I HAVE NO IDEA: An Interview with Betsey Brown
The complete interview with Betsey Brown. For an introduction, please refer to May’s newsletter.
Betsey: Did you like the Gasper Noe movie?
Miles: Well, it was his YSL ad, not the other one that’s out. He has great editing ideas, cool actors, but I walked away with the same feeling as taking a gimmicky rollercoaster. I don't know. What are your thoughts about his stuff?
B: I’ve only seen two of them. Climax definitely felt like a rollercoaster, that's a really good way of putting it. I saw Love. I think that the unsimulated sex is cool and the threesome scene was great and all that, but it was a bit much. I wish I had seen it in 3D though, that would have been really dope.
M: I’ve never seen a movie in 3D.
B: Are you serious?
M: You should make a movie in 3D!
B: Oh my God. So, for a very brief moment I was obsessed with the 4DX experience, have you heard of this?
M: No, what's that?
B: It takes 3D to the next level. They put you in these rollercoaster movie seats and throughout the entire movie you're bouncing up and down, there's water spraying at you, you have an immersive experience in your seat. I saw… What was the recent NPC movie called? It was about an NPC who realized that he was an NPC.
M: No idea.
B: You have no idea because it's so, so mainstream and it was really stupid, but I had a great time because of the 4DX experience.
M: Well, I don't have anything against stuff that's mainstream, I just tend to get more caught up in media that's made by people that seem around or reachable or, like, peers. If I don’t keep track of mainstream stuff it isn’t because of a snob position. What would you do with 4DX? What would you do to us, Betsey?
B: I have no idea! I think it would be really interesting to do a movie that is totally not… because that one has so much action in it. It would be interesting to do a psychological thriller and the movement comes from anxiety instead of actual action.
M: I forget what movie it was, this guy William Castle made a horror movie in the early 60’s, maybe Vincent Price was in it, but he had electric buzzers put in the chairs to promote it because the movie wasn’t so exciting. I think it was kind of a disaster. People were electrocuted. That got buzz for his movie though.
B: I turned on 4DX when I saw the new Spiderman in 4DX and I had to leave to the theater because I got way too nauseous.
M: It can turn bad.
B: Well, what they do is have these fans that blow fresh air in your face every 10 to 20 minutes. And that fan subsides the nausea. But when I saw Spiderman the fan wasn't working and it was a completely different experience. That's a good metaphor for filmmaking in general, you got to put them over the edge, but also make them feel safe enough to be able to enjoy the discomfort.
M: You’ve got to cover your bases.
B: Yes. Some might say I've failed at that, but some might say I've succeeded.
M: I think it’s a success in that regard. I felt outside of my comfort zone, but found a lot to chew on. Actors has been screening internationally, how did that come about?
B: It's screened in London, Australia, and Iceland. Australia and Iceland are film festivals that heard about the film and wanted to program it. Which is really fun because I had spent all of 2020 being rejected by festivals, so getting two invites was a big plot twist for me. The London one came about because we were already going for The Scary of Sixty-First, Dasha Nekrasova’s movie that I star in. I've been really hustling trying to get Actors seen, so I was like, “Hey, watch my movie and put on a smaller screening of this, why don’t ya?” And it worked!
M: Actors takes place in a really distinctly American culture bubble, does it translate well to international audiences?
B: Good point. To take that even further, I’ve felt that it lives in not only in an American culture bubble, but specifically my Brown family culture. I feel like it's so insular. It has been shocking that people around the world are resonating. I have to say, I don't think people in Iceland resonated. I've been checking the Letterboxd because it's such an underground film we're not getting big name press. There were no Letterboxd reviews from Iceland and only one person reached out to me to say the movie was messed up. However, in Australia, truly I was inundated with DM’s about how much they resonated with the film. So, I'm really curious about Australia’s independent film scene now, because I feel like they are craving the kind of stuff that I'm putting out. I want to keep my relationship with the Aussies. I love them. I’m in the running to get the audience award for that film festival. I’m really excited, we’ll find out soon.
And that's an interesting thing about the movie, some people sit through the whole film and do not resonate and feel quite disturbed. But it seems the majority of people who see the film actually are resonating even if it makes them feel slightly uncomfortable or even very uncomfortable. The movie makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. So that's the point.
M: I think some of the insular feeling of the movie isn’t just the specifics of your family or late 2010’s American culture, the characters are lost in the sauce of the very online attention economy. They need attention, they don’t think they can get it anywhere except in the narrow terms of social media. And that seems like something that can happen everywhere.
B: I think that’s one of the universalities of the film. The feeling that we hate the internet, but we need it.
M: Do you see any big distinctions between adopting an online persona vs. for a role. Say, a persona for your meme page vs. your performances in Actors or Scary of 61st Street?
B: Honestly, I have not thought about that in this way, and that's kind of blowing my mind, but my first impulse is that there has got to be a difference. Specifically, let’s say acting in Scary of 61st Street, that is a whole body experience. I think one of the big problems with the internet is that it actually detaches you from your body. Your whole output is so brain heavy. I do feel there's a really large detachment from being in your body when you're on the internet.
It’s so funny how the movie is a comment on the internet and incorporates so much internet language, visuals, all of that stuff, but I would say me as the real Betsey Brown feels like an outsider to the internet, an outsider to Instagram. I feel like only through having to singlehandedly promote Actors, I've finally made a choice on how to promote my own self online. But the filmmaker who made Actors doesn't identify as someone who is extremely online or who understands the internet almost at all. I feel like I am more trying to understand people like Peter who definitely are fully online and have been for a long time, if that makes sense.
I do think something interesting has happened with the actorscellectuals page. I don't know if you want to include this because it is a spoiler. At the end of the movie, when Peter’s face becomes my face, Peter-as-Betsey says, “Now, the audience won't be able to tell us apart.” We have created that though actorscellectuals because we both run that page and and some people give me all the credit, some people give Peter all the credit, some people have no idea who’s who. And that's been a really interesting spawn from this movie. That feels really, really connected to the heart of what I was getting at.
M: So, you might not have the same face in reality, but the ending is real in that you appear the same virtually now?
B: Exactly, yeah. And now the audience can't tell us apart. It's great. It's really insane. I'm so blown away by that every time I think about it. I think that Actors was the best way for me to figure out how to be a little more comfortable selling myself online. I never posted myself online almost ever and now I feel like I have something outside of myself that requires me to do it. It’s the hate, but the need.
M: Why did you hate the Internet?
B: To be honest, I didn't feel I was getting what I wanted out of it. I didn't know what I was there for.
M: That very relatable. I think more people feel that way about their online lives than otherwise.
B: Absolutely, yeah, that's why I want to say it to you and have it be reported, because it’s huge. It's what Betsey is going through in the film. She doesn't know what she wants to get out of putting things out there and that reflects itself in work. In terms of my Instagram, I just didn't know what I was doing there.
M: And you mentioned need, did you feel pressure to use social media before having promotion as the reason? Did you feel compelled or like you were supposed to be involved with social media when you didn’t want to be?
B: For most of my life with Instagram, I did not care that much, did not post, just random stupid shit. When the pandemic started, I stopped using my main page. I will tell you a secret. I started this meme page that is very, very niche. It's anonymous and I won't tell you what it is. I became obsessed with making memes over the pandemic and that was the beginning of me feeling comfortable posting online. The practice of shitposting has very much bled over into my main account because I am now experienced in posting 11 times a day and having it not matter and feeling fine about it. I'm a big fan of the memelords, they're actually putting art out. That’s sick.
Now that I am posting more, I'm not afraid. When people were DM'ing me a lot about the screenings in Australia and how they love Actors, I treated my own page like a shitpost, screenshot their DM’s, and put it on my story. Basically, shameless bragging about what's going on with me. I have these experiences where people in real life say “it seems like you're doing really well” and I really have to be like, “you know, I did just break up with my boyfriend and I really don't know how to be an adult and I'm not doing that well, that’s just the internet.” And that's why my bio says “much more humble IRL.” I don't know. You said there’s a distinction. And I like there to be a sense of performance on the internet because it points out the obvious, which is you can't be real online, you just can't. Your body is not there.
M: You really put your body on the line in your performances. Do you have role models for hitting that level of intensity?
B: I will shout out all of the directors that have given me the space to feel comfortable using my body in the way that I do and pushing me to be myself and really, really follow my impulses. It feels very instinctual the way that I perform and the way that I use my body. It's so not about what is in my head, what the references are. It’s all about really, really being in tune with what my body is desiring to put out. That's how I feel about acting.
M: It takes a lot to get there.
B: My mom's a psychoanalyst, my parents have always been really, really supportive of my acting when no one else was. I think it takes a lot of self-love to be able to treat acting like an Olympic sport, which I do.
M: I’ve seen a lot of low budget movies that spotlight transgressive performances at the expense of plot. Actors is incredible in it’s plotting, every beat brings new insight on the characters and the pace stays riveting. How long were you working on the story?
B: I wrote it in 2017 and I went through many, many, many drafts of the script. The plotting was all very, very much considered and crafted. It is not at all the same as the mumblecore films that come before it, I don't think this is a mumblecore film.
M: No, it's very loud.
B: Exactly. Yeah, I worked very closely with my producer Emily McEvoy from draft one. I don't remember how many, but really, really a lot of drafts. I did have feedback sessions with trans and non-binary folks during the writing process. Of course, the script looks nothing like the movie except the plot really is like it is on the page. Credit for the pacing goes to Benjamin Moses Smith, the main editor of the film. When he came on board and took a pass at the film it really came alive. I can't thank him enough.
M: The dialogue is mostly improvised?
B: OK. It was a very traditional script. When we got on set Peter, my brother Peter Vack, refused to say any of my lines. There was a lot of tension, but thank god, because that's really what the film is about, the tension that comes from being actor/filmmaker siblings, who simultaneously want to be each other and impress each other. So, he wouldn't say any of my lines. And sometimes he would not even know what the scene that we were shooting was. I'd have to really hold his hand, but it was so good for the movie because he brought a lot of his insanely incredible improv skills and humor that I think are a deeply, deeply important part of the film.
That said, I think it was also a really interesting directing experience. For example, Peter didn't say any of his lines. If he was in the scene, I would have to direct everyone else differently because we had a wild card on our hands. The scenes with my ex-boyfriend Andrew, those were all mostly scripted, we stayed to the script. I think because it was already so vulnerable, he's a much more closed off person, and it’s so vulnerable to be acting a version of our relationship. I think we really needed that structure to fall back on. With my mom and dad, there was a combination. It was about seeing what the other actors needed in terms of improvisation or not, and then going with what was best for them.
M: So your process was to figure out everyone else’s process?
B: It's so fun. This is why I feel really lucky to be both an actor and filmmaker and also why I love to act in my films because you can direct from within the scene and it's really exciting to have the variation of what different people need. My mom’s a psychoanalyst, she always talks about how being a psychoanalyst is really understanding what the patient needs. She has a hard time answering “what kind of therapy to you practice?”She’s like, "Well, I change my ways for the client.” And I think I have taken that in as a director as well. You have to.
M: So much can go wrong dealing with each individual person on their own terms. Do you practice any superstitions? I know that some actors can be very superstitious about what they do before they do a scene.
B: I don't really. I'm honestly shocked by how calm I am on set because there's so much much anxiety within the film and also I love adding anxiety to editing. I really am interested in grappling with high stress, uncomfortable situations. But on set, I feel very on and don't feel superstitious or anything. It's just sort of like a very calming feeling to be there.
One thing that came to mind when you asked that, it’s not a superstition, but the scene we shot when Peter screams at me and is like “let me talk bitch” and he's trying to convince me to have another baby - he hadn't worked for a couple of days. He had a couple of days off and when we were doing the scene, we were doing take after take, and I was giving him notes and he was feeling not good about what he was giving. At a certain point, he stands up and screams, “This is why you need actors who didn’t have a couple of days off.” And I said “Okay, you use it.”
M: A little birdie told me that you're casting your next project. Are there details you can reveal?
B: Yes, I'll give a small detail. It's Peter's second feature. And actually it is the film that Peter mentions in the beginning of Actors. He says, “I've been thinking a lot about rachelormont.com.” And the Betsey character says “but you hate that movie.” And he says “I'm gonna play the lead, I'm gonna play Rachel.” That is a real script and that is the script that we're shooting in July and I will be playing Rachel. So again, we start where Actors left off, with Peter’s face as Betsey’s face. It’s very exciting to me that I am playing that role.
M: The Brown family universe.
B: Yeah! Peter wrote it eight years ago. I've had a really hard time with that script. In the film Actors I'm struggling with him not wanting to cast me. In real life, he wanted to cast Julia Garner, he wanted to cast all these famous people, and he really has just decided that I would be the right choice after I gained a little more clout.
M: Congratulations on making the cut. So your brother takes you more seriously now, you're in the same category as all these famous people to him?
B: Definitely not in terms of fame and fortune, but I think he really sees my talent more than... No, but the thing is, see, someone had to convince him to cast me in Assholes. I don't know if you've seen it, but that part was not written for me. And we changed it once he was convinced that I should play the role, we changed it to the brother/sister relationship. Since then, he's been very much on my side and has been very like, people are going to notice you at some point, you should be a working actor, etc. But I think it's just really hard to not be the first one to say they have the utmost in faith in someone or something.
M: You’re very open to having your family dynamics on display in reality, not just fictionalized in movies. Does that stress you out at all?
B: Here's the thing, I still feel as though I'm in the abyss. So I don't know, I'm maybe a bit too open, but that's just the deal. I guess the short answer is, it doesn’t? Maybe it should, but it doesn’t. It might stress the rest of my family out more than it does me. And it goes back to my ideas about performance. I am open about our dynamics, but there's so much more to us than what I'm saying. I think a part of what I'm trying to do by orating about the dynamics is to get them right somehow because I feel like I haven't yet. My goal, specifically with my parents, is I really, really want get them right. I want them to become less of a caricature in my work.
M: There might be a Betsy Brown picture that's in the subjectivity of your parents?
B: I want to explore what's going on with them a little more. I haven't thought about doing a film that is in their subjectivity because I've really only thought about doing films around the subjectivity of me. I want their subjectivity to be more in there and I want to paint them as more full human beings. I have a dream of trying to make a movie with them in the hopes of getting to understand them in a deeper way, specifically their past. They're more closed-off people, they're such giving listeners, but they’re more private. And I respect that, but I want to push it at some point.
M: Does your psychoanalyst mother think you have a healthy sense of self? Or does she think your exhibitionism is an issue?
B: I think she would say I have a healthy sense of self, but that she doesn't quite understand the exhibitionist side of me.
M: Got it. She hasn’t diagnosed you with anything?
B: No, no, no, she's not into diagnosing people.
M: Right, psychoanalysts don't do that.
B: Right. I want to highlight that question because it's interesting. She sees me as just me and not only the filmmaker me. Well, I guess you're saying I am quite open about my dynamics in general, but I am talking to you as filmmaker me.
M: I ask because some people that are very open find themselves limited by the person that they put out there. They’re on the hook. They find that don't have a lot of room to grow or maneuver through changes.
B: Well, I might find that to be true in the future. I actually don't think I will. I don't resonate so much with that because I'm comfortable with the level of openness I give. And it's just who I am and that's just all I’m ever going to be.
M: Are there new movies that you’re excited about?
B: I have not really been watching new movies. I loved the Dis Magazine screenings. I don't know, I watched Boyhood over the course of three nights last week. That was the second time I've done that and I would suggest everyone go do that.
M: I wonder if people will start making movies with that in mind, that audiences break them up and view them over a couple of days?
B: My God, it honestly flips me out that people do that. Now I am one of those people.
M: At the height of Golden Age of TV noodling, there’s good stuff like this too, I felt a lot of TV shows banked on that. They’re just mood. It doesn’t matter if you pay attention to the plot, you put it on to hear people whisper under ominous synthesizers or people snipe at each other with jokes. It felt like streaming services were just making a hum to tune in and out of.
B: I'm really not a TV person.
M: Very into the movies.
B: Yeah.
M: Of course.
B: I’m trying to think if there's anything new I’ve seen recently and I really can't think of anything.
M: I don’t know what came out last week.
B: I really wanna see Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent or whatever.
M: Oh yeah, that seems very up your alley.
B: Yeah. First of all, he's a reference for sure. I want to be the female Nick Cage in a way. So, it's kind of crazy that he’s in this movie that is essentially Hollywood's version of autofiction.
M: You can tell a great actor because you'll watch anything they're in to see them act. Like him, Kinski, Brando, Laura Dern, they can be in such shit movies. They’re worth watching to see them act. Do you see yourself taking on any dumb script you’re offered?
B: I have no idea, why not?