Hello?Yeah
can I get some room service, please? Thank you
Yeah, can I get the turkey burgers please, thank you
Thank you. Thank you
You know, I’m an artist but I’m not moral–
I do the best I can
I often think that the whole idea of self-worth is rubbish
we don’t have self-worth
And it’s just one of those things where we all struggle through our day
trying to do the best we can
Look at the world as it is. It should be fantastic
we should have everything we want
But we don’t – we seem to sort of break it and try to fix it
Sometimes I wish we were robots
Maybe we would be better
I don’t see any differentiation from making films, feature films as such, and art
Of course, one is much more about story telling
Not to say art takes story telling out of the equation
it’s just that filmmaking is much more about connecting to an audience –
telling stories, really
Again, when you make an artwork or when you make something
it has a life of it’s own
And of course, you can step back from the canvas, or whatever
and have a look and it has some kind of effect of course, yes
Well “Shame” the title came from talking to a lot of sex addicts
and what happens when they have sex, or go on these escapades
these long drawn out sexual encounters on the internet
prostitutes, or whatever, masturbating
When they sort of come out the other end
there’s a huge feeling of self-hate as such
And of course, shame, and the shame is what kept on coming up
this word ‘shame’ kept on coming up in conversations
and it was quite evident that we should call the movie ‘Shame’
It’s a film about human beings who are trying to get through a day
The character Brandon is not at all exotic
he’s not a freak, he’s actually one of us
On paper he’s a very un-sympathetic person, a very self-centred person
and I wanted to, sort of
not judge him at all
He’s closed, he doesn’t want anyone to be let in
And I think that’s the character of Brandon
he doesn’t want anyone to be let in and he’s very cold in that sense
Sex – it’s an appetite for something that gives you pleasure
so I think women have an appetite for sex just as much as men
We couldn’t find a woman who would speak to us unfortunately
But it’s just an addiction, it could be anything
it could be obesity, alcohol, drugs, gambling, what have you
They’re all quite similar. People just want to get away from reality
I think the research is what made the movie
Of course, myself and Abi Morgan – the lady who I wrote the movie with –
we both went out to New York to do the research
I think the reason why we went to New York was because
we couldn’t get anyone in England to actually answer any questions about sex addiction
We couldn’t get anyone to go on record
We were lucky enough to talk to people in New York
experts in the field
and talking to people who were sex addicts and are sex addicts
and how they live their life and how they deal with the every day
I think that’s the way to work usually on these things
because you’re not forcing anything, you are actually discovering things
Often is the case when you collaborate with people, which I don’t do often
but when I do, you’re hoping for the best
and with Abi it was the best
It was a wonderful experience and through that
we came to where we are now