Debra Winger Interview #2

After a bad experience on a troubled production in 1996, Debra Winger stepped down from her position atop the Hollywood leaderboard. Coaxed into doing one more project by her husband, Arliss Howard, Winger sits down with Chris Neumer to get into the ups-and-downs of indie filmmaking, why Iranian cinema is boring and how having a reputation as a temperamental witch can help you on set.

Every once in a while, when friends or family find out that I am interviewing given talent, they insist that I ask certain questions. Normally, I nod politely and ignore the requests, especially since the questions are usually pretty stupid. My brother gave me the only good question I can remember; I asked Bill Paxton about how his movie Frailty advocated serial killing (www.centerstage.net/stumped/interviews/bill-paxton.html). When my mother learned that I’d interviewed Debra Winger, she insisted that if I ever got a second interview that I find out what it was like for Winger to work with Robert Redford on the film Legal Eagles.

“I’m not asking you to do this,” my mother, the unabashed fan of Redford’s said. “I’m telling you.”

So when Winger called me to set up a second interview with her and a first interview with her husband, Big Bad Love’s star/co-writer/director, Arliss Howard, I popped the question. “What was it like working with Robert Redford?” Then a few minutes later I found myself asking the Teen People-esque question, “What was it like kissing Redford?”

The beginning of this second interview is in reference to that conversation.

CHRIS NEUMER: Now, I have a message to you from my father: he’s very happy he doesn’t have to compete with Ordinary Bob.

DEBRA WINGER: Ordinary Bob. I like the familial thing you’ve got going.

CHRIS NEUMER: They’re interested and fans. Questions for you now: after doing more research on the project and hearing other people talk, I failed to realize how difficult you were supposed to be.

DEBRA WINGER: (Laughs) Please don’t dispel that, I really like that.

CHRIS NEUMER: Not to worry.

DEBRA WINGER: You weren’t there. I’m incredibly difficult.

CHRIS NEUMER: I guess when I met you it wasn’t on a film set. You could have thrown tantrums and chairs nonetheless.

DEBRA WINGER: Yeah, as soon as I get on a film set I throw tantrums. It’s just the way I am.

CHRIS NEUMER: And I’m sure it has nothing to do with wanting to make your project better.

DEBRA WINGER: No, it’s about the size of my trailer. Or I hate when they don’t have a washer and a dryer in them as well, don’t you?

CHRIS NEUMER: The way you feel about trailers is the way I feel about houses.

DEBRA WINGER: If it doesn’t have a washer/dryer, I immediately throw a fit and demand more money.

CHRIS NEUMER: It’s a different life style you lead. I also felt bad because I am apparently the only journalist who hasn’t asked you where you’ve been for the last six years.

DEBRA WINGER: Something appeared on line recently?

CHRIS NEUMER: It’s ETOnline.com.

DEBRA WINGER: It had to be someone who just stuck a microphone in my mouth on the way to the screening at Cannes or something.

CHRIS NEUMER: I’m assuming that was the case. Some of the other writers here in Chicago asked similar questions though too.

DEBRA WINGER: I haven’t done an interview in 10 years, so anything you’re reading is old news. And yes every single person did ask me what I’ve done for the last six years and, are you sure you want to?

CHRIS NEUMER: No.

DEBRA WINGER: It’s a busy life, the life in video.

CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, constantly going home with different people every night.

DEBRA WINGER: Yeah. Turn on your TV, I’m on seven channels, you can stay alive way after you’re dead in this business.

CHRIS NEUMER: I like the fact that people think that since you’re not making movies, you’re not doing anything. You’ve somehow disappeared or died.

DEBRA WINGER: Disappearing is subjective. Everybody in my family knew where I was.

CHRIS NEUMER: You had started to tell a story involving Angie Dickinson wanting a bicycle. And I had interrupted you with some witty barb and the story never got finished. I thought it was going somewhere interesting, and thought I’d check.

DEBRA WINGER: No. Just the charm of her. And the way that everybody shifted into a southern way of living. We were in a small town in the south and she asked for a bicycle. It was a good way to get around that town. It was sort of charming.

CHRIS NEUMER: Where do you think this film will hold a place in film history in a couple of year?

DEBRA WINGER: It’s so hard on this side of it. A place in my heart like Rushmore. About twice a year we have a family night out where we go out and watch films like–like those special films where you see something new every time you watch them. That would be my hope. Like Mememto. You know, special films that people like to watch repeatedly.

CHRIS NEUMER: Like The Mummy Returns.

DEBRA WINGER: (laughs) Can’t say, I haven’t seen it.

CHRIS NEUMER: I think you’re better off because of it.

DEBRA WINGER: When the mummy returns here, the videos go off.

CHRIS NEUMER: Why were you originally attracted to Big Bad Love?

DEBRA WINGER: All of mine was because of Arliss. I would not have known about it otherwise. If I read southern writers, they’re usually girls. (laughs) Like Flannery O’Conner or Eudora Welty. I read the stories because of Arliss and got into the project because of Arliss. He can tell you more directly what his relationship with Larry Brown and those stories was. You have anything else for me?

CHRIS NEUMER: Not unless you have some good Tracy Young stories.

DEBRA WINGER: How do you know Tracy Young?

CHRIS NEUMER: One of your actors has a web-site. Jim–

DEBRA WINGER: That’s really bad. If I didn’t feel so pathetically sorry for him, I’d tell him to cut it out. That was bad.

CHRIS NEUMER: They were some interesting photos and I thought, “Wow! Let’s see what’s going on with her”

DEBRA WINGER: He’s an extra in our film and he has great ambition. I just think it’s so uncool to print pictures from a wrap party. I mean, it’s sort of horrifying if you think about it.

CHRIS NEUMER: Well, your hair is done nicely and you’re very made up and you’re not wearing a red T-shirt…

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