Let’s talk about Marilyn Manson. He was great in the role and nothing like many would expect him to be.
Quentin Dupieux: That’s probably because the Manson thing is already acting. I know the guy in real life and he’s not acting like a rock star. He’s just a guy like us, you know? He’s actually really funny, he has some really good jokes and he’s just a little crazy. He’s special for sure. He has a brain that nobody has, but he’s not the guy you see on stage. So yes, that’s how I see it.
Maybe I’m wrong, but to me the Manson thing that he’s been doing for 15 or 20 years, that’s acting. So he knows how to perform and stuff and he’s a really good actor. Honestly, he’s like really surprising and talented and he’s very good with improvisation.
Usually I don’t like when actors improvise. There is a very tiny space in my movies for improvisation just because sometimes I don’t like the sound of it. You can recognize when it’s improvised. When an actor goes on the ride and tries stuff, you can feel it’s not the same tone. You can feel it comes fresh out the brain and it’s not the same vibe, but Manson is really good at it. To me, he’s a really good actor and I’m not just saying that because he’s a friend.
Does having a name like that in the film change the way you promote it?
Quentin Dupieux: Maybe a little bit. For example, last night at the premiere, everybody wanted a photo with Manson. Last night he was the biggest star on the sidewalk. Even if he’s really famous though, his audience wants to see him on stage. They don’t really care about his face because suddenly it’s not Manson anymore. It’s not the character of Manson they know, so for them it’s weird. I noticed for example on YouTube when we posted the first beats of the movie with Manson, people were shocked to see him without the makeup. For some people that was shocking, so maybe it might be a good thing for us.
Obviously working with somebody like Manson kind of gave you a little bit of a different beast while filming. But now that he’s had a kid and he has sort of slowed down, do you feel that he’s going to be more open to doing films with you?
Quentin Dupieux: Oh yeah. We’ve already done another film. We shot another piece together already, and now he’s totally into my world; exactly like Steve Little, exactly like Eric Wareheim. I can make ten movies with Manson. I love the guy and I love to see him on screen.
Wrong Cops was originally intended to be a short film, but then it eventually became a feature-length movie. Can you talk about the transition of getting it turned into a feature film?
Quentin Dupieux: Yeah, it was super easy. I did what we call a chapter 1, but now in the movie that you see, that chapter 1 is almost gone. It was supposed to be just like a promotion for my new album coming out because I don’t really like music videos. I used to do some 10 years ago and that’s not something that I’m interested in. I decided to do something different so I wrote what we call a short film around my music, and Manson contacted me because he enjoyed Rubber so much and he wanted to work with me. So I wrote this part for him, and suddenly it was like, “Okay we have a 15 minute short film about music.”
So we did it in three days and we loved it so much, and we had a great response online so we decide to do more. The next step, because this was like a chapter, I decided to write six other chapters, and the idea was to do a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then until Sunday. So that’s how I wrote it, but then when I put everything together like this, it wasn’t that good. Some scenes were great, but the movie was not really working as a movie, so I went back in the editing room and I spent like 20 more days (in there). I shuffled everything, I tried different combinations to make it more into a movie because the idea of the miniseries was not working in the cinema, and the idea was to put this in the cinema.
That concludes our interview but we’d like to thank Quentin very much for taking the time to talk with us. Be sure to check out Wrong Cops when it opens in theatres and hits VOD on December 20th!
