Callie Khouri (writer, "Thelma & Louise") makes her directorial debut with "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood." Based on the bestselling novel by Rebecca Wells, the film covers a span of 50 years beginning in the late 1930s and ending in the 90s.
Told in a series of flashback sequences, the characters age from childhood into their mature years. Producer Hunt Lowry says of Khouri, "For her first directing job, she didn't shy away from a challenge. From our first meeting, I knew that she truly understood the spirit and the passion of the story. You spend five minutes with Callie and you see that she's definitely a Ya-Ya herself."
CALLIE KHOURI (Director/Writer)
What is so unique and captivating about Southern women?
I think that they are very comfortable being larger than life. I think that they're comfortable in their eccentricities. They take themselves very seriously and completely get the joke at the same time.
Why are they always pictured as eccentric?
Honestly I don't know why they are, but I'm so glad they are. It's so entertaining. I think people are eccentric everywhere. I'm sure you could go to Scottsdale, Arizona, and find every manner of eccentricity. I think it's just that a lot of writing has come out of the South. They've been depicted in books and movies over the years because there's a flamboyance and an intensity that comes from there. It's the same as Italian women. You don't think anything about them [yelling, etc.]. You can just get away with things because people assign to them a certain leeway in their mannerisms.
But they are also often portrayed as being 'whacko.'
Again, that's kind of a worldwide thing.
But Southern women are portrayed that way more often.
I don't know why that is. Maybe it just seems like the idea of a really wacky Michigan housewife just doesn't work out.
Why did you say no to this project originally?
The first time they offered it to me, I was working on other things and I just wasn't available. I also felt like, "Oh God, here we go." I was much younger and I thought I wanted to do different things besides women's stories and blah, blah, blah. Then I just thought, "Oh shut-up. Who cares? There's nobody doing this and this is something I know how to do. When it's done in a way that I don't like, I'm always mad so why don't I just do it myself?"
What do you hate about most women's movies?
I think that women are underestimated somehow. To me, my experience is that women that I know and that I'm friends with are always sharper and funnier - just cooler - than a lot of the women I see portrayed in movies. I get frustrated because I'm like, "I don't know those women. The women I know are not idiots." They just aren't. Even if they're nuts, they're not idiots. Or, if they're an idiot, they are an idiot because of this or whatever, you know? You see them always in some kind of diminished capacity.
Do you have your own group of Ya-Ya's that give you support?
Do I have to name names (laughing)? Sandy Bullock is one of them. I wrote this part with her in mind and then also knew that I would be able to hound her, because of my proximity and our close friendship, into doing it should she decide to say no.
How did you hound her?
I emailed her and wrote her letters and talked to her on the phone. I talked to her best friend who is also one of my closest friends.
How did you first meet her?
I met her on vacation. I went on vacation with a group of people, and she was one of them.
How is she a Ya-Ya to you?
We - Sandy and three other girls - get together whenever it's one of our birthdays. The others get together wherever that person is and we celebrate their birthday. Whenever we are all in town, we plan a dinner. We read that book "Tuesdays with Morrie," and we just thought, "Okay, this is the greatest thing in the world. We have to do this. We have to make the time for each other." With email and cell phones and all that, it's actually a lot easier to stay in touch. We just really make a point of it. It's great. We tell each other everything and we're there for each other.
She seems so right for this role.
That's because I wrote it for her. The Sidda character in the book is different. I think she's a lot more gutsier in the movie than she was in the book. In the book, she's was a little more reticent and she was more cautious. I thought it was more important for the movie to have her just be like, "Alright, that's it. I'm done. This is over. I'm not putting up with this anymore. I'm not going to try to understand her anymore. I'm over it." It just seems like that worked better for the movie. Sandy has such great comic timing but, also, I know her really well and she has a real emotional depth that doesn't come along for her in the parts that come her way that much. First of all, those kinds of parts don't come along that often anyway. And secondly, because she is such a great comedienne - and I think she is truly one of the funniest people working - her timing is incredible. She's one of the few people I know that can say lines as fast as I write them. I knew that our rhythms would work really well together. I felt like she was absolutely the only person to do this.
Why don't we meet any of the other kids as adults?
I shot two scenes with the older brother. Part of it is because, did you notice how many people there are in this movie? Two more people to make characters and to have scenes and all that - I had to draw the line somewhere. I did shoot two scenes with Shep Jr. and they just didn't make it into the movie, unfortunately, but they will be on the DVD. It was tough because it was a 357-page book and some things were going to have to go. There are things that I just felt really sad that I wasn't going to be able to get in there because I wanted everything.
Do you think mothers and daughters will see this movie together?
Absolutely. Depending upon their relationship, I think it will either be heaven or hell.
And people who call it a 'chick flick?'
I think it's easy to categorize it as that but I think it's certainly... I have to say that if half of the positive feedback that we're getting from the men that see it is true, then it's kind of a shame to exclude them from that. I think that marginalizing it by calling it a 'chick flick' does the movie itself a great disservice, and also the thousands or millions of men who feel shortchanged by the dearth of emotional subject matter that makes it onto a big screen. I hate to see them lose out on that. You know I could retire if I had a nickel for every time a guy walked up to me and said, "I know I wasn't the [intended] audience but I loved it." That holds true for every movie that I've ever done.
This movie created a lot of great roles for older women. Can you comment on the lack of roles for older women in Hollywood?
I would like to specifically address that. I'll tell you why I think there's a lack of roles for women, period. It's because the way the movie business works, at this moment in time, is that the studios bet everything on that big opening weekend. If they don't have a big opening weekend, then as far as they're concerned, it's a huge risk. It's much tougher to build a movie over the long haul than it used to be. They have a hard time keeping the movie in the theatre and so it's really, really important that women understand that if they want movies made for them, they must go and give it a big first opening weekend. I guarantee you there will be 10,000 comic book movies made now that would have never have gotten made, because "Spider-Man" opened at $114 million. That is what studios understand; that is the business that they are in. So when females have big opening weekends like that, I guarantee you they will start making movies for women.
I think it's more difficult for women to get the babysitter and get everything, but if they understand that if they want the product to be directed at them, they have to support it. This is the game that we're in right now. I'm really hoping that somehow the word gets out and women understand, it's up to you because you are voting with your dollar. You are driving the market. They do it in every other thing. Oprah Winfrey did not become the wealthiest woman in America because women aren't interested. There's a huge audience of women out there that when you direct things at them specifically, they will turn up. This particular game has this one caveat and that is you must show up that first weekend and prove to the studio that there is an audience.
Don't you think that television has siphoned off the market for women going to the movies?
Absolutely. When you think about just logistically, who is easier to get into a movie theatre? Young boys, then young women, and then middle males. Women over the age of 25 are the hardest group to get in there and they wonder why there's nothing out there for them. It's a chicken and the egg thing. They're not going and yet there are movies like "Titanic" and even "Spider-Man" had a big female contingency that went. Women have been responsible for making hits out of things that surprised everyone.
This "Star Wars" is 4 to 1 male to female. Female audiences need something.
I think it's a huge vote of confidence from the studio to put us out there in this summer of that. I mean, they obviously feel very strongly that this movie can hold its own because they are throwing us right out there with the big boys.
What's going to happen if it doesn't?
The same thing that always happens, which will be a crying shame. I think this movie will have a tremendously long life.
Everything out there is having a horrible time.
That's why I'm kind of harping on that theme of telling women this is how it works. I can tell you that the studio loved making this movie. They are so proud of this movie. They believe in what it says and they love making character movies - everybody at the studio. There's not this prejudice against doing things that have emotional depth or that have particular kinds of humor - it's not there. What's there is the high-risk factor of having an audience that they can't count on to turn out. That's the only thing. If that audience turns up, I guarantee you they will start making movies for that audience.
This movie was based on two books. How were they combined?
The first book, "Little Altars Everywhere," is a book of short stories. I just kind of used character things from that. There's a whole story about the Abracadabra liquor store in there, which is the sign on the stage. I can't honestly even remember what was from what. The first book just kind of laid the groundwork for who everybody was. It's a story about each one of the characters and all the brothers and sisters, and all the Ya-Yas - everybody is in there. I used it more as background than story points.
Did you have a personal relationship with the author?
No. Rebecca is writing another novel and she'd write us letters saying, "I'm so sorry I can't be there." She didn't want to be influenced by anything that we were doing, which I think is really smart because I think she's got a very specific thing she's doing and if I were her, I wouldn't want to be knocked off my game, either. She was kind of like, "I wish you all the best."
Is her new book a continuation of these characters?
It must be. I don't personally know what it is but she didn't want to be influenced by what we were doing or what might be different, or interpretations of our characters that might be different. She was really being protective of her own process.
How important is it to you to be the screenwriter and also the director?
To me, screenwriting was always just the first part. It was never an end unto itself. If you are a novelist, when you write, then you are done. But when you are a screenwriter, you're not finished. This thing still has to become real. It's so frustrating, to me, to not be part of that process of bringing it to what it is supposed to be - it's meant to be a movie. I had a production background and before that I had studied acting and I was a drama major in college and all that, and so I just really always felt so frustrated not getting to see it all the way through. I wrote "Thelma and Louise" with the hopes of directing it and unfortunately this little known director, Ridley Scott, wanted to direct it himself and what could I say?
Susan Sarandon says there's going to be a sequel every once and awhile, just to torment us. Is that true? What do you think that movie means all these years later to women?
I don't think that there's going to be a sequel.
A lot of people think they lived.
I do too, because 10 years later people still talk about them, so they did. That was exactly the point because you don't see a heap of burning metal at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It was a metaphorical ending. They kind of shot off into the mass unconscious and they live on. But what it means all these years later? I don't know if I'm the right person to answer that. I think you have to ask the people to whom it really affected.
Do you find a little bit of irony in that this was a women's movie yet it's known for creating one of the current sex symbols?
Right, Brad Pitt. Whatever small part I could have played in introducing Brad to the American public, I'm happy to have had a hand in (laughing).
What's your next project?
I'm not sure. I have a baseball movie, "Mr. 3,000," that I'm desperately trying to get made.
What's that about?
It's about a guy who gets his 3,000th hit in the middle 80s. He quits the game and goes completely to seed and becomes Mr. 3,000 Used Cars and Mr. 3,000 Sports Bar and Grill - just the biggest jerk in the world. Then years later, when he's getting inducted into the Hall of Fame at long last, his girlfriend who is now the biggest female sports anchor for Sports News Network, comes back and uncovers the fact that early, early in his career three of his minor league hits were accidentally counted toward his major league total - and he's Mr. 2,997.
Who do you see playing the lead?
There's a lot of people. I love George Clooney, I love John Travolta, I think there's a lot of guys who could do it. It's a really fun movie and it's really a romantic comedy as well as a sports movie. It's really good. I was the fifth writer on this fantastic script years ago. I was like, "Give it to me! I want to do it. I know exactly what it's supposed to do." We've just been trying to get it made ever since.
