Jill Riley connects with director, writer, and comedian John Waters to talk about his new one-man show “False Negative,” the influence Baltimore has had on his work, and how his on-stage material has changed since the pandemic.

Interview Transcript

Edited for clarity and length.

JILL RILEY: The feeling of Halloween is in the air as we're just deep into fall. Things are feeling spooky, and bumpy, and weird. That's something I love about Halloween. I just kind of love getting weird, and I think I have the perfect guest for that vibe this morning. Mister John Waters, the filmmaker, writer, actor, artist--he does a little bit of everything. John, how are you?

JOHN WATERS: I'm well, I'm well. And Halloweener is coming!

Yes, it is. You know, John, you're you're kind of this constant in my life. Well, I mean, I love your movies. But whenever I go to an indie movie theater, especially the Trylon in Minneapolis, they always show that "Don't Smoke in the Theater" public service announcement. And every time I'm just like, "Yes!"

I can never escape that. I hosted a big punk rock festival in Oakland this weekend that I do every year, and they showed it too! The only thing in my life I regret is smoking. It's the only single thing I've ever done that I regret. So every time I see that thing, I say, "Gee, I hope this isn't encouraging people to smoke," because it is the dumbest possible thing you can ever do.

Because it's like, "Don't smoke in the theater," but, "Oooh, yum, yum, yum," It's one of those things where--

I used to smoke five packs a day.

Oh my gosh.

When I did that commercial it was for the Landmark Theatre in LA that had played Pink Flamingos for 10 years at midnight. So before I was just doing a thank you for paying my rent and blah blah blah, and then they said, "We've got two minutes of film left, do anything you want." And I just ad libbed it, did one take of it. There's no copyright on it. And it went viral before there was computers, it went viral in movie theaters on film.

Well, John Waters, looking forward to having you back in Minneapolis at the Parkway Theater--two shows Friday and Saturday. So I know plenty of folks will be looking forward to spending their Halloween weekend with you because I know that you have this great, great following of folks in Minneapolis that are looking forward to returning and the show is called "False Negative". It's got a Halloween spin, and by Halloween, I mean Halloweener. John, can you give me a little preview of what the show is going to be like this weekend?

Well, it's hard because my audience dresses like it's Halloween every night. I used to step out of the house and my father would say, "It's not Halloween," but we all know every night is Halloween. So maybe everybody should come dressed like their parents wanted them to, or dress as the opposite of themselves, or dress as their parents and have their parents dress as you, and go out trick or treating together. So I come up with a lot of alternative ideas because Christmas--it used to be called gay Christmas kind of. But now, gay parades are always straight families showing their tolerance so everything has changed. I want to be scary again. I liked it when I was scary. I miss Mischief Night and Moving Night. I guess I have vandalism nostalgia.

Whether it be a spoken word show or something you're hosting--do you see a lot of characters from your films showing up?

I do, but more so at the John Waters summer camp, that we just had for the fourth consecutive year where they come and live as my characters for three days, and that's really amazing. So I think I see more of that but yes, even when it's not Halloween many people come dressed. I've seen some amazing designs but I always like the really obscure ones where they come dressed as a prop from one of the movies. Somebody just sent me a photograph, I have not met this person but on top of their bald head is tattooed my face--that's a new one!

[laughs] That's great.

I guess it's better than a wig!

I'm talking with John Waters. He's gonna be in Minneapolis at the Parkway Theater this weekend Friday and Saturday, bringing his "False Negative"--the spin on on Halloween. John, you still live in Baltimore, don't you?

I do, yes.

And you love that town. That's your place. Anybody says Baltimore--

It is. I've made all my Movies here. Baltimore is almost like a character in my movies, and my books. Certainly I've written a lot of my--I've written everything here. I live a couple other places too, but Baltimore is where my house, my studio, my office, everything is here. My sense of humor boils here. That's where I put it on simmer, and people here have a great sense of humor because they make fun of themselves first. And that is how you usually can get away with things. We'll see anymore, what you can get away with humor, as you know, is very touchy. I have a new novel coming out that really pushes the limits on political correctness. So we'll see, we'll see. I never understood trigger warnings. I thought you went to college to have your values shaken up.

What was simmering in Baltimore when you got started? People have a sense of humor--maybe that's why there's a love for you in the Midwest, because we love to make fun of ourselves. But there was something really special going on there in Baltimore, because you had a lot of great people around you too.

Yes, it might have been called LSD. [Jill laughs] I think what was going on basically was a group of misfits that didn't even get along in their own misfit world. It was gay people that didn't fit in gay society. It was blacks and whites that didn't fit in their world, and it was all mixed together. So I was never a separatist. I never wanted to hang around with people that were just like me. I wanted to hang around and hear everybody's worst night. I wanted to hear what everybody was rebelling from. And I think that was what was so weird--that we were a completely diverse, mixed crowd before those words even were thrown around so much. Then nobody wanted to be an outsider, but we were outsiders that even outsiders rejected.

Well, John, you mentioned a sense of humor. And bringing that sense of humor, and particularly your brand of comedy and humor. How do you bring that up into the year 2021? I know you mentioned we're living in this politically correct world. Is it even political correctness anymore? What has been your experience?

It could be self righteousness is a better word. Although I believe in most of the things that politically correct people about, I just say, pick your battles. Let's have some humor still. And there is nothing funny about racism. I'm not saying that, and Black Lives Matter worked better than any protest movements since Martin Luther King in my lifetime. But I'm still saying that we have to be able to use political incorrectness as our weapon and be met with joy from it, not censure. The censors I fear aren't old religious people anymore, they're young liberals who seem to not believe in free speech, even though I believe in everything they're saying. I think you should be allowed to say a lot of different views and not get canceled.

I always look at it as this purity. The word purity comes to mind. Or sometimes I wonder--

Well, purity has never been my beat.

Right! Anti-purity.

What's the most radical thing--I talk about this in my show--the most radical thing you can say today is that you still love sex.

Be careful with that.

I know, you have to have a lawyer to ask somebody for a date.

I'm talking with John Waters, who's going to be in the Twin Cities this weekend at the Parkway Theater Friday and Saturday. John, you've made multiple trips to Minneapolis. Is there something about Minneapolis?

Last time I was there was right before the virus went completely crazy. And I think I walked on stage with some masks, almost as a gag, and threw it into the audience--the most unsafe possible thing you could do is pick up my mask and put it on. So I hope nobody did that.

Right, but who knew? I keep getting stuck on 18 months, but I know that it's been longer than that. How have you found humor to help in what's been going on with this global pandemic? How have you brought kind of your brand of humor to this whole thing?

Well, we'll see. We'll see if I get away with it because this whole new show I'm doing is completely new because no humor that was written before the pandemic works. Everything's changed. It's never gonna go back to life before. So you have to reinvent what humor is today because it's the same every single place in the world, and that's what's so amazing. Never have we gone through a thing where every place in the world is the same. Everybody wants their old life back and they're not going to get it. So to me, there is humor involved in that definitely. I mean, remember we used to scrub down our groceries like Joan Crawford gone crazy. But today, who knows, some people are still doing it, and what is the risk you take? I'm going on a tour--even that is kind of a risk because as we know now even some people that get shots get it. So everything they tell you isn't always true. I've had three shots, I want to get 10 more! I'm addicted to the virus. I get the shots every day. I'm so full of antibodies they're gonna have to duct tape me to the plane.

You're gonna be glowing when you're on stage. I'm talking with John Waters, and I think you just have this great fan culture and this great fan following. You were talking about this summer camp that you've done. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because you had some pretty incredible people hanging out at that camp with you. Of course the fans, but you bring in some pretty cool guests.

Well, this year the counselors were Patricia Hurst and Kathleen Turner which was pretty great. Kathleen and I judged a bad white fashion show after Labor Day, and then Patricia Hurst I judged a dance contest of The Bug, which is the last dance in Hairspray, my movie, where you have a disease and you throw it to somebody else and they jump in the circle and scratch an itch. So it was very, very perfect, perfect dance for the virus really, everybody could identify. People come from all over the world. They're all ages. They're all sexual tastes. It's amazing. We call it Jonestown with a happy ending. Everybody's in a good mood. They see each other all year, people have been married at it. People come with their parents. People come from every country around. It's truly amazing. It's kind of touching really. It's a very, very positive event.

Yeah, I was so excited to see Kathleen Turner--back in a TV show, when she was in that show with Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin--I just screamed when she came on the screen. I was so excited.

Kathleen works constantly. She works constantly. She's never stopped working. She's always in a play, TV, everything. She's a great great actress. That's why she's never gonna stop working. She's a dear friend. She's funny, she doesn't suffer fools. But she's a real pro. I'll tell you that much.

Yeah, and she was great in Serial Mom. And then you've got Patty Hearst, which you've been working with her--I mean, she's got to be practically family to you. I just remember her role in Cry-Baby, it was such a departure from what the public perception was of her.

That's why she did it. Who wants to be a famous kidnap victim? She didn't choose to be that. So people would ask her for an autograph and she'd say, "For what? For being kidnapped?" So she joined, I think as a way to say, "Go to hell with all that stuff," to get rid of an old image that she had no choice--she might as well have a little fun with it. And she's a funny comedian or I wouldn't have used her as many times. But we did the same thing with Johnny Depp. He didn't want to be a teen idol, I said, "Stick with us. We'll kill that." Traci Lords freshly escaped from the porn world. She made fun of that, people couldn't use it against her. If you have an image that you want to change, make fun of that image, embrace it. It takes the power away from the people that use it against you.

Yeah, I think Patty Hearst has one of the funniest lines in Cry-Baby, and sometimes I bounce it off someone to see if they're cool, like if we know the same movies I'll just say, "Can we take Wanda the f home?" Just to see if they'll get a reaction. But man that one cracks me up every time. But 16 movies, you've got those--what do you call them? The the trashy trilogy or what was the exact word?

That was the Trash Epics and Celluloid Atrocity? Yeah, I've made that--I've written many books, too. So I always just need a way to tell stories and the spoken word show is just another way to do it.

Yeah, and it's so great. Those classic movies, you've got Hairspray, and Cry-Baby, and Serial Mom is always a fan favorite. It was pretty incredible, and maybe even a surprise to you when you entered that more commercial film world. Was that a surprise? Or was that intentional?

It was--well in my last book "Mr. Know-It-All" I sort of talk about all my Hollywood experiences, and what it was like. I failed upwards, which is something that you can do in Hollywood, but I worked as hard as I could. I wanted every movie to be a hit. I was always a commercial film director. When I made Multiple Maniacs, we might have rented a church hall and had it but it was sold out. I always wanted to have hits. I'm not the kind of person that--I read Variety when I was 13 years old. So I had a puppet show career when I was 12 where I did one or two shows a week for 25 bucks, which in the 50s it was a lot. So I always was in a showbiz career, and this summer I hosted the Orville Peck big concert. It was a country western show, the first time I had to do country jokes. I remember when I walked out on stage that night I said, "This feels exactly like when I walked out and gave the first puppet show at a children's birthday party." There's something the matter with me. I need this, I guess. I still have to walk out on these stages and do this. But I did have a flashback to that and it's really the same and I think everybody in showbusiness kind of would feel the same way.

Well, you're certain to hear some great stories this weekend. John Waters, filmmaker, writer, actor, artist--I mean, he has done it all in show business. Starting with the puppet career, will be at the Parkway Theater this weekend for False Negative--the Halloweener show. John, I appreciate you taking the time. It was really fun to talk to you.

All right. It was fun, and come and scare me. I'd like to do that.

External Links

John Waters - official site