Mister Korine  | FILM | Advocate.com

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Mister Korine
Advocate film critic Kyle Buchanan sits down with director Harmony Korine to discuss his new movie Mister Lonely about a Michael Jackson impersonator, dropping mushrooms, and why he loves Southern gays so much.
By Kyle Buchanan
An Advocate.com exclusive posted May 1, 2008
Mister Korine

When Harmony Korine wrote the screenplay for the 1995 drama Kids, he was just a kid himself. Now 35, he’s directed three films (including cult classics like Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy) and is preparing to release his latest, Mister Lonely. The story of a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) who is drawn to a ragtag group of celebrity wannabes by a woman posing as Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton), Mister Lonely debuted at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and is being hailed as the eccentric auteur’s most mainstream work yet.

Advocate : Harmony, I don't know if you’re aware of this, but I think you have a big gay fan base.

Korine: Are you serious? Really?

When I told people I’d be interviewing you, all my gay friends just lit up.

Really? Shit, that's exciting!

You've never noticed it before?

To be honest with you, I live in a place where I wouldn't really know who my fans are. I live in Nashville, so the people around me don't really care so much, you know? But that's great to know.

Maybe it's on account of Gummo? There's a lot of homoeroticism in that film, including a long scene where you drunkenly flirt with a dwarf. Did men ever hit on you based on that scene?

It maybe used to happen more when I first lived in New York. Now it doesn't happen at all, since I'm married and I live in Nashville. [Laughs] Although my favorite gay is the Southern gay. There's just this Southern gay subculture: acid-washed jeans, strip malls -- it's kind of more dandyish. A lot of those guys would probably be churchfolk had they not been gay, and a lot of them still are churchfolk -- not to say that you can't be gay and be churchfolk. They still have all those qualities of a church person, but they like to get freaky as well. [Laughs] 

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