JOHN WATERS: I’M WAITING FOR A MILITANT THUG GAY RAPPER
‘The Pope of Trash’ merges perfectly between high and low culture. Here he is on Chucky, David Hasselhoff and being a closet art collector.
He’s finally 18 years old so you can have the hots for him
I was just in Romania were I was shooting the Seed Of Chucky Where I was murdered by Chucky. I’m a big fan of his; he’s finally 18 years old so you can have the hots for him. He’s legal and bigger physically. It was weird for me because it took two days to film my death I’m much more used to being on the other side of the camera. But the Director was very nice, and very understanding. It was fine, I’m a big big Chucky fan. I started as a puppeteer, I did children’s birthday parties as a career when I was about twelve years old. So maybe all directors are closet puppeteers.
My whole house is mostly books
Some people may think that I have turquoise furniture and leopard skin everywhere and Cadillac’s, I don’t have that at all. My whole house is mostly books. In my museum show ‘Change of Life’ that’s in New York there’s even a pop up version of my house that my props designer made for my show. There is also a list of my complete library, every single book I own, over 6000 of them.
Closet Art Collector
I’ve collected contemporary art my whole life, I follow it and I’ve been doing it for quite some time, I just never told anybody before and I never talked about it in movie magazines or anything I kept it very very separate. I’m not a closet, everybody knows I’m a fan, because I collect now I also sell. Basically I’ve been doing it for a long time I just didn’t ever talk about it when I was promoting my movies, I kept it separate. I’ve just bought a piece by John Miller, it’s called ‘I am man’, it’s all covered in brown everything looks like it’s got shit on it, then it’s got the capital letter ‘I’ in front of a turd brown, I think it’s about self awareness.
It’s almost like an exercise in celebrity school not to say the same answer
I have to do an interview almost every single day of my life, I’m open to answer any question, if I don’t want to answer I’ll be happy to bail you out with selected quotes so that they won’t realise I haven’t answered. Sometimes when you do lots of promotional work you feel like a psychiatrist because people are constantly asking you questions and sometimes, because you don’t want to say the same thing you try to keep yourself alert. It’s almost like an exercise in celebrity school not to say the same answer. Sometimes you think did I even mean that? It’s kind of revealing psychologically. The one thing I hate is when a journalist asks about my paycheck.
Home is where the idea (and lunatic) is…
I’ve got an apartment in New York and I go to Massachusetts in the summer but Baltimore is certainly my home, this is where my office is and I always come here when I have to think up a new idea. It’s were I’m still inspired it’s were I still come to decide what I’m going to do next. This is where I think it up and this is where I do it. We have Spiro Agnew, who was a disgraced vice president under Nixon, We had Marilyn Marie O’Hare a woman that people feared more than anyone because she had prayer taken out of school, she was a famous atheist who was murdered last year. Baltimore definitely has quite a set parade of lunatics.
I have an electric chair…
If my house was on fire I’d probably grab my collection of Polaroid’s, any person that comes to my house I take there picture so for twelve years that’s been my diary, I’d probably grab that box. But it would depend what room I was in and where the door was and where the fire was, I think that would matter the most. I have an electric chair, it’s the one that Divine was fried in in ‘Female Trouble’ it’s an exact replica of a real one and in the front hall, I also have a Tommy gun in a violin case that Johnny Depp gave me.
Weird stuff always does happen to me!
I had to call David Hasselhoff to ask him if he’d do a scene in my movie were he would be sitting on the toilet on an aeroplane and really graciously he said yes. Then I had to get my nerve up on the third take to ask him if he could strain a little. He’s a lovely guy, really funny and had a good sense of humour.
I’m waiting for a militant thug gay rapper
I like it Hip Hop, it gives me energy, I play it really loudly in the car, young black kids look over at me like I’m insane when i’m waiting at a red light in the car. I’m waiting for like a militant thug gay rapper. If somebody came out even more thuggish than 50 Cent, that just happened to be gay, that would be sooo great.
Fitting In
I’d like people to believe that they don’t have to fit in and that everything they tell them at school isn’t true. You’ve got to find a way to live and to make yourself feel good about yourself and whatever you pick to do, and the most important thing is to find a way to pick a job that you like, and that means usually you have to create that job yourself.
Illustration – NewTasty
First appeared in Fused Magazine issue 20
