'The Lab Magazine' Interview With Catherine Hardwicke

From source: TheLabMagazine
It’s no secret Catherine Hardwicke’s interested in teenage life. Just take a look at most of the movies she’s made – Twilight, Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown. And it’s not hard for her to explain why. “This is a time when a lot of crazy things happen,” she says. “Drinking, leaving home, having sex, crashing cars, and figuring out who you are as a person.” Her films, however, focus on some pretty specialized teen activities: whippits and amateur navel piercings in Thirteen; sexual tension with werewolves and vampires in Twilight; skateboarding empires in Lords of Dogtown. No trips to the mall or soccer practice here. Instead, hormone-driven sexuality and aggression play out in moody, detailed environments.

Hardwicke has a degree in architecture from the University of Texas. “I designed and built a bunch of houses in Texas before deciding that real architecture might be a bit of a creativity stifler. I applied to grad school in Film at UCLA and people said ‘You’re an architect, why don’t you design my movie?’” Her design influences range widely. “Before shooting Thirteen I watched Mean Streets and A Woman Under the Influence. So Scorsese and Cassavettes and also Baz Luhrmann are a big influence. For design, my favorite architect is Antonio Gaudi. I also love European hill towns and lots of third world architecture. Treehouses and surfboards are cool, too.”

While serving as the production designer on films like Vanilla Sky and Tombstone, she waited for the opportunity to direct. “It’s hard to get a movie made. I finally co-wrote a script that I could make for almost no money. I couldn’t be stopped.” That movie was Thirteen (co-written with fourteen-year-old star Nikki Reed); a film that shattered all preconceptions about the level of debauchery to which an eight-grader could sink.

A unifying feature of her diverse films is that they brim with intoxicating images. Just linger over the opening scene of Twilight (haters relax: Teams Jacob and Edward are nowhere to be seen), as the camera tracks a deer tearing through the lush Pacific coastal rainforest. Or the sun-soaked, washed-out world of Venice California in the much underrated Lords of Dogtown. When beginning a film project, Hardwicke says, “I get an original idea or read a draft of a script or a book and then start getting a rush of images for the scenes and characters. I start doing research– how could the sets look? How could the characters look?” The mass hysteria around Robert Pattinson who she cast rather controversially (75,000 fans initially signed a petition saying they wouldn’t see the movie if Pattinson was in it) proves her discerning eye. When asked what it was like to adapt a movie with such a rabid fan base, Hardwicke replied, “It got more ravenous as we were working on the project– at first it wasn’t so intimidating. In fact, when I asked for a bigger budget, the studio said. “For all we know there are just 400 girls in Utah going online talking about Twilight.”

For a woman with a 100-year-old California beach house, Hardwicke loves to be inside working. “I love creative collaborations with actors, artists, and musicians. I love crazy brainstorming jam sessions.” And while she admits that it’s still “pretty damn difficult” to make the films she wants to, she has a lot of projects in mind for the future. Next up, a gothic adaptation of the Little Red Riding Hood story starring Amanda Seyfried– “It’s twisted and sexy and scary” – sounds like a walk in the park for the connoisseur of dangerous drama and teen lust. Ms. Hood might not make it to Grandma’s but Ms. Hardwicke is sure to deliver the goods.

WORDS BY MICHELLE REID
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRYAN SHEFFIELD
HAIR & MAKE-UP BY NICOLE HAWKYWARD

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