Lost in the Suburbs: Part Two

A Chat with Alan Ball (click here for part one)

"Towelhead is a crude, but scathing portrait of suburban life."
-- Stephen Holden, The New York Times

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

This is sort of a side note, but in the Publishers Weekly review, they
describe Vuoso as creepy. I’m curious as to your take. To me, his
actions are creepy, but as a person, Aaron Eckhart’s character
isn’t what I would define as creepy. Is he creepier in the book?

No. In the book, he’s a little more aggressive.

In the same review, they describe him as musclebound.

I know in the book she likes his biceps when he’s wearing a t-shirt, but
I don’t think he’s musclebound. He never struck me as a bodybuilder.

That might be a slight misinterpretation, because a bulkier person would
make him seem more threatening—more obviously like a predator.

[Ball takes the same approach as Todd Solondz, i.e. “sympathy for the devil.”]

Dylan Baker in 1998's Happiness

I felt it was important for Vuoso to be attractive in a way that a young girl would find physically attractive. And part of his appeal is that he’s sexy, but I didn’t want to make him overtly macho or a bodybuilder or anything like that. In the book, he’s more aggressive, and I guess in the movie he’s not quite as—I mean, it was always important to see him as a human being and to understand why she finds him ap-
pealing, because he’s handsome and sexy and charming and at the same time, I wanted there to be some vulnerability, so that’s also part of the appeal, because all the other men in her life don’t show any vulnerability. You know what I mean? So I guess there’s a very slight gradation. I still don’t think he’s creepy in the book.

And it’s a tough balancing act, because he does change. It’s nice to see he’s not—he could be two things. He could be one thing at the beginning and one thing at the end, or one thing all the way through, and he’s actually a constellation of things. Each scene brings out a different side. I thought Aaron Eckhart handled that really well.

Absolutely. It’s a brave performance. One of the reasons I want-
ed to cast Aaron is not because of all the ethically compromised
characters he’s played, but because of his role in Erin Brockovich.

That’s interesting. I wasn’t thinking about that at all.

He’s such a good guy in that movie, and I wanted to
see that side of him, and he did it. He brought that.

Yeah, he’s great. I tend to forget he’s in that film, because he looks so different.
I was wondering if at all, and I think you’ve already kind of answered this, but if
you were thinking about In the Company of Men, which is how he first came to my attention. If he had done anything before that, I’m unaware of it, but after that…

Exactly. That was his first thing. I certainly think he was good in that, but
I wanted the more vulnerable, softer, charming Aaron and not the, the…

He was really scary in that.

Wasn’t he?

Rocco Siffredi and Amira Casar's legs in 2004's Anatomy of Hell

Why did you change the title from Nothing Is Private to Towelhead?

Well, when I wrote the script, it was called Towelhead, and we took it
to every studio, every mini-major in town, and everybody passed.

Because of the name?

I don’t think it was because of the name; I think it was because
of the story and the subject matter. I mean, I actually heard from
my agent that the heads of some of these organizations said, ‘I
can’t possibly make this movie—I have daughters!’ [laughs]

That’s kind of funny.

Yeah, hello? So I thought, okay. Then we starting looking for an indepen-
dent way to finance the movie, and we found this company, Indian Paint-
brush, and somewhere along the line, I just got gun shy, and thought,
well, it’s too controversial, blah blah blah blah.... I myself am not Mid-
dle Eastern, and I can’t possibly call a movie a word that is a slur.

And there are worse words in the film.

Exactly. So we tried to come up with another name, and Nothing Is Private is the
one we came up with, and nobody could think of a better title. I mean, at some
point, somebody even hired a consulting firm, who came up with pages and
pages of titles, and so that’s the title we had, and we took it to Toronto.

It still shows up that way on the Internet Mov-
ie Database. It may be that way for awhile.

And then an independent bought the movie, and they said, ‘We want
to change the title back to Towelhead,’ and I said, ‘Okay, I just assum-
ed people wouldn’t want to call it that.’ Then I called Alicia, and said,
‘If I get any flack for this title, I’m gonna blame you.’ She said, ‘Well,
go ahead. Feel free to do that, because I am half-Egyptian.’ [laughs]

It’s funny, because Nothing Is Private sounds like the title of a Catherine Breil-
lat film. She did Sex Is Comedy, Anatomy of Hell, etc. which, actually, your film…

Exists in the same universe.

Exactly.

More to come...

Towelhead continues at the Harvard Exit (807 E. Roy St.). For
more information, please click here or call 206-781-5755. Imag-
es from The Mercury Cinema, OutNow!, and Siegel Productions.