The opportunity to conduct another interview with Tara Moss is one Iâll happily pursue. This time around, it was for the âIn Da Houseâ column for FilmInk, in which celebs are asked about their film consumption on DVD and video.
Our conversation happened to take place during this yearâs Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and Tara, now based in Melbourne, was happy to report that she was thus an even busier model-turned-novelist than she was before; in addition to watching an average of four or more films a week, she was now seeing up to three stand-up shows a day. I hadnât realised that along with horror, comedy has been her other life-long love.
Somewhere in the middle of all this comedy and cinema, Tara also had to make time for Makedde Vanderwall, the heroine forever haunted by serial killers in Mossâs novels. This was what she was trying to do when I contacted her for the interview.
âIâm in my running pants, sitting at my desk as we speak,â Tara told me over the phone. I had to fight the temptation to stop and contemplate whether she meant sleek tracky dacks or little shorts, since either fantasy would distract me from the interview, which, at the time, was distracting Tara from her writing. But the writing was the logical place to start. The transcript is much longer than what I could fit in the final âIn Da Houseâ column, appearing any minute now in the June issue of FilmInk.
Demetrius Romeo: Tara, will there ever be a film based on any of your novels, and if there is, who would play Makedde Vanderwall?
TARA MOSS: There has been a lot of speculation over the years about who would be a good actress to play Makedde. Thereâs a whole section of my website where people have been writing in. I think Angelina Jolie is at the top of the polls at the moment just because sheâs a beautiful woman and one that chooses very strong, independent and interesting roles. But she obviously did a serial killer thriller not too long ago so I donât know if Iâd be lucky enough to have her in the film of one of my novels. But one can only dream, I suppose.
Itâs kind of a funny thing for novel writers because we, for the most part, write novels to be novels; we donât write novels to be movies. Itâs great that they can be translated and put into a different medium, but itâs not necessarily the most comforting thought, and Iâm one of the writers out there who can honestly say I get really uneasy thinking about my books being made into films. I know it would be a great honour and it would be a really interesting experience, but it would also be a harrowing one because I like to control my little world within the books, and you lose that control when you hand over the rights.
Demetrius Romeo: When I read your novels, I canât help but see you in the lead role.
TARA MOSS: If I could act, that would be great, but I have an aversion to acting. Iâm really, really comfortable being myself and Iâve found that any time Iâve felt not quite right doing something, itâs usually because Iâm having to speak someone elseâs words for some reason.
Demetrius Romeo: Are you saying you donât identify with your lead character?
TARA MOSS: I identify with her, but Iâm not her. I think of her kind of as a sister. I do have a wonderful sister named Jacquie, but my fictional sister Makedde is someone I understand, and also someone who occasionally does things that I wouldnât do myself. I think itâs important to have that separation between reality and fiction. Otherwise it would be very limiting from a writing perspective. Imagine every time you go to a keyboard thinking âwhat would I do?â rather than âwhat would make for an interesting plot?â I think itâs dangerous territory when you identify too closely to that character. With Makedde I did borrow a lot of autobiographical stuff; thatâs clear. But I donât think Iâve ever viewed her as me per se, rather as a character who Iâd want to know, a character that I can understand intimately, which I think is a different thing.
Demetrius Romeo: Your husband Mark Pennell is a producer; doesnât being married to a producer make getting a film made somewhat easier?
TARA MOSS: No, not really. In fact, if anything, itâs made me more wary of the film business than ever before just because I see the struggles he goes through with it. Mark is an Australian film producer and we know how the Australian film industry is at the moment. Heâs worked on some international projects and heâs certainly working on some pretty incredible stuff at the moment, but again: danger zone! I already know my personality well enough to know that it would be difficult to let go of my books and let them become movies. I think it would be doubly difficult if the person making them is my own husband. Let me put it this way: I have a happy marriage at the moment and I donât want that ever to change.
Demetrius Romeo: Youâve said that you see four movies a week, on average.
TARA MOSS: Yeah, I do. Sometimes more than that.
Demetrius Romeo: Is that in the cinema, on DVD or on cable?
TARA MOSS: Itâs a combination of DVDs and going to the cinema. I donât watch television much at all. I pretty much use the TV for DVD rental. I love going through DVD shops and finding the most obscure foreign films or art house films or b-grade films and finding something delightful and surprising in them, and I see probably about 80 percent of what comes out in theatres, so Iâm frequently at movie theatres checking things out. I just love film. I think itâs a wonderful story-telling medium. Obviously, I prefer books. I donât read all the time; I read a lot of the time. And when Iâm not reading, Iâm probably watching a movie somewhere.
Demetrius Romeo: Are there any cinematic genres that donât interest you?
TARA MOSS: I suppose particularly sappy, romantic films donât interest me a lot. I have a lot of fun watching something like Notting Hill, something thatâs like a romantic comedy but is a little more clever; thatâs great. This is going to sound really awful, but if people arenât gonna die and thereâs no conflict, Iâm not very interested in watching. I know itâs a terrible thing to say!
Demetrius Romeo: Youâve expressed these sentiments before, when talking about your novels: youâre interested in characters taking control of the darkness, and have been since you were a kid reading Maurice Sendakâs Where the Wild Things Are and Edward Goreyâs Gashlycrumb Tinies.
TARA MOSS: I found Edward Goreyâs kind of delightfully morbid, black humour really fascinating at that age, and I think I still enjoy that. The types of books I sometimes like, like the types of movies I sometimes like, deal with really dark issues, sometimes with humour, and I think thatâs the best way to deal with things we donât understand or are afraid of.
Demetrius Romeo: You said that you like even b-grade filmsâ¦
TARA MOSS: Iâm a big fan of b-grade films. I think there are some beauties out there that are so bad that theyâre genius, like Ed Woodâs films, or Night of the Living Dead.
Demetrius Romeo: Give me an example of a so-bad-itâs-good treasure youâve come across recently.
TARA MOSS: Recently I watched pretty much every zombie flick every made. I went on a zombie frenzy. I started having dreams that I was being chased by zombies, I was so immersed in them. I was watching three zombie films a day. Some of them were fantastic, but I canât even remember the name of half of them because there were so many. But I watched all of the Night of the Living Dead series. Of course, Shaun of the Dead is fantastic fun, but that is recognized as being quite a brilliant comedy. But I think a lot of the ones that are panned as being âb-gradeâ films are actually brilliant comedies in and of themselves. I find them quite amusing.
Demetrius Romeo: If you watch so many films, do you have time to go back and watch all the special features when you rent a DVD?
TARA MOSS: I often do look at a lot of the extras. For instance, I recently rented Anchor Man which I thought was hysterical, because I love Will Ferrell. I was on the floor laughing at all the outtakes and things like that. Sometimes I do quite enjoy the extras. But I donât tend to listen to the directorsâ commentaries because I donât want to over-analyse stuff. Unless Iâm aware that thereâs a particular story behind some of the scenes, I wonât seek out the commentary as much as the documentary aspects of the extras. The documentary is more interesting to me than watching the film again with commentary over the top.
The twenty-fifth anniversary edition of The Graduate, which is one of my favourite films, was a wonderful edition that came out and had interviews with everyone now and their views on the movie at the time. To me thatâs a bit more interesting, that documentary style. I like it because they gave some behind-the-scenes information about some really classic scenes. The one at the end when theyâre in the church, and Katharine Ross is getting married to her man, Dustin Hoffmanâs standing above where the ceremony is taking place, and heâs tapping on the glass â because he had his arms extended, it was thought to be somehow related to Christianity. Mike Nichols and Dustin Hoffman are saying, âwell, actually, it was because they told us that if I tapped in the middle of the glass, it would breakâ. So since 1967 theyâve been analysing the Christian references at the end of The Graduate â which I think is just a classic! Those sorts of stories are the ones I like to hear because I do think thereâs too much analysis of creative work, whether it be books or film. We stop enjoying things for what they are in order to search for âhidden meaningsâ in things that sometimes donât even have meanings.
Demetrius Romeo: Are there particular directors that you like?
TARA MOSS: Iâm a big Tim Burton fan. I like his kooky sense of humour. I like David Lynch and Burton and these directors who create completely different worlds out of their own imagination. I love Quentin Tarantino. I also love the stuff that people pan: I loved the Lara Croft movies. I love a lot of films that people think are quite superficial. I like films for different reasons, and thereâs something very satisfying about seeing Angelina Jolie swinging on a rope with a gun strapped to her leg, and thereâs something very satisfying about seeing a subtle film like Sideways thatâs a bit more gentle and a bit deeper and has some great comedic moments in it.
Demetrius Romeo: Are you much of a collector when it comes to films? Do you have to own them, or are you just happy to see them?
TARA MOSS: I have to own stuff. I have to own a lot of films.
Demetrius Romeo: What sort of stuff makes the Tara Moss collection?
TARA MOSS: The Graduate â 25th Anniversary Edition. I love Wes Anderson, so The Royal Tenenbaums is one of my favourites. I love Bound with Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly, which I think is one of the most fabulous thrillers. A very sexy thriller!
A fabulous cheesy movie I recommend is called Ninja Killer. This is like a 70s Hong Kong action flick. If youâre used to b-grade movies, this is c-grade and itâs classic. The hair-dos, the outfits and the bad dubbing â itâs beautiful. Itâs called Ninja Killer but there are no real ninja in it; itâs got a lot of people trying to pretend that theyâre Bruce Lee, breaking up drug rings, with sideburns that could stop a truck.
Kill Bill Volume 1 â I donât watch the whole thing over and over again, but I love the scenes in Japan, where Uma Thurmanâs kicking butt! And I also love her short motorcycle scene in the yellow leather motorcycle suit so much that I went and had a red one made for myself. I have a red Kawasaki ZZR motorcycle and sheâs riding a yellow Kawasaki ZZR motorcycle, so I thought it was very fitting. I also have films like Mystic River and The Thomas Crown Affair original, which is one of my favourite movies of all time â mostly because Steve McQueen is just a god! Heâs such a âmanâs manâ leading man. I love that really masculine leading man that we donât see enough of these days. I also love The Getaway, even though thereâs a lot of interaction between his character and that character of Ali MacGrawâs thatâs now completely unacceptable. Thankfully. Feminism has come a bit further. Other than that, itâs a brilliant film, and very of itâs time. Blade Runner. Impossible to beat. Itâs my favourite sci-fi genre movie.
Demetrius Romeo: Can the manâs man exist in a world where his woman isnât so passive?
TARA MOSS: Absolutely. The manâs man can totally exist in todayâs world now that women have power as well. I love powerful women. In fact, I like powerful women so much that Iâm obsessed with actresses who starred in sometimes cheesy âpowerful womenâ roles. I love this current swing into female superheroes. I collect female action figures that all have a great deal of artillery and kick ass. But it doesnât stop me from liking quite masculine characters. If a guyâs going to be a leading man, I donât think he should spend more time looking in the mirror than I would. That should be the cut-off point right there.
Demetrius Romeo: Do you still have videos?
TARA MOSS: I do have some videos, but I donât watch them very much, to be honest. I have The Shining, which is one of my favourite horror films, I only have on video so Iâm planning on upgrading to a DVD version that hopefully has some very cool extras. The version Iâve got is a video, but it also has the documentary by Kubrickâs wife, about the making of the film, so itâs actually quite a good video. But it is a video; Iâm sure theyâve got to be some updates since then. Kubrick was so before his time in terms of seeing a book like The Shining, seeing Steven Kingâs work, and seeing the primal way it taps into our sort of childhood fears, and treating that genre with respect. Itâs one of those things I complain about often: just because somethingâs a horror story or a crime story or a serial killer story doesnât mean you canât treat it with respect and make it a really amazing piece of work, whether it be a book or a movie. I think thereâs a lot of brilliance to be found in those genres, rather than just dismissing the genre because there are a lot of bad examples of it. There are a lot of brilliant examples of it, too. The Shining is one of those.
Demetrius Romeo: Do you think youâll have a film script in you at some stage?
TARA MOSS: Not until I mature a bit more to be honest. Being a control freak, Iâm very wary of the screenwriting process because itâs collaborative and the more I find out about the film business, the more I really donât want to be in that position where Iâm being told what to write and where the money matters so much that you have to make those compromises. Jeffery Deaver said something brilliant. He was asked how much he had to do with the making of the films of his books, such The Bone Collector. He said, âI have a lot to do with them; I cash the chequeâ. I thought he was very wise: heâs a great writer, thatâs what he does well; he was saving himself the frustration of actually trying to work with a whole load of people creating a film version of what heâs already done brilliantly as a book. Until I can separate myself a little bit more from my books, it would be a lot of frustration, and not the kind of frustration that pays off in the end. As we know, with the movie industry you canât count on something being made or being successful or any of that. Itâs a very difficult industry, and so, for the moment, Iâm happy to stick to my writing.