Joey Lauren Adams (Chasing Amy) makes her feature film writing and directorial debut with Come Early Morning. Adams’ independent drama tells the story of Lucy Fowler, a small-town Southern woman (played by Ashley Judd) who wakes up most mornings with a hangover and next to a guy she doesn’t want to be with. The film follows Lucy’s story as she learns to recognize the source of her behavior and deal with the issues in her life that have led her to jumping into bed without forming relationships.
Did you face a lot of opposition writing and directing this film from people who know you only as an actress?
JOEY LAUREN ADAMS: “Yeah. When we first sent the script out, I think there were people who definitely took meetings with me just to see if I really wrote it. I don’t know. The last person they expected to connect with a screenplay was the comedic, blonde actress with the funny voice. I just don’t think they were expecting it, so it was anomaly. I guess rightfully so. No one was jumping up and saying, ‘Yeah, let me give you money.’ I had never held a camera in my hand - a home video camera, nothing. I had not directed. I didn’t have a short; I didn’t go to film school. There weren’t a lot of people jumping up and down to back me.”
Where did that urge come from?
ADAMS: “It was really gradual. Looking back now, I understand it a lot clearer. But at the time, I was just unhappy for a lot of reasons. There were days that I literally had no reason to get out of bed. It just was so destructive for me. I was just sitting and waiting for a script to be sent to me. It’s just such a reactive [thing], it’s not pro-active. It was just really destructive. I was really unhappy.
I think, ultimately, looking back now, acting wasn’t satisfying me 100%. Chasing Amy was an amazing role, but then after that, I went and did Big Daddy and you’re the girlfriend or you’re the best friend. I wasn’t getting the Nicole Kidman roles. There’s not a lot of roles out there to get and I wasn’t reading scripts. It’s a weird place to be because everyone’s constantly telling you how lucky you are that you’re an actress. You go home to Arkansas and people treat you differently, and you should be so happy. You’re like, ‘Why aren’t I happy? I should be so happy.’ It was a lot of things.
It was really just to have something to get out of bed for and be excited about, and so I just started writing. I didn’t have a lot of confidence and I didn’t know if anything would happen. I was just thinking, ‘What would I open up and read? My God, I have to do this movie. I’m passionate about this.’ You read so many bad scripts, and a lot of them end up going straight to video, but you’re just like, ‘How did they get the money to make this movie?’ It’s just unreal. You get it and you immediately go to your role. I’ve gotten to where I’ll immediately go to my character and read that to see if I even want to bother reading the script.”
Ashley, why do you think your character has such a problem with intimacy?
ASHLEY JUDD: “Well, I don’t think that healthy relationships have been modeled, at all, for Lucy. If we look at Lucy’s grandmother, who she goes to see, she’s very faithful to the memory of a husband who cheated on her chronically. That’s not necessarily hitting the jackpot, in terms of modeling healthy behavior. And then, of course, her dad is an isolated, uncommunicative, lonely alcoholic. I don’t see Lucy as having an abundance of mentors in her life. Thank goodness there’s someone at work.
I know that mentors are really important to me, in my life, and I have a committee comprised of brilliant older women. I will run everything in my life by them, and they’re very gracious and reliable and responsive, and they answer immediately. They are my role models and I know to do that with other women, in my life, who are my contemporaries and who are coming up behind me.”
Why do you think women, in general, seem to have such a problem with intimacy?
JUDD: “I think that really unhealthy and low self-esteem are factors, and there is that sense of self-loathing and unworthiness that makes some of us incapable of receiving love, even when it’s right there in front of us.”
ADAMS; “I agree. And, just not having skills. It’s a skill set. It’s not like you can wake up and realize, ‘Oh, I want intimacy,’ and then it happens that day. It does require a skill set, and if you don’t have that, how do you get that?”
JUDD: “I think Lucy is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. My friend Samantha, her mom will talk about boyfriends like the tester pancake - that there’s a really healthy way to date and experiment and practice and learn skills, and say, ‘Well, that was a pretty good pancake, but not the best one. [Laughs] There’s going to be something further in the batch that’s really the better pancake for me.’ I think it’s that way with relationships as well. But Lucy is in that rut where she can’t get passed doing the same tester pancake, over and over and over again.”
Could you relate to that?
JUDD: “Doing the same thing over and over again? Absolutely! That is the definition of insanity. I think that’s what Lucy’s doing with going to the bar, and with men, although, thank goodness, that wasn’t my particular area where I did the same thing over and over and expected different results. It’s about do it more, do it faster, do it more completely, instead of completely backing up and saying, ‘Something is not working. The process is broken. I need to find a different process.’ Sure, [I can relate to that].”
Page 2: The Script, the Role of Lucy, and the Film's Message
