When I watch Showgirls, I think you’re having a great time — as if you’re acting in a different movie. I wish I could’ve seen the version of Showgirls that you’re acting in. Rather than the version that actually exists. Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Listen, Showgirls, to me, it’s a lesson in hypocrisy. As far as critics who just ripped it to shreds when it came out, and those same critics and journalists are still asking me about it today, 20 years later or however long it is. It was so fucking in fashion to say how bad it was, and now people have turned it into a cult classic. If people didn’t like it so much, why are they constantly asking me about it all the time? I find it kind of funny. It might have turned campy at moments, but at the end of the day, Paul Verhoeven is a good filmmaker. I thought the movie was going to be a little different than how it was at the very end, but you can’t worry about what people think. If I really hate a movie, I will turn it off in the middle, or I won’t turn it on again.
How do you feel about the fact that given the material in Killer Joe, you’re automatically looking at a limited audience? When you do something like that, or Prey for Rock & Roll, which also didn’t get a major release, is it frustrating to do good work and not have it be seen? Friedkin always knew Killer Joe was going to be NC-17. And he deserves to make whatever film he wants. He wanted to stay true to the script, and he wanted to go for it. He made no bones about it. Actually, I’m not sure, I thought it could be R-rated. But, I thought, “William Friedkin. Tracy Letts. This cast, this part. I’ll do it.” It’s a little bit frustrating, but it’s the nature of the beast with NC-17.
In the case of Prey For Rock and Roll, that was just a classic, tragic, sad case of the distributor not knowing and not caring how to release it. I was on the middle of a tour promoting it, and all of a sudden I found out it wasn’t in the theaters. They just wimped out. When it came out, it got really good reviews, but then it was gone and no one could find it.
It’s frustrating for so many independent films, because that’s what happens to them. I wish more people had seen that. That was the case with Bound too. It was marketed as kind of this weird lesbian movie, but it shouldn’t have been marketed that way. That left the theaters way too soon. It was people like Liz Smith and the critics saying “What happened to this movie? This is one of the best movies of this year.” And because of that people got it as [video] screeners, which unfortunately is the way a lot of people these days see movies.
The early days of being an actor must be impossible. The odds against success seem staggering. Yeah, you just want the opportunity to work. I was in the beginning of starting a theater company, Naked Angels, and we were happy to do plays and work all day and play baseball at night. I was happy when I got to act. If you go into it thinking about success and money, you’re in for a difficult time.
