MAN ON THE MOON PART II

BIRTH OF WINSTON

Giuseppe Andrews and Rider Strong.

CCF: That’s the thing about you. I didn’t even realize this, but Deputy Winston, that’s you.

GA: No.

CCF: (LOL) There’s this just straightfaced seriousness, but for some reason this strange humor just comes out.

GA: No. To me it’s a total character, but…

CCF: (LOL)

GA: I’m really nothing like that. I don’t speak like that or anything. I just thought the character needed to be like that. Yeah, I mean I could see all the strange sexual dialogues and shit, but I’m actually a pretty way different person than that. You would have to understand it’s a complex little story actually. I’m not a simple person, I just play games with myself. You know what I mean?

CCF: Right.

GA: I’m intrigued by everything. Anything can happen in my subconsious at any given time and come in on a project. I just play games with myself. If I see something that intrigues me and I start thinking about something, I go with it extremly in a way that it comes out as being, maybe, people think how I am or something. But it’s not. I’m just a game player. The Winston stuff is actually pretty put on, but it’s intresting that people might think that. I guess I’m a bizarre person or an eccentric, but I don’t know. Yeah, it’s how ever you see it I guess. But I’ve played many different characters. Yeah, I enjoy playing that one because its so easy to write such wild sexual dialogue and bizarre kind of stuff. I don’t know though.

CCF: Speaking of that character… “Cabin Fever 2,” you said Winston has a bigger role in that movie. I mean is Winston one of the main characters this time around?

GA: He’s got a pretty big part, yeah. He’s in it double the time he was in the first one. I don’t know what they are going to leave in, but I tried to make it even stranger of a part.

CCF: (LOL) Right.

GA: I just tried to do really weird stuff. In the middle of dialgoue I would add these strange sexual limericks. I’d be all in character with these non actors and they would be really confused. Once again I wrote the part myself pretty much all the way. Just a few things I would add of their dialogue, but I don’t know what happenned in editing. I just know I tried to make it way more stranger. I had the same exact freedom I had on the first one. So it should be really interesting.

CCF: When you were orginially cast for “Cabin Fever,”what was that character like? Was it basically a nothing character with hardly anything to say?

GA: I auditioned for the lead.

CCF: Oh, you did?

GA: Yeah, that’s how I met Eli. He thought I would be better for this other character and when I went down there, yeah, there was just nothing much on the page at all. I based that character on one of my dad’s friends who was a jewelry theif in Florida. My dad would always do this impression of him and how he talked. He was like real sexual like that and he had that kind of voice. That’s who I patterned that whole character after was this guy my dad would act out.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: I was just, “Oh, he’ll be perfect for this guy.” That’s how it all came about and I just added a bunch of shit when I got there.

CCF: (LOL) That’s brilliant. A lot of what you do, you just take from your life like that. Your influenced by the whole world around you?

GA: Yeah. I’m just interested, overally interested in life and people. I’m really interested in eveything. I take all kinds of stuff like that and put it in roles and everything.

TRAILER TOWN AND BIZARRE CHARACTERS

Giuseppe Andrews and Vietnam Ron.

CCF: And is that partly why you still live in a trailer park?

GA: No. That’s only is because of money.

CCF: Really?

GA: It’s cheap.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: It’s really, really cheap. Not that there aren’t things that I love about it. I love that it’s a very free place. Even if I were to live somewhere else, I still would live in a very bohemian way.

CCF: Yeah?

GA: I don’t really have anything. I just know how temporary this all is, so I hate to dig myself in. There are things I love about it. If I did move it would still be like a mobile home somewhere. But I live here because it’s cheap and it allows me to be free with the jobs I have to take and shit. I don’t have to work as much.. I don’t have to be sweating like getting gigs and auditions and shit all the time. Like, “Oh my God, I gotta fucking pay this huge rent, I better get a fucking gig.” It’s the only reason I’ve had more time to be creative. Otherwise, I would have spent all my money on my rent. Instead I can take my extra money and make my films and shit. That’s the real reason. It just enables me to be creative. It saves money and I put my money towards art, instead of a big rent.

CCF: Yeah, it makes sense. It’s just another part of you that from the outside really comes of as kind of bizarre. Somebody like you that has been in some really big movies, and I know your not the A-list star of these movies, but at the same time it just seems weird when you find something out like that, that you still live in a trailer park.

GA: Well, I came out of a van. I entered the acting world from a van. I wasn’t trying to be an actor or anything. It’s just my parents got a divorice and I moved into a van with my dad. I dropped out of school and we were just planning on living in this van. That’s kind of the personality I am. When we ran out of money, my dad went to do this hair infomercial he read about in the paper. They needed a kid and I ended up being in this hair infomercial. A girl there saw something about me that she liked and she had a friend who was an agent and it just all kind of went from there. I started getting gigs and shit. One thing led to another and we found the trailer park. The acting thing is all a very bizarre story. Yeah, I’m sure it’s strange I live in a trailer park, but to me it’s strange people live in an apartment. I mean it’s all strange. This whole life is pretty strange. I don’t know. I could see how people would think it’s odd that a person that is in all those movies lives in a trailer park. Yeah, it is. I don’t know what to say. We all know I’m an eccentric. But there’s lots of those and a lot of those in the entertainment industry. I just guess my eccentricness went this way. (LOL)

CCF: How old were you when you were living in the van and got on the infomercial?

GA: I was 13.

CCF: And that just led to other things?

GA: Yeah, I just started getting gigs right away. I did a bunch of commercials. Then what happened was Diane Keaton put me in one of her films. It was a movie called “Unstrung Heros.” Then shortly after that I got “Independence Day” and then I just kept getting gigs really quickly, and pretty soon we were out of the van and into an apartment. I lived there for awhile. The rent got so high and we took a camping trip up here and that’s how we found the trailer park.

CCF: So it’s the same trailer park that you lived in for quite awhile then?

GA: I’ve been here ten years. I moved in here when I was 17 and I’m 28 now. I started making films here when I was 19. But I don’t make films here any more. I make films now in San Francisco. I have a whole new cast. I don’t use the same cast any more.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: I decided to not make films here any more because I didn’t want to be seen as just a person who makes movies in a trailer park. I just want to be seen as a filmmaker. I finally just said, “That’s it. That’s enough of this phase. I’ll make films somewhere else and about different kinds of things.”

CCF: So “Cat Piss” and “Garbanzo Gas,” they’re from the trailer park period and you’ve moved on since then. How many movies have you made?

GA: I just made my twentith. My twentith feature and that’s not counting the shorts.

CCF: So you’ve done 20 and not many of those are avaiable to buy and stuff. I think there are maybe four or five on Netflix.

GA: Yeah. There’s supposed to be a box set coming, probably by the end of this year, hopefully. They’ve been saying that for the past three and a half years. That will have like five films in it. Troma has the rights to a lot more stuff. They have about another 10 films that they have the rights to. It’s just a matter of when they put it out

.

Films of Giuseppe Andrews released by Troma Entertainment.

CCF: So are you still doing stuff for Troma?

GA: Right now I’m just waiting for them to put out all the stuff I’ve given them. But coming up soon, I have the website www.GiuseppeAndrews.net where I will be selling my new movies that I’ve been making.

CCF: And that will be you selling them directly like you’re doing your CDs?

GA: Yep, so I’ll be selling them right out of my trailer. I’m already selling “Cat Piss” and I’ll be selling “Garbanzo Gas” there. And the last film I did with the trailer park cast called “Golden Embers.” And I’m shooting a new film that I will be selling there too.

CCF: As far as Troma, did you hook up with them through Tromadance?

GA: Eli Roth. He hooked me up with that. I showed him my movie “Trailer Town” and he was blown away by it. He said he thought this company would put it out and he got me in touch with Troma. That’s how that whole thing happened.

CCF: Are you pretty good friends with Eli? I know ya’ll were in “2001 Maniacs” as well.

GA: Yeah. I call him once in awhile, but I haven’t spoken to him in, oh, probably a year. I don’t talk to him all the time. He’s really busy and so am I.

CCF: Are you going to be working with him any time soon again?

GA: Not that I know of, but if a part pops up I’ll end up in there.

CCF: He seems like a pretty interesting character himself. You know it’s really good to see people like you and him that seem like truly genuine artists that love what they do that are making their place in the entertainment world. As far as your career, do you kind of feel like you have to do some of the Hollywood movies here and there or are you kind of done with “Independence Day” and stuff like that?

GA: No, I would do absoluetely anything. I audtion all the time and I just end up with what I end up with. You could walk in at any momment into any kind of project and fit it. I’m all for it.

CCF: Besides “Cabin Fever 2,” what are some of the other things you’ve been working on lately?

GA: I did a thing for IFC called “The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman.” I did five episodes of that. I’ve done some two-day work. I did a thing called “The Go-Getter” and I did a few bit parts. Some of the stuff I forgot the title of even.

CCF: Since “Cabin Fever” and “2001 Maniacs,” have genre filmmakers been contacting you to stick you in bit parts here and there in their horror movies?

GA: No. It’s yet to happen. I want to say that I love doing the horror stuff. I especially love the characters I play. I always get to play the bizarre characters. I love that, man. It could be so much worse. It could be like trying to play one of these serious roles in a romantic comedy or something.

CCF: (LOL)

Giuseppe Andrews: The lady killer.

GA: That stuff is really hard. I like the horror thing where like a million people get hacked up and shit. I love what happens in those movies. People getting hacked up by lunatics and shit. It’s funny, but it’s better than these weird romantic comedies. I hope I get to do more of those bizarre characters in horror movies. It’s great for me. It’s way more comfortable for me to do that, then this other stuff.

CCF: Yeah, I thought you were great in “2001 Maniacs” as well.

GA: Thank you.

CCF: I actually didn’t like that movie because I really loved the original.

GA: Me too.

CCF: And I thought that this one in a way kind of made fun of it, but I thought your character really stood out as easily the best thing in it.

GA: Oh, thank you.

CCF: And there was a sequel I guess to that as well. Have you already filmed that?

GA: No, there was supposed to be, but it never happened. There was lots of talk of it and I thought it was going to happen a couple of months ago, but no more word of it.

A GUY IN A CONVIENCE STORE

Giuseppe Andrews striking a Bruce Lee pose.

CCF: Getting back to the stuff at CineVegas, what’s your role in this movie “Look”?

GA: I play a guy in a convience store who like plays his keyboard behind the counter. I did two songs for it as well. At the end, the studio version of my song that I play in the liquor store called “High” plays. After that, my studio version I did with BT of “Electrocuted” plays.

CCF: I mentioned in my email that some people have compared you to John Waters, Larry Clark and Harmony Korine and I asked, “What do you make of those comparisons?” and you said, “Nothing.”

GA: I gotta tell you I had just come back from a two day shoot and I was on the moon.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: I was on the fucking moon. When you see my new film you will know what I mean.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: So I was coming back from another fucking planet and like my girlfriend says, “Hey, there’s this interview” and I sat down and that came out. Then I was like, “Wait a minute. I gotta call Chad and tell him wait, hold on.” I had just gotten in. I had no sleep. I don’t even know what the fuck I was talking about. That’s the first time I even heard that question the way you just said.

CCF: (LOL)

GA: So just fucking scratch everything that I wrote in that email. I was on the moon, man.

CCF: (LOL) All right.

GA: So ask me the question again.

CCF: (LOL) Basically, with the movies that you have made and your style, some people have compared you to the early works of John Waters; they’ve also mentioned Larry Clark and Harmony Korine. What do you think of those comparisons when you hear them?

GA: Well, when I was 19, I had five experiences in a movie theater that really made me want to make films. Those five were “I Stand Alone” by Gaspar Noé, “Butterfly Kiss” by Michael Winterbottom, “Gummo” by Harmony Korine and I’m trying to think of the other ones. I thought there were two more, but maybe those were the big three for me that really knocked me out of my seat. I really liked “Gummo. “ What I really liked about it was that it had all thses non-actors in it and the fact that the story was broken up. It wasn’t bing-a-dee-bing-a-dee-boom straight from the top with explanatory shit. It wasn’t obvious shit. I was really excited by that. I was excited by the way he used the music and I just loved that film. Another thing is Harmony was one of the persons that gave me a big boost in my energy towards filmmaking. I knew him at the time, well I knew Chloë. She was his girlfriend at the time Chloë Sevigny. I had met her in Toronto when I was making a film. After I made “Touch Me in the Morning” I sent it to him. I was kind of depressed at the time. I made this film, but I didn’t know if I was going to make any more and I got this call from him in a sushi bar. He told me, “Hey it’s Harmony. I just watched your film and I just wanted to tell you how much I was totally blown away by it and I think you can be one of the greatest filmmakers on the planet.” He told me all these wonderful things that just totally gave me so much energy. So he was really one of the first people that gave me this big boost. I was just like, “Wow! Okay, people are getting it.” And he was a filmmaker that I loved. And John Waters is a great filmmaker and Larry Clark is a great filmmaker, so when I hear those things, I just think, “Wow, that’s wonderful.” Because you know everything in the world of art is connected. I mean everything. Influence is anything that you see, read or hear that you are absoluetely blown away with. Oh, man that list that you mentioned and a billion more have influenced me. The greatest influence on what you are making creatively always comes down to the people that are in the film, the personal things that are happening in your life, mixed in with all these other things that you love. That’s what really makes a work of art. It makes creativity happen. Without all these elements, no creativity happens. The names that you mentioned, there was a million things that made their creativity happen, mixed in with personal things and who they were making the movie with and about. All these things keep the wonderful world of creativity spinning and happening.

CCF: Totally. I get you. That’s exactly how I kind of see creativty. You’re completely right. It’s like this ball that keeps rolling. They add their influences, personal and entertainment wise and that mixes with the other individuals and kind of keeps going.

GA: That’s it man. That’s how it rolls.

CCF: The “Gabazno Gas” movie – it was dedicated to PETA, right?

GA: Oh yeah.

CCF: You said you had stopped eating meat, but is PETA a group that you endorse? Is this an endorsement for them?

GA: No. I’m not big into them. I love what they are doing. I think their message is good. I even wrote a song that I was hoping they would use called “Breakfast (Animals).”

CCF: Right, yeah.

GA: It’s on my Myspace. Their supposed to be listening to it and letting me know if they are going to use it. I wish they would use it, that’d be great. I mention them because that was the first thing that popped in my head when I thought about abuse towards animals. Of course, I’m against that. It’s not really a dedication, it’s more of a shout out to them. Just to say, “Hey, I’m down with what your saying.” I wish they’d be really into it. I didn’t send them a copy or anything because I thought it would be too crazy for them. They got to keep this straight kind of air about them. I thought it would be too wild for them to endorse. I could be wrong. I just don’t know. The film is basically a surreal take on the meat-eating thing.

Giuseppe Andrews and Bill Nowlin.

CCF: What kind of reaction do you hope for, or is there one that you wish that your audience would take away from something like “Gabanzo Gas”?

GA: I’m not looking to make people think, “Oh, meat eating is bad.” I don’t give a shit about that. You want to know what I care about? I care about ideas. If I don’t eat meat or something like that, I can just use that as an idea to make something creative happen. As far as a reaction goes, that’s hard to say. One thing that I am positive of, I am compulsively addicted to expression. That’s one thing that I know. I can’t live without it. When I don’t do it, I don’t function very well. That’s just the way that I go about living. It’s like a little tool that I need to talk to myself about society, the set up of things, this planet, and human existence. Because of course, it confuses me and baffles me and does all these other things that it does to everyone else. Other people have other things inside of them that enables them to live. Maybe I don’t have those things, so I replace mine with making creative art and it helps me live and helps me understand things. It’s also very hard to know what reaction will happen because I live so very deep in a subconsious world. I just kind of know what I’m doing, but I don’t know what it is. It’s just a subconcious feeling that when I put it together it’s correct to me and it’s beautiful to me. I’m just hoping somebody watches it and says, “Oh wow, I just saw somehing beautiful.” That’s really the reaction that I would like. It’s like listening to a record. When it’s over, if you liked it and connected with it, you heard something beautiful about it. When I watch movies, I just try to get a good vibe. I just hope the vibe of my movie connects with people and they have a different kind of experience. I just hope it makes them talk a lot about it and think about the stuff in it. If I had to sum it up, I’d want them to say, “He’s a person that is really into creative expression” and anything else they would like.

CCF: Right. Well, I’m happy you were able to take the time to talk to me. Hopefully I’ll see you at the screening. I’m really looking forward to it.

GA: Fantastic. I apperciate the interest in my work. I apperciate it, Chad. Thank you very much.

“The Bathrobe Home School Box Set” and “Okie Dokie” are slated to be released sometime this year according to Troma’s website. “Bathrobe Home School” is said to be a 3-disc, five-film set featuring “In Our Garden,” “Dad’s Chicken,” “Air Conditioning,” “Monkey” and “The Date Movie.” The “Okie Dokie” DVD will feature the short “Gwank.”

- CCF, June 2007