It you arenât familiar with the myth of vagina dentataâ¦let me put it in very simple terms. âTeethâ is about a girl with teeth in her vagina, and the teeth are very sharp, powerful, and can easily destroy what entersâ¦. if you get my drift.
Letâs just say that if youâre a guy and you watch this movieâ¦at certain points you will be crossing your legs and feeling some pain.
Anyway, after a long wait the film is finally getting released this Friday. So to help promoteit, I recently participated in a very small roundtable interview with Jess Weixler â the star of the film.
During our conversation we talked about all the usual stuff and we also found out what sheâs doing next. Hereâs that section:
Question: Do you have anything coming up?
Jess: Iâll see what happens with Peter and Vandy. Iâve shot some other ones. I have something that Iâm going to shoot in April â I have two things that might happen, but one the date isnât set yet so I donât know, but one is supposed to go in April. Thereâs a cult comic book artist, Jeffrey Brown, and my roommate owns a comic book store so Iâm into the whole thing, and he wrote a book called Clumsy and he wrote this screenplay called Save the Date, and thereâs a band called Of Montreal which is also like an indie cult kind of a band, and theyâre scoring it and the lead singerâs going to be in it, and itâs a cool indie group of people, Iâm looking forward to what happens. Joe Swanberg is going to direct it.
Q: Is it based on one of his cult comics?
Jess: It just has a sensibility which is, theyâre comic books but itâs mostly like people who are very sweet but sort of clumsy. Like they have a hard time getting their feelings across, and they are very sensitive and easily hurt; that sort of a bunch. And I guess my story is based between me and my sister, Iâm a little bit of a Bridezilla trying to get my wedding going and sheâs pregnant, and I think that my wedding is more important than her pregnancy. The story is basic, but the dialogue is sort of brilliant, so weâll see what happens.
Q: Is this a project based on the writersâ strike getting resolved?
Jess: I think since we shoot in April I donât think it will be longer than three weeks or a month to shoot it â weâd be finished by May, I think it would be fine.
Anyway, posted below is the entire interview. As always, you can listen to it as an MP3 by clicking here.Finally, I also interviewed Jess and her co-star John Hensley on camera, so if youâre a video type of personâ¦.just click here for that. And if you missed the movie clips you can watch them
Question: Did you know anything about this project when you were handed the script?
Jess Weixler: I knew nothing before they handed me the script, and I got a few pages in and I was like, âWhat? No.â And Iâd never done a lot of sex scenes before, so I wasnât fully prepared for doing that either. So I went in and I read for the best friend, and then Mitchell was like, âYou know, weâd actually be interested in you for Dawn.â And I was like, âI donât know.â Then he started talking to me and I realized heâs incredibly smart and so sweet and so gentle, that he was trying to make a dark comedy, he wasnât trying to make a bad, like B horror movie, he was trying to make a dark comedy, and how cool is it to have the opportunity to play a part thatâs never been played before. And I started to see her as like a superhero, somebody with an anatomical uniqueness that has to learn to use her power for good.
Q: So as sex scenes go, how is this for an initiation?
Jess: Well for me it was actually great, because of the people I was working with. Everybody was very protective over me and wanted to make sure I felt safe and comfortable; Mitchell spearheaded that, making sure I was comfortable, and then all of the guys were just total darlings, aside from their screen images which are despicable. But we knew we were making a fantasy world, the guys were bad in this movie and this movie is a fantasy world.
Q: What was it like shooting the first sex scene you had to do?
Jess: You know the first one was hard. It was the rape scene in the beginning and it was hard for a mixture of elemental reasons, because it was freezing in the water that we were in, and we were in a cave that was very â it was a cave so it was dirty, and it took all day to shoot it because itâs a pretty long scene. So it was a hard day for those reasons and having to feel like you have to protect yourself from being assaulted it does take a lot of adrenaline to get through a day like that. But we were all very good to each other to stay in the right place to be able to do it.
Q: So youâre saying that filmmaking isnât as glamorous as it may seem.
Jess: I guess so, it has its days. Like this day is glamorous.
Q: You have an interesting story about winning the award (for Teeth) at Sundance. Didnât you have to fly back?
Jess: People I think have actually been confused that I was flying out of there and had just gotten back from Sundance, but I had left Sundance a few days before and was flying to go shoot another movie in
Q: Going back to your comment of comparing Dawn to a superhero, her super power kind of requires an elaborate set up and is very specific, so how would she work as a crime fighter?
Jess: Good point. I donât know, because I donât think that she seeks out victims, I would say I donât know if she would swoop in upon somebody else being assaulted, and be like, âNo, have sex with me!â And then take away their weapon. But in the sense that like her brother, she sees that heâs abusing people sexually, that sheâs like, âWell, itâs time to take this away from this guy.â And she goes to him, and thatâs sort of a superhero shot.
Q: Have you seen the film with an audience?
Jess: Yeah, Iâve seen it with a few.
Q: Is it interesting to see the reactions, especially as the film gets going?
Jess: It is, and it hasnât been cookie-cutter at all. Like different audiences have reacted completely differently. I would say though I think that this is a crowd movie, I think itâs a movie best experienced with a group of people because the audience sort of gets on a roll with each other to figure out whatâs funny and whatâs not funny, because so much of it is just uncomfortable that people have to release at some point, and itâs like when and how, and I think it makes it more fun to share it with people.
Q: Has this played to any religious groups?
Jess: I donât think it has, I donât think that it has. We did show it in Sundance, which is in Utah, and one of the showings was out in one of the (Mormon) areas but the crowd that I think it drew were kids that wanted to see it, so they were one of our most excited bunches, they were just screaming the whole time, like they totally got it.
Q: Would you consider it a horror movie?
Jess: I would consider it a dark comedy. I think itâs being marketed right now in the trailers a little bit like a horror movie, which isnât exactly right. It has horror elements, but itâs not like a movie that feeds off of gore, even though it also has some gore, I think itâs mostly a dark comedy.
Q: Have you had feedback from people that have talked to you about it after theyâve seen it â have you had a different reaction from men and women?
Jess: It has been all over the place. Iâve had a lot of guys come up to me afterwards and be like, âIâm terrified of you.â And Iâm like, âCool, thanks.â But Iâve also had a lot of guys be like, âOh it was great, that was so cool.â They got it, they got that it was funny, they didnât think that it was a statement saying that all men deserved to be castrated or anything like that, I donât think thatâs what the movieâs saying. It depends if somebody is along for the ride or not. If they can get into it, some people like to be scared, they like to get a little scared sometimes.
Q: You trained at Julliard?
Jess: Yeah,
Q: Anything at Julliard prepared you for this kind of role?
Jess: The classics, poetry. Actually, itâs kind of Greek. Itâs a heightened reality, itâs not a realistic movie, and I would say doing the Greeks maybe helped me prepare for it, having that sort of level of drama involved.
Q: You have another film in Sundance this year
Jess: No, I donât.
Q: Arenât you in Goodbye Baby?
Jess: Oh thatâs Slamdance â thatâs a friend of mine. I did a movie called The Big Bad Swim and the writer did this afterwards, and I was shooting something else when he made Goodbye Baby and I was going to play a part and I then ended up playing a friend, itâs really a cameo in Slamdance
Q: Letâs talk about Peter and Vandy?
Jess: Iâm probably most excited to see how Peter and Vandy turns out, how that gets edited together, because it felt very special making it, and itâs a love story and itâs totally real, itâs not fantasy at all, and it was great getting to shoot what is almost a two person movie, there are some other people like Jesse Martin and Tracie Thoms, who are the friends in it. I think it could be very beautiful, Iâm excited to see how Peter and Vandy turns out. Itâs about love and itâs about how people unintentionally hurt each other.
Q: You did the film with Jason Ritter. What was it like working with him?
Jess: Heâs brilliant. I had no idea he was as good as he was, just because itâs not like Iâd followed up on him enough, I hadnât watched enough of what heâd done. I was shocked at how good he was. We could really like throw down with each other, we could really fight and we could really care. Heâs a phenomenal actor.
Q: How much rehearsal did you do for this?
Jess: I love rehearsal, and I was fortunate enough to have a month â that I got cast a month before we started shooting. I donât know how people - like they throw it out to a million stars, and then somebody else gets it like a week before, I think thatâs like a ticket to hell, because you donât shoot in sequence so how do you start in the middle if you donât know anything about this personâs journey? And I had a month to prepare, and I have a coach and I took it to him and worked on it several times a week just to get familiar with who this girl could be. Nobody knows what somebody with vagina dentata is like, and so I got to come up with it, and it was nice that I had time to do that.
Q: What about rehearsing with the other actors?
Jess: We didnât really have any rehearsal. Maybe we had like a few hours one day. We would map out the sex scenes so that we knew what we were doing, so that when we started shooting we werenât worried about the physical logistics.
Q: In the scene in the doctorâs office you get to go from an atmosphere of sinister unease to physical comedy, what was it like filming that scene because the expression on your face is priceless.
Jess: That scene was a blast. Josh Pais, I donât know if you all know this beautiful fact about him, he was the only person â he was in the Ninja Turtles movie, and he was the only person to be inside of the costume and the voice, he was Raphael. If that tells you anything about how physically capable he is to set up the combat of the scene â we were able to map it out very clearly. Like first this is going to happen, and I had a harness on my body so that he could have something to hold on to, to throw my body around, and so we went through everything that was going to happen beforehand. He is also a teacher, so he was very instructional, he was able to take the reins so to speak and help us mark through it. So when we shot it we maybe did two takes, I think we ended up using the first one. Itâs like, âAlright, you ready for this? High five, get your adrenaline going. Letâs go.â
Q: What was it like filming in
Jess: I would love to go back to
Q: Do you have anything coming up?
Jess: Iâll see what happens with Peter and Vandy. Iâve shot some other ones. I have something that Iâm going to shoot in April â I have two things that might happen, but one the date isnât set yet so I donât know, but one is supposed to go in April. Thereâs a cult comic book artist, Jeffrey Brown, and my roommate owns a comic book store so Iâm into the whole thing, and he wrote a book called Clumsy and he wrote this screenplay called Save the Date, and thereâs a band called Of Montreal which is also like an indie cult kind of a band, and theyâre scoring it and the lead singerâs going to be in it, and itâs a cool indie group of people, Iâm looking forward to what happens. Joe Swanberg is going to direct it.
Q: Is it based on one of his cult comics?
Jess: It just has a sensibility which is, theyâre comic books but itâs mostly like people who are very sweet but sort of clumsy. Like they have a hard time getting their feelings across, and they are very sensitive and easily hurt; that sort of a bunch. And I guess my story is based between me and my sister, Iâm a little bit of a Bridezilla trying to get my wedding going and sheâs pregnant, and I think that my wedding is more important than her pregnancy. The story is basic, but the dialogue is sort of brilliant, so weâll see what happens.
Q: Is this a project based on the writersâ strike getting resolved?
Jess: I think since we shoot in April I donât think it will be longer than three weeks or a month to shoot it â weâd be finished by May, I think it would be fine.
Q: Youâre talking about the actorsâ strike, but the writersâ strike.
Jess: Oh the writersâ strike, oh it was already written, so itâs done, itâs okay to go ahead and shoot when itâs already finished.
Q: How has the writers strike affected you?
Jess: I donât know, Iâve worked the past four months because everything was written before we shot and I think thatâs true of a lot of indies, because they work so hard to try to get it made that it has been written for a long time. But me personally, I donât live here in L.A. and so Iâm not usually diving into pilot season so it hasnât had as great affect on me as a lot of other actors. Iâm sure itâs going to affect us all because writers are important and theyâve got to be able to keep making work for us to do.
Q: If this film develops a following, and Mitchell get inspired to do a sequel and turn Dawn into a superhero, would you step back in?
Jess: I would. I think I would, I would have to read the script and know that there was something more to give, like one of the guys hunts her down for revenge, or something like that.
Q: Would you envision her in a certain costume?
Jess: Who knows, probably some strapping V somewhere.
Q: VD?
Jess: Yes, many people have also asked whatâs the release thing, like a ripcord, I donât know. I think sheâs always incognito maybe. It would be great if she got a costume.
Q: With your friend owning a comic book store, has that improved your comic book knowledge because you knew of the Ninja Turtles
Jess: I knew from Josh Pais, he told me he was a Ninja Turtle, but I knew the Ninja Turtles from my own childhood. Nobody had to tell me about them. Iâm starting to learn about comic books, Iâm really interested that they are going to make a Why the Last Man movie. Itâs a great book
Q: You mentioned you donât do pilots â youâre not interested in TV?
Jess: Itâs not that I donât want to do it, I just havenât been involved with it so far in my career, and Iâve been working through a lot of the pilot seasons. I think there is good TV, I just have had more of a tendency towards film so far.