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Callie Khouri Director of Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood
Why did you decide to make this your directorial debut? A lot of what made me choose it was they were going to let me do it. (Laughter)
I have been trying to direct since Thelma and Louise. I wrote Thelma and Louise
with the hopes of directing it and unfortunately that horrible hack Ridley Scott
(laughter), obviously it was the best possible thing that could have happened
and I’m so happy with the way it turned out, but if I had known it was
going to take another ten years to get someone to let me direct a picture, I
might have thought about it twice. At the time I didn’t think about it
twice, I was just praising God for letting someone like him come along and fall
in love with it as much as I did. I was the best of times and the worst of times,
I guess. Evidently this wasn’t the first picture you wanted to direct, had you been pursuing projects since then? Yeah, I had. I had a couple of deals at various places to write and direct,
but I never found anything. The thing I was trying to direct, we’re still
trying to get made. The first time someone said you’re the right director
for this; we’re still trying to get that made. It’s set up at Disney,
but I don’t count a single chicken before it’s roasted and set up
on the plate. A lot of people had said yes to me, but the projects themselves
never quite came all the way together. This one, this is a movie they were going
to make and they wanted me to rewrite the script. If we could attract a cast
with that script, they would let me direct it. Fortunately, we attracted cast.
Do you think writing the script made it easier? Absolutely. For me, when I write, I see every single second of it. There are
some writers that don’t really do it that way. I’ve had friends
of mine say “I don’t see how you see it, everything’s through
Vaseline for me.” I see it in such sharp relief, I can’t even tell
you. So much so, it can drive you crazy when you watch someone else’s
version of your work, even if you like it. In any case I was really fortunate.
It was a great challenge because of all the people playing the same person,
because of all the time periods. I knew I was going to have my hands full for
the first time and I really wanted that. You mentioned the cast, were you actively involved in the casting?
It was really important to me to get her. She’s from the South and we’re both from Kentucky. I knew she would know who this character was and I really felt this was a great part for her. All she wanted to do was to take time off. She wanted to get married. I told her, “just this one last one Ashley, I swear to God you won’t regret it.” She said yes. The same thing with Sandy Bullock. She had been working on Murder By Numbers
and she had done Miss Congeniality before that and had no time off. In fact,
she finished Murder By Numbers on Saturday, got on a plane and flew on Sunday
and went to work on Monday for the next four weeks. Do you think the good cast helped with this being your first feature as well? It’s a dream. I’ve said this a thousand times, but it’s the
most apt analogy. It’s like getting your driver’s license and getting
handed the keys to a Testarosa. Ok, don’t pile it into a tree. It can
do pretty much anything you want. This cast, I wasn’t burdened with the
problem of somebody not being good or not being able to do it. Were there any problems in working with the large cast? No, because actually it was three small casts. It was broken up and each group
was there for four weeks. I started with the younger ones first, then the middle
group, and then the final group of Ya Ya’s came in and it made things
a lot simpler. We had to do that for schedules and locations, things like that.
Locations had to be completely redone between the 60’s and the 90’s.
The pecan grove and the house, that was completely redone. They had to gut the
kitchen and rebuild that, because that was not a set. Those kinds of things
just require that we do it in order.
One of the things I enjoyed most about the film was the older cast. That’s something that’s practically unheard of in Hollywood. Any comments on that? It’s unfortunate that it’s practically unheard of. Watching these
women who have had cumulatively 100 years of experience was so marvelous. I
mean truly we marveled. It was just amazing how well they all worked together,
the way they prepared, the things the did to make it really feel they had know
each other all their lives. It’s a shame that there aren’t more
parts and that the parts are usually supporting that they get. They’re
usually somebody’s mother or grandmother and it’s just terrible.
They’re so great and they’ve been at it so long. Really, when you
think about it, they are the same age as Clint Eastwood. They’re the same
age as a lot of the male leads that are out there working with 20-year old actresses,
because it’s just disappointing that there’s not more for them to
do. There is some really fantastic acting in them and all they need is the part.
In mentioning Clint Eastwood, it points out the misogynistic attitude that Hollywood has and it’s interesting to note that when Thelma and Louise came out many critics complained that it was a feminist revenge fantasy when more often than not anything that comes out of Hollywood is the exact opposite of that. Exactly, I really didn’t have a lot of sympathy for people that just
saw exactly what’s out there all the time, flipped. How did you get your start in screenwriting? I had been working in production for a number of years and before that I had
studied acting for a number of years. I felt like I was supposed to be doing
something, but it wasn’t what I was doing. I just got the idea to write
Thelma and Louise and thought I’ll see what happens. I’m going to
write it and see if I can finish it.
Do you think that Hollywood has a difficult time marketing films with an older and/or female cast? Absolutely. I think most studios are owned by major corporations and they’re
not about making movies anymore, they’re about making money. They’re
all doing the franchise thing. You have to find someone who says, I love this
and I want to see it. It’s really hard. Because, first of all, when you
look at female audience, they have a lot harder time getting to the movie theater.
They’ve got to have a babysitter or they have to convince their husbands
to go. It’s harder to get women into the theater to have that big opening weekend
that you can have with a boy movie. The audience, even if it’s there—which
I think My Big Fat Greek Wedding proved that it’s absolutely there, but
you have to go about it a different way. That was a movie with no big name stars and it did great. Right, it grew and grew and grew. It was word of mouth and it had time to do
that. I think there have to be different marketing paradigms for different types
of movies. As long as studios are in a “we’ve got to have a big
opening weekend or it’s a failure,” it’s a self-fulfilling
prophecy. I’ve said to I can’t tell you how many studio heads, why
do you condemn a certain amount of pictures that you’re going to release
to failure. You’re setting them up to fail. If you’re holding them
to the same paradigm that you’re holding Spider-Man and Men in Black to,
then it’s a failure, but you want to go make $168 million on a movie that
cost $8 million. Everyone will want to make My Big Fat Greek Wedding now because it’s done so well. Let’s hope. Purchase Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood DVD - Phillip Duncan
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Listen to the response...
Of
course. One of the most fortunate things that ever happened to me was that Ellen
Burstyn, who I’ve worshiped and adored all my whole life, was the first
person I wanted. I hoped that the studio would agree and would want someone
like her. They did and were totally supportive. I met with her and had big plans
on how I was going to talk her into it, my whole rap planned out. We sat together
and she said she just loved it and would love to do it. I was so grateful and
from that point on it just fell together. The hardest thing was I really wanted
Ashley, first of all because of her resemblance. When you see pictures of Ellen
at Ashley’s age, the resemblance is remarkable. 
