MAN ON THE MOON

Giuseppe Andrews as Deputy Winston.

“... (Giuseppe) Andrews champions the individuals isolated from ‘normal’ society. He celebrates their courage and convictions, while arguing that they are just as funny, and flawed as the rest of us.”
- Bill Gibron, DVD Talk

Deputy Winston in Eli Roth’s “Cabin Fever” is one my favorite cinematic characters of the past several years. He’s a lot like Sid Haig’s Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie’s “House of 1,000 Corpses.” Neither had much screen time, but their oddness, inappropriate sexuality and humor highlighted both of these great horror films. Just as Spaulding returned in the sequel to his film with a bigger role in “The Devil’s Rejects,” Winston too is said to play a bigger part in “Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever,” which is currently in postproduction. Also like Spaulding, Winston was played by a character actor that isn’t quite a household name despite having been in a number of big productions.

The actor behind Deputy Winston is the enigma Giuseppe Andrews, who had also appeared in “American History X,” “Pleasantville,” “Never Been Kissed,” “The Other Sister,” and “Independence Day.” Besides being known as Winston, Andrews was Germ on the Ryan Reynolds series “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place,” Lex in Adam Rifkin’s ode to KISS “Detroit Rock City,” Harper Alexander in “2001 Maniacs” and Bill Jensen in “Tweek City.”

Though he’ll tell you otherwise, Andrews comes off very similar to his quirky little character Winston. It’s not that he makes comments about his “five pounds of dangling meat” or obsessively talks about “partying,” there is just this unexplainable strangeness about him. Andrews is very Andy Kaufman-like, as there’s this deadpan seriousness in what he does and says, but it exuberates brilliant off-beat humor. It seems to show up in everything that he does, which is a lot more than being a cult actor playing bit parts.

Giuseppe Andrews is a true artist. The Ventura, Calif. trailer park resident is a gonzo filmmaker that casts his neighbors in his experimental no-budget movies. A handful of his underground films have been released through Troma Entertainment, but the bulk of his work has never been seen. In fact, Independent Feature Project once reported he “purged his back-catalogue, destroying many of his films because they were ‘holding him back’ from greater experimentation” and took down his personal website because “it was letting the world in a little too much.”

Besides writing, directing and editing his films, Andrews is also a lo-fi musician, singer and songwriter, as well as a novelist. He writes, records and distributes his CDs and books from his home. His website currently carries eight of his CDs, two of his books and one short film.

Giuseppe Andrews.

Two of his films will be screening at the 2007 CineVegas Film Festival as a double feature June 9. “Cat Piss,” available through his site, is a 17 minute short about a grandson and grandfather that live together in a junk ridden camper. It will precede the world premiere of his feature “Garbanzo Gas,” which is in the festival’s competition. “Garbanzo Gas” is a surreal statement against animal abuse that is dedicated to PETA. Andrews is also in Adam Rifkin’s ensemble piece “Look,” which gets its world premiere June 9 and screens June 11. “Look,” also in competition, explores several interweaving storylines expanded over the course of a random week in a random city from the point of view of surveillance cameras.

PollyStaffle.com contacted Giuseppe Andrews in hopes of doing an interview with him prior to “the world’s most dangerous film festival.” Andrews happily agreed and asked that I email him the questions. A day or so after sending the questions, I received a phone call from Andrews out of the blue. He said he answered the questions via email, but he had now decided he wanted to do the interview on the phone. I was at my day job when he called, so we agreed on a time a few days later. Before conducting the phone Q&A, I glanced over his responses to my email. Most of his answers consisted of one or two words. Such as his answer of “Nothing” to my question of what he can tell me about his films showing at CineVegas. I worried about not getting much from him or perhaps having him flake on me, but he ended up being a great interview. Andrews opens up about his films, talks about influences, his music and the true person behind his Deputy Winston character.

CAT PISS & GARBANZO GAS

Giuseppe Andrews chilling at the park.

CCF: First, thanks for talking with me.

GA: Thanks for interviewing me.

CCF: I originally didn’t realize all the different things you were into. I pretty much just knew who you were from “Cabin Fever.” But I’m really intrigued with your music and these weird little movies that you do.

GA: Thank you.

CCF: You actually have three different projects that are going to be at CineVegas. There’s “Cat Piss” and “Garbanzo Gas” that you did and then you’re in the movie “Look,” right?

GA: Yes.

CCF: Well, first off let’s talk about “Cat Piss” because I am really interested in this one. Now, you moved in with this disabled senior citizen Wally Lavern and you were there for two days. Tell me a little bit about this experience and what came out of it.

GA: Ever since I moved into the trailer park, since I’m a recluse, my friends have always been in the park and they’ve always been senior citizens. Ever since I was 19-years-old, I would hang out at my neighbors’ trailers and play checkers, watch movies, talk and anything like that. Wally was just somebody I decided to go over and hang out with. I liked his mobile home and I wanted to talk to someone and hang out with them. I saw him take out his trash a few times and I thought he had an interesting look. I live two trailers down from him and I would hear him all the time at night screaming at his TV. I was just kind of interested to see what kind of person he was, so I went over there a few times and we just kind of talked. I saw his trailer and he was a pack rat. I asked him if I could just move in for two days…

CCF: Right. (LOL)

GA: And just crash in his recliner… in the front… in the driver’s seat and just film him. I didn’t have much time because I was going to shoot “Cabin Fever 2” right after that. I just decided to make it a short. So I moved in and we shot a bunch of stuff and it ended up being “Cat Piss.” It was actually all adlibbed. I just brought a little flute over there. That was the one prop I brought. Besides that we just adlibbed the whole piece.

CCF: So it’s sort of like a documentary because there are things that just kind of happen, but you also told him to do stuff?

GA: Yeah, well some of stuff is based on things that he would do - like scream at the TV. So I would just have him scream stuff at the TV, but he would put himself right into it like he normally would. Other things I would mix in, like if I knew something about his life from talking with him I would have a scene where I would talk to him about it and then kind of incorporate it in a new kind of way, adding a few things to it. Other things were completely made up by me. Like there’s this guy that lives next door who blow dries his knives on his stairs and he’s a burn victim. That kind of stuff was added in. “Cat Piss” is actually half and half I think.

CCF: And a lot of the movies that you do are similar, right?

GA: No, there actually very, very different. Some of them were completely scripted, some were half and half, some a lot more scripted with just a little of adlibbed stuff, so each one is actually very different. The stuff that I do now and have for the past couple of years, basically besides “Cat Piss,” were completely scripted.

CCF: So “Garbanzo Gas” – was that one that was completely scripted?

GA: Well, first of all I’d like to say that I make a lot of films, you know?

CCF: Yeah, well, it seems like you are just constantly creating…

GA: Yeah, so it’s like when we talk about “Garbanzo Gas,” to me that was like soooo long ago.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: It was only a few years ago, but I make so many films… “Garbanzo Gas,” what happened with that was, Adam Rifkin, the guy that made “Look,” he is a friend of mine and he wanted to come up and film me making a movie. Before this I had been making films and shooting them in two days for like a couple of hundred dollars. I had been showing them to him and he loved them and produced some of them. He produced this trilogy that I shot in a week for not much money. He wanted to come up and film me shooting a movie in two days. He wanted to make like this documentary. He pitched it to me just a few days before I shot “Garbanzo Gas,” so I didn’t have much time to think about what I wanted to make the movie about. So I picked something that was kind of where my life was at. I had just stopped eating meat and I was on this tofu diet.

CCF: Right.

GA: And I just kind of took that as a place to start. I said, “Okay, come up in a couple of days and we’ll shoot this film.” I just started building “Garbanzo Gas” very quickly. It was mostly just something so he could film me doing my process. So we just went at it. Some of it is Miles Dougal, the guy that stars in it, adlibbing a lot. There was about a 30-page script on it and the rest I kind of built as we went along. We finished the first day of shooting and I then wrote a bunch at night and then we’d get the people together and do it the next day. And I just sort of pieced it together that way. Adam filmed the whole thing. He shot like 27-hours of this whole shoot. I think he wants to do something with that one day, but that’s how “Garbanzo Gas” came along. It was a very quick thing and I ran with something that was just happening in my life. Diet. It’s about diet in a weird fucking way.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: In a very weird way.

WHAT NO MONEY SOUNDS LIKE

Giuseppe Andrews - the indie music man.

CCF: Yeah, I wonder about you. Your movies and your music are so strange and that’s just kind of how you are. It’s not that you are trying to make something strange, that’s just how it comes out, right?

GA: Always.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: I wanted to point something out, with my music…

CCF: Uh-huh?

GA: I just worked with a really big producer named B.T. He scored “Look” and produced many big albums that’ve sold a lot and shit like that. Some of that stuff, like in “Look” there’s a song called “High” that plays at the end and that’s a very serious song. I actually write lots of different kinds of music. But when you do music, like you were talking about lo-fi… Low-fi just means that I didn’t have any money. When you’re alone recording in like a cheap home studio, you tend to write different kinds of songs. If your signed and you’re going into a big studio to write, you would be absolutely shocked with the kind of songs I’d write. I’m actually one of the greatest song writers in America and nobody knows it. I’d be writing songs like Jimmy Webb or something. It’s shocking, but since I am in my trailer and I just love expression so much, I just constantly feel the need to express something. Their kind of like my demos, first thought demos. But no, it’s not the kind of songs I would write if there was like this huge opportunity to relase big albums. It’d be something totally different. Of course, I do like people that put humor in their music like Warren Zevon and Frank Zappa, but I’m also into very big serious wonderful lyrics and song writers like Jimmy Webb and people like that. The music I’ve been making in my trailer is just from a need to constantly express something. Wesley Willis isn’t the only person to do lo-fi. Elliott Smith is somebody that started in a lo-fi way too. Wesley Willis on the other hand is a guy that can’t sing and sings out of key. My singing is in key.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: He has retarded lyrics.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: He has no musictality in his music. His changes are not complex, they’re boring and simple. My music is actually very complex if I showed you the chords and shit. It’s nothing like that.

CCF: No, I see what you’re saying. Some of your music comes off very Wesley Willis or Daniel Johnston, but at the same time what I was reminded of was Sean Lennon. I don’t know if you are familiar with the last album he put out, but there’s sort of this weirdness to it, but also this brilliance. But yeah, I didn’t mean to insult you or anything by bringing up Wesley Willis in my email. I just got that vibe a little and I never really thought of how the surroundings play apart in it.

Giuseppe Andrews, far right, with Adam Rifkin, middle, and Edward Furlong.

GA: Exactly. Your surroundings come in heavy. But I’m not saying if I went in a big studio there wouldn’t be some songs with humor in them… or they wouldn’t be strange. Because that’s just how I am. As far as the stuff I do, I don’t try to make it strange. It’s just a lot of my films were written as dramas and they always come out as starnge comedies.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: There’s just no way around it for me. If I try to write something that’s very tramatic or something, it always comes back to comedy. I got to tell you, a lot of my films are based on really heavy personal agony. And they always come out as strange comedies.

CCF: Right.

GA: I find it weird too, but when I start shooting stuff it comes out in that way.

(Continued - Click to read Part II)