What is It? and It Is Fine are the first and second films in a planned trilogy, It’s Mine being the third.  The second film is an autobiographical, psycho-sexual, fantastical retelling of Steven C. Stewart’s point-of-view of life. He died from complications of cerberal palsy one month after filming wrapped. It is Fine showed at the Alamo Drafthouse with a live perforamnce by Crispin.

AUSTIN DAZE: Tells us a little bit about Steven C. Stewart.

CRISPIN GLOVER: It’s sad that he didn’t get to see the completed thing. I know he would have loved to have been here talking—he really liked the attention. He liked to talk to the women and touch their hair. I didn’t go into detail about it but, it was something David Brothers and I were very firm about and that was that it was obvious that this film had to be made with Steve. It could not have been made with any other person. It is about a very specific individual. I know people often ask about the handicapped issue of the film and I would say, because Steve was an advocate–a different kind of advocate for that kind of thing–mainly that he wanted to play a bad guy in this movie which is not something that often happens in that situation. He was really firm on that. If Steve had died and this was a corporately funded film and they said, “Well we’ll get a different actor who doesn’t have Cerebral Palsy,” to me that film wouldn’t be interesting at all. But also even if it was not a corporately funded and distributed film and Steve died and they said, “Well we’ll get an actor who does have Cerebral Palsy to play the character” I still don’t think it would work. What’s important about the film is that he was living this fantasy. It’s at least important that this man had this fetish for women with long hair. It was absolutely specific that it had to be that guy otherwise there would be no point. I know that David Brothers felt this way as well and it wasn’t just because I said to Steve that I wanted to get the film made, I would have actually felt like I had done a bad thing if I hadn’t gotten this film made. I don’t know exactly why but I really would not have felt good about it. I would have felt like I did something wrong. So I’m genuinely relieved that this is on its way. And on top of it, I’m really proud of the movie. When the whole trilogy is done I feel like this film will be the best of the trilogy but more than that I feel like this film will be the best film I will ever have anything to do with in my career. It’s such a specific story and an impossible thing to replicate. It has to do with Steve and his peculiarities. That’s another reason that I really wish he was here, because I feel funny in a certain way talking for him. At the same time I’m also very possessive of the film so I like talking as well, but Steve would say things that I would never say. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1571532898,j=r,s=s,l=i]MICHELLE WILLIAMS: How important was it for you to premiere your movie here in Austin?

ETHAN HAWKE: I don’t know. I want to make sure that I sound as sincere as I am. The biggest collaborator of my adult working life has been Richard Linklater. And the work that he has done with the Austin Film Society is so impressive and has been such an inspiration to me. Before Sunrise came out, which was over 10 years ago, we would do these joint benefits—one for my theater company and then another for the Austin Film Society, which we raised a bunch of money for. And Rick just ran with this. They have raised so much money and helped start so many young people’s careers and given so much money to young filmmakers. In some ways when I was making The Hottest State my dream of the finish line was always premiering it at the Paramount. If I could finish this movie, and get a distributor, I would get to come down, we could raise money for Austin Film Society, and I still have a lot of family in Texas so they could come here and watch it right at the Paramount. So that was tonight and I’m really happy about that. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:id=1067584150,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: How did you first get involved with music?

BILLY BOB THORNTON: Well I actually really got involved in movies. I was in music always. You know, from the beginning. I started when I was 9 or 10 years old and that’s what I did and what I thought I was going to do. Then I kind of got into a theater group and accidentally became a movie star.

AD: In Tres Hombres, your ZZ Top tribute band, did you have a beard?

BBT: Yeah, but I didn’t have to have a long one because I was the drummer. The other guys had to have the beards. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:a=72157594267830938,id=292609787,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: How did you get your start in the acting business?

DANNY TREJO: I had been a drug counselor since two years after I got out of prison. I worked for a place called Western Pacific Rehab in Glendale, California. One night in 1985 some kid that I was working with called me up and asked me to come down and support him because there were a lot of drugs at his job–he felt he was going to use. So I went to support him–thinking it was a regular job–and it turns out he was a PA on a movie called “Runaway Train” with Jon Voight and Eric Roberts. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:a=72157594267830938,id=237019894,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: How and why did you decide to become a musician?

GUY FORSYTH: I grew up in the suburbs and while my mother played a little bit of piano and my father played a little bit of banjo, it just wasn’t something that we did when our family got together. Although we would sing in the car, we would sing songs and we would all love similar songs and put on records and listen to them and sing along, we weren’t making music. That didn’t occur to me until later when walking down the street, I would see a street musician and I was like, “Wow, look at that! He’s playing music”. There’s this magical thing that is happening. Read the rest of this entry »

[fa:p:a=72157594267830938,id=233939463,j=r,s=s,l=p]AUSTIN DAZE: What is the difference between writing a screenplay and writing a book?

CHRIS ELLIOT: The thing I like about writing this is that I had free reign. I could go down to my office and just let whatever was in my head come out. I realized half way through writing it that that was why it was so much fun because usually on scripts you plan everything out and you basically just connect the dots between one scene and the next and even if it’s not working you still have to get to that next scene to finish the script. But I talked to people that wrote novels who told me not to plan anything out, to just let it go where it’s going to go and so it sounds corny, but it was a wonderful journey, to put it to you that way. It was a freeing sort of liberating experience to not have somebody saying that’s too stupid, you can’t do that, which I hear a lot. Read the rest of this entry »