This is part one of a two part interview with the director.
A little of back ground history on Sebastián Gutiérrez, he was born September 10, 1974 and is an award-winning Venezuelan-American film director, screenwriter, film producer and occasional actor. He won the Critics' Award at the Festival du Film Policier de Cognac for his directorial debut Judas Kiss.
We talked about the film Elektra Luxx, how the casting process was, the third film in the series and if its going to happen. Make sure to go out and see this film!
You can watch the internet exclusive film Girl Walks Into A Bar, now the entire film is streaming on YouTube. Touted as the “First Major Motion Picture Made For The Internet,” Girl Walks Into A Bar has a large cast including Carla Gugino (of course), Zachary Quinto, Josh Hartnett, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Robert Forster, and Alexis Bledel.
Enjoy the interview and the Movie after the Jump...
The first question I ask is can you give me some background on the character of ELEKTRA LUXX, the film for people who are unfamiliar with the movie and characters.
The movie before this is called Women In Trouble, and you did not have to necessarily have to have seen the previous film to understand this story. That film (Women In Trouble) is about ten different women one day in LA. In various phrases as the title implies. The character Elektra Luxx who is played by Carla Gugino finds out that she is pregnant with a love child by this rock star played by Josh Brolin in the first movie and at the end of the movie she is trying to figure out what to do with her life. And it is strongly suggested that she is going to quit the porn business. Cause she feels that she is too smart for it and she doesn't understand how she ended up there. But she has no real skills in the civilian world. So when this movie picks up (Elekrta Luxx), it takes place over one day in the life of the character Elekrta Luxx, who we find now about a month later after the events of the previous movie, is teaching a Sex Ed. class to a bunch of housewive's at a local community college.
And she has no idea how she can get along in world, she doesn't have very many friends, she is very novel and judgmental person who doesn't have very many marketable skills. And her only friend really is the Virgin Mary. Which is complicated when you make your living as an adult film star. So she has alot of catholic guilt and regret.
The movie is structured sorta like a soap opera, in that, there is three revolving storylines that revolve around Elekrta. There are a couple of characters from the other movie. One is the Joseph Gordon-Levitt character who is a blogger, who from his basement is the narrator of the movie and who is obsessed with Elekrta Luxx. And he holds her in this highest means, so in this way he is this hopeless romantic. You would think he was this sneaky kind of guy cause he is blogging about porn star, but he is deeply in love with her. And how he thinks she is a goddess.
Another character is Holly Rocket played by Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights & Upcoming Wonder Woman) and who was also in Women in Trouble. All these character are stereotypes that we are trying to find the other side of. And Holly Rocket is the proverbial dumb blonde but she really isn't that dumb. She is wired in a different way and befuddled by the world.
She is off on a Mexico vacation with her best friend Bambi who is played by Emmanuelle Chriqui (Entourage) both her and Elektra, the theme of the movie is really is that they do not want to be on sale any more. And that is the hidden theme of the story.
How did you interconnect all the stories in the film so well?
Interesting question. I think we all know what an ensemble cast movie looks like, and usually then tend to the way all the people come together like a car crash or something like that and that becomes a very important central element, and here because Women in Trouble came out of doing separate short stories that each one was about one character and then figuring out like, well this one is the sister of this one and that how this relates to that. It wasn't really an afterthought but less important how they were going to connect. And the character's we bring from the previous film to this one already have a connection to the point that if you watching this movie you may not understand why we are following these two women.
I really think the answer to your question is if you making an Indie movie or your trying to experiment with stuff that main stream movie doesn't allow you to do. And that is the point of making the movie. Your really encouraged to take chances of stuff that might seem like they are more like a jigsaw puzzle. That eventually when the third movie is made and boxed together in a DVD boxset, hopefully you can follow one story line into another. It behaves more like a graphic novel where you can grab one character here and make it bigger here. I was just interested in these characters.
So we are going to see a third movie?
Well, there is a script written but the cast has gotten so huge and so busy. That a big part of the production thing is figuring out how to juggle everybody's schedule. Everybody is game we just need to figure when and how. The script is written and is entirely different movie then these two. I have been asked that you decide to make a trilogy and our answer is with a wink. But when you make a movie for ten days with people you like and exploring alittle bit about one character, it would be cool to put these characters in different situations to see what happens all the sudden it becomes why not. Some people say how can there be a sequel I haven't heard of the first film.
I am envious of novelists who can grab a character from one story and put them in another story. The third movie will be sorta of a rogue movie, completely different then the previous two.
So what is the title of the Third film?
It's called Women In Ecstasy.
How were you able to put together such an amazing cast? With huge stars such as Carla Gugino, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Adrianne Palicki, and so on. Being an indie filmmaker I know that it is harder to get huge Hollywood talent on such a tight budget.
I can tell that from a production stand point with ELEKTRA LUXX it was simpler because we had Women in Trouble to show the cast. Some of the actors I didn't know or who were a friends of a friend, that I could approach. I need you in LA, most actors live in LA. For two days or one days. You have to understand that these movies people come out and they do 5 or 10 pages a day so it is much like theater. And requires a very specific kind of actor or actress who is alittle crazy and willing to do that. Because the pace of a main stream movie you might spend all day shooting a one minute long scene and here you might here your doing like ten minutes. Some actors find that exhilarating but I think that the trick is then writing parts and offering the part to the actors that they normally don't get offered.
Part two of the interview will be up later this week. Make sure to go out to the theaters and see ELEKTRA LUXX, and check out the Girls Walk Into a Bar Girl Walks Into A Bar, below. Touted as the “First Major Motion Picture Made For The Internet,”
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