Original subtitles

- The first thing I ever shot with them

was a film called Loves of Ondine.

There was this man sitting behind a camera,

and then I'm told that was Andy Warhol,

and I said, "Okay."

I didn't know who that was.

And then Paul Morrissey is running around,

pulling his hair out,

and telling people what to do.

And he ran over to me, and he says,

"We want you to be in the film."

I said, "What?"

"Yeah, yeah. You'll be visiting Ondine,

and that's his Wife over there, Bridget,

and you'll be teaching him how to Wrestle, okay?

Is that okay with you?"

And I said, "Sure. Okay."

"All right. Can you get down in your underwear

so that you look like you're wrestling, you know?"

"Sure, I have no problem with that."

And that's how We met.

(piano music)

Me in my underwear, Paul pulling out his hair.

That's how I got to do my first movie with them.

(piano music)

That was the beginning.

We continued on,

and then I noticed that there was a difference

when I would shoot a Paul Morrissey movie

versus an Andy movie,

where Andy would be directing.

Whoever talked the fastest

and the loudest was the star of the movie.

I was not a person that was very open about talking,

so I was not gonna be the lead in an Andy movie.

With Paul, he didn't care about that,

he wanted the beautiful body.

And Paul came up with this idea for Flesh.

When he told the story to me,

it sounded like a story about a boxer.

Well, that never happened,

and it turned out to be about a hustler.

But it was a fun experience.

It got me to understand the camera.

And he also, as I continued working with him,

was always preparing me to work in Italy.

He had this idea, I'd go over

and come back like Clint Eastwood or something,

but that never happened.

(soft piano music)

You know, the first big success Andy had

was Chelsea Girls.

Once that was exploited to the max,

then the new big, top one for them

was this movie called Flesh.

Paul was a person that just chatted my head off,

that wanted to know everything about me.

He was a social worker before he started directing,

taking people

that never worked in front of a camera before.

He was my mentor.

He knew everything about movies.

You talked about a film, he knew who directed it,

who was the camera man.

He kept himself informed about all of it.

He was a very opinionated guy.

He loved to push people's buttons.

If you liked something, then he didn't.

If you were a Democrat, he was a Republican.

If you were a Republican, he was a Democrat.

And I'd go, " Paul, why do you do that?

Why do you like to just piss people off?"

And he goes, "Just to have a conversation, that's all.

You know, get to know who they are."

Paul was on my back about shooting a movie

with real crew and everything,

and there was an opportunity to shoot this thing

down in Puerto Rico, called The Gardener.

So when I was coming back from that,

there was talk about going to Italy

and that they had a deal with Carlo Ponti.

(light orchestral music)

(bell ringing)

They didn't know what yet.

Then they were talking about these Frankenstein movies,

and in 3D.

It would be Paul directing with me as his lead again,

but not so much the lead character,

because I'm just not the lead there.

Frankenstein's the lead.

But that's okay.

I just wanted to get through with working with them,

and they had already put my name to it.

That's how the deal was made

and that's what I say all the time,

and it may not be that at all,

but that's how it came back to me,

that Carlo Ponti had seen

that we had the success with the Flesh,

Trash and Heat.

Three in a row, and how do you beat that?

We make 'em for $10,000

and we make a whole bunch of money.

I was up for a movie.

I wasn't gonna get it or anything,

but they at least showed an interest

and they wanted to meet.

But Paul said,

"Well, I don't believe he can do a script, you know?"

And Andy said, "Well, I think he's a drug addict."

Those were their opinions of me

to the people that were interested.

Later on in life, people tell me,

"Well, they had something they needed to do with you

and they couldn't have people offering you

to go somewhere else.

They needed to finish what they wanted to do."

I said, sure, I get it.

It just doesn't seem right

that they should badmouth me

and yet,

still want to use me in everything they do, you know?

So, with love and a hug, We went on to Italy.

(orchestral music)

Frankenstein was a great time.

I think I WaS 19.

I didn't have to improvise dialogue,

'cause I told them I wouldn't do that no more,

so they wrote everything I had to say.

- I didn't know that girl.

The man was my friend,

the one that was killed last night.

- The other reason was because every actor there

was speaking their own language.

At a certain point, I was using my toe to tap them to speak

because it was their turn.

(dramatic orchestral music)

We shot Frankenstein pretty fast.

That's when Paul made the decision not to do 3D anymore,

because the guy with his 3D shit --

one day, Paul started up shooting

before he got to put the piece back on.

Paul was pissed off.

We shot another scene similar to that last one,

but it wasn't right on the money like we'd just done.

And so, Paul was upset and he said,

"That's the last time I ever shoot a 3D movie.

This is stupid."

We were all living in the same villa out in Tico

or Whatever.

One night, they gave a dinner thing

and they were not having any room to sit down at the table.

And I said,

"lt's coming out of my per diem.

My per diem is paying for this whole thing.

I get this big, large per diem,

'cause you didn't want to give it to me in salary,

and I'm using all my per diem

to pay for everybody to live here at this villa.

And you're going to tell me that this person

that's the main part of our thing

is not able to fit at the table?

Go Fuck yourselves. Nobody eats tonight."

And I threw all the shit on the floor

and I was real mad,

pushed it all off the table.

The only one that was hurt by that was the cook.

She was really upset.

She made nice pasta.

Anyway, I was out of there.

I said, "I'm getting my own place.

I'm not living with you people anymore.

I'm not going to be paying for this

and not be able to be comfortable where I live."

Paul used to love to push my buttons

and he did a lot of that during the shooting of this film.

He used to do this shit where he pushed my buttons

and aggravate me,

say shit that would make me want to fucking knock him out,

and he'd run, hide behind the door,

and I'd come crashing through that door

and he'd run to the next door and hide behind that.

And by the time he got to the bathroom door,

I'd calmed down, because I said,

"I'm the one that's got to fix all these fucking doors.

So I'm calm now.

You can come out and we can talk."

So, he got me to stop breaking doors,

stopped getting angry when people said things

that I didn't like.

Pretty much, by the time we were shooting Dracula,

we're a little bit more connected,

back like the style we were

when we were shooting our earlier things.

But throughout Frankenstein, I was pretty pissed at him.

But We got through it

and we made a funny movie, or a fun movie,

and it was all because there were other talented people

in the movie and it wasn't counting on me to carry anything.

- Two girls.

One man.

He must be very powerful.

- [Joe] I think Paul had met him

while we were on tour in Germany,

trying to promote the films that we had done earlier.

Udo showed up there

and that's where Paul met him

and talked to him about if he was interested in doing a film

and yeah, he was sure interested.

And he came down to Italy on his own dime,

rented his own place.

- There's even some things science cannot modify.

- [Joe] He made films in Europe,

but nothing like what he was about to do

with Frankenstein.

Him and Arno, Arno was fucking awesome.

His sidekick or Whatever.

I got to watch them work. I liked their work.

Can't take nothing away from them.

The film wouldn't be what it is except for Udo Kier.

What I did, anybody can do.

Yeah, all you had to do is have a great body

and a New York accent and not give fuck.

(soft piano music)

Monique, she was a sexy woman,

but I was the one that had to take more off more often.

- You really have to help me get into the lab.

- We were shooting an Italian production.

I was allowed, as the only American

'cause I was special,

a special actor or whatever, to be in the film.

No other Americans could be in it.

They all had to be from Europe.

The whole thing was that Paul could not be credited

as the director for this Italian film.

It had to be this other director,

though he had nothing to do with the making

or shooting of this film.

He had to be given the credit

to get the Italian nationality.

Anywhere else in the world,

Paul Morrissey is credited as the director

because he was the director.

(somber piano music)

These are Paul's highest budgeted movies that he ever done.

He never clone anything like that, to have all this money

and all of this material at his disposal,

to be able to shoot in a studio with sets built

and to go out to a castle

and use a castle as the background for his film.

It's pretty nice.

And even the material that he was doing, like you said,

Frankenstein and then Dracula.

Frankenstein, you know,

probably been done hundreds of times,

but here we are doing it.

Our version of Frankenstein in 3D.

The whole concept was

before its time.

(Joe laughs)

It was just fun to do.

- Are you really serious

about wanting to be a monk?

- [Joe] I had the New York accent that really didn't fit,

but they asked for me

and the only thing Joe can play is Joe.

But Flesh for Frankenstein

just had all sorts of cool things in it, man.

And we had real sets, real costumes,

real makeup and hair.

And we had everything real for the first time.

(orchestral music)