist I think that you have to try to get into another person and understand their struggle. To have a little bit of empathy and not push them faster than they can go.


End.

Awesome Lady.