Original subtitles

KOCH: John Waters is a Lutherville boy who, like it or not...

...has moved from fringe to famous mainstream mania.

For the past 14 years, John Waters has lived in an apartment high-rise...

...near downtown Baltimore.

He surrounds himself with the bizarre and unusual...

...memorabilia, objects that get his imagination going.

Okay, this is the electric chair which was used in Female Trouble...

...that Vince Peranio made for me. Looks exactly like one.

It really comes in handy when the phone men...

...or nosey landlords...

...come in and give you trouble. You just sort of steal a look at it...

...and look at them and they usually fix your phone without much trouble.

- And it's not real'? -No, but it's exactly what one looks like.

- Today? A modern one? -Today.

This is where I write, did the book, wrote the movie, everything--

- This is your desk? -Well, my office is in there...

...but this is where I sit and write, because basically...

...all my business is done from New York, the selling of it...

...l just have to think it up here.

And you take your inspiration from the--

Well, mostly I think from Captain Hook.

I think that's what I looked at mostly, writing...

...Cyril Ritchard and Captain Hook. -Ha-ha-ha.

I always wanted to look like that when I was a child.

You write out there, but this is where you think?

Yeah, this is where I think up things.

This is my bulletin board that's just layers of 10 years of stuff...

...that every little image I like, I just kind of put up here.

- This is the library? -Yup, this is the library. Uh...

These are all crime books. Every one of these...

...is a hideous crime that happened.

Because that's my hobby. People send me-- This is the most...

...most hideous thing I ever got. It's the dirt from the former home...

...of John Wayne Gacy.

KOCH: The man who killed the young boys and buried them?

He's gonna get the electric chair very soon. It'll be worth more then.

Yeah. Who sent it to you, John?

People that write me. I get very strange mail.

- Do they send it anonymously? -N0, with letters.

Nice people that just sort of like my work.

I guess let's start at the beginning and find out how someone...

...who grew up in Lutherville, suburban Lutherville...

...ended up being now known as the King of Bad Taste.

Gee, I don't know. I grew up very conventionally...

...and as soon as I could, tried to escape it...

...from even the very earliest ages.

You've talked in interviews before and written about your relationship...

...when you were young, with the Catholic Church and with the school system.

D0 you think some of that rebelliousness fed into your films...

...or what you wanted to do in film?

I think I've worked Catholicism out of my system...

...with Multiple Maniacs, the film, definitely.

[SCREAMING]

I like the theatrics of Catholicism...

...and I think certainly there are good priests...

.-.there are good people that do things.

But, uh, I'm certainly against the official position...

...of the Catholic Church on sex, on AIDS.

I don't get why AIDS people don't go out there and chain themselves to the Pope.

When I walk around your apartment, it's easy, if I let myself...

...to see it as sort of a film's set.

The apartment certainly reflects the same sense of humor that I put in...

...all my work. -Mm-hm.

Also, in the same way that the apartment is like a set...

...in some ways, because you have become so famous...

...whether you like it or not...

...it is easy to think of John Waters as a character.

- There's a certain look and style to you. -Oh yeah, certainly.

Is that hard to maintain?

N0, because you're right.

People say to me: “You couldn't leave Baltimore now.“

And they're right, it's part of my act, that I live here, nationally.

It's the first thing every interviewer in every city says: "Why do you live in Baltimore?"

It has really become part of it.

Yes, you have created a character of yourself, but I know when to--

My friends don't live with that character, and it's pretty much the same...

...but you're not always "on" the whole time...

...which you have to be, doing something like this.

Basically, no matter how good an interviewer you are...

...l'm not going to tell you everything about my life or I'd be a fool.

- Absolutely. -There's not everything you wanna share...

...with the viewers of Channel 13.

Unless you're a moron and have no real life.

You've talked a lot about-- In interviews and also in one of your books--

--about the period of time in your life when you used drugs...

...and felt that was a good period.

Has your feeling about that changed?

I don't regret taking drugs.

But I know people that did with me that are dead.

I don't have bad experiences from it...

...but I certainly wouldn't tell anybody to go take them.

But I also wouldn't tell them not to.

That's a personal decision you've gotta make...

...and if you can get through them-- It's a subject there's no real answer to.

L'm not gonna be a hypocrite and say: “Just say no." I didn't.

- Do you now? -No. I'm too-- Are you kidding?

I can't even imagine- Taking LSD now? I know myself well enough.

That would be the most boring thing... and seeing things like that.

- Oh, God. I would feel like a fool, tripping. -Ha-ha-ha.

- I mean, ifs so retro. -Yes, it is retro.

[KOCH LAUGHING]

Now, you've been quoted as saying that the only weird thing about you...

...is your ideas. ls that true? ls your normal life pretty normal?

I think so. I've very regimented, I get up at 7:00.

I go and I read my paper, I drink my tea, then I start work right at 8:00 exactly...

...and that's when I write until 12, then I stop.

S0 ljust think, "Oh, another day“...

...and how nice it is I don't have to go to a real job.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

Take people who are serious about film, and serious about art...

...and they see your films, it's easy for them to think:

“He's really sort of winking at us all, he's really putting us on.“

lam in a way, but I'm serious about making these films I make...

...dead serious about making a good comedy.

But just because I make comedies, people think:

"When are you gonna make a serious movie?“ Comedy's serious.

It's harder to do. It's hard to get people to laugh today.

S0 I am winking, certainly.

I never want to take myself s0 seriously that I would say:

“I'm going to change your life by this movie.“

Because I don't think movies change anybody's lives.

I think ifs a pleasant way to spend two hours.