Interviews with director about "Sex and Death 101"!

Sorce:iFMagazine
Date:Jun 21, 2006
By ANTHONY C. FERRANTE

It's a hot Sunny, Southern California afternoon on the Paramount Pictures back lot as a group of geeky extras line-up outside of a faux Golden Apples comic book shop waiting for an autograph of a sexy pin-up played by Sophie Monk for the new dark comedy SEX AND DEATH 101.

Certainly writer-director Daniel Waters (who wrote the seminal black comedy HEATHERS) could pass for one of these geeky extras – and he even jokes about being kicked off his own set for not fitting the eye candy notion of a "director."

"I keep expecting a new P.A. on the set is going to round me up and lasso me and put me in the geek line," jokes Waters. "And I'm like, 'I'm the director,' and he's 'sure you are, everyone wants to direct, don't they. Your dream will one day come true.,"

In his new film, Waters poses the sci-fi-like question, "what if you received a list of every woman you have slept with and who you will eventually sleep with – what would you do?"

"I just thought 'wouldn't it be great if I fast-forwarded to the end of this story to see if I'm going to sleep with this woman or not,'" explains Waters.

The end result follows Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) who gets this mysterious list a week before his wedding and decides to eschew domesticity in place of searching out every woman on the list to find out if indeed the list is true. He soon finds himself falling for a woman not on the list – Death Nell (Winona Ryder) who turns out to be a psychopath, seducing men before putting them into a coma.

"Here's my thing," says Waters. "There's been more movies and TV shows about serial killers, then there has been serial killing, but, sex, as far as actual times it happens in movies that are about it and take it as seriously as people do in real life, is pretty non-existent. Not that I want to make a great serious movie about sex, but the only way to do it is through intelligent humor. I say this movie is as if Philip K. Dick and Phillip Roth did a movie together."

In a candid interview with iF, Waters discussed working on his new film, his previous life as a screenwriter for huge studio action films and his thoughts on his writing experience on BATMAN RETURNS and his version of CATWOMAN that was never made.

iF MAGAZINE: Did you take SEX AND DEATH 101 to the studios first?

DANIEL WATERS: I had a period in my life where I was doing all this crap at the studios, and I call this reinventing my naivete period. I realized, "fuck these mother fuckers, I'm going to write a bunch of scripts that are going to end up in a drawer, so when I kill myself, they can read these scripts and go 'he was a fucking genius.' " But then before I could commit suicide, Cary Brokow [from Avenue Pictures] read the script. I didn't write this to get made. It's the same thing I did with HEATHERS. If you write it to sell or get made it won't, so I wrote something not to get made.

iF: How was it working with Winona Ryder again after all these years?

WATERS: I thought it was a great idea with her from the beginning. She's definitely the delicate broken down version of the role. Whatever has been going on in her past, ties into with this role very interestingly. You're supposed to be freaked out by her. Winona has been gone for awhile, much like the character too. She’s the same exact person that I remembered working with. She's a little too into HEATHERS though, it's a little crazy. It's like being cornered by a really obsessed fan, but you're the star of the movie. I keep expecting her to ask, "what's it like to work with Winona." "You know you are Winona Ryder. I just want to make sure that it's clear." "Oh God, what a great film." "Really, are you allowed to say that out load?"

iF: Did you always want to be a director?

WATERS: Certainly when I wrote HEATHERS, I didn’t want to be a director. It's amazing how, the directors I've worked with who have all been pretty good ideas, things you think come naturally, they don't get. I realized, that directing is a form of writing and the craft of creating something.

iF: Now that you're directing your own material, are you pretty cruel to the writer as a director?
WATERS: Now I know why people hate me so much. I write these one and half page scenes, that need to be shot like a six-page scene. And the dialogue – "how do they expect actors to say this shit." Definitely, if it's not working when I'm shooting it, it's gone. Before when I was the writer, I would be "how dare you cut that scene, even if it’s not well performed you have to make it work." Now, it’s not meant to be.

iF: BATMAN RETURNS is still one of the better sequels, how do you feel about it in retrospect?
WATERS: When I visited the set, I was wheeled on there like Hannibal Lecter. I was having a bit of a disagreement with Tim at the time. I fulfilled my contract, but they brought in this guy Wesley Strick and I did want to go from theater to theater, telling people – "he put LOVE CONNECTION jokes in the movie." That was a dead reference even when the movie came out. And now you watch the movie again going "ahh, Alfred talking about the LOVE CONNECTION, thanks Wesley. Thanks buddy." The whole reinvention of the Catwoman character, I was given a lot of freedom in the initial conception of that thing. It's like, talk about committee, you have a lot of different [people]. Michael Keaton was still the only actor I’ve worked with he said "you're giving me too many lines, you've got to cut this out."

iF: BATMAN RETURNS took a beating when it came out, but people now look back on it fondly. Do you find that to be true?

WATERS: [BATMAN FOREVER and BATMAN & ROBIN director] Joel Schumacher gave me the best reviews of my career. I love the critics, after the other ones came out, "BATMAN RETURNS, that was a truly good [film]." Where were you guys, when it first came out. It did get good reviews, but the opinion of the movie really elevated after the other two movies came out.

iF: Weren't you the first person to attempt a CATWOMAN script?

WATERS: Yes, I did the first script. It was pretty outlandish. I liked Catwoman more than Batman as a character. So I basically wanted to remake BATMAN, only with no Batman, who was the most problematic character, which some people said I did with BATMAN RETURNS anyway. "If we can just get rid of this Batman guy, I think we got an idea boys." But Tim wanted to do an intimate, $12 million movie of CATWOMAN, like the original CAT PEOPLE. Between the two of us, the studio was like, "we don't want to make either of these." Mine took place in the Arizona version of Gotham City. It was a town run by three obnoxious super heroes, but they end up being villains. The first scene was her at a support group, but it did end with a lot of women in CATWOMAN outfits. It's a lot like the Winona character [in SEX AND DEATH] who ends up being a serial killer we can all relate to.

iF: So it was very different from the Halle Berry version of CATWOMAN?

WATERS: Oh my god, there was a truck going "beep beep," backing up [at my house] and 900 scripts fell on my front lawn and [the studio was] like, "do you want to arbitrate," and I went to the last one and I went "noooo, please don't give me credit. Whatever you do, anything."

iF: What is the key to a successful black comedy?

WATERS: You can't please everyone. A real dark comedy, has to make the audience go "that wasn't funny," at least four times. You have to know the movie has the ability to go too far, so it keeps you unsettled the rest of the way. It's funny, with HEATHERS, I've been made to feel very old, when people act like I wrote HIS GIRL FRIDAY. "Hey, it's the old guy, you wrote the good old comedies back in the day. HEATHERS that was a great one. They don't make them like that." I still don't get tired of taking a complement. SEX AND DEATH 101 has nothing to do with teenagers, nothing to do with high school, but I think it’s a good time for a movie about sexuality and hopefully the time will be right.

SEX AND DEATH 101 is due out in 2007.

from FMagazine.

Baker Draws A Blank In Sex

Source:SCI FI Wire
Date:20-June-2006
By Patrick Lee

Simon Baker, who stars in writer/director Daniel Waters' upcoming surreal comedy film Sex and Death 101, told SCI FI Wire that Waters gave him DVDs of foreign films from Luis Buñuel, François Truffaut and others to give him idea of the offbeat movie's tone. "Yeah, there were a lot of strange movies," the Australian-born Baker (Land of the Dead) said in an interview on the film's set at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles last week.

Among the films he had to watch: Buñuel's 1972 French-language comedy The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Truffaut's 1968 Stolen Kisses. "A couple of Fellini films," Baker added. "Dan did this cool thing when I first signed on to the film. He sat down and he gave me [these movies]. I said, 'Look, any kind of reference stuff that you want to look at as far as tonally with the film—performance, tone and stuff— ... tell me.' Because I think [tone is] the biggest problem with a lot of films."

In Sex and Death 101, Baker plays a successful man named Roderick Blank, who receives a mysterious e-mail on the eve of his wedding with a list of all the women he has slept with—and all the women he will ever sleep with.

"The basis [of the movie] is kind of a bit real, but then it has a sci-fi element to it, and then it's got ... a little broad ... fantasy aspect to it, and [it] goes all over the place," Baker said. "But it has to merge in a real place. ... So [Dan] gave me all these references and all these DVDs, and on the backs he put these cards, ... what the references were, why he wanted to look at this, the tone of that or the performance in the third act: 'This character in the third act reminds me of Blank, because he's a blank. He's a blank slate.' And the whole idea here is that the character is kind of blank. It's like he's sort of empty without this list, this desire, this thing. It cleans him right out, in a sense. He's not rooted into who he really is." Sex and Death 101, which also stars Winona Ryder, is currently in production.


From SCI FI Wire .

Waters Talks Sex And Death

Source:Sci Fi Wire
Date:19-JUNE-06
By Patrick Lee

Daniel Waters, writer and director of the upcoming surreal black comedy Sex and Death 101, told SCI FI Wire that he made the film in part because there aren't enough good American movies about sex anymore."I just find that there are so few movies about sex in general," Waters said in an interview on the film's set at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on June 15. "It seems like there's either the pretentious, boring, Eyes Wide Shut kind of thing, or the dorky ... movies written by people who don't really know what sex is, like American Pie or something like that. ... But the thing is if you go back to the '70s, you had movies like Shampoo, Diary of a Mad Housewife, ... they were great movies, and they ... weren't, like, Laemmle Sunset Five [art house] movies, either."

Sex and Death 101 stars Simon Baker (Land of the Dead) as Roderick Blank, a successful entrepreneur who, on the eve of his wedding, gets an anonymous e-mail with a list of all the women he's had sex with—and all the women he will ever have sex with. As he tries to find out who the names on the list are, he finds himself pursued by a female serial killer named Death Nell (Winona Ryder, who starred in Waters' early film Heathers).

Ironically, Waters said, "there's been more movies ... and TV shows about serial killers than there has been serial killing. But sex, you know, as far as actual times it happens and actual movies that are about it and take it seriously as people do in real life, [those] are pretty nonexistent, you know? ... Not that I want to make the great serious movie about sex. But I think that the only way to do it is through humor, and kind of intelligent humor. I mean, I call this movie 'If Philip K. Dick and Philip Roth did a book together, it would be like this.' And I will leave you on that one." Sex and Death 101, which also stars Julie Bowen and Dash Mihok, is currently in production under Cary Brokaw's Avenue Pictures. Also producing are Sandbar principals Lizzie Friedman and Greg Little.

From Sci Fi Wire.

Baker Ready For More Dead

Source:Sci Fi Wire
Date:19-JUNE-06
By Patrick Lee

Simon Baker, who starred in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead, told SCI FI Wire that he's eager to do another one of the legendary director's zombie movies, though none is currently in the works. "Yeah, I love George," Baker said in an interview on the set of his new film, Sex and Death 101, at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles on June 15. "I love that movie."

The 2005 Land of the Dead, the latest installment in Romero's zombie series, ended with the hint that more stories were to come. "I know the idea of it was always—and I think that most of George's films do this—the whole idea is the main curse is never solved," Baker said. "It's about the different periods of time in history with the plague, with this plague that doesn't go away."

In Land of the Dead, the Australian-born Baker (TV's The Guardian) played Riley, the reluctant leader of a band of human survivors of a worldwide plague that has turned the dead into walking, flesh-eating corpses. But Baker said that the movie worked also as an allegory of the current political situation. "I just love the socio-political sort of [ideas]," he said. "You know, the allegory of his films. It's funny, because so many people—all my highbrow friends—[said], 'God you did a zombie movie? And now you're doing like a sex comedy? Aren't you scared to do these movies?' And I sort of feel that ... I've got plenty of time to settle into the rocking chair and safe, comfy parts. Drink the same beer every day [laughs]. I like the thrill of it. and George was like a trip to me. He's such a cool cat."

In Sex and Death 101, written and directed by Daniel Waters (Heathers), Baker plays a man on the eve of his wedding who receives an e-mail with a list of all the women he's slept with—and all the women he will sleep with in the future. It's currently in production.

From Sci Fi Wire .

Plot and description about "Smith"

SMITH (CBS)
(Tuesdays at 10:00/9:00c this fall)

The network's description: "SMITH (Tuesday, 10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) stars Emmy Award winner Ray Liotta ("ER," "Goodfellas,") as a criminal mastermind in a drama about a close-knit crew of career criminals who plot and execute intricate and ingenious high-stakes heists across the country. Though Bobby Stevens (Liotta) appears to be a regular family man with a nine-to-five job, he's actually an expert thief who is seeking just two or three more big jobs so he can finally leave the business for a comfortable, lawful lifestyle with his wife, Hope (Academy Award nominee Virginia Madsen, "Sideways"). Bobby's second family, his core band of partners, each bring their own areas of expertise to pulling off the biggest and most sophisticated armed robberies. The FBI is determined to catch the team but is most interested in capturing "Smith," the crew's mysterious leader and the brains behind the entire operation. It remains to be seen whether Bobby will be able to extricate himself in time from the scores that give him such a rush, or if his retirement will be a forced one -- behind bars. Jonny Lee Miller ("Trainspotting"), Franky G ("Saw II"), Simon Baker ("The Guardian") and Amy Smart ("Felicity") also star."

What did they leave out: Chris Bauer, Michelle Hurd and Shohreh Aghdashloo all have recurring roles - the former two as F.B.I. agents pursuing the team and the latter as Charlie, Bobby's fence.

The plot in a nutshell: We open on Bobby Stevens (Ray Liotta) and his team (all wearing white masquerade masks) as they scramble to escape the police - one of them mortally wounded by several gunshots. We then jump back an hour to see the actual heist - a museum, more specifically several paintings (including a Rembrandt). Things appear to be going flawlessly, that is until one of the unaccounted for guards decides to be a hero. We then pull back a full three weeks as several vignettes (complete with title cards) give us a formal introduction to the crew. There's Bobby and his in-the-dark (?) wife Hope (Virginia Madsen), who seem to be living the perfect suburban existence (complete with cute kids and the prerequisite house on a cul de sac); Jeff (an awesome Simon Baker) who's enjoying a relaxing day of surfing; Tom (Jonny Lee Miller), just released from prison and ready to get back in the game; Joe (Franky G), a nice-guy body shop owner; Shawn (Mike Doyle), Joe's friend who's an in-debt-to-his-eyeballs gambler (not to mention whose wife just happens to be making googly-eyes at Joe); and Annie (Amy Smart), a Vegas showgirl running credit card scams. Text messages from Bobby assemble the crew and we learn their respective roles - Bobby's the planner, Jeff's the guns, Tom's the alarms, Joe's the wheel man, Shawn's the tech and Annie is the distraction. And so we march toward the inevitable link up with the pilot's opening moments, during which we get the full picture of the characters' relationships, how things went down and who didn't make it.

What works: This is 100% not the show you'd expect based on the above, not to mention 100% not what you'd expect from John Wells or CBS. First and foremost is the show's lean, methodical pace - everything just clicks, plain and simple. Not a word is wasted, nor a scene overplayed. It's basically "Heat" if it was told entirely from Robert De Niro's character's perspective. Half of the show's fun is just watching the skill of Bobby's crew - not to mention that of the actors, Wells as a writer and Christopher Chulack as a director. The other half is the surprise that for the most part Bobby and his crew are portrayed as genuinely bad people. Hell, Baker's Jeff and Smart's Annie are both essentially sociopaths. Baker alone has two major "are they seriously having his character do this" moments, while an early misstep by Smart's character is explained by the last possible scenario you'd think of. After NBC's "Heist" and FX's "Thief," we finally have "the" show about thieves.

What doesn't: No complaints - between this and NBC's "Friday Night Lights," Tuesdays are going to be a lot more fun this fall.

The challenges ahead: Can "Smith" take down NBC's "Special Victims Unit," the "Law & Order" franchise's top draw?

From the futon critic .

Sex and Death 101" Begins Production

Sorce:Dark Horizons
Date:June 12th, 2006
By Garth Franklin

Principal Photography has begun in Los Angeles on the audacious romantic comedy, SEX AND DEATH 101, directed by renowned screenwriter Daniel Waters, and starring Simon Baker and Winona Ryder.

Produced by Cary Brokaw's Avenue Pictures and Sandbar Pictures, the film reunites Winona Ryder with Daniel Waters, the screenwriter of HEATHERS, which helped establish her as the edgy "it" girl for Generation X.

Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) is a successful modern man, content with his personal and professional life. A week before his wedding to a suitably stuffy fianc嶪, however, Roderick's perfectly planned existence is upended by a mysterious piece of technology that e-mails him a list of every woman he has ever had sex with -- but the list keeps going. Roderick realizes that the List also contains the names of every woman he EVER WILL have sex with.

Like a psychosexual GROUNDHOG DAY, Roderick is put through an odyssey that initially inspires awe in the viewer (Playmates, Private School Girls, a Lesbian Astronaut) but soon turns into comic terror.

Roderick falls in love with a lovely angel...but she's tragically not on the List. He also crosses paths with Death Nell (Winona Ryder), a media sensation femme fatale who seduces men before putting them into fairy-tale-style comas...tragically, this dangerous woman IS on the List. The literal bedtime story takes some dark twists, but Roderick eventually learns to stop fighting the List and give up his need for control. Sometimes you have to go all the way through Immorality to truly get to Morality and peace of mind...

SEX AND DEATH 101 stars Golden Globe nominee Simon Baker (TV's THE GUARDIAN, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, THE RING TWO) as Roderick Blank, a successful executive and 'ladies man' whose life is turned around by an email that includes the names of everyone he's had sex with and ever will have sex with. Oscar?nominee and Golden Globe winner Winona Ryder (THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, LITTLE WOMEN) stars as 'Death Nell,' the mysterious femme fatale who becomes a revered urban folk hero when she targets men guilty of sex crimes against women.

Leslie Bibb (TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY), Julie Bowen (TV's BOSTON LEGAL) and Australian pop sensation Sophie Monk (CLICK, DATE MOVIE) star as women on the long list of Baker's libidinous conquests, and Mindy Cohn (TV's THE FACTS OF LIFE) is Baker's accommodating assistant Trixie, Rounding out the cast as Baker's friends and co-workers are Dash Mihok (KISS KISS, BANG BANG) and Neil Flynn (TV's SCRUBS).

An Avenue Pictures and Sandbar Pictures production, SEX AND DEATH 101 is written and directed by Daniel Waters (HEATHERS, BATMAN RETURNS). Avenue's Cary Brokaw (CLOSER, ANGELS IN AMERICA) produces the film with Sandbar's Lizzie Friedman (A VIEW FROM THE TOP, RUNNING WITH THE BULLS) and Greg Little (MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP, DREAM LAND). Avenue executive vice president Aaron Craig Geller is the executive producer. Co-producer is Jerry Jacobs. The director of photography is Daryn Okada (MEAN GIRLS, JUST LIKE HEAVEN), the production designer is John Larena (ALEX & EMMA), the costume designer is Julia Caston (EUROTRIP, BOILER ROOM), and the editor is Trudy Shipp (101 DALMATIANS, MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS).

SEX AND DEATH 101 will be released theatrically in Spring 2007.

From Dark Horizons.

Hollander to make Pittsburgh-set pilot for TNT

From:Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Date: May 22, 2006
By Rob Owen

David Hollander, the Mt. Lebanon native who created CBS's 2001-04 Pittsburgh-set legal drama "The Guardian," received an order Friday from TNT to film a pilot episode of a new Pittsburgh-set drama, "Heartland." The proposed series is about a transplant doctor.

"It is a character-driven piece about relationships that are drawn through the transplant community," Hollander said last week. "It's primarily an intense look at relationships both inside the transplant community and outside, looking at the recipients and donor families."

Hollander wrote the script for the pilot and is planning to direct.

The primary characters include a transplant surgeon and his ex-wife, an organ recovery coordinator. No actors have been cast in the pilot so far. If TNT executives are pleased with how the pilot turns out, they could order a first season (likely 13 episodes).

Hollander said it's possible TNT could insist on changing the location from Pittsburgh, but he's pushing for his hometown. He'd like to find an abandoned hospital in which to film the series, maybe even in Pittsburgh, although he admits that's unlikely.

"There are many scenarios that could play out. One is a very long shot: If the city can make it affordable to move the entire thing there and make it there, we would," he said. "We're looking for a city that will host the show permanently. But if we get big stars, it's hard to believe we can shoot it there."

Brand-name actors generally don't like to stray too far from Los Angeles or Vancouver, where many cable series film due to Canadian tax incentives that lower production costs.

"If Pittsburgh can make the best deal, we'll come, but I think the state is not quite ready to incentivize this filmmaking budget," Hollander said of Pennsylvania's limited tax incentives for movies and TV shows. "There are states -- and clearly Canada -- that are prepared to give [the studio] money back in different ways that take 15 to 25 percent right off your budget."

Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office, said she's trying to convince Warner Bros., which will produce "Heartland" for TNT, to come to Pittsburgh.

"We've been working with David and Warner Bros. Television, and we're hopeful that combined with the new Pennsylvania incentives and the great reputation Pittsburgh has, we will soon be seeing 'Heartland' filmed in Pittsburgh," Keezer said Friday.

If the series doesn't film here, Hollander said, he'd like to do what he did on "The Guardian" and bring the cast to town to film scenes once or twice a season -- if he can work such trips into the show's budget. (The budgets for cable series are generally lower than those for series on broadcast networks.)

After "The Guardian," Hollander had scripts purchased by several broadcast networks, but the projects never got as far as a pilot order. He thinks his odds of getting "Heartland" on the air are better at TNT.

"They'll probably only green light two pilots out of their development [roster], so your odds are much, much better than at a major network," Hollander said. "There's no guarantee, but certainly it feels more secure to me."

From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette .

Baker's about-turn to keep up with Smith

From:Sydney Morning Herald
Date:June 9, 2006

No sooner had heart-throb Simon Baker and his wife Rebecca Rigg come home to Sydney after a decade in America than, PS discovers, they and their three children are heading back to Hollywood.

A former Sanctuary Cove pool boy, Baker has already returned to the US to start shooting a new television series called Smith, being made by the team behind the hugely successful ER series for Warner Bros.

Smith deals with the inner workings of a team of criminals, with Baker playing a larrikin, laid-back surfer dude by day, and a shrewd crook by night. He co-stars in the new series with Ray Liotta.

It was only a week after jetting back into Australia last November that Baker and his wife bought a home. The actor, who has made a slew of big-budget Hollywood films and achieved widespread fame in the US following his role in The Guardian, spent about $2.5 million on a five-bedroom, three-level Paddington terrace.

However, the bright lights of Hollywood have called him back to the US, where he is receiving rave reviews for his role in the Meryl Streep film The Devil Wears Prada, which is reportedly based on the life of the US Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Baker plays plays a staff writer for New York magazine.

According to The New York Times: "There is nothing slight about Mr Baker in Prada, even though his role is secondary. Amid the over-the-top fabulosity of the movie's fashionistas, his Christian [Thompson] is the one wholly believable character. He's the kind of smooth, ambitious journalist who does serious work if the assignment calls for it but will happily sell his soul, brain and maybe even his body for a shot at big-time bucks and glamour."

From Sydney Morning Herald.

Ryder back with Waters for indie 'Sex'

From: Hollywood Reporter
Date:June 02, 2006
By Sheigh Crabtree


Winona Ryder is reuniting with Daniel Waters, who wrote "Heathers" and helped establish Ryder as the edgy "it" girl for Generation X.

Ryder has signed on to star as a feminist vigilante who becomes an urban folk hero in "Sex and Death 101," which Waters wrote and is directing.

The story follows a man (Simon Baker) whose life is upended by a mysterious e-mail containing the 101 names of every woman he has had sex with and, eerily, every woman he will have sex with in the future. He is stopped in his tracks when he meets Ryder, a femme fatale who targets men guilty of sex crimes against women.

Julie Bowen ("Boston Legal") also has joined the cast and will play No. 29 on the long list of Baker's libidinous conquests. Dash Mihok ("Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang") is on board to play Lester, one of Baker's best friends.