FIVE QUESTIONS FOR HARMONY KORINE

Irina Aleksander / The New York Observer / April 30, 2008

Last night we caught up with Harmony Korine at the TFF premiere of his new film Mister Lonely. And get this--he's a married man now! The writer of Kids and director of Gummo -- and ahem, former Chloe Sevigny dater -- arrived with wife, Rachel Korine, a soft-spoken young woman of Lolita-esque beauty from his hometown of Nashville, Tenn. He even cast her as Little Red Riding Hood in the utopian film about a commune of celebrity impersonators and sky-diving nuns!




Harmony and Rachel Korine at the Tribeca Film Festival (April 29, 2008)



Irina Aleksander: So, what's the relation between celebrity impersonators and sky-diving nuns?

Harmony Korine: The nuns were first. I just started imagining nuns jumping out of airplanes without parachutes and riding bicycles in the sky and doing tricks in the clouds. Then I started imagining that they would survive, like it was a test of faith or something, that if they believed strongly enough then they could survive. Then I thought that was similar to the impersonators who kind of build their own society.

Aleksander: Why celebrity impersonators?

Korine: I thought they were interesting looking and I just liked the idea of characters, people who try to create their own reality and their own language. Like the nuns that kind of just brought these obsessive characters.

Aleksander: Is there a celebrity impersonator you saw in real life that stands out?

Korine: I saw this Michael Jackson impersonator who had one leg and was German on the streets of Paris and I just thought it was an interesting way to live.

Aleksander: How did you decide to give the role of Little Red Riding Hood to your wife?

Korine: I did a little research and I found out that there was an abnormal amount of Little Red Riding Hoods. I guess maybe doing children’s parties or something. So it just made sense—my wife: Little Red Riding Hood. It was a fetish thing. I’m joking! It just made sense somehow.

Aleksander: What was the film set like?

Korine: It was like waking up and seeing James Dean tending the sheep or seeing Sammy Davis Jr. smoking a joint or the Three Stooges riding a pig. Everyday I had that to look forward to. It was something beautiful