(Samantha Mathis in Pump Up the Volume, above.)
by Terry Keefe
This was part of a larger interview I did with Samantha in 2001, which was primarily to promote The Mists of Avalon, a mini-series based around the Camelot mythology, and the novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Mathis played Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) in the mini-series. The conversation eventually strayed to Pump Up the Volume. I was in college when the Allan Moyle film was released in 1990 and loved how it captured the universal spirit of teen rebellion, while also making a defiant statement about the need for freedom of speech. Mathis played Nora, aka the Poetry Lady in her first feature film role.
What were your recollections of playing Nora the Poetry Lady in Pump Up the Volume?
That shoot was a magical time for me. It was my first feature film, and I loved that character so much, and to get the opportunity to play her, and to get the opportunity to work with Christian (Slater) who was someone I really admired and a peer of mine. And Allan Moyle, the director, created a really unique environment while shooting that film. He's a real artist and was really interested in having a very collaborative film-making experience. This is a guy who started having parties at the production office six weeks before we were shooting. So people would get to know each other. And his credo for hiring people on the film is that he wanted "skinny guys who read books." He wasn't interested in people who would sit in the corner and eat a lot of donuts and not be creatively involved. He wanted everyone to be inspired and inspiring. So it was a really wonderful, embracing kind of experience, the environment he created. I was surrounded by other wonderful young actors, creating that world.
Watching the movie now, it's very prophetic of what happened in the next ten years. Christian Slater's pirate radio station was something the government could shut down, but they could never do the same to the Internet, which was just on the horizon at that point.
It's true. It really does speak of a different time, doesn't it? But at the time it felt pretty revolutionary. It was an answer to all the John Hughes movies, which I loved and grew up on, but at a certain point I think. you wanted to see something a little bit darker and grittier.
After Pump Up the Volume, were you basically offered every teen movie being shot?
Uh-huh. A lot of teen movies, which was frustrating for me because I was getting older, but I was very naive about the fact that once you're seen in a certain light, that's what you'll continually be offered. So there were years when I would get very frustrated and say to my agent [faux shouting] "But I can't lose my virginity anymore! Please, I'm in my twenties now!" But you don't look like you're in your twenties, you look like you're still a teenager. I've always been considered to be younger. I don't know, I've yet to be taken completely seriously as my own age for some reason. I don't know if I act young or I think I have. kind of a soft, young face. Anyway. I played a few more teenagers after that.
I just saw The Thing Called Love for the first time the other night. It's a good film which was kind of overlooked when it came out.
I think it was an interesting movie. It was the awkwardness of not knowing how to release the film in the wake of River (Phoenix)'s passing. It wasn't the film the studio really wanted us to make. It was the film that Peter Bogdanovich wanted to make. It was around the time that "Achy-Breaky Heart"-remember that song? It had come out and that guy did a movie, right? And I think they were looking for another big country music movie and that simply wasn't something that Peter was interested in making. Not in that vein. He's interested in more artistic endeavors. He's interested in the darker side of being a singer-songwriter and what that was. So...conflict. Conflict was there and this film pretty much ended up going straight to video.
Then came Broken Arrow. How was it working with the legendary John Woo?
He was lovely. One of the most gentle, soft-spoken directors that I've worked with. Which is astounding, considering he's known for some of the most violent films. So that was kind of surprising. [laughs] He was very sweet with me, and it was amazing to watch him work. Because the way he uses a camera is unlike anything I've ever seen before. He would find a way to shoot a sequence from eight different angles and when you finally saw that sequence edited together, it was like a ballet. That's what I think is so amazing about his violence. It's not gory violence. It's really quite beautiful, it's elegant. And it's like a dance.
