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AICN's Super Sexy Dorothy Parker interviews.... the great MICHAEL BOWMAN!!!!!

Hey folks, Harry here.... You might remember that I wrote a big piece about Michael Bowman... that cool as shit albino guy from ME, MYSELF AND IRENE. He started out over a year ago as just your average white guy... and he Makes ME, MYSELF AND IRENE and gets international fame.... Has he turned into a psychotic ego monster? Did he get a full body pigment tattoo so he could be a lifeguard on BAYWATCH? Or is he still just that great guy he was over a year ago? I sent the gorgeous and voluptuous Dorothy Parker in her square shouldered business suit with that minidress and the stockings with the seam up the back to track him down... and do the reality check.... Here is... Michael Bowman and Dorothy Parker.... Enjoy....


Michael Bowman interview 8/9/00 12:30 a.m.


DP Do want to start at the top of the list and see where it goes?


MB Sure, I don't have it in front of me, but the first question you asked me I do remember. Which was what I think the differences are between stage acting and film acting. To be honest, that's something that I don't really feel that qualified to answer since I've only been in this one film and my only real stage acting was high school. The only visible difference is that (in film) you get to do it as many times as you want and um, Jim Carrey was watching-- (laughs) that was a big difference.


DP I suppose that would be a little bit scarier, too-a much more demanding audience.


MB It was intense-That part of the whole experience was really fun.


DP Okay. That's an interesting point though-if you say that that part of the experience was fun-over all what did you think of the entire experience?


MB It was really negative to be honest, I'm ah--I'm a twenty-five-year-old bitter man! (Laughs) But really though, I don't have too many positive things to say about that business.


DP Do you feel like you're probably going to avoid it after this?


MB Well, I haven't gotten an agent and I haven't found any work. I haven't pursued it really in any way and I'm not sure if eventually I will pursue it, but for right now, I have no desire to.


DP We could move on to some of the other questions--


MB Either way.


DP Okay-well I'm curious about this "I'm a twenty-five -yea r-old bitter man"! (Laughing)


MB Well I try to remind myself how much fun I had when I was doing the actual filming because really, it was brilliant and it was fun and it was intense and I enjoyed it, but beyond that there's been over a year of nonstop bullshit really. I came into this thing not knowing anything, period about this business -I teach autistic kids for a living--and the Hollywood movie business was the furthest thing from my head. I kind of got a baptism by fire in that all of a sudden I found myself in this car with the casting director (Rick Montgomery) on my way back from this mansion where I'd just met Jim Carrey and Peter and Bobby Farrelly. They had just told me that I had the part and all of a sudden I'm in a car with this casting director and a producer and we're driving away from there and I'm thinking, "Wow this is really strange and surreal." We weren't even out of the driveway and right away Montgomery is saying something like "wow you're so lucky, you're so lucky because most people in this business, in this situation would need to have an agent and a lawyer and a manager, but you're so lucky because these people are so great they'll take care of everything for you." At that point I didn't have the insight into the business to know that the casting director works for the producers, who work for the studio and that the casting director wants to get all his actors to the studio for as little as possible so that the producers can make more money and then they'll hire him as casting director again. I didn't understand any of that-


DP So this guy in the car is blowing sunshine up your butt-


MB Exactly, he set it up right from the start. -- I'm a good judge of character and Pete Farrelly is a great guy and Jim Carrey and Bobby Farrelly are great guys and I could tell that right away. I knew that they were people that wouldn't have any interest in screwing me over, you know? But what I didn't realize was the people that work for them -the producers that I'm actually dealing with- have different motives altogether and that's the business. But my firsthand experience of all this was being a teacher who's all of a sudden given a contract twenty minutes before I was supposed to film my first scene with Jim Carrey and being told that until I sign it everyone has to wait, and I'm thinking "Well, this is less than my original deal, but this casting director says he's acting as my agent and he's hooking me up with a good deal and I don't want everyone's first impression of me to be that I'm an asshole."


DP That you're causing problems--


MB Yeah, that I'm making a big deal out of (laughs) demanding the legal minimum! You know, but that's the way it goes, that's the way that business goes-- If you don't have anyone looking out for you, no matter how nice the directors are you are going to be taken advantage of. The directors are busy men, they're in charge of making the film; but they don't know what goes on around it.


DP Right. Anyone else who's working on it, regardless of what you think of their character, they're not necessarily gonna be able to chaperone or know what 's gong on with you.


MB No, it was just naivete on my part believing, well, since The Farrelly's are good people, and these producers who work for them are friends of theirs, then I guess I can trust them. And of course, you know (laughing) if you watch enough True Hollywood Stories you learn right away that you're not supposed to trust anyone! But see, I didn't have cable until after this whole thing So I didn't know any of that.


DP (laughing)"If I only had cable!" You had said that you were working in software quality assurance-


MB Yeah, but that was years ago, years ago,


DP Did you end up having to deal with a lot of the business end there? I work really closely with someone's who's the owner of his own company so within the past year I've seen, in the business world, it's not honorable, it's not nice, it's "Can you get away with it?"


MB No, I didn't have any business sense, This was capitalism 101 for me really. Actually, washing dishes and being paid 6 dollars an hour to teach severely autistic kids has been capitalism 101, but this was the advanced course. (Laughs) Yeah, but you know, I learned a lot and I had some great experiences. I got to do something that a lot of people would love to do. There is a line I really love from a fantastic film that I saw the other day (The Girl on the Bridge). I'm sure I won't say it exactly, but it was "Everyone thinks that luck is the thing that hasn't happened to them." When I was auditioning I was thinking, "Ah man, this would be the greatest luck if this happens!" And I just wasn't ready for the amount of flaming shit covered hoops you have to jump through.


DP This question was my big deal: The Farrelly brothers use such a broad spectrum of actor, right down to the extras they hire. Do you feel that they attempt to cross and break typecasting barriers in a positive way?


MB Do I think that they attempt that? Yes, I definitely do. I think they are very conscious of that. Specifically because they're really good people. Take my character in this movie for instance--he 's this albino character that's being made fun of- the main reason I did it is because Peter Farrelly wrote it. I know the way he feels about things and I know that the very fact that he had me do it instead of some dude in powder make-up really says a lot about him. Because I don't think that what he's doing is poking fun at people quite so much as most people think he is.


DP Like you were saying, the fact that they chose you rather than to put actor in there with make-up and powder and all this bullshit on, they want the realism of it, they want to be sympathetic towards it but at the same time, the humor is not derogatory. On the surface I suppose if a shallow person is watching There's Something About Mary for the billionth time and they're looking at this MR kid, they'd say "Oh, yeah, they're making fun of retarded people--"


MB For me, I think the only ethical problem in it is that so many morons DO see their movies. A lot of them actually do take it that way. To be honest I have a lot of problem with the fact that some poor kid who has albinism out in Ohio is going to be called "Whitey" because I did this movie. Because when I was his age if someone called me "Whitey"... I mean that was horrible, that would break me, it was the thing that could crush me. I think that everyone has, when they're a kid, something that if someone pushes that button---it's a horrible feeling. And for a lot of people, if your family's messed up, or your dad's an alcoholic, or he beats you or something--most people aren't going to know that. But if you're a little kid that has albinism, first of all, you're blind, and so you can't see the people that are teasing you, and second of all, you're wearing what it is, that button for you, you're wearing it right there for everyone to see-you're an easy easy easy target. So for me this is an ethical problem, Because I feel if me doing this in some way effects a kid in that way, then I have a problem with it.


DP Have you gotten any flack about it?


MB A little bit. I know that there are a lot of people that have albinism that feel I'm a sell out for playing Whitey. They feel that it's hurtful, and I don't fault them for that opinion really. That's the minority of the people that have albinism that I've talked to. But still, there are people I know that are hurt by it, whether or not the intent was malicious. Like I said, a lot of the people that see these films are morons. (Laughs) For better of worse, it's made the Farrellys rich. Still, I think they actually have a pretty esoteric sense of humor. I think that their stuff is really funny on a lot of levels, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of people are gonna see their movies and not get it. I don't fault them for making the movies that they make, but still I have to hold myself up to that-wondering if something I've done is hurtful to someone else. If it is then I'm not that down with it.


DP That leads into the next question, because when you were saying that, in my mind, I'm thinking of several arguments against that-a girl I knew had albinism and for the most part nobody really -In high school that's usually the time when people start ripping you up-


MB No. It starts in elementary school and it's worse in junior high-well, for me, well--for most people that I've talked to. In high school I found a subculture of people who thought it was cool to be a freak, and so I got to dye my hair with Kool-Aid and go to punk shows and some people thought I was cooler because I didn't have to try so hard to be different. But a lot of kids growing up in Montana and in Missouri and you know, Iowa, aren't that lucky. I just went to this International Albinism conference in Massachusetts. I just went there three weeks ago- and it just blew my mind to walk in this room and see all these people who look like me of every race, of every background, every age, everything. It just really blew my mind. I talked to a lot of people who are in elementary school and in junior high school and high school and a lot of them got it really bad... I was really lucky. I had supportive friends in high school, and a lot of people don't. It's hard being different no matter what it is, but like I said, if you're an albino, you're an easy target, and on top of that you can't see the person and that makes it worse. But that's my take on that.


DP In other films how do you feel about the portrayal of people with albinism?


MB It's always been negative. It's always "The Albino"; it's always a freak.


DP The hitman or the bad guys--


MB Yeah, It's always the villain. Actually in the original script for Irene, the last line is that Whitey comes back with a hammer and hacks up Charlie, Irene, and the kids-which I actually thought was funny, but I know that a lot of other people who have albinism would have had a big problem with that. I do think that Hollywood certainly isn't helping. It is hurting actually. I know it is hurting. Anything that adds to the stigma of people who already feel stigmatized isn't a helpful thing. But, you know, (laughs) Hollywood's got a few other problems too, so it's not that shocking to know that they're not sensitive to the twenty thousand or so of us in the United States that-- (still laughing) I'm not that shocked, you know?


DP They're also kind of flying under the radar, you know if you grab a guy on the street, "Okay, do you know someone with albinism? No?"


MB No-But you know what they do know? They know the albinos from movies. And that's there. That is real. That does effect the way that people see me and the other people who have the same condition that I do. It does effect us in a tangible way. It does add to the stigmatism-- Whether or not you could expect Hollywood to do better is, well... I don't think that's ever going to be likely. But you know, in some ways it is improving. I was cast for this, and there's another actor with albinism cast in that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, the End of Days, (Victor Varnado) who's now filming -I think it just finished filming actually- a lead in the next Eddie Murphy movie. I think that's cool. That is an improvement even if all that Jim Carrey's doing is making fun of Whitey in Irene, at least now people will know what someone who has albinism actually looks like.


DP Also in the film a lot of the dialog is actually a little bit more illuminating than if you asked Joe Blow on the street -they don't know anything about vision problems---


MB Exactly. I think that' s good, because people don't realize that-- That the most significant aspect of albinism is that most of us are legally blind. That impacts my daily life more than the fact that I have different pigmentation or I burn easily. That's a big deal, and no one knows that, so for me just the fact that I'm wearing my bioptic telescope glasses is positive. Still, most people aren't even going to pick that up. They're going to think, "Oh that's another random thing they threw into the script-"


DP But at least the idea is out there.


MB Well, yeah, still the idea is out there. You know, I have people that I tell I'm legally blind to and they don't believe me? "Oh? What do you mean? You can't see me?" "Okay man, I don't want to talk about this--"(laughs)


DP In the joke about Phoenix-Beyond the glasses, the next thing up would be that people may not stop and think about other things that lack of pigmentation would effect. I almost wanted to argue with you when you said that you felt bad that if there was some kid out there being called Whitey that -


MB Almost everyone I say that to argues with me-But still, I have to hold myself up to a higher standard than other people hold me up to, you know? And actually most people that have albinism that I talk to-Most parents of kids that have albinism that I talk to-still do think that in the end, me being in this movie does more good than harm. Even if some idiot is gonna call some kid a name, you know they're probably gonna call the kid a name anyway, and on top of that it does raise awareness. People are, I assume, going to be reading this? Even though AICN educated readers compared to other places, still most of the people reading this might not have known that albinism effects vision. So who knows? Any little thing is positive I think when it comes to educating people.


DP I was just realizing that I think my next question is probably moot, which was: how do you feel about actors without albinism playing characters with albinism?


MB Well you know, I'd rather I got jobs. (Laughs)


DP No shit! (Laughing) You get the casting directory and it's like "Well, okay, we've got five actors in here, they have albinism but we don't want them!"


MB It's me and Victor! You can have the African or Caucasian variety but uh, I'd rather it just be between the two of us! (Laughs) Oh, I tell ya, that's purely selfish.


DP But that's what would put bread and butter on the table-- Why do you think that is? Why do you think they would go towards hiring someone else rather than someone who actually has albinism?


MB Why? Because, (still laughing) up until now we've been hard to find.


DP Do you credit the Internet with that?


MB Oh yeah, that's how I got the part. So of course I do. And like I was saying, I was really interested in acting all through high school but then when I came to college it was, "Oh, am I gonna study theatre? Well, nobody's gonna cast me." How many real albinos have you seen in movies? I haven't. Me, Victor, and the girl in Gummo, right?


DP You're right, at the moment I can name half a billion movies that we've got some guy in powder playing an albino, but I can't think of any film where they've actually -other than Irene-where they've actually hired an actor with albinism.


MB Well, Victor was in End of Days, and he'll be in this new Eddie Murphy film. I can't remember the premise exactly, but Victor's some kind of intergalactic- space -pimp- assassin or something-It's pretty bad assed- I know that he gets to shoot lasers and (laughing) that's a step up from any previous portrayals of albinism, so that's positive.


DP How did you feel about Harry's advocating that you play the inbred albino Satanist--?


MB I like Harry's sense of humor.


DP You know, sometimes I wonder if he makes that shit up. You know he's really bad with practical jokes.


MB I bought it--I'm still waiting for Fox to call me!


DP So what are some of your favorite older movies?


MB Older movies? The first one that comes to mind is Harvey. For some reason I love Harvey. It's a great movie.


DP Are you a big Jimmie Stewart fan in general?


MB Yeah. I even bought his book of poetry when I was a teenager. (starts laughing) I can recite the entire poem of My Dog Named Beau about his dog that died. "He never came to me when I would call, unless I had a tennis ball, or he felt like it, but mostly he just didn't come at all"-(cracks up) I could go on. You don't think I can, but I could go on -No, I am a Jimmie Stewart fan, definitely. But I have that hopeless idealist in me. I want to believe that the world can be like Harvey, you know? But uh, I'm kind of in the closet about it. I'm a closet idealist.


DP Well you know it's not fashionable to not be a cynic in public.


MB Exactly, but I do like Jimmie Stewart, so I guess I just debunked everything I said.


DP Ah, you're not bitter-- So, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-- did you cry?


MB I didn't cry. But the first time I saw it I might have got chills-- (Laughs) Oh my God, totally. This is gonna go out to a billion people and I just admitted - (Cracking up throughout)


DP Oh no, that's a keeper!


MB It's true. I'm 25 years old and I love Jimmie Stewart!


DP Do you have a favorite film genre?


MB Good ones. DP You're not one of these people that's "I have to go see the next cannibal movie, I have to see the next comedy--"


MB No, not really, but I'm like that about good films. Films that come highly recommended, I suppose. I have a lot of friends that are big film fans, and I've learned that I have similar tastes, so I go see what they tell me. And they're usually right. But no, I don't really have a favorite genre--


DP So you have favorite actors or directors?


MB Right now my favorite directors are probably Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coen brothers.


DP Yeah, the Coen brothers rock.


MB I don't know why, I might be a sucker, but I really love Magnolia, I think it's a fantastic film.


DP Magnolia was beautiful.


MB Yeah, so that has me highly biased towards him right now.


DP Okay, you said you like the Coen brothers; which one's your favorite?


MB The Big Leibowski.


DP What's the last good book you've read? And this is closely followed by what book would you most like to see made into a movie?


MB Boy, that's a good question. Oh God though, that's a hard question. Any real good book, I wouldn't want to sacrifice to that--


DP Have you ever seen a movie that you thought was better than the book?


MB Oh have I? One might exist, but I can't think of it though.


DP I can only think of one. Have you ever seen the Loved One?


MB Nope. It's really great?


DP You need to see this movie.


MB I'm writing it down right now.


DP Yeah, definitely write this down-it's a satire of the funeral industry. MB (laughs) Oh, it already sounds good.


DP Yeah, I'm not even gonna tell you anything else about it-But Rod Steiger is a god in this film!


MB You're other question was what was the last book that I'd read. Today I finished a book called The Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. It's short prose poetry set up like stories that Marco Polo's telling to Kubla Khan. Before that I just finished Fragrant Palm Leaves by a Vietnamese monk named Thich Nhat Hanh-- he's a real bad ass. I've read a bunch of his books but this is his journal from the 60's. Those are the last two books I've read.


DP Do you tend to lean towards things that are a bit more esoteric like that?


MB I'm a comparative religion and mythology major, so yeah I do.


DP You mentioned that prior to Irene you were working with autistic children. How did this come about and will you continue to do this?


MB Yeah, I will continue to do that. That's what I'm good at and it's what makes me feel good, and that's something that's grounded in reality in a way that the movie business never will be. And, I don't know I'm an insomniac, and when I'm doing that job I sleep well.


DP How did you land that job?


MB It was synchronicity to be honest. I'm fascinated by synchronicity-fingers pointing through the clouds, you know? I graduated from college at the end of the summer and I had about four months where I just freaked out because I was "Oh, now what the fuck do I do?" (Laughs) I had a comparative religion and mythology degree-- and my minor in Jungian psychology is really gonna be very practical! So now I'm gonna be able to completely grasp the esoteric significance of the fact that I'm washing dishes for the rest of my life! So I kind of freaked out for a few months. I kept thinking, "Oh I gotta go to temp agencies, I gotta go get this office job." And I wouldn't do it, and it just started getting so frustrating because I was living with my parents and I was broke and I was just totally unsure of what to do with my life. I remember it was December 23rd and I had just had this long talk with myself--so you know the insomnia can be quite productive sometimes. I said, you know "The reason that you're not going to interview for any of these office jobs is because you hate them, and because they make you crazy." And that was like this bolt of lightning, I was like, "Oh wow, that's true. You do hate them. They do make you crazy. That is why you haven't done that." And then I started thinking more about what I wanted to do. I had some very good friends that teach autistic kids and right prior to that all of them had separately mentioned to me, "Oh well have you ever thought about that? I think you'd be very good at it." So that seeded it in my brain, but it wasn't anything that I studied in college so I just didn't think that I'd be able to find anything really. But anyway, it was on December 23rd that I made up my mind. I said I don't care what it is, the Monday after New Years I'm gonna be working. I don't care if I'm cleaning toilets or whatever; this is just no good sitting here freaking out about not working. Then the next day I looked in the paper and I saw an opening for an assistant teacher teaching autistic children, and it turned out that the contact person who runs the program was the father of my best friend when I was in 7th grade. He was someone who I always really got along with so I applied for the job. And that's how I found it and I started working on the Monday after New Years and it's the best thing I've ever done in my life. So yes, I will continue doing that -maybe not in that same program for very long, but I think it's something that I feel very good about doing in my life.


DP What types of roles would you like to be offered? If you were going to continue acting?


MB To be honest, the short answer is "any" right now because I'm poor. (Laughs) That's the short answer, okay, I'd do herpes commercials right now -but, the longer answer is that I'd like to be in anything where I was a character who happened to have albinism who wasn't just the albino character. That'd be great. That'd be a real positive thing. But I don't think (laughs) that I've got that kind of luxury!


DP No. Not yet. I honestly think that stuffs changing. Or at least I hope that it is


MB We'll see though, I don't know. I thought Irene was gonna come out better and I thought Whitey was gonna come out better. Now, I don't really expect anything else to come out of it.


DP Well, that brings up another question that I didn't write down, but it did occur to me -Okay, I've got two in my head, let's see if I can hold on to both of them. One of them was that you had mentioned that when you read the script for Irene, there was a lot of stuff in it that didn't make it into the movie.


MB Yeah, of course, they wrote a script for a four hour movie, (laughing) which you could argue was something of a lapse in judgement-


DP That's true. You don't deviate away from the-- what is it? -The one hundred and fifty pages-The End.


MB A comedy goes on for 110 minutes and you don't go over that, and everyone knows it. But they figure well, you film three, three and a half hours and then the audience tells you what's funny. That's hard if you have a movie where there's originally somewhat of a complex plot. Not that every thing was really explained and fleshed out in graphic detail-but there was some plot, and there was some character development. I think Whitey functioned originally in the script as a really funny way to tie it all together, but then you take out the plot, that Whitey was gonna be tying together and all of sudden it's "Oh what the hell's that guy doing there? That's just this half assed way to move the plot along." But actually in the script I thought it worked great -I don't know Ebert says it didn't work, so I don't know if they're rethinking why they hired me. (laughing and using psychotic hiss) Ah! Fucking Ebert! I'm gonna kick your fucking ass!


DP Hey man, Ebert wrote Valley of the Dolls-


MB No he didn't! Did he?


DP Yes!


MB Are you serious?


DP I shit you not! Go look on the IMDB!


MB Someone wrote that?


DP Yes! Maybe it was Beyond the Valley of the Dolls-I don't know. It was something that was two steps away from a good Russ Meyer movie


MB This makes me feel so much better! Ha ha ha Ha! Oh that's so great! I don't even care if that's not true! I think that's a great rumor to start--


DP It's absolutely true! I would not lie to you!


MB (still laughing) Oh that's great!


(Roger Ebert has given us three Russ Meyer movies: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls 1970, Up! 1976, and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens 1979.)


DP On the script-- Out of what was cut from the movie, can you think of anything in particular that you really wished hadn't been?


MB I wish that Lin Shaye's character hadn't been cut out. She's the old lady in (There's Something About) Mary and the landlord in Kingpin. I just think she's great. And there was this whole long subplot with her. She was this crazy woman who was having a yard sale when Irene and Charlie stop and ask for directions 'cause they're trying to get more medication for him but they don't realize the police are waiting for them at this drug store. Instead of helping, she just rants on and on and on, while she chain smokes butts. It was just so great in the script and Lin Shaye I think is great a brilliant actress. I met her at the cast and crew screening and I just think she's really cool. I wish I'd gotten to see it. But anyway that's how they get the Jarts (lawn darts) originally. She's this crazy woman trying to sell them Jarts even though all they want is directions and goes on this long rant about how they're illegal now. You can't get them and that's what Waco Texas was about--just the man stepping on our rights. It was just this awesome rant. That was one of the biggest subplots that got cut out, but I think it would have been great. But like I said, they filmed a three and a half-hour movie.


DP I'm gonna have to dig through Harry's script pile now and find that.


MB It's a good script -if he's got the original script especially. The original script is better than the last shooting draft. It has some other really funny scenes like there's a scene where Charlie wants to be a hip and modern dad and so he's trying to teach the boys Ebonics in the bathtub. He's like: "What is this? What is this?" And they're like, "It's a bathtub!" and he's "No!" "Uh, it's a mother fucking bathtub?" "Nooo!" And then finally it's, "OH! Itsa muthahfuckin' BAFFtub!" And there was a bunch of stuff like that that would've been really funny scenes. That one I don't actually think they filmed because they wanted to go in a slightly different direction. Still, they filmed a ton of stuff that didn't go in, and it's too bad because I think that everything that Jim films is brilliant. He's such a bad ass at what he does, and there's just hours and hours of hysterically funny stuff that Fox has in their vaults somewhere. I hope at least they put some of it on the DVD. I mean, I doubt Fox has the sense to actually do that but, maybe they will. It'd be a funny DVD if they did.


DP Either that or we can pray for a director's cut.


MB I wonder if they'll do that .I don't know if they will. I hope they do.


DP I don't think comedies get the same respect full treatment as stuff like Blood Simple the director's cut.


MB --It woiuld be a shame to miss that twenty minute scene at the end where Whitey kills every body and then has sex with Charlie!


DP You're joking right?


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