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Part one of the interview.
How was working with Jean-Claude Van Damme on the CYBORG shoot?
Right from the start I
could tell Jean-Claude was going to be a handful. He had been in the
business long enough to get some pretty big wounds. I think he felt
disrespected. I didn't have any major problems with him, other than
how long it took him to get to the set.
Have your experiences
working with bigger stars like Burt Reynolds, Christopher Lambert,
Dennis Hopper and Steven Seagal been different from working with
smaller stars?
Pretty much, no. The
ones you mentioned were all great. They all knew the business well
enough that they were easy to deal with and they could go with the
flow of a pretty patchwork-budgeted film. I liked working with them
because of their experience. They all wanted to do their best because
they wanted to look good.
What are your favorite
memories of working with Charles Band?
I didn't like working
with him so much. At the time, his wife Debbie Dion was the one that
held all the glue together. I don't think he cared about the films he
was making, only what he could make off of them.
From the 2000s you
have had to work much harder to get films made, moving into
self-financing and outsourcing. But has it also been energising in
other ways?
I was a lot less willing to compromise on the elements of the films.
After TICKER I got final cut on all my films, and so I have gotten
more pleasure out of making them than on any of my other movies.
Before that there was a period where twelve films were taken away
from me. These companies would send me out to shoot on very small
budgets because they knew I could deliver a film that looked good,
but then they would re-edit the films the way they wanted to. I
objected, but I didn't have any clout.
Many fans and critics
marvel at your imagination, work rate, resourcefulness and the
quality of your films, but some critics have described you as a
modern Ed Wood. How do you react to such a label?
I never saw that as a negative thing because Ed Wood as a filmmaker is
thought of fondly. I consider him as someone who was ultra passionate
in getting a movie up on the screen in spite of all the challenges
that he faced. Now I have an even bigger challenge but it is still
somehow very satisfying to somehow get a movie made.
One of your most
intriguing films is ROAD TO HELL, your unofficial sequel to Walter
Hill's STREETS OF FIRE. How did such an idea come about?
I originally saw
STREETS OF FIRE at a private screening at Universal in 1984, while I
was editing RADIOACTIVE DREAMS. I was blown away by the movie and it
stayed with me for years. I owned every format that came out. I got
to know Michael Pare and we would talk about how we should get
together and do a movie one day. I had cast his co-star in STREETS OF
FIRE, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, in a couple of things. It all seemed
to come together in 2008 and I was able to make ROAD TO HELL.
Did you have any
interaction with Walter Hill about the movie?
No, but we did have to
get involved with Universal because we re-licenced some of the songs
from STREETS OF FIRE.
The film has
characters learning to face their pasts and move on, and ends
optimistically. How much of a personal film was this for you?
The film was
germinating in my brain for so many years, and when I finally got to
do it, I was able to take my time editing it without any outside
interference. I kept experimenting with it to find ways to get
everything that I wanted in there. I really wanted it to be a movie
about Cody (Michael Pare)'s soul.
What inspired you to
make the horror film INVASION, which is shot in one long continuous
take? Do you enjoy setting yourself challenges like this?
Yes, I do. That was a
wonderful concept that I just wanted to see if I could make work. We
shot it in one night. Technically, HD was starting to become very big
and I thought HD would enable us to do achieve what we wanted to
achieve.
Once I determined I had
early onset dementia I decided if I was going to go down, I was going
to go down making a movie. I wanted my last breath to be about making
movies before I gave in to this disease. The disease definitely makes
it harder for me to make movies. It's a real challenge.
Has it been
therapeutic for you?
It really has. It has
kept my mind more active all the time, and purposeful. It's really
rewarding, especially when you meet some of the new generation of
filmmakers. HD technology makes it easier for someone like me in my
situation. Without this technology I wouldn't be able to make films.
You are very open with
your fans on social media about your health issues and your struggles
to get films made. Has interacting with your fans been a positive
influence on your life?
Yes, it's been a very
positive influence. For most of my career I was kind of divorced from
the audience. A lot of them were re-edited without my input and some
of them would be out and I wouldn't even know it. Knowing the kind of
audience that is going to watch my movies makes the movies more
important and more personal to me now. A lot of people have parents
or grandparents who are going through what I'm going through, and I
just want to show them that there are ways you can keep working, keep
your mind active and not give in to the disease. There are solutions
to living a full life.
Yes, I definitely do.
How was the experience
of making INSTERSTELLAR CIVIL WAR? What can audiences expect from the
movie?
When I was making the
film I was going through the initial treatment for the disease and I
was just beginning to learn what it was doing to me. It was really
shocking. For example, sometimes I would go blind, and tomorrow I
won't even remember having talked to you. So, making INTERSTELLAR
CIVIL WAR I was always faced with learning new aspects of the
disease, and how limiting and insidious the disease is. But making
the film was a pleasure because I had such a great cast and crew, and
I think the film came out even better than if I had made it with a
bigger budget. Because of my condition I was able to distill down
what I wanted to say with the film and not have any outside concerns.
I am at the point now where I don't have to worry about my career or
whether a film will make money. The only thing I cared about was what
I wanted to communicate with the film. That was my only
responsibility that I had to live up to. It was a very liberating
film to make, even though it took two years.
What advice would you
give to young filmmakers who are struggling to make it through?
You have to commit to the ideas that you want to see on the screen and do everything that you can to persevere. That's really the secret to why I had such a long career and made so many movies. I persevered, no matter what. I didn't bitch and moan, or roll up and die. I just went on to the next film. The goal is to keep refining your ideas, to become more efficient and better prepared, so that if they do take your film away from you, there's not much leeway for them to change your vision. They just fired the two young directors from the new Han Solo movie, and that situation is my career in a nutshell.
Albert's website.
INTERSTELLAR CIVIL WAR will premiere at the Horror Hound Weekend in September 2017.
Interview by Paul Rowlands. Copyright © Paul Rowlands, 2017. All rights reserved.
You have to commit to the ideas that you want to see on the screen and do everything that you can to persevere. That's really the secret to why I had such a long career and made so many movies. I persevered, no matter what. I didn't bitch and moan, or roll up and die. I just went on to the next film. The goal is to keep refining your ideas, to become more efficient and better prepared, so that if they do take your film away from you, there's not much leeway for them to change your vision. They just fired the two young directors from the new Han Solo movie, and that situation is my career in a nutshell.
Albert's website.
INTERSTELLAR CIVIL WAR will premiere at the Horror Hound Weekend in September 2017.
Interview by Paul Rowlands. Copyright © Paul Rowlands, 2017. All rights reserved.
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