By Kyle Buchanan
ngela Robinson is one of the highest-profile lesbian directors in Hollywood. After she expanded her 2003 short D.E.B.S. into a full-fledged feature the next year, she got the call to helm Herbie: Fully Loaded, and she has several other studio projects in development. In the meantime, she’s kept busy by producing and directing on The L Word and creating an Internet series called Girltrash! We caught up with her while she was preparing for another L Word shoot and asked her about some of her biggest obsessions.
A little birdie told me that you’re into comic books. Have you been reading them since you were a kid?
You know, I actually came to comic books a little bit later than that. I always liked the superhero stories and was into fantasy and adventure and make-believe—even with D.E.B.S., it was almost like a comic book, in a way. I think it actually started for me with Strangers in Paradise, which is a graphic novel series by Terry Moore that’s kind of a love triangle between two women and a guy. It’s incredibly emotional and accessible, and it’s one of the first graphic novels that I read that kind of resonated with me.
How did you come across it?
Somebody had given it to me years ago, and I started it and didn’t get into it. Then I sat down and started reading it again—there’s five volumes—and I read them all at once. After that, I started asking people for recommendations because it was such an amazing experience, and I got super into this awesome comic called Y: The Last Man by a writer named Brian K. Vaughan, which is just the greatest. The story is that one day this plague hits that kills every man in the world except for one, but rather than be a campy treatment of what that might be like, it’s actually pretty realistic. You’ve got one guy who’s the last man on earth, and it’s about what women would do if they were kind of left on their own to create a civilization.
Are there any other writers you adore?
Joss Whedon is a huge influence on mine. I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of the greatest things to ever happen to television.
Have you been reading the Buffy comics that pick up where the TV show left off?
Yes! I was so excited about it that I actually went to the [Directors Guild of America] on this Feature Directors Night, which is really kind of this old-school stuffy event. I’ve never been before—it’s like all the old dudes at the DGA and they hand out cigars at the end of the night, although actually there were more women there than I thought there would be. They had people around like Michael Mann and Oliver Stone, all these very famous filmmakers, but I was spying on Joss Whedon all night.
Did you talk to him at all?
I cornered him on the way to the bathroom because he was the only person at that event I desperately wanted to meet. I was like, “You’re the greatest, I love Buffy so much, and I’m so excited about the new comic book series!” It’s just so exciting to read these comics, because you always felt that on the show they were straining under the budget. Of course, they’d want to have 8 million monsters and 5 million vampires if they could, so it was kind of neat to see the Buffy story unfold without any constraints. It’s “whatever you can draw” as opposed to “whatever you can shoot.” But I’m not caught up yet, because I came up to Canada to shoot The L Word. I’m trying to get people to send it to me up here. I need to see when Faith comes back!
The expanded universe that Buffy is creating—is that something you’d be interested in doing with a property like D.E.B.S.?
Oh, yeah! It’s funny, because I have such comic-booky ideas for movies, but I hadn’t actually thought about producing any myself. With D.E.B.S., I had all these stories, like a prequel and a sequel. My dream for the whole thing was to do a Lord of the Rings [laughing], where it’s this trilogy that goes on and on. I would love to do a D.E.B.S. comic book—that would be so much fun. Actually, as we speak, I’m doing an online series called Girltrash! and next weekend I’m working with a lit agent and an artist to try to sell a comic book of that. It’s a whole new medium for me, because I keep sending them these little scripts, and it doesn’t exactly work that way! You have to visualize the story in a way that can be told in comic book terms as opposed to in movie terms. The movie marketplace is so random in a way and it’s so expensive, but I’m intrigued by the graphic novel format.
Do you think that’s a friendlier market for queer content?
You know, I actually don’t know. I have my first toe dipping into the water to see what that world is like. I was kind of inspired by Joss Whedon, as usual, to give it a whirl. I don’t know anything about the business, and it might be just as treacherous as the movies, but I think everything is opening up to queer content. The comic book industry does have a big queer following.
Now, I want to go back to Strangers in Paradise, which you mentioned earlier. I read that you were going to adapt it. Is that still in the works?
I would like to, very much. I’ve been talking to Terry about it, and he’s been taking a much-needed vacation. I was so excited about his work when I read it that I tracked him down in Texas and met him at a comic-con. I pitched him my idea of how to adapt Strangers in Paradise and we had a great time. He said he had to wait until it was the last year—there’s been 10 years—of Strangers in Paradise, which just ended beautifully. I just read the last issue a couple of weeks ago. The next thing I’d like to do is start working with him, so I’m waiting for him to come up for air and then we’ll start seeing what that looks like.
Now that I know about comic books, what about book books? Do you have a lot of time to read?
I’m obsessed with buying books – like for fun, that’s what I spend my money on – but I just cart them around to wherever I am and I never get through them! It’s terrible! I never have time to read them and I sit and fantasize about my pile of books.
What’s in your pile right now?
It may be embarrassing, but the latest Harry Potter is in there. And I haven’t been able to read it! I hear people talking about it and I say, “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me,” because I’m trying to keep myself in a Harry Potter-free zone. I also got this Stephen King book called On Writing that someone said was really informative, and I’ve been reading old Tennessee Williams plays that I haven’t read since I was a kid, like A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie. I’ve been working on a project where there are some Tenneesee Williams—esque characters in it, so that was a treat. Plus, it’s totally different than when I first read it. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, they were talking about rape!” [Laughing]
So I know it’s hard to pick a favorite movie, but let me make it easier: What movie do you think you’ve seen the most?
All That Jazz. I love Bob Fosse as a director, but I think it’s specifically that movie, because Cabaret is a close second. I love musicals, and I think music really influences how I direct things. I always think of musical numbers during stuff I’m working on, because using music with the image has this way to transport you. I’m always trying to create this sort of happy, effervescent thing in the stuff I’m doing.
Do you remember the first movie that had an impact on you as a lesbian?
It was all those John Hughes movies. I was so in love with Molly Ringwald, and I was sort of reconceiving all the Brat Pack movies so that Ally Sheedy could get together with Molly Ringwald. Maybe Some Kind of Wonderful with Mary Stuart Masterson. And I totally remember circling the video box for Desert Hearts when I was a kid—there was something weird about how the characters were grouped together on the box, with one girl looking at another girl who was looking at a guy. I didn’t even understand what was going on, but I worked up the courage to rent it, and that was, you know, informative.
You started out making short films. What kind of influence did film festivals have on you?
Oh, film festivals are the greatest, and I actually think gay film festivals are so much more vibrant and active. I remember my first one, with Chickula: Teenage Vampire, which was influenced by all these pulp lezzie books I’d started collecting in college. It was the first time I’d screened anything I’d made, and they asked all the filmmakers to stand up after. I’ve been to a lot of gay film festivals since, and it’s a really cool thing because you have this incredible not-so-underground network where you make a short or a feature and it just goes everywhere, like every town, all around the world, Europe, everywhere. It’s so awesome to show your movie to the audience that it’s kind of intended for, in a way. They get every joke and every little side thing you stick in the background.
Let’s talk about actors for a bit. What actor who you haven’t worked with intrigues you the most?
Hmm...that’s an interesting question. I actually think Ellen Page is incredible—I just saw her in Hard Candy and she’s an incredibly interesting, dynamic actress. Everyone always says Angelina Jolie, but I’d probably be terrified of her! There are people who will say, “I’ve always wanted to work with so-and-so,” but sometimes the reality of actually doing it is so stressful.
Have you ever been intimidated by someone you had to direct?
Oh sure, all the time. The first time I met Michael Keaton, I was like, “Whoa, he’s so smart!” He’s gracious and a really wonderful actor, but my first meeting with him was interesting because he really put me through the paces. We had this two-hour meeting about the character because he has to know everything going in, and then once he shoots it, he just kind of does it. It was intense—for me, anyway. I’m sure he didn’t think at all about it. [Laughing] Oh, and also Holland Taylor, who I’ve worked with on many projects and is so dynamic. It’s not necessarily a fame thing—it’s about having really exciting, voracious actors who challenge you to step it up and get what you want.
How has your approach to directing actors changed since you first started?
I think I’ve actually relaxed a lot more. Like, I used to shot-list manically and really thought it through in my head, and now I’m much more interested in seeing what the actors bring through it and seeing what’s the most interesting way to shoot it. It’s definitely really good working on The L Word because the actors have been here for so long and they’re all such great actors that you can really serve the scene and say “try it this way” or “try it that way.” I started as a theater director, so I was working with actors all the time, which I love to do. Then I went to film school, and I love movies, but a lot of times the machinery of the production overwhelms the acting. So now I try, when I can, to be more confident and let the scene evolve and trust that it will be there.
Does shooting something like Girltrash! help because it’s so low-budget and so quickly shot?
Yeah. I scripted a bunch of it, and then we would, like, run to the burrito stand down the street with all these people around. I did that project because I wanted to shoot something and try it out in an organic way without being pressured. There’s so much second-guessing in feature films, and I was getting frustrated because you have to go through so many people to make anything. There’s so much development, and I wanted to make something where you wrote it and shot it and put it up and got people’s feedback. There were no notes, and sometimes they were a little crappy, but it was a lot of fun to just toss actors into a situation and just see what they come up with.
How do you keep it together when you have to shoot something on such a tight schedule? In general, is there a certain way you need to be to keep a set under control?
My dad always ascribed to the maxim “never let ’em see you sweat.” I just try to keep it really mellow and positive. My job is to just tie it all together and make everyone excited about the work we’re all doing.