Interview with Scott Heim (Mysterious Skin)

I've always been really fascinated with UFOs and and really any sort of I remember as a kid uh my sister and I our father was an elementary school teacher and he taught us to read really early and I remember sort of any interest I showed in any subject he would rush to the library and bring home books on that subject just to get me reading more and more and I don't know why but probably at age three or four even I showed this great interest in things like Loch Ness monster and big fed and UFOs and so I just remember always as a kid reading books about UFOs and aliens and that sort of thing and then uh you know just sort of at the scene in the book and in the movie my sister and mother and I actually saw you know what we thought was a UFO hovering over the house one night um it's very similar to how it happens in the movie and so that was always something that I was sort of fascinated by and I remember being in college and writing a short story um about this character because I found it very fascinating how people when they tell their UFO Abduction memories are really sort of similar to people under hypnosis that then come out with some sort of molestation memory or something so that kind of began as a short story I think and it just kept expanding and I realized it was much sort of bigger well the that word was something I was always really afraid of well yeah I even called it the n-word because it just seemed like something that was so um took up so much of your time as a writer and you know you basically you have to just sign your life over to working on the same thing for years and um I don't know I think maybe the the way that I was able to um sign myself over to the idea of writing a novel was it was kind of like writing two novels in a way because so much of it is you know this parallel story that jumps between the two characters so it was kind of like if I got tired of writing about one character I could write about the other again and yeah I guess you know just writing the story of the short story about Brian I just realized it was something much more expansive and at some point I realized that an earlier short story I had written which was about the character Neil had a really similar Genesis um and I think it's then that I realized that I should take these two stories and sort of put sort of put them together um and after that happened I saw where it should end and I see I sort of see the book as this diamond shaped like it begins with the two characters at the same point but the thing go completely opposite ways and then they eventually you know meet again um that's a tough question I I guess my standard answer is uh both characters are so like me in different ways um to bring it to bring it you know into the sort of autobiography question uh my parents divorced when I was in fifth grade I think and before that my mother had always sort of been you know the maybe typical kind of Midwest Homemaker kind of wife and so I think maybe my life up until then was maybe a little bit more like Brian's but then after my parents divorce I remember my mom went on this kind of you know soul-searching period of drinking and dating other men and and my life then was a lot more like Niels is in the book and the movie um and I think really you know I think really anyone's life is kind of like that you know you have times in your life where you might have acted like it acted like a different person than you regularly do and that was what was fun also about writing this book is I had the two late characters so I could kind of take experiences from my past that maybe were um more like Brian and put them into that part and the sort of I don't know crazy or riskier side of me I could maybe filter into Neil that was quite a while I I finished the book in at the end of 93 and then you know 94 was you know I got the publisher and doing the editing and then the long time that it takes between actually finishing the book and when the book comes out and then the book came out in the US in 95 and uh I think about a year later a company optioned that not not Greg and not uh antidote not the company that actually wound up making it but it was a different company and they wanted me to write the screenplay so um I did and it actually was accepted to this screenwriter's lab at Sundance and um that was a great experience but looking back now uh my script is really sort of less like the novel than Greggs was um I think my script since I wasn't really experienced with writing scripts before and since I'm not a director there were certain things about the book that I couldn't imagine ever being filmed yeah I couldn't imagine you know how they would find child actors who could play these parts so there were a lot of things that I left out I think my script actually begins with the characters at you know the age of 18 and sort of a lot of the past material exists as sort of sketchy little flashbacks I think less so than I thought it thought it would be I think the more time that passes you're able to sort of I think by the time I'd by the time I was writing the screenplay I I think I was finished with my second book so the characters of Mysterious Skin were sort of I don't know it's not that they were dead but they were um they weren't they just weren't as close to me as as they were would have been you know if I just immediately written the screenplay after finishing the novel yeah and when you were writing enough were you envisioned envisaging it cinematically at the time um yes but not in the sense of I think it's dangerous for any Rider to to write a novel thinking this is going to be a great movie um sometimes you pick up a novel and you know immediately on page four or five that the characters are in some you know gunfight or car chase or something and you just sort of had the feeling that that the author is thinking in terms of Hollywood and I I think that's dangerous for a a novelist I think it takes away from the sort of most important things about writing a literary novel which are things like you know characterization and realism and dialogue and things like that um so you know at the time I wrote Mysterious Skin it was my first book I was finishing it for my for my master of Fine Arts at Columbia and uh I was more concerned with you know getting my degree and getting this book done and it was it was such a late it's writing a first book is such a labor of love because you don't really have your agent and your editor there and then after you have a first book out it sort of changes your life because you you suddenly have an audience you know whether it's an audience of two or an audience of 200 000 you um you have an audience and it completely changes how you ride I think I think no it would be the closest answer I once again I I couldn't imagine certain things about the book being filmed but I think that's what's so great about Greg's film is he he figured out a way to um use child actors without uh damaging the actual real human being that's playing the part um and I think one of the amazing things about the film is a lot of people that see it the first time they see it they one of their initial questions if we do it you know when we've gone to the festivals and we do q and A's one of the initial questions is how did you find kids that were so good to do these roles or or even more specifically how did you find parents that would allow their children to play these roles but the amazing thing is is that Greg did I think is um I always I always sort of compare it to Psycho how you know people see the shower scene and they think they're seeing the knife going into the flesh but really Hitchcock never actually filmed that he just did it in such a way that you think you're seeing more than you are and I think that's sort of similar to the early scenes in Mysterious Skin Greg filmed it in such a way that you you think you're seeing these things happening to the to these little boys but if you look really carefully from from shot to shot the way he's edited it um you you can tell if you really analyze it that he's not really subjecting these kids too uh I think the way Greg puts it is he didn't want to make a film about uh childhood trauma that would traumatize the children playing the roles Greg and I had he had read the book not long after it was published and then when when I wrote the screenplay for the other company they actually submitted it to Sundance and Greg was actually on the board of the people reading scripts that year so he hadn't met me yet but he'd read the novel and he really liked the script and then after Sundance we eventually I'm not sure how we eventually became sort of friends through email and Greg and I have a really similar taste in music and so we had a lot of things in common and we just sort of had this email relationship for three or four years and the whole time I you know he was saying that he wanted to make the film and um I I just remember sort of long emails where he would we would just sort of talk about the character so he'd ask about some aspect or something so I think by the time that I that I realized that it was going to happen and that he was going to make it um I I knew then that he was the right person to make it because he had sort of developed this relationship with me I knew the book better than a lot of other people did people have asked me like you know how Hands-On were you with you know as the author and I you know I certainly I wasn't really there for much of the filming I was there for the New York scenes and um but I think I think my involvement was maybe different than a lot of other authors because I'd actually become friends with Greg but also friends with Brady and Joe and um you know even in the case of Joe he and I went back to Kansas together and uh you know so he could see this the places where the book is set and meet some of the people that the characters were based on yeah Joe um Joe's is just amazing I mean ever I'm so happy with all the performances in the film I couldn't be happier but Joe sort of did something you know beyond the realm of What actors usually do and um yeah he met me before the filming and then he said you know I'm really interested in going back to Kansas and so you know the next thing I knew a week later we were you know driving around in a rental car to these small towns in Kansas where I'd grown up and yeah he he you know brought along a tape recorder and his his video camera and just sort of you know we went over to my mom's house and my cousins and friends were over and he just sort of you know set his recorder down in the corner and you know let it play while people were talking and you know then I think he brought that back and just sort of played it for the the cast you know before filming and it was things like that and also just you know we went to the Little League field where I played as a kid and we went to my high school and you know in the town where I grew up and I guess it's just that sort of Testament to to Joe's skill as an actor he just he wanted to become this character so you know he wanted to sort of live as much of that character's past as possible that they they definitely see a resemblance in the way Joe portrays that character and but not only Joe but Brady as well sort of um maybe in the way that I was back then which you know isn't to say that everything about those characters is autobiographical but certainly a lot of my experiences are kind of you know filtered through the characters really pretty closely I think especially in Brady's case um very similar physically to how I imagined that character the strange thing is for me um when you write a book you have a definite idea of how your characters look obviously and um not only your characters but your your settings and the interiors and everything really you just you know you spend so much time writing a book and then so many years pass after you've written it and so it just exists in your head in that certain way and I couldn't imagine that ever changing but now after seeing the film you know I've seen it maybe seven or eight times now and I can't I can't really remember what my vision of the you know the characters physically or the settings I can't really remember what that was now it now it exists for me in a very different way so even if I skim through the book now the characters I see are you know Brady and Joe and Jeff and Michelle and Elizabeth they've taken the place of the images I initially created in my head it's very strange but you know that's what's so great about Greg getting the film so right for me is um I think it would have been really disappointing if the film hadn't if I if I wasn't pleased with the film because then it would have changed my my vision but in in maybe a negative way but I'm so happy with the film and the characters look so perfect to me that you know you know it's just it's such an honor I think since since he's finished the film he told me that he kind of did and I know the first time I saw it he he maybe seemed a little more nervous than I remember seeing him before but I I don't know even before I saw it I I I'd seen little bits and pieces and I'd seen some stills from the film and I I sort of had Joe and Brady you know as my close contacts sort of calling me every day saying like I think you're really gonna like it um so I sort of knew that that I was going to be happy with it I think well certainly something that you that I immediately think of when you ask that is just um the music because that's something that you know is so great about film you can you can just bend and shape someone's emotion depending on the music that you use and that's certainly I wish that I wish you could do that with a book I wish that every book came with like a little you know a little soundtrack on every page and you could sort of you know change people's ideas and emotions depending on the page they turn um but the soundtrack I couldn't be happier with the choice of music and you know it's it's all these bands and and artists that I grew up loving and you know like the cocktail Twins were my favorite band forever and you know if you would have told me hey if you would have told me your book's going to be made into a film I wouldn't have believed it but then you know actually saying that Robin Guthrie was going to do the the music for the film that's just the ultimate for me so that's certainly the first thing that comes to mind when you ask that question is um I just think it adds so much to the meaning of the book and this the scenes and the situations and theme and atmosphere just the music that was used for the film um once again that's sort of um I think the utmost honor in a way because Greg you know Greg certainly there's so much of there's so much of him in the movie obviously but I think um I think it's a nice sort of marriage between my style as a writer and and Greg's you know completely original style as a director and the great thing is is he sort of he I think he found that balance where he could still make it an obvious gregoraki film but you know it's the first film he's done that's like adapted from someone else's material so I know a lot of people said like what is this film gonna be like as a gregoraki film but through someone else's material but I think he did such a great job in still making it his film yeah I I think that was that was one of my maybe one of my biggest challenges in writing the book because um for me I think the most important thing is always making characters as real as possible so in the the character of Neil he's obviously doing horrible things during the book you know as a kid he abuses another kid in one scene and then you know you see him in the book like shoplifting and having sex right and left and you know not necessarily things that uh you would normally see in a character that you want your audience to perceive as positive and honorable and sympathetic and everything else but uh for me that's the challenge you know watch making your character do human but sometimes horrible things and still getting your reader to sympathize with them at the end when when they're supposed to be sympathizing with them um and you know I think maybe as in a film it might even be harder because you don't have that long space of you know many pages of that a novel has you just have you know like your 90 or 100 minutes to convince your audience that this is essentially a good person even though that what they're seeing might not not necessarily be good you know good deeds yes um yeah that I mean that was definitely a worry uh because there's certainly things in the book and in the movie that are you know sort of big sensationalist um you know whether it's the stuff with the UFO or the stuff with you know Neil hustling having sex right and left that sort of thing um but I think the the great thing that Greg did is he has those moments but they're they're sort of the punctuating moments in between sort of you know the calm more Serene More Beautiful Moments in a way and I think you know if someone were to just see like three scenes from the movie and it and they were certain scenes of Neil's they might think that it was just you know a sort of big sensationalist film like that but I I think as a whole Greg found that right balance between the kind of quieter moments of the book and the more explosive scenes my my professor my my first sort of big writing Professor that influenced me as a person and writer always told me that you know if if someday if you finish a book and you get it published you should never really go back and look at it again because you're always going to see the things that you wish you'd done differently um because once it's once it's published you can't really change those things and I I think it's I kind of feel that same way about the the screenplay I'm so happy with the film and so happy with the way Greg did it that you know I think I just have that my old screenplay locked away somewhere but I'm not really interested in looking at it again yeah definitely um you know I'm trying to finish my third book now but I also have a couple of sort of fledgling scripts that I've been working on for a while and I'm a big I've always been a big horror film fanatic so um yeah there's sort of a horror film screenplay that I've been working on for a while that maybe a little bit more psychological horror but definitely has some of the you know blood and God's Horror in it also yeah it's called we disappear um ish I'm really hoping to be done before the fall of this year so we'll see it's the great thing about having the movie coming out is it's sort of giving me the extra kick in the pants that I need to finish the book that's been a question that people have had sort of from the beginning is you know in terms of my audience what I'm sure Craig that that gets that question too but I think you know the care some of the characters in the book are gay some are not but I think the the initial theme or the initial conflict or problem of the film is is sort of universal or I don't know I think I think the film would essentially be have a lot of the same concerns if you know if it was two girls instead of two boys um so I I don't know I think I hope that it has a pretty Universal appeal yeah definitely some some of the most positive responses we've gotten so far have been from older women I think there's something about the story that brings out kind of a maternal Instinct in people so uh that's that's certainly been you know some of the more positive feedback we've gotten have been at the festivals from from older women you know I I do but that's like UFO is basically saying like you don't know what you believe in you just believe that there's something strange out there going on but I I think that's I mean that's sort of the reason why I have the character Avalon in the book is um I didn't want people to think that I was like debunking UFO abductees stories or something by this I just think that um the kind of wrong recovered memory that Brian has in the book is just his story but I didn't necessarily want you know to say that all the people that have these UFO memories are are actually substituting them for something else because I think you know if so many people have similar stories like that there must be something strange going on there yeah you know that's that's one of the things when people say oh you know there must be parts of the book that are true they that's one thing that they don't necessarily mean like they they probably think that that's just something that I added but that's actually the way it is in the film was very close to how how it happened in real life

Channel: weirdlingwolf

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Keywords: 'Slaughter High' (1986), wes craven, VHS horror, sam raimi, tobe hooper, george A romero, The Burning, splatter horror, making of, behind-the-scenes, quentin tarantino, occult, cult horror, Giallo, dario argento, luigi cozzi, Suspiria, deep red, umberto lenzi, hammer films, Battlefield earth, hal ashby, david lynch, The Intruder 1962, William Shatner, night of the comet 1984, End of days 1999, val guest, the quatermass Xperiment, documentary, Jean rollin, French cinema

Id: lZ43hp75G5Y

Length: 25min 8sec (1508 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023