JASON MOJICA: If you've ever seen a Karen black film, you
know that when she is on screen it is
impossible to look away.
You probably have seen one of her movies.
She's made nearly 200 of them, everything from "Easy Rider"
to "House of 1000 Corpses."
So we're pretty excited that she's invited us to her home
here in LA to hang out and wax philosophical
about the art of acting.
I'm a little bit nervous, because she has been known to
turn interviews around on the interviewer.
And I'm a little bit worried that she might get me to
reveal things about myself that I'm not really
comfortable with.
But you know, sometimes you've got to throw
caution to the wind.
Once upon a time, I had an idea of what the first
question I was going to ask you was.
But now I've forgotten it.
KAREN BLACK: You're very lanky.
You know, I think you're an ectomorph.
JASON MOJICA: Ectomorph.
KAREN BLACK: An ectomorph is a person with long, thin bones.
JASON MOJICA: Mm.
KAREN BLACK: So should we talk about the
farm when I was little?
JASON MOJICA: Sure.
KAREN BLACK: It popped into mind.
JASON MOJICA: I didn't know that you had a farm.
You grew up on a farm?
KAREN BLACK: No, no, I wish I had a farm.
JASON MOJICA: You grew up in Park Ridge, Illinois, right?
KAREN BLACK: You look at me like you're suspecting what
I'm saying is going to make no sense.
You got that kind of--
JASON MOJICA: Oh, no.
I think you're just kind of reinventing history now.
KAREN BLACK: You're reinventing history.
I'm lying.
JASON MOJICA: Where does the farm come in?
KAREN BLACK: What he wants to say is,
you're lying now Karen.
Where's the farm?
I didn't read about the farm.
JASON MOJICA: Well I don't know if it was maybe just code
for something else.
KAREN BLACK: [LAUGHS]
Too many sci-fi thrillers for you.
My mother's mother's sister, Great Aunt Ruth and Claire,
owned a wealthy milk farm in Wisconsin.
And I would say that those may have been my happiest days as
a child, I think because there wasn't really
the stress of city.
And therefore it was peaceful.
And as a child, when it's peaceful, there's more space.
And your memory is better.
Because things are pleasing and pleasure rather than
turbulence.
I just loved it.
I loved the cows.
I learned to milk cows.
And I couldn't, of course, eat that milk, blagh.
And I would sit with a chicken.
I sat with a dying chicken once and noticed that its eye
closed, up and down, then just down.
Thomas Hardy, when he died, they buried him in the Poet's
Corner in the little graveyard for fabulous poets.
He had his heart cut out.
And he brought it home to the graveyard near his house.
So I started wondering.
What?
This makes no sense.
This is another lie?
JASON MOJICA: No, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just waiting to
see where this is going.
KAREN BLACK: Well, I mean, it's an interesting question
you might ask people.
You know there are graveyards.
And we have a graveyard here.
We have a cemetery there.
If your heart, where would you bury you heart?
See?
Where would you bury your heart?
Where would your heart belong?
And it belongs on the farm.
Where would you bury your heart?
JASON MOJICA: I always had a fantasy of my body being
cremated and then something interesting being done with
the ashes, like being snorted, or
something along those lines.
KAREN BLACK: Hello, little Paisley.
Hello.
What are you doing under there now?
You should not have fleas, you know, Sara.
This is my cat.
Are you getting this cat?
Are you getting this beautiful, green-eyed puss?
JASON MOJICA: Though you've made, like I said, nearly 200
movies, for a lot of people, what stands out most are your
horror films.
KAREN BLACK: I'm very sorry to hear that.
JASON MOJICA: Really?
But I mean, I mean--
KAREN BLACK: Yes, I'm very sorry to hear
what you just said.
That's all.
JASON MOJICA: Well, I mean, I think some people, you say
your name, you say the name Karen Black, and they think
"Five Easy Pieces," "Easy Rider." Some people say, you
mean that naked performance artist who cracks
open eggs on her vulva?
And then, like, no, no.
And then some people say, oh, "Burnt Offerings," "Trilogy of
Terror." I wonder why you think those horror films stand
out so much?
KAREN BLACK: I think I have no particular persona.
I do not have one.
And if you think of a lot of actors, they
have a kind of persona.
They do great movies.
And they do great parts.
And they do this.
And da, da, da, da.
You have an idea of them.
But I am, unfortunately, sort of nothing except a witness.
I'm sort of a witness.
This is my personality.
I think I'm warm-hearted.
But I'm a witness.
So when I do, "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean,
Jimmy Dean," and then I do "Five Easy Pieces," you can't
tell it's the same person.
But if you do a horror movie, and your name is Karen Black,
and there's a band that's called the Voluptuous Horror
of Karen Black, then everyone hears Karen Black, Horror,
black, the horror, Voluptuous Horror, then you can epitomize
Karen Black.
It isn't what I do.
It isn't what interests me.
It isn't what I'm good at.
And so I'm sorry about it.
But it did happen.
And it's because of me.
I have to take responsibility for it.
I'm still doing strange movies sometimes.
It was just one of those years where you know you make one
decision, and the rest of your life is just in another path.
This happens with people, I think, who create their own
careers more than people who work for
companies and so forth.
You can put your foot on a path and go a completely
different route than you would have done.
JASON MOJICA: So you're saying that you did "Trilogy of
Terror," and then somehow your career took a wrong path from
this point?
KAREN BLACK: Totally.
Oh my god, yes.
Jesus Christ, yes.
Oh, goodness.
You want some more tea?
-I'm OK.
I'm still working on mine.
KAREN BLACK: We're hoping that something would be changing.
See, I put a little bit of this.
Just remind me the subject.
JASON MOJICA: Well, we were talking about horror.
KAREN BLACK: Oh yes, no wonder I forgot.
But does that makes sense to you?
Do you know what I mean?
Like, once they say Karen Black, horror, da da da da,
then they can hold that memory.
JASON MOJICA: But looking at, like, your filmography, it's
not like it just took this turn and then went all horror,
all the time.
It looked like you kind of went back and forth between a
variety of things, between horror and maybe more
mainstream types of films.
KAREN BLACK: There's a difference between what films
that I do and the original notion that we were
discussing, which was people think of you as.
JASON MOJICA: Sure.
I see what you're saying.
KAREN BLACK: So people think of me, and
they think of horror.
And I think that's because the connectives are good.
I think also I was just really excellent in "Trilogy of
Terror." It took me many years to figure that one out.
You know, we thought it was the doll.
We thought it was Dan.
We thought it was this.
And then I thought, you know what, I'm really good in that.
Yeah, because I was really scared by the doll.
And you know, people eventually said, oh my god.
You're all alone with this little piece of wood.
And yet we believed every minute of it, that this little
piece of wood was chasing you.
In fact, the people doing the piece of wood were lousy.
The were absolutely lousy, what they did.
They would just sort of throw the doll after a while.
This doll was thrown.
And then the doll would be on a--
you'd go and they'd have a floor, like, up here.
This is a floor.
This is the floor.
And this is the apartment.
And there's this ridge.
There's a--
what's the word?
A road, a dent, an insertion.
JASON MOJICA: Groove.
KAREN BLACK: Groove, very good.
JASON MOJICA: Thanks.
KAREN BLACK: And in the groove, here comes the doll.
[MAKING NOISES]
Whatever it did, running, running.
And then it'd stop.
And then the legs would fly off.
And then it'd stop.
And then the head would fly.
And then it'd stop, and the arms.
And you could hear the whole set laughing.
The whole stage was like, ah, because the doll had done some
other ridiculous thing.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-[SCREAMING]
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
JASON MOJICA: Let's get more philosophical.
KAREN BLACK: OK.
JASON MOJICA: I'd like to talk to you about your work in Aida
Ruilova's film, "Meet the Eye."
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-Which one of them is me?
Tell me.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
JASON MOJICA: I saw this at the Hammer
Museum a few years back.
You know, it's an artist film starring
you and Raymond Pettibone.
KAREN BLACK: Yes, Pettibon.
JASON MOJICA: Pettibon?
Pettibon.
Compared to narrative films that you make, like
feature-length films, regardless of how much of an
artist the director is or the people working on the film,
generally the goal of that is to find a really big audience
and make a bunch of money.
Where I think for an artist film, the goal is to make art.
And I wonder if you could describe the difference in
working on those types of projects?
KAREN BLACK: You know, it's difficult to understand what
the hell is being talked about in her installation.
But I'm an actor in the installation.
Plus, Raymond Pettibon does this.
That's what he does.
So that isn't easy to get.
You know, you have to try to maneuver yourself, since
you're talking to Raymond.
So how I did it was, I did the following.
I said, OK.
JASON MOJICA: You keep going.
I'm going to just fix your mic here.
You know, you're rolling all over the place.
KAREN BLACK: You have those cute, little pink cheeks.
Look at your pink cheek go like this.
And then they go down like that.
It's very cute.
Usually people don't ever have that anymore when they're no
longer in Europe.
People from Europe often have pink here that goes down here,
if you've ever noticed.
JASON MOJICA: I have not noticed.
KAREN BLACK: And you have it.
Your pink is here.
It goes down to here.
Very nice.
Darling.
You just find out what it is that is going
on with this person.
What is this person imagining?
Oh, OK, I think I know what it is.
This person died.
And this person is talking about having left the body and
watching the accident from a distance.
And that's what the subject here is.
But she can still move the other body,
and da da da da da.
And it is a story that you have, that is there.
But it is with me, that's very, very real to me, and
that I'd like to communicate to an audience.
And that's my job.
And that's what I did with that.
Now, I remember I once did a movie that I
was too lovable in.
So they took me out of it.
Because I was supposed to be a little bit
more wicked or something.
There's something about a studio film that's
conservative and, in my experience,
gives rise to gossip.
The more you get organizations where they know each other,
then they share an opinion.
And you can't shake it loose, you know.
So if you have a studio film, you can get this contamination
of opinion, where it's really not based on an observation of
any single person.
But it's something kind of like a
gossip thing that happened.
And I find that kind of heavy and solid and unmovable.
You know, we can't really do much about it.
I've had a very sad time on a couple of movies like that.
Very, very, very sad, up all night crying and so forth.
JASON MOJICA: You've been in nearly 200 movies.
KAREN BLACK: Yes.
JASON MOJICA: And you've been doing theater.
You had your debut as a playwright recently.
You've written screenplays.
KAREN BLACK: Thank you.
JASON MOJICA: Well, you're welcome.
Thank you.
You're performing with contemporary musicians.
You're in art films.
Are you a workaholic?
KAREN BLACK: Well, I sincerely dislike that expression.
It's a way of making less of someone who likes to create.
You could probably say it about some of the Beatles.
You know, they kept doing albums and albums.
Paul McCartney is still writing.
To me, if someone is creating, that's the true person that
the person is.
And I'm sorry that that phraseology has found its way
into our culture.
So to me, the more you create, the more joy you have in
living, the more pleasure you have in life.
A workaholic is a disease of some sort.
I mean, it's something that takes something that is very
natural, almost native to a person and makes it a slightly
ignominious kind of thing to be.
JASON MOJICA: Fair enough.
I didn't mean to phrase it in anything that could be
interpreted as a negative.
I think what I was trying to get that was that being in LA
these past few days, going to restaurants, and realizing
that that thing that they say about every waiter or waitress
in LA is an actor.
And you realize that, no, it's really true.
And I'm trying to figure out what the difference is between
those who succeed--
and by succeed, I mean make a life in acting--
and those who just try this for a few years and then go do
something else.
I guess that's my question.
What's the difference in that?
KAREN BLACK: I will try to answer that.
I will try.
I don't know if I can.
Because it's only from my point of view.
And that's not truth.
It's just how it seems to me.
If you're really good at it, then you're really giving
something worthwhile.
And you know it.
And others begin to know it.
And it's not something you can stop.
Just like you can't, Jason, ever stop being.
So if people tell me they were acting and now they're not
anymore, it's hard to me.
I can't fathom, I can't process that.
Why?
How can you do that?
If that's what you do, then why and how can you stop?
JASON MOJICA: I'm Interested.
Tomorrow night here in Los Angeles.
KAREN BLACK: Scared.
JASON MOJICA: You're scared.
You're going to be before performing with Cass McCombs.
But you've performed with him before.
And you're in his music video.
[MUSIC --
CASS MCCOMBS, "DREAMS COME TRUE GIRL"]
JASON MOJICA: Why are you scared?
KAREN BLACK: Well, like when I did "Why We Have a Body," I
had all these monologues.
And I was so thrilled.
And it was so fun.
Because I know what I'm doing, because it's the language.
It's the word.
You know, I love the word.
I love the language.
That some of us aren't born into our lives.
We have to look for them as if they're taking place somewhere
else without us.
I wish I'd known that.
But singing is physical.
It's not really thought.
It's physical.
And it scares me.
[SINGING]
Like to go to Memphis.
But I don't know the way.
I don't know if that's going to be all right or not.
It's physical.
And besides, it's this huge place.
And I've never sung this song in public.
And I'm scared.
I'm scared.
JASON MOJICA: But yet you've incorporated singing into your
films, into a number of your films.
KAREN BLACK: That's different.
JASON MOJICA: Why?
KAREN BLACK: Because I'm the character singing.
Because it's part of the story.
Because I'm comfortable.
I'm in my imagination.
When you're in front of people on a stage, that ain't your
imagination.
That's the stage, baby.
When I did Memphis in Nashville,
I wasn't even nervous.
I was Connie White.
I wasn't nervous.
She wasn't nervous.
So I wasn't nervous.
It was, like, the Grand Ole Opry.
How many, 1,000 people or something.
I wasn't nervous.
JASON MOJICA: So is that the difference, this additional
layer of character?
The character is singing versus tomorrow night, you'll
be singing?
KAREN BLACK: I think so.
Because it's part of imagination.
And I find imagination so awfully comfortable.
JASON MOJICA: Well, now I want to make a movie with you.
KAREN BLACK: Why?
What do you want to make?
JASON MOJICA: Is there anything that you haven't done
that you'd like to do, genre-wise, story-wise?
KAREN BLACK: That's not fair, Jason.
You have to say what you want to write.
But you can write a spy one, I don't know.
Maybe islands.
Let's go to the islands.
JASON MOJICA: Islands.
KAREN BLACK: No, no, you're just pretending to be
interested.
You don't like the Caribbean.
JASON MOJICA: No, I've--
Jamaica.
I've been to Jamaica.
KAREN BLACK: Yeah, so look how interested you look.
JASON MOJICA: No, no.
I mean, I like good family drama.
KAREN BLACK: I do too.
We could do my movie.
JASON MOJICA: What's that?
KAREN BLACK: "Deep Purple," about this crazy
family in the South.
JASON MOJICA: I would love to read that script.
KAREN BLACK: OK, I will send it along to you.
JASON MOJICA: Great.
KAREN BLACK: Oh, goodness.
JASON MOJICA: That would be great.
KAREN BLACK: OK.