The indie king discuss Honeydripper and Jurassic Park IV.
John Sayles marches to the beat of a different drummer. He’s been doing it for years to great effect, dancing on the line of Hollywood’s outskirts, crafting highly original character-driven films, generally to the praise of originality-starved critics and audiences seeking something new and different.
His recent directorial projects include the political satire Silver City and the ode to Florida’s sinking real estate market Sunshine State. As a writer, Sayles’ work ranges from his own projects (Lone Star, Limbo) to more blockbuster-driven ventures like The Howling and the upcoming Spiderwick Chronicles.
Sayles latest project explores the most seminal of American pop culture moments – the birth of rock n’ roll.
Danny Glover is Tyrone Purvis, the proprietor and piano player of the fledgling Honeydripper Lounge. As music is making a shift from pianos and horns to electric-driven instruments, Purvis and his cohort Maceo (Charles S. Dutton) concoct a plan to bring a new rock guitar sensation known as Guitar Sam (Gary Clark, Jr.) to play the Honeydripper. As the chances of Sam’s appearance grow slimmer, Purvis knows he must do whatever it takes to save his livelihood. Meanwhile, a young drifter named Sonny has strolled into down with a homemade guitar and amp. Although Purvis dismisses him at first, Sonny may just hold the answer to all of the Honeydripper’s problems.
Sayles directed and wrote the film and also make a quick cameo appearance as a liquor delivery man. Mable John, Stacy Keach, Keb’ Mo’, Mary Steenburgen, Yaya DaCosta and Lisa Gay Hamilton also co-star.
ReelzChannel.com sat down to talk with John Sayles recently about his work on the film as well as his somewhat unexpected participation in the long-rumored fourth Jurassic Park film.
ReelzChannel.com: You’re obviously a big music fan. Where did the idea for Honeydripper come from?
John Sayles: A lot of it came out of the music. I have this idea that Americans integrate first in sports and music. They start mixing there before they do in the rest of life, and part of it is just ‘That sounded cool. How did he do that?’ or ‘That instrument sounded great.’ That was kind of the germ of what happened when rock n’ roll came in and, economically, all these people were playing stuff that was similar or even harder to play. There was this tidal wave that swept everything away and if you wanted to make money, that’s what you did… Nobody thought it would last and then about two years later people went, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t get work unless we play this stuff.’ What happened to people during that and who are the people who looked into that and said, ‘There’s something in there that I can do well’ or the people who stayed behind by choice or because they couldn’t actually play that stuff.
RC: Gary Clark’s character in the film, Sonny, seems to be made up of a sort of amalgam of musical legends. His sound is very Chuck Berry, but there seems to be other musical figures mixed in there as well.
JS: First of all, the rock n’ roll legend is that there was this New Orleans guy named Guitar Slim and he had a big hit with a song called “The Things I Used to Do” which I think was arranged by Ray Charles when he was 19 years old. Two things that I took from Guitar Slim – one was that he was known for missing gigs. With all these rock icons, at some point, some club owner said, ‘Can you play this song? Well, tonight you are Guitar Slim.’ Nobody knew what he looked like because there were no album covers or music videos… The other thing was that he started this idea of going out onto the street with a very long extension cord and going to the other clubs across the street and playing people into his club. He and Johnny Guitar Watson were the guys who would do that… That technology really became available in 1950. So really it’s Guitar Slim, Chuck Berry, Ike Turner, who was the A & R guy for Sun Records but was also an innovative instrumentalist and arranger. ‘Rocket 88’ is one of the first rock n’ roll songs.
RC: You brought together all of these musicians to act in the film as well as play music. Was it difficult to find that combination?
JS: Well, with Gary Clark Jr. we went down and there’s just not that many African American guys his age who play that kind of guitar any more. We got a tip from Lewis Black who is one of the people who started the South by Southwest music festival in Austin who said, ‘You gotta come down and see this kid…’ We saw Gary and then we auditioned him and, you know, he’s playing a young musician, so it’s not like he’s got to play King Lear. But, it was like, ‘Oh, this guy would look good on camera.’
When we got him to the set, we were like, ‘Okay, this is all just about getting him comfortable because this guy’s got some acting chops.’
With Eddie Shaw, the same thing… We had a couple of different sax players put themselves on tape. With Eddie, I felt like, this guy is so cool and that’s a lot of what I need.
RC: You’re still listed as one of the writers on Jurassic Park IV. What is the status on that one?
JS: You know, this is one of the problems with the web. I worked on Jurassic Park two or three years ago. I did a couple drafts of it and I really don’t know if that organization is even pursuing that movie right now.
All I know was that they didn’t want to make the movie unless it was something that was going to be great and new. They weren’t going to just go back to the island and have some people land on the island and get eaten.
RC: All due respect, you do seem like a bit of an odd choice for a Jurassic Park sequel.
JS: Why not? The last page of a movie that I wrote for Steven Spielberg years ago was basically the first page of E.T. I wrote The Howling, I wrote Alligator. I’ve written that kind of movie before. I’ve written for James Cameron, Science Fiction, stuff like that… So why not? I’ve written in pretty much all the genres except for serial killers, vampires and hit men. (Laughs)
Honeydripper is now playing in limited release.