Writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait disputes the old saying - "Honesty is the best policy" - with his twisted dark comedy, Sleeping Dogs Lie. When a young couple decide to come clean about their deepest, darkest secrets, the woman reveals a disturbing event from her past that should never have been disclosed to anyone.
I’ve seen all three films and this seems like the most bare-bones compared to the other two. Is that the case or why might I have that impression?
“That’s really true. Shakes the Clown – that’s my Lawrence of Arabia (laughing). It was shot on film and stuff. And even Windy City Heat, we shot some of that on film. But this was done such guerilla-style. It was done in 16 days with our own money. Half the crew is from Craig’s List. All these stories are true, you know? Mostly when I was making this movie, I was just mostly concerned with getting the performances shot. I knew we only had 16 days but I kind of knew if we got to the end of it and we shot everything, I thought we at least had a shot at it making sense. It is guerilla. It wasn’t like a decision artistically. It was just we worked with what we had.”
Is there a certain point a few years ago that you decided to focus more on directing?
“Yeah, yeah. It was kind of weird to do that because even though I wasn’t really in the public eye, I was still making okay bread doing stand-up. I kind of rolled the dice and saw if I could do this just as my income. Jimmy Kimmel’s always been really cool to me. I used to direct for him on The Man Show and then on Crank Yankers. I did a movie called Windy City Heat that he produced. Then I directed his show for a year and a half. I really like directing, it’s what I’m happiest doing. But if I hadn’t been an actor that did stand-up, I’d be a director that wished he could act and do stand-up.”
One of the funniest things in your bits was, “That’s your dad? I hate that guy!” Do you find there’s less judgment of your persona when you’re behind the camera?
“Possibly. My daughter’s at an art college. Her fellow students are actually big fans of Shakes the Clown and Windy City Heat, and this movie actually. They had a copy of it before anyone else did. She’s like, ‘Dad, this is the seventh time they’ve watched the movie in my room. It’s annoying now.’ So, yeah, I never wanted to be the cool dad because that’s really embarrassing, I think. But just because she goes to such a flaky school it gives my daughter a little street cred.”
Can you talk about handling taboo subject matter?
“I think I’d be accused of being about as sensitive as a mallet, but I wasn’t trying to be sensitive. The experiment for me was to see if I could actually tell a grown-up story. Could I actually tell a linear movie where you’re invested in the characters? Those other two movies you weren’t really supposed to be. Shakes is kind of like a really sarcastic f-you movie and Windy City Heat, I still don’t know what that is.”
Goldthwait added, “I don’t know if my movies that I’ve had a chance to make worked for people, but I am happy that I haven’t made the same movie. Windy City Heat is so much different than Sleeping Dogs Lie. Shakes the Clown is so much different. Honestly, if I had like a fantasy it would be to keep getting to make movies that were just different. That would be fun.”
Were you ever tempted to include more dog jokes?
“Yeah, but I did not put them in. It was even crazy because the place we were filming, they had a dog cookie jar. I’m like, ‘Goddamnit,’ and I didn’t put it in. There were so many dog jokes. There was even a thing where they make dog jokes that didn’t make it into the movie. Where they’re like, ‘What are you watching?’ ‘Benji…’ They just kept going and doing dog jokes back and forth. ‘Lilo and Stitch?’ ‘That’s not a dog movie.’ ‘Isn’t that a dog?’ ‘No, it’s an alien and a Hawaiian kid,’ but it didn’t make the movie. But also, because I have a problem with that, in this movie I didn’t want to have pop culture references. There’s very little. The characters names are mom and dad. We’re not sure where they live or where they’re driving to. I just wanted it to be generic and in a weird way timeless, too. Fashions…I was trying to keep it all generic.”
Was it just by necessity that you have a lot of unknown faces?
“Here’s the thing: it’s like no one was going to give me money to make this movie. But the cool thing about working with people that people aren’t familiar with is that as soon as you start watching the movie, you’re not going, ‘Oh, that’s Sandra Bullock.’ You know what I mean? You have no preconceived notions of Melinda [Page Hamilton] and stuff, so that’s a cool thing. The other thing is is that everybody that was there, because we were so low-budget, was there because they really wanted to be there. That’s kind of cool. That was why everyone was involved, because they actually believed in it. That’s the cool thing you get with a tiny movie.”
