JC: The manager of the building was gonna get you a bodyguard?
FB: What would the guy do, sit around and listen to music with me?
JC: I wonder if my landlord would do that for me.
FB: I just never grew up in L.A. and I think if you haven't grown up here, or lived here for a long time, being surrounded by the industry...you know, everybody's always looking at everybody and it's all about 'that' . And if you're not used to it, it's really intimidating.
JC: L.A. has a predatorial social thing.
FB: I like going out to clubs and stuff, but I'm not into schmoozing cause I'm just really...I'm just really bad at it. I can't work a room. You know, I just end up sitting in a corner and drinking wine and being really quiet I think it's just the wrong place for me to live.
JC: You're from Vancouver.
FB: Yeah, well...I lived in Vancouver until I was eight, and then, uh, moved to London, started working, and I stayed there woking in London and Paris until I was thirteen orfourteen. I went back to Canada and lived there kind of on and off. But I love London. In a lot of ways, because I spent like those really crucial growing up years working and living there...it kinda feels more like home than North America does, ya know? (Fairuza is kinda holding out on me. It's never said, but there's a man. He's around, he met me at the door. I think it's a thing. English accent. I think it may figure into the whole London situation. Of course I'm talking out of school here. I may know more. I'm pretty sure I do. But I'll leave it there.)
AMERICA'S IMPERFECT
JC: You off to do another movie soon?
FB: Fairly soon. In June I'm starting a movie called The
Maker with Mathew Modine. Directed by the guy who did The
Rivers Edger.
JC: Tim Hunter?
FB: Yeah. I've just got a little part which is perfect
right now. Just go in there and do it for a while. It's a
lot easier than going in for the whole shoot, thats for
sure. After that, I'm going to do a movie called American
Perfekt with Amanda Plummer.
JC: She's amazing.
FB: I'm like dying to work with her. It's a beautiful
script, I mean just brilliantly written. Hopefully, it's
going to be something I can just sink my teeth into, have
fun with. I just want to do something like, really simple
and challenging and fun...with people who really want to
be there, you know?
JC: You must get offered a lot of 'indie' films.
FB: Well, I mean...yeah. There's a lot of them going. I mean it's great because there's a lot more of a market for them now and that's excellent. The thing with independants that's so great, is that there's more a feeling of camaraderie, and it's a tight group of people who really want to be there. Otherwise they wouldn't be dealing with no craft service [food] and horrible weather under difficult conditions for no money. You do it because you love it. After The Craft and Dr Moreau I'm just burned out on big movies. It took a year and a half of work, constant, and it was just, yeahhgggff!! (The ashtray fills up as we chain-smoke in harmony. I feel bad I didn't see the movie she talks so much about. I'm not big on researching Bikini pieces. There's guilt. I light another cigarette.)
JC: So, what attracted you to doing the craft?
FB: Well...I'm trying to remember...The Craft was, I mean, I had the fun role. I got to be the bad guy, I've played loonies before, but no one thats been able to blow people up and send them flying through wall, you know. I just thought it would be good for laughs. You know, just to be a lunatic.
JC: Was it?
FB: Yeah, yeah. There was a lot of cool bits. But, I mean, working with special effects isn't what you think it is, it's hard.
JC: It's slow.
FB: Yeah it's slow, methodical. They do what they call plate shots with those super speed cameras and you have to do everything pefectly to the millimeter. Perfectly timed and perfectly done.It takes forever...and, for my character, it takes alot of energy to work yourself up into such a state that you could literally kill people. I just had to think about the most disturbing shit I could, until my brain was ready to crack into a million pieces.
JC: And for the special effect shots, you had to get into that state and kinda stay there?
FB: Well yeah, depending on what the shot was, what the scene was, I mean that was my character. She was, she got to progress, I mean. I mean, digress I should say. Or regress...I don't know.
JC: I think...progress.
(I mean, insanity seems like a progressive thing. For me.)
THE
GIRL NEXT DOOR IS A FUC*ING BORE
FB: [laughs] Yeah, progressive insanity. Not the girl
next door, that's for sure. But more fun. It's more fun
to be the bad guy and go nuts than to be the only one who's
pretty and perfect you know? [laughs, sarcastic] Like I
could do that anyway. I'm not built that way. That would
probably be the hardest thing for me to do actually. To
play the apple pie, you know... [sugary voice] "Hi."
That to me is the most psychotic.
JC: Agreed.
FB: Ya ever notice that it's the perfect people who
commit suicide, the people who go home and shoot their
kids?
JC: Yeah, they're missing all the fun.
FB: Betty Crocker types.
JC: It's always those perfect suburban homes where
the really wierd shit happens.
BOOK OF DEATH
FB: I got this great book for my birthday. The
Homicide Detective's Scrapbook., It's so gross, at the
same time it's awesome. They show a lot of...just
families. Like, the man comes home shoots the kids and
his wife and then he shoots himself.
(She runs to get the book...I think about the fact
that I'm sort of stuck out here on the porch. I wonder
what would happen if I asked if I could stay for a few
days, vomit, make a rude comment. I hate that I'm being
so well behaved. I'm charmed. Fairuza returns, book in
hand.)
