Meeting John Cameron Mitchell today

[Trumpysgirl]

For those of you who have no idea, John Cameron Mitchell wrote, directed and starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the musical as well as the film version.


He also wrote and directed Shortbus.

He's visiting my film class today, and we're expected to ask him questions. I've honestly never seen his work, I'm not really a fan of transgender pop culture, though I do have Wig in a Box on my iPod that I occasionally rock out to. Does anyone have any questions that they would like for me to ask him? I'll post his answers back here tomorrow morning.

[bratpop]

You should ask him nothing but questions about his penis.

[Trumpysgirl]

Well, that goes without saying

[a pretty girl is like]

LUCKY!!

[Trumpysgirl]

Yeah, but give me some questions here, people! My class is in three hours!

[mrbasehart]

Well, I haven't seen either Shortbus or Hedwig, but there's a couple of questions I can think of:

How difficult was the casting process for Shortbus? Especially when actors discovered what was required of them.

I think any sort of question regarding film funding is interesting, too.  And I'd certainly ask about the writing process, what motivates him, how he actually sits down to write, that kind of thing.

[BathTub]

Yeah, how does the casting for 'Guy who can suck own dick' or 'Do you enjoy singing into someone ass?' work?

Imagine the casting auditions!

[Trumpysgirl]

Well, I haven't seen either Shortbus or Hedwig, but there's a couple of questions I can think of:

How difficult was the casting process for Shortbus? Especially when actors discovered what was required of them.

I think any sort of question regarding film funding is interesting, too.  And I'd certainly ask about the writing process, what motivates him, how he actually sits down to write, that kind of thing.

That sounds good, thanks basehart.

[gbeenie]

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is amazing. If I was only able to own one film's soundtrack, that would be it.

[Trumpysgirl]

Okay, back from class.

John was very nice, but we could definitely tell that he was tired from a whole day of meet-n-greets. We watched a clip from Hedwig, then our teacher spent the first half hour interviewing him. After that we had our questions.

He spent a lot of the time talking about his experiences making Hedwig and told us that he was thinking of writing another musical. I got the chance to ask him about the casting process for Shortbus, and he answered that the actors had to send in their audition tapes with only a basic idea of what the film was about.....because the creators weren't to sure of what the film was going to be about either. He said that no one was forced to do anything that they didn't want to do, but at the same time he wanted them to "challenge themselves" to try new things.

That launched him into a discussion about using sex as a language in film. Someone asked if he would ever want to work in Hollywood and his response was no way, since most films that come out of there are "shit."