(no subject)
I thought these were some interesting interviews of the actor Spalding Gray, based on the movie interpretaion of the play Swiming to Cambodia.The movie itself is a good way to learn some history and culture, as well as get a good laugh. But to each their own, the opinions vary:P What do you think of this actor and his anwsers to the questions asked by the reporter?
interview with Spalding Gray:
Question: You mention how you can't seem to be present in the place you're in until you've left and want to go back. Where would you especially like to go back to, and how would you change what happened there?
SG: I only see through loss, death and my right eye (my left eye is very impaired). I only start to see the color of everything, the intensity of everything when I'm leaving it. For a long time the desire was to redo the experience in Thailand because I had such a difficult time adjusting to coming back. I did go back, because I had a fantasy of physically going to all the spots that I had to leave prematurely. ?I found myself quite stupidly, stupidly going back to that beach that I left where I didn't take the magic mushrooms I had left prematurely, was in paradise, rejected paradise.
I went back knowing I couldn't recapture it. I stepped out onto the beach and saw umbrellas all the way down. Where there had been water buffalo and rice paddies there were hotels. There were jet-skis, which I despise. There was no indigenous culture. I just got back in the cab and left.
There is no room to go back -- change is happening too fast. I fantasize about going back to high school with the knowledge I have now. I would shine. I wwould have a good time, I would have a girlfriend. I think that's where a lot of my pain comes from. I think I never had any teenage years to go back to. "I would shine...I would have a good time...I would have a girlfriend": has Gray discovered why life is so painful? Has he found a way to deal with it?
Question: When you saw yourself on the screen in King of the Hill, did watching your
character commit suicide have an effect on you personally?
SG: Yeah, at the time...I was having a lot of suicide fantasies. I was darkly convinced
that at age 52 I would kill myself because my mother committed suicide at that age. I was
fantasizing that she was waiting for me on the other side of the grave. ?I was taken by
the fact that the character in King of the Hill had chosen cutting his wrists as the
method of suicide, because that was one of my fantasies when I was in Taos. I thought
that I would take Quaaludes, take a razor out to the hot tub with me and cut my wrists.
But then I thought the Quaaludes would make me feel so good that I would end up not doing
it [strange, sad laugh].
So, this role was so powerful. To have my wrists made up for two hours, and five hours of
setting up the blood -- I was a witness to it for all this time, and I realized the old
cliche of what a mess [suicide] is to leave for someone else to find -- what a stupid,
passive-aggressive, piggish thing to do to someone.
After we finished the suicide scene, I walked back to the hotel with the make-up and
dried blood. During this three-minute walk no one noticed except for this bum who ran
from me. I got to the hotel and the people at the check out counter said "Oh, gross," but
that was it, because they knew I was in a film. I needed to have a reaction from someone.
So I walked into the hotel drugstore and there was a woman about my mother's age when she
committed suicide, filling out prescriptions. I held up my wrists and said [in a whiny
voice], "Do you have anything for my wounds?" She said, "My, God, what did you do?" I
answered I'd cut my wrists and she went into shock and said, "Well, we have
Mercurochrome." She actually said "Mercurochrome" and she frantically began to look for
it.
It was a vicious thing to do. I asked her if she watched Candid Camera, which put her at
ease. I told her she wasn't on it, that I was an actor and it was make-up. I realized
that I was enacting a reversal of my mother's suicide. I had turned to my mother and
said, "Look -- what does it feel like to have your son commit suicide?"
interview with Spalding Gray:
Question: You mention how you can't seem to be present in the place you're in until you've left and want to go back. Where would you especially like to go back to, and how would you change what happened there?
SG: I only see through loss, death and my right eye (my left eye is very impaired). I only start to see the color of everything, the intensity of everything when I'm leaving it. For a long time the desire was to redo the experience in Thailand because I had such a difficult time adjusting to coming back. I did go back, because I had a fantasy of physically going to all the spots that I had to leave prematurely. ?I found myself quite stupidly, stupidly going back to that beach that I left where I didn't take the magic mushrooms I had left prematurely, was in paradise, rejected paradise.
I went back knowing I couldn't recapture it. I stepped out onto the beach and saw umbrellas all the way down. Where there had been water buffalo and rice paddies there were hotels. There were jet-skis, which I despise. There was no indigenous culture. I just got back in the cab and left.
There is no room to go back -- change is happening too fast. I fantasize about going back to high school with the knowledge I have now. I would shine. I wwould have a good time, I would have a girlfriend. I think that's where a lot of my pain comes from. I think I never had any teenage years to go back to. "I would shine...I would have a good time...I would have a girlfriend": has Gray discovered why life is so painful? Has he found a way to deal with it?
Question: When you saw yourself on the screen in King of the Hill, did watching your
character commit suicide have an effect on you personally?
SG: Yeah, at the time...I was having a lot of suicide fantasies. I was darkly convinced
that at age 52 I would kill myself because my mother committed suicide at that age. I was
fantasizing that she was waiting for me on the other side of the grave. ?I was taken by
the fact that the character in King of the Hill had chosen cutting his wrists as the
method of suicide, because that was one of my fantasies when I was in Taos. I thought
that I would take Quaaludes, take a razor out to the hot tub with me and cut my wrists.
But then I thought the Quaaludes would make me feel so good that I would end up not doing
it [strange, sad laugh].
So, this role was so powerful. To have my wrists made up for two hours, and five hours of
setting up the blood -- I was a witness to it for all this time, and I realized the old
cliche of what a mess [suicide] is to leave for someone else to find -- what a stupid,
passive-aggressive, piggish thing to do to someone.
After we finished the suicide scene, I walked back to the hotel with the make-up and
dried blood. During this three-minute walk no one noticed except for this bum who ran
from me. I got to the hotel and the people at the check out counter said "Oh, gross," but
that was it, because they knew I was in a film. I needed to have a reaction from someone.
So I walked into the hotel drugstore and there was a woman about my mother's age when she
committed suicide, filling out prescriptions. I held up my wrists and said [in a whiny
voice], "Do you have anything for my wounds?" She said, "My, God, what did you do?" I
answered I'd cut my wrists and she went into shock and said, "Well, we have
Mercurochrome." She actually said "Mercurochrome" and she frantically began to look for
it.
It was a vicious thing to do. I asked her if she watched Candid Camera, which put her at
ease. I told her she wasn't on it, that I was an actor and it was make-up. I realized
that I was enacting a reversal of my mother's suicide. I had turned to my mother and
said, "Look -- what does it feel like to have your son commit suicide?"