DAZED AND CONFUSED

In 1998 Sam Rockwell and Parker Posey sat down with some print questions. Instead of an interviewer they talked to each other, occasionally referring to the questions. What resulted is the following conversation published in Dazed & Confused, July 1998.

Parker Posey and Sam Rockwell met in their early twenties at a New York theater workshop. Seven years on, they catch up on old times, appropriately on a stage in a lower east side cafe. Since their initial meeting, during the i ncipient stages of their careers, they have become 2 of the most prolific and hard-working actors in indie film. Rockwell has notched up 20 film appearances, Posey a grand total of 23.

Sam Rockwell is best known in the UK for his portrayals of societal rejects and outsiders. In Tom De Cillo's Box of Moonlight and in the highly acclaimed Lawndogs.

Like many New York based actors, Rockwell served his apprenticeship in theater, and still frequently works on stage. The most recent play with which he was involved was an off-broadway production of Mike Leigh's Goosepimples. His forthcoming film releases include A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Woody Allen's Celebrity.

Parker Posey will shortly be seen in Greg Mottola's excellent feature debut, The Daytrippers, which is released in the UK on July 24th. She also appeared in the Sundance Film Festival hit, Party Girl and in Richard Linklater's films Suburbia and Dazed and Confused.

Her future releases include Hal Hartley's latest film, Henry Fool, Clockwatchers, and The Misadventures of Margaret, which was shot in London last year. Parker Posey in now planning to move to London to be with her boyfriend, actor Stuart Townsend.

sam: sam rockwell
parker: parker posey

parker: So we met about 7 or 8 years ago..
sam: For that reading.
parker: For a reading at a theater. sam: Yeah, it was at EST and Parker was...
parker: I was in school. What was that play, do you remember?
sam: You know, that was a really good play, it was a funny play. We played these 2 people, these 2 junkies.
parker: [laughs] Oh really? I don't remember.
sam: I remember, you couldn't care less. You came in and you had a cold and I was really impressed with you. I'd prepared for it, and I was really overly anxious in the performing. See, I'd done the reading before, when we did a workshop, and when they ended up casting it, they cast someone else in the part, man!

parker: Don't you hate that? That happens a lot.
sam: It does. And I was good in that part, it was a good team. It's kind of Sid and Nancy vibe. Coming in and just destroying everything.
parker: That's been done though.
sam: It has been done.

parker: Why do you think those movies are done so much? In independent films?
sam: You mean like...
parker: Suicidal junkies, killers.
sam: Well, you know, people love that shit. Bonnie and Clyde. It's old. People love chaos and rebellion I guess. But it gets old.
parker: And there's no redemption.
sam: No character evolve. They just fuck and suck and shoot. It's true, there's a lot of that shit. I think people are starting to get tired of it.

parker: Do your people talk about you being over exposed? Or "you really shouldn't work so much"? sam: No, I haven't gotten that. I'm all for waving the flag for independent movies, but a lot of them just don't get seen. I'm just finding that I'm over that. Art has to be seen. You can't put art in the closet or there's no point. You can do Hamlet in your kitchen, but who cares? Only you are going to see it. You need recognition. It's part of the human condition. It's sad. Lawndogs just died here in New York.

parker: Did it?
sam: Yeah, it's making me sad. I think it's doing better in LA. What do you think about that?
parker: [pause] I don't really care, you know.
sam: You don't care, well that's good. Maybe I should be more like that. Anyway... [reading] choices in film, do you choose or are you chosen?
parker: I think you are chosen don't you?
sam: I think chosen, yeah.

parker: I can't make anything happen. It just doesn't work. You know, the last fim I auditioned for was over a year and a half ago. I can't audition, it's really hard.
sam: You're out of practice?
parker: Yeah, I feel stupid.
sam: It's a separate skill. It's not acting. It's a separate skill .. you feel stupid?
parker: Phoney!
sam: You know, I always want them to come to my apartment. Let me audition you. Let me watch your movies. I'll see how I feel.
parker: [laughs] Right!
sam: Because it's a totally unnatural and cruel process. The good directors, quite often the directors that are not in this country, will give you more than a second chance.

parker: What plays have you done, have you done a lot of theater?
sam: Yeah, I've done theater since I was 10, I just did that play. It was a Mike Leigh play, it was great.
parker: Oh, I wanted to see that.

sam: [reading] Are you more confident now, in yourself and you abilities?
parker: Yeah, It's like it gets deeper, it gets more complex.
sam: Yeah, It's more complex, and I think you become more skillful, but when you're young, you're fearless.
parker: How old are you?
sam: I'm almost..I'm 29
parker: Me too.
sam: You just blow it out your ass when you're 18. You just don't care.

parker: But I think there are things you go through personally that make you more well-rounded. More thinking and sensitive.
sam: Yeah, definitely. therapy, whatever, yeah, I feel less confident. It's interesting, why is that? That shouldn't be.
parker: Well I think if you felt completely confident then you would probably stop.
sam: Do a Brando, go to an island and get fat.
parker: That's sounding kind of appealing to me right now though. [laughs]
sam: Doesn't it? Eat grapes and just...
parker: Exactly!

sam: [reading] What does independent really mean? I don't know. What the hell does independent really mean?
parker: Well independent of producers, when the director has his own thing and doesn't have to answer to the people with money.
sam: Yeah, I think that's what it comes down to. But when is that really ever true?
parker: It's not. It's geting worse.
sam: It's getting really bad. Did you hear about this--
parker: [cuts in] Yes!
sam: You know what I'm about to say?
parker: Yeah.
sam: American Psycho?
parker: Yeah.
sam: How did you know I was going to say that?
parker: Because it's a horrifying story.
sam: It's horrifying! And I was I Rome with Christian Bale, he was getting ready for the part.
parker: I did the reading with him.
sam: And the director was canned too.
parker: Mary Harron, yeah.

sam: This is despicable. And Di Caprio proabaly doesn't even know. Probably the word was out that he was looking for a dark part.
parker: And the producers decided to offer it to him.
sam: Motherfucking scumbags! I have no qualms about saying that.
parker: Well they made like a low-budget movie into a $40 million movie which changes the whole thing.
sam: They took this part away from Christian and Mary Harron. Tom Di Cillo held out for me for 4 years when people were throwing names at him.
parker: For Box of Moonlight?
sam: For Box of Moonlight... he held out for me. and that's a story where...
parker: they fight for you, Yeah.
sam: Yeah, that's a good story

parker: Is there any way that there can be culture in entertainment?
sam: Well, what is culture first of all? Culture meaning art? Yeah I think that they can be mixed. But the media does seem to separate them. And the economy separates it. The fact that movies are on to making money fucks everything up. Because choices are made based oo who's doing it at the box office.
parker: Right, there's a lot of video going on in galleries. People being more experimental, working with Hal Hartley. He wants to shoot on video from now on with little cameras. He'd done some amazing stuff.

sam: [reading] first films you both saw, favorite films. The first film I saw was King Kong and West World. What did you see?
parker: I don't remember. Maybe Bride of Frankenstein.
sam:
Bride of Frankenstein
, that's a great movie.
parker: Yeah, my dad took me. So funny, and my aunt reminded me of Madeleine Kahn. Did you ever see this cartoon called The Point? sam: No, what's that?

parker: Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr narrated it. It's amazing. It's about a boy who has a round head in a land where everyone has a pointed head. He doesn't fit in and his mother knits him a pointed cap. And he's banished to the pointless forest because he gets in fights with the king's son.
sam: Did he take his hat off?
parker: They have a competition. He doesn't win, so he's banished. So he's sent to the pointless forest, which is like the real world. And it's no different from where he was.
sam: Yeah.
parker: But he goes on this little journey and he comes back. And he's like 'There's really no point, there's no point!' It's cute, but I feel that a lot about everything now. Like, what's the point? Like something like this? Like what does it matter? The pointless forest is like the film business.
sam: It's true. It doesn't matter. I've been feeling that way. You know the only reason I'm worried about working now is because my overheads are higher. My rent is twice as much, but before that, I didn't care about working. I preferred not to work. Then you get caught in that whole thing about working for money, which never worked for me. You do it for the money, you get fucked everytime.

parker: Do you feel you now have more or less of a drive to work?
sam: Thats a good question, what about you?
parker: Less of a drive.
sam: Yeah, I would say so too. You know there's a period when you're unemployed, when you're a struggling actor, when you refuel I think, artistically and spiritually. You work really hard on something and then you go through this period when you don't want to work. Then all of a sudden, you're not working. And you start to get hungrier and hungrier, and you're dying to work on something.

parker: Yeah, if you don't have something to struggle with... right now I find I'm struggling more with internal things. You kind of have to keep some kind of struggle. Whether it's how you perceive things, or how hard you work. Because you can't really create anything if there is no struggle internally.
sam: That's right.
parker: I think that's why I worked so hard in the past. But see, I don't even consider it work, because I like to travel and just to see things and see the people I like the movie set life. I think it's really fun.
sam: you like it?
parker: Yeah, just to hang out and to...
sam: That's really good, see I don't like it. I find it tedious.

parker: But now that I've fallen in love, it's not as important.
sam: That's because you want to hang out with the man, sounds good, sounds like you're going to refuel, in a way.
parker: It's like my life is going to be pushed in a whole other direction, it's crazy to feel though... you know?
sam: Yeah, I'll bet you're scared. Why not? It's natural, you have to be, I mean you life is completely changing, but it'll be fantastic.

parker: I'm really looking forward to it. It's just I'm really relieved to have some real life come into my life and that my experience emotionally wouldn't have to be through characters of story. Because there was a time when I'd wrap a film and I couldn't stop writing it in my head I got so attached. Everything just seemed totally chaotic. You know, real life doesn't have any order. But the film world does because you know everything about the story. You know everything about the character. Everything's figured out. So it's weird to have some kind of uncontrollable life in a way. But it'll be good to get away from here. Because they don't care as much about showbiz as they do over here. It's like it's everything. Everyone aspires to be a movie star in American, not everybody but...
sam: I know, I get sucked up into that, its horrible.....

parker: What's your favorite film?
sam: My favorite film is the Deerhunter and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Taxi Driver and Little Big Man.
parker: Oh, I love that, that's a great movie
sam: What about you, what's your favorite movie?
parker: Oh [pause] Night of the Hunter.
sam: Night of the Hunter? That's with Robert Mitchum, I've never seen that.
parker: OH, it's so good. And Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe. I love that.
sam: OH, that's a great fucking movie.

parker: 2001, I love that.
sam: Kubricks' got his own category, those are really good choices. What else? You know what movie comes to mind? Deliverance, so what else?
parker: One of the first movies I saw, that I was excited to see, that you could act ina movie like this was My Dinner with Andre.
sam: Oh man, I love that movie. I was mesmerised. I was a baby, I was a kid.

parker: [reading] who do you respect? [laughs]
sam: Richard Pryor.
parker: George Carlin.
sam: I respect a lot of people, the list goes on and on, I respect carpenters, plumbers..
parker: I respect people in the medical field.
sam: I just watched a show last night. The real ER totally! Oh my god, to be a doctor. Those people work so hard.

parker: [reading] Do you still get jealous of other actors?
sam: oh yeah.
parker: Who?
sam: I get jealous of actors that are good. But I'm not ultimately jealous of their careers... it's a tough question, it's tough to be honest. What about you?
parker: Um, I think I'm too self entered to be jealous [laughs].
sam: That's a good answer.

parker: There's too much going on. Do you know what I mean? And I have a twin brother, so it's like I always hated competition. I don't like to compare myself.
sam: I'm an only child... totally different, You're a scorpio though... I'm a scorpio.
parker: When's your birthday?
sam: My birthday is [pause] when is that? Oh, November 5th.
parker: November 8th, yeah, we mask, we trick. Are you a trickster?
sam: I hide, definitely. Seemingly extroverted but really not.
parker: Exactly. Complete opposite of what I present myself as.
sam: You present yourself as an extrovert.
parker: It's completely opposite of who I really am.
sam: You just want to crawl into a shell. Yes, me too. Jealous of other actors... we don't want to answer that question.

parker: [reading] the media frenzy at sundance, does it change your perception of yourself?
sam: Yeah, I suppose.
parker: How do you perceive yourself?
sam: I'm a god [laughs] no, I'm a worthless piece of slime, no, I don't know.

parker: Do you know what bothered me about all that kind of media stuff was that everyone was like, god, you've done all these movies, blah, blah, blah, as if it's something bad or as if I did it to achieve something, instead of just doing it because...
sam: You like it, you like the characters.
parker: It's interesting that you've done just as many films and they don't push that angle on you. But I think me being a woman they see it as odd.
sam: That you're overly ambitious, is that what you mean?
parker: Yeah I think so, or crazy.
sam: That's ridiculous because you do movies that make no money.

parker: What are you afraid of, Sam?
sam: I'm afraid of everything.
parker: Me too, are you afraid of yourself?
sam: Sure, what about you?
parker: Yeah, it's the only thing to be afraid of really.
sam: I'm afraid of losing sleep sometimes.
parker: you don't get enough sleep?
sam: I just fear it for some reason.
parker: Sleeping?
sam: Sleeping, yeah, what about you? Any fears like that?
parker: I used to, I just feel so different now. I found love [laughs] nothing else matters, everything seems meaningless.
sam: How long you been with Stuart?
parker: 6 months.

sam: My first time I went to London it was to catch a girl. It was like nine years ago during Thanksgiving.
parker: What happened?
sam: Well I knew she was going with this other guy and I went to get her back. She was doing Shakespear in London and she met another American. So I went out there to grab her, to nab her... it didn't work out but...
parker: Oh.
sam: But it was a good experience. I think it was kind of a selfish act on my part to go there when she didn't really want me there and just kind of make a scene and be like overly...
parker: [laughs] Dramatic?

sam: It was more for me then her. But the power of love is intense. Or the power of the reverse of that.
parker: Of being alone?
sam: Abandoned, it can make you do crazy things, like fly across the Atlantic.
parker: I know, I'm moving to London to be with him. It's crazy but it's right.
sam: The flip side is devastating, when your heart gets broken. I'm a pessimist.

parker: Have you had a lot of broken hearts?
sam: I always break them before it's too late. I had my heart broken once.
parker: I think love is the scariest thing. Love is really the ultimate.
sam: I've cheated myself a lot. I had some pretty good women who slipped through becaues I was too stupid.
parker: No, maybe they weren't the right ones. You both have to be ready for it. You have to go deeper.
sam: It's heavy.

parker: [reading] is there anything about your careers so far that either of you regret?
sam: No.
parker: No.
sam: Even when I get fired, it all happens for a reason.
parker: Exactly.