Telling the Story of Brandon Teena.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: MARCH 15, 2000
Time: 12:00
Tran: 031501np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Director Kimberly Pierce and Actress Hillary Swank Discuss
'Boys Don't Cry'
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TERRY GROSS, HOST: From WHYY in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross
with FRESH AIR.

On today's FRESH AIR, "Boys Don't Cry." We talk with Kimberly
Pierce, the director and co-writer of the film, and Hilary Swank, who
is nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Tina Brandon. The
movie is based on the true story of a young woman who wanted to be a
man. While hoping to have a sex change operation in the future, she
cut her hair, changed her clothes, bound her breasts, and passed as a
man.

But when Brandon's two male buddies found out that he was a she,
they raped her and later murdered her.

Also, rock historian Ed Ward tells us about the New Orleans rock
and roll band Huey Smith and the Clowns.

That's all coming up on FRESH AIR.

First, the news.

(NEWS BREAK)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Hilary Swank is nominated for a best actress Oscar for her
performance in the movie "Boys Don't Cry." My guests are Swank and
Kimberly Pierce, who conceived the film, co-wrote it, and directed it.

The movie is based on the true story of Tina Brandon, who in
1993, at the age of 21, decided she wanted a sex change operation. In
the interim, she tried to pass as a man. She changed her clothes, cut
her hair, bound her breasts, and took on the new identity of Brandon
Tina.

Brandon moved from his home town of Lincoln, Nebraska, to the
small town of Fall City, where he was taken in by a group that he
befriended. He fell in love with one of the women, and they had an
intimate relationship in which Brandon managed to keep his real gender
a secret.

But he was outed as a woman after he was arrested for a minor
crime. When two of his new male buddies found out that Brandon was
really a woman, they raped her and later murdered her.

Here's Hilary Swank as Brandon Tina in an early scene from "Boys
Don't Cry," after Brandon has started to pass as a man. Brandon is
staying at his cousin's trailer.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

ACTOR: What is the matter with you?

HILARY SWANK, ACTRESS: Oh, no. I don't know what went wrong.

ACTOR: You are not a boy! That is what went wrong. You are not
a boy!

SWANK: Tell him that. They say I'm the best boyfriend they ever
had.

ACTOR: You want your mother to lock you up again? Is that it?
Is that what you want?

SWANK: No.

ACTOR: Then why don't you just admit that you're a dyke?

SWANK: Because I'm not a dyke.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

GROSS: Kimberly Pierce was a graduate film student at Columbia
University when she read about the murder of Tina Brandon. I asked
her what she related to in the story.

KIMBERLY PIERCE, "BOYS DON'T CRY": Well, I related to, first of
all, Brandon, you know, front and center, he was everything to me. I
really loved this character, the enormity of his imaginative leap, his
humor, you know, he was a bit like a scoundrel. So all that I fell in
love with.

And then the story more at large, what was so interesting to me
was the intensity though (ph) which she recreated herself and then the
amount which other people fell in love with her, that people were
looking for a person like Brandon, that Brandon managed to create a
place in their lives for himself. He recreated a family.

And then that once this family structure was working, as his
secret leaked out, they felt the need to destroy him. So it really
was, like, such a dramatic premise that resonated with so many things
in my life that I wanted to get to know Brandon and get to know the
guys and get to know Lana and the love affair and make sense of the
tragedy.

GROSS: What did it resonate with in your life?

PIERCE: Probably the fact that I left home at an early age. You
know, I left at 17, went off to University of Chicago. You know, when
that didn't work out because my scholarship was put on hold, I went
off to Japan and lived for a couple years. And I feel like my life
has always been driven by desire in a sense of reinventing myself and
recreating families.

GROSS: What about gender? Did you ever have gender issues
yourself?

PIERCE: Well, I think we all have gender issues.

GROSS: (laughs)

PIERCE: But, you know, yes, sure, definitely. As a little girl
I used to -- I was part of this thing called the Tomboy Club, and my
friends and I would build forts, and right at the edge of dawn we
would go out to the golf course, and there was a whole bunch of us,
and we'd see the ranger at a distance, and we would say, "Ranger!" and
we'd all run different directions. And we'd get chased down. And
we'd come home, and our parents would be, like, Act like girls. And
we would all, like, look at each other, like, Oh, my God, what are
they telling us to do? It's, like, the most confusing moment in our
life.

So we'd be forced to go to school with dresses on, you know, and
everybody be would be in a half state of rebellion. And I don't think
I ever really figured out what it was to be a girl, but I definitely
figured out what it meant to be myself, and I think that that was kind
of the guide for my life, kind of a practice of, like, individuation.

And, you know, gender's taken on all kinds of complicated things
for me, (inaudible) meant that I would dress up as a boy sometimes
with my friends, but never pass, because I looked totally like a girl,
or, you know, think of myself as a director like a guy, like John, you
know, Huston or John Ford or any of that stuff.

So gender's very prevalent in my life. But I think it's very
much so in everybody else's too.

GROSS: Now, I understand that "Boys Don't Cry" started as a
short film that you were making for your thesis at Columbia Film
School, Columbia University Film School. And then it just -- the
story just kind of got deeper and bigger and ended up into a full
feature film. And you looked for an actress to play the part of
Brandon Tina for, what, about three years, and you've been quoted as
saying that you auditioned every lesbian and every transgendered actor
that you could find, and no one quite made it for what you were
looking for.

What were they lacking that you knew you needed?

PIERCE: Well, what they had was, they could pass in real life,
and this was a lived experience, which was great, kind of like a stock
character. What they didn't have is something that few people in the
world ever have, which is an extraordinary gift to exteriorize your
emotions and to play a character not only on a stage but on a screen.

So it's not so much that, you know -- I guess I don't want to put
them in a negative light, because they were wonderful. But what a
gifted screen actor has is -- you know, look at the population. It's
one in millions upon millions upon millions.

So they couldn't exteriorize the emotion. They couldn't turn it
into a character, and therefore if they couldn't turn it into a
character, even though they really were living the part up on screen,
it wasn't something that would pull you into the performance. And
that was everything. There was no way to tell the story if you didn't
have an actor.

GROSS: Before we meet Hilary Swank, the actress who you chose
for the part, I'm interested in hearing how you -- what her audition
looked like to you, and what you saw in her that made you realize,
This is it?

PIERCE: Sure. So you're right to say it took three years, and I
had looked at every butch lesbian and transsexual in the country. You
know, there are these walls up in the society, because back in '96,
the actors wouldn't come out for the role. There was a big stigma
attached to it. Then Ellen came out, and there was kind of a
proliferation of gay images, and, like, maybe in '98 I got flooded
with girls.

So all these actresses were coming in wanting to be Brandon. But
none of them had any idea what it was to be a butch. So four weeks
before shooting, you know, I go to Christine, and I say, Look,
(inaudible)...

GROSS: This is Christine Vachon, the producer.

PIERCE: Christine Vachon, the producer. I said to her, "We need
a girl who can pass as much as Brandon. We need an unknown. And if
we don't find Brandon, we don't have a movie." So we sent our casting
agent out to L.A., and, you know, late one night, this tape came back.
And on that tape was this absolutely beautiful androgynous person
unlike any other that we'd ever seen. He floated across screen, he
was cocky, he had a cowboy hat on, he had a sock in his pants, and he
smiled.

So unlike any of the people before him, he not only blurred the
gender line, but by smiling, he completely invited you into this
character. And he could act. So that was the beginning. And then
Hilary -- we didn't have any money, so she flew herself out to the
audition, passed as a boy to the guard downstairs. That was a good
sign. Made it into the audition, and I made sure to have seven people
in the room, because I knew that this was more than just my judgment,
because I know lots of, you know, transsexuals and butch lesbians, and
I totally think of them as "he" if they identify as "he."

I wanted this person to work cinematically for the mainstream,
and, you know, for people in general. So when she blew us away as
Brandon, then we knew we had something. And that really was the
beginning of the journey for Hilary and I, because, you know, even
after that, I said to her, "Where are you from?" and she said, "I'm
from Lincoln." And I said, "How old are you?" and she said, "I'm 21."
And I was, like, My God, it's like the Second Coming, because that was
all the Brandon statistics.
You know, and then sent her away, and she came back, and I found
out that she had lied. And I said, you know, "I know that, you know,
you're from Lincoln, but you're not 21, you're 24." And she's, like,
"Yeah, well, Brandon lied."

GROSS: (laughs)

PIERCE: And so I said, "And don't you ever lie again." But, you
know, she probably lied all over the place. But that was the
beginning, and then we took her down and, you know, I said, "I'll give
you this role under the condition that you make a full transformation,
like Robert DeNiro made in "Raging Bull," and she was down for it.
And I think it was a bigger transition than either one of us imagined,
and the next step was, you know, we went down to Astor Place, and, you
know, where the B-boys get the hair cut. And, you know, just set to
it.

And I really didn't think she was going to pass. We're cutting
the hair, and by the end of it -- because we had to fire one woman
who, you know, in the middle of cutting her hair is, like, No, she's
too beautiful, I can't do it. And then we had another woman. And by
the end of it, you know, Hilary was like this cross between Matt Damon
and Leonardo di Caprio.

GROSS: Well, let me introduce Hilary Swank, the actress who's
nominated for Academy -- for an Academy Award for playing Brandon Tina
in the new movie, "Boys Don't Cry." Hilary, welcome.

SWANK: Thank you, it's nice to be here.

GROSS: Let's get back to that audition tape that so impressed
director Kimberly Pierce. What did you do on that audition tape?

SWANK: Well, you know, first of all, my agent sent me this
script. I read it, and I didn't realize in the beginning that it was
a true story. And I knew that I wanted to be a part of it because of
the challenge it afforded me as an actor. And then I realized it was
a true story. And then I wanted to be a part of it even more. It's a
very important story. And I can relate to this story.

So when I went in to audition, I was just skimming the surface of
what I wanted to do with Brandon. Obviously you can't cut your hair
off for an audition, so I tucked my hair, which was about midback, up
into a cowboy hat that I bought at a second-hand store. I had
strapped my breasts, and I was wearing my husband's clothes. And as
Kim said, I had a sock in my pants. And I actually signed in. I knew
the casting directors, and they came down to get me, and they were
looking around. You know, there were other actors in the room. And
they just were -- looked confused. And they finally pointed at me and
said, "Um, are you ready?" And I said, "Yes, yes." Well, no, I
really said, (in male voice) "Yeah."

And then we got in the elevator, and we were going up, and the
casting director, Jennifer McNamara, looked down at her sign-in sheet
and looked back at me and about 30 seconds later said, "Hilary?" And
I said, "Yep." And she said, "Wow, that's really great." And then I
went in and I read, and we worked on it a little bit. And they said,
you know, "You're really capturing something here that I think Kim
Pierce is going to relate to and like and respond to."

They sent the tape to New York, where Kim had said she saw it
with Christine Vachon, Eva Kolodner, the other producers. And I got a
call about four days later saying, They saw the tape, they really
responded to you, they really want to meet you. This is a movie that
has no money, it's a very low budget. And if you want to meet with
them, which they want to, you need to fly yourself to New York.

So there was no qualms about that.

GROSS: My guests are Hilary Swank, who is nominated for an Oscar
for her portrayal of Tina Brandon, and Kimberly Pierce, who directed
and co-wrote "Boys Don't Cry." We'll be back after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Hilary Swank,
who's nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal as Brandon Tina
in the film "Boys Don't Cry," and Kimberly Pierce, who directed the
film and co-wrote it as well, and dreamed up the idea for the film
too.

So Kimberly Pierce, you asked Hilary Swank to actually pass as a
boy for a few weeks before actually making the movie. Did you get
together and talk about what is it that makes a girl a girl and a boy
a boy and what is it that a girl should pick up on to try to pass as a
boy?

PIERCE: Yes, it had been a thing I'd been thinking about for
years, because of myself, because of Brandon. I traveled with a group
of 15 transsexuals back to the murder town in July of '94 and
experienced Fall City with them, had been doing interviews with
lesbians and transsexuals for years. So it's a thing that I've always
been thinking about and breaking down, and as a dramatist, trying to
figure out how you recreate that state for an audience.

So when Hilary came to the scene, what I shared with her was all
of Brandon's psychological history, all of this research with the
transsexuals that I had been doing, and as much as I could, my own
sense of what makes a girl, makes a boy, and what that natural state
in between is that I think we all occupy to different degrees, and how
she could move closer to the boy's side.

And, you know, instead of look -- having her look at girls who
passed as boys, I mostly had her look at my favorite, you know,
heroes, kind of like, you know, James Dean and Jimmy Cagney, and, you
know, "Cool Hand Luke." I don't know who else was in there. You
know, "Rebel" was a big influence. And begin to figure out what made
the Hollywood male, because that's really what Brandon was inspired
by, in a way.

GROSS: So Hilary, what are some of the things that you did with
your body to try to look more masculine? What are the things that you
did with your face, even, your expressions?

SWANK: Well, first of all, once I did get the offer after
auditioning, and they said, you know, The role is yours, I knew that
if I couldn't pass as a boy, that I didn't want to do it, because it
would be doing the film a grave injustice, you know, being that this
was someone's life, and I felt a huge responsibility to that.

So it began with a physical transformation, obvious -- what Kim
had talked about, cutting my hair off. When I looked in the mirror, I
said, What is it about myself that looks masculine that I can enhance?
And it was my bone structure, really. So I went on a workout binge, I
guess you could say, for the whole six weeks before we started
filming, where 45 minutes a day I'd do cardiovascular, and an hour a
day of weight training, not necessarily to lose pounds but to lose
body fat.

And that definitely started working for me. My face started
really thinning out, which made my jawbones protrude. I also was
working on my voice, deepening my voice, and the accent that I needed
to use. I was working out a walk that I would have as Brandon. And a
lot of these mannerisms that I got that I was doing physically were
from just, as Kim said, observing men or boys.

A lot of the things I did with my face were mannerisms my father
has. All the pushing-back of my hair and looking in the mirror is
exactly in imitation of my father. I looked at pictures of Brandon
Tina and saw how he liked to dress and what he liked to wear and how
he passed, and I tried to emanate that.

I think more importantly was the emotional transformation,
because that's what shines through physically, I think, just reading
books on transgendered people, but actually going out on the street
and trying to pass as a boy, seeing what works and what doesn't work.
That was the biggest instrumental process for me, was just to see how
people reacted to me...

GROSS: Good, well, let's stop there for a second. What didn't
work? What did you think, Oh, this'll really seem masculine, and it
didn't work?

SWANK: Honestly, my butt. I have a very girl butt. But, you
know -- well, that was one of the things. It was funny, every time I
walk away on camera, they would have to, you know, cut early before my
butt got too much into the shot.

But, you know, what was interesting about that is, there are --
you know, there were probably things about Brandon that he had to mask
that, you know, looked girlie.

GROSS: Well, but how did you know your butt wasn't working? Did
somebody say, Oh, you're not...

SWANK: No, (inaudible)...

GROSS: ... you're not a man, you've got a female's behind?
SWANK: No, no. You know, that was the thing, though, is, I
wasn't going out -- when I was passing on the street and saying, Hey,
I'm an actor, do you think I look like a boy? You know, I was really
living my life as a boy. I'm talking 24 hours a day, six days a week.
My husband went along with me and introduced me as Hilary's brother.
My neighbors thought that I was Hilary's brother. I passed on my
neighbors, I passed on acquaintances, I passed on people that I'd
worked with before.

And about, you know, a half hour into conversations with these
people, I would say, It's me, Hilary.

GROSS: Did they share with you what they found convincing and
unconvincing about you as a boy?

SWANK: I would ask them, and they had said, Well, obviously you
just had a conversation with me for about a half and hour, and I
didn't know. So I don't really see anything.

PIERCE: I also think what I noticed was with the voice trainer
and the physical trainer, as the voice -- as her voice lowered, and as
she just became more defined as a boy physically, it became easier and
easier to suspend disbelief. And then as she approached the character
more and more, as he had more of a soul and a complete identity, I
think that the identity started taking over.

And then what was amazing was that Hilary could smile, because so
many of the other girls either didn't smile, and then you wouldn't be
invited in, or if they did smile, they seemed like girls. But she
managed to find a male smile, and that was just extraordinary.

So I think that -- you know, I mean, I feel like, as you were
moving towards playing the role and living that life as you were, it
was like you were beginning to understand how to use that language of
boyness.

SWANK: Yes, yes.

GROSS: Could we describe what a male smile is?

SWANK: Well, I would have to say I think that my smile as a girl
is a very wide, open-toothed grin. And as Brandon, I didn't really
show my teeth, I kept my lips kind of pursed together, and -- I don't
know, it's kind of hard to show on the air. I'm used to showing my
face and showing what -- I don't know how to describe it, actually, in
words. But it was more of a smaller kind of half-smile, you know,
with your chin kind of down -- lowered down, and, you know, it's a
smile with your eyes.

PIERCE: I'm looking now, it's a form of control, in a way, that
maybe a girl reveals a certain vulnerability that a male might not,
because as I'm looking at her now and she's smiling as Brandon,
it's...

SWANK: And you smile with a different confidence. I think as a
girl, you kind of smile more coyly, and you kind of put your head
down, and, you know, you have a little giggle come out. And I think
as Brandon, it was more of a, you know, silent, and a nod of the head
and the smile in the eye, and looking straight in the eye. And, so...

GROSS: At the beginning of the movie, Brandon Tina has just
started passing as male, and he's talking to, I think it's his cousin,
and his cousin says to him, Why don't you just admit you're a dyke?
And Brandon Tina says, Because I'm not a dyke.

In an article I was reading from "The Village Voice," Brandon
Tina had said that he was really uncomfortable with lesbians, that he
didn't like the idea of lesbians. And I'm wondering if either of you
felt that Brandon Tina was a lesbian or whether he was really
transgendered. Because he didn't have the language for any of this
anyways, he had...

PIERCE: Absolutely.

GROSS: ... he had no background in gender studies or gender
analysis or the gay rights movement or the transgendered rights
movement.

PIERCE: You know, one of the biggest dramatic questions in the
story is, how are you going to tell the story of a kid who makes this
choice to go to Fall City and not to go to San Francisco or New York
and play out a queer life, and he would have lived? So everybody was,
like, Well, why did he go down to Fall City? And you needed to figure
that out to make the script work.

So two important things. One, when Brandon was 14 years old, he
told his mom he was a lesbian, and she put him into an institution.
From that point forward, the idea of being a lesbian, in his mind, was
bad. There was n language for that. So he probably suppressed his
desire, probably still was attracted to girls, probably looked in the
mirror and thought, Why, I look like a guy, simple solution to a
complicated problem.

If I made myself into a straight guy, then I'm normal, then I can
live the life that everybody normal around me lives, and I can have a
family. Well, I can't do that here in Lincoln, because everybody
knows who I am, and I keep getting in trouble, and I've been asking
all these girls out, and, you know, stealing all their credit cards,
so I have to get out of town.

Well, where is he going to go? Well, not New York or San
Francisco and become queer, if you want to call that lesbian, or
transsexual, because those are, in his mind, the people who are not
normal. So then he goes down to Fall City, and what he does is, he
reappropriates what everybody wants, the American dream, get the girl,
you know, be the guy, be normal.

And so what's important about that is, when you say, Was Brandon
a lesbian or a transsexual? I interviewed lesbians, I interviewed
transsexuals. As I came to understand this character more deeply, I
thought, Well, the last thing you want to do is categorize him or
anybody else. Desire, that's the one true thing about all of us, we
all have desire. And we have desire to dress ourselves up in a
certain identity that helps reflect the identity we feel on the
inside. We have a desire to sleep with other people, sometimes it's
the opposite sex, sometimes it's the same sex.

What I felt was, as a dramatist, I needed to tap into Brandon's
core, what his life need was. And that was love and acceptance. And
if you followed that, it made sense of every choice all the way out.

GROSS: Kimberly Pierce directed and co-wrote "Boys Don't Cry."
Hilary Swank is the film's star. They'll be back in the second half
of the show.

I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: Coming up, rock historian Ed Ward tells us about the New
Orleans band Huey Smith and the Clowns. And we continue our
conversation with film director Kimberly Pierce and actress Hilary
Swank of the film "Boys Don't Cry."

(BREAK)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR.

I'm Terry Gross, back with Hilary Swank, who is nominated for an
Oscar for her starring role in "Boys Don't Cry," and Kimberly Pierce,
who conceived, co-wrote, and directed the film. "Boys Don't Cry" is
based on the true story of Tina Brandon, a young woman who passed as a
man and was raped and murdered by two buddies after they discovered
that Brandon was really a girl.

Kimberly Pierce, I know you interviewed a lot of the people who
knew Brandon Tina when Brandon Tina was passing as a boy. And one of
the people you interviewed was Lana Tisdale, and she's the person
who's portrayed by Chloe Sevigny in the movie, and this is the woman
who was Brandon Tina's true love.

In the movie, when Brandon Tina is forced to reveal that he's
really a girl, Lana says that she loves him anyways, and it doesn't
matter what he is, or what she is. And they end up making love
together as two women. And I'm wondering if there is any real-life
precedent for that, if Lana -- the real Lana reacted that way, and if
the real Lana was willing to make love with Tina Brandon, you know,
with Brandon after he was revealed to be a girl.

PIERCE: As I envisioned it, it never was that Brandon Tina
became a girl after the stripping of his male identity. The movie
starts out, there's Tina who feels that she is a boy, and she invents
herself into Brandon, many other identities. The rape destroys that
identity, and so she can't be Tina or Brandon, but she has this
deeper, truer sense of him/herself.

So when Lana and Brandon get back together in that scene, what we
have is a reversal, so Brandon has spent his entire life covering his
identity and giving women pleasure, and he himself has never been able
to receive pleasure because he's been so threatened by it. So in that
moment, what you really have is Brandon receiving love. And I think
the intimacy is the most threatening thing that most of us face. I
think we're terrified by it.

So that scene is much more about the acceptance of love.

And in terms of it being true to life, absolutely. The movie
fundamentally came out of my interview with Lana. When I went to Fall
City, I found her, went to her house. Actually she thought I was
Brandon for a moment. And we engaged in this conversation. And the
most important question was, So when did you know that Brandon was a
girl?

And she said to me, "Oh, I knew Brandon was a girl the day that I
met him, when I sang karaoke." And I was, like, to myself, Oh, my
God, there's no movie. And then I said, "So you really knew that
Brandon was a girl when he sang -- when you sang karaoke?" And she
was, like, "Well, no, no, no, I didn't really know that he was a girl
until he told me so in the jail," which is that scene that you're
referring to, "I don't care if you're half monkey, half ape, I'm
getting you out of here."

And I said, "So that's when you knew." And she's, like, "Well,
no, I didn't really know until they stripped him." So if you look at
the way it's handled in the movie, actually Brandon is trying to come
clean in that scene and say, I really am not who you think I am, and
if you notice the way we've edited it, Lana shuts him up. Lana
doesn't want to have it confirmed that he's a girl publicly, so she's
burying it into her own conscious. So it's still not clear then, just
as it wasn't clear when Lana said to me in real life.

And then I said, "So you knew during, you know, the rape and the
stripping." And then I said, "So finally, when you were going to run
away with Brandon, it must have been -- he was a girl at that point,
so you guys were going to run away as lovers or friends?" And she
said, "Oh, well, because he was a girl, you know, as friends," the
running away to Lincoln.

So I said, "OK, so if Brandon had actually gotten the sex change
operation after you guys ran away, and you had made it to Lincoln,
could you guys then have been lovers?" And she said, "Well, no,
Brandon didn't need to get a sex change operation. He was always a
man to me."

So what you begin to detect in the real-life person is an
unwillingness to categorize Brandon as a boy or a girl, then or now.
And what you sense is an absolute beautiful love affair where these
two people connected as souls, and where the society was saying, Well,
is he a girl, is he a boy? and by forcing her into a category that she
kept slipping out of, there really was no moment of saying, Well,
Brandon was a girl or Brandon was a boy.

And that was what we fought so hard to capture in the writing,
the casting, and the directing, which I think Hilary and Chloe get,
which is so beautiful, is that I think that they bring the audience
inside that real soul love.
GROSS: It sounds like the real Lana was being very inconsistent,
either because she was confused about when she knew the truth, or
because she required a certain amount of self-deception to carry on?

PIERCE: One -- it could be both of those, and then the other way
of looking at it is, because maybe she was able to bypass all that.
You know, maybe on a strange level, she had a kind of -- what we would
call poetic ability to entertain things that seem like contradictions
but really aren't.

That line in the movie when Brandon says, "What are you going to
tell them?" And she says, "I'm going to tell them what they want to
hear. I'm going to tell them what we know is true," that's verbatim
from the real Lana.

Now, think about that, "I'm going to tell them what they want to
hear, I'm going to tell them what we know is true." What the hell is
that? (laughs) It's not really anything, and yet it's everything.
You know, I mean, she's kind of like a little Rimbaud, I always
thought.

GROSS: Kimberly, I want to ask you about the rape scene.
There's two scenes that I imagine were very difficult to choreograph,
the rape scene and the murder scene. In the rape scene, the two guys
who had, you know, befriended Brandon Tina find out that he's really a
girl, and they're kind of angry and really threatened by it. And they
rape her, very brutally, and later kill her, and kill a couple of
other people as well.

So those two scenes, the rape scene and the murder scene, had to
be choreographed in the way that the rest of the film wasn't. And I
imagine this was your first time having to choreograph that kind of
brutality. And I'm just -- I would just like you to talk a little bit
about what you did to stage it, what kind of talks you had with the
actors, how you mentally went through it in your mind before doing it
on film.

PIERCE: Sure. The one thing that I always start out with is a
psychological map, in a way, and I think about the scene in terms of,
What do I need to achieve? That there is a vulnerability here, that
they're raping Brandon because they desire Brandon, they fear him,
they feel betrayed by him. And really what they're doing is, they're
forcing Brandon from being a boy back into being a girl. So it's,
like, I know kind of the psychological movement of it.

Then I come in with the actors and I give them their -- they have
their life need throughout the film, and then they have their see need
(ph). And you try to break it down as clearly emotionally beat by
beat as you can, because that means then that they're not going to be
acting, they're going to be doing, and hopefully then you reveal the
most meaning.

We were fortunate in that we were able to rehearse with the car,
the car became the metaphor of the scene, in a way, because you think
about the American teenage life, think of most of our lives, we
probably had our first kiss, had sex for the first time, might have
gotten raped in a car. I think it's such an American emblem. So
having that car really became a center point of how we organized the
rape scene.

In terms of the camera stuff, I mean, that was the one time that
we were on a dolly. If you notice, when we shot the stripping scene,
we were completely planted, and it was very static. When we're on the
rape, we're moving, because I knew that there was so much physical
stuff to cover that we didn't want the audience to get stuck in a
shot, whereas in the murder scene, we're actually hand-held in certain
positions.

In terms of working with the actors, I was most concerned for
Hilary, because I didn't want to brutalize her, or I didn't want to
brutalize Brandon's memory. It was important to me that in the rape
scene we were always moving forward with the story, that everything
was about deepening the audience's involvement, and never showing any
gratuitous violence. And yet we had to go to real extremes.

But in terms of the guys, they ended up being more vulnerable
than Hilary, I thought. They were terrified of carrying out this
rape, because it was, like, such a reflection of what men are capable
of. And if anything, then Hilary should talk about her experience.
But what ended up happening was, Brandon's (inaudible), after two
takes, wasn't getting the intensity of the rape, and I actually had to
push him to reach for the fear and the betrayal and the desire that he
unleashed on Brandon.

And that was a scary moment as a woman, forcing this man to go
farther. But he reached deep inside of himself, and he exploded in
that take, and that's the one we used. And he immediately left set,
and I had to track him down, and he was crying. And he turned his
face away from me, and I said, "What's wrong?" And he said, "I don't
want you to look at me. I'm crying, I'm sorry."

And I said, "No, no, no, no, the fact that you're crying is good.
That means you're not like these guys. If these guys would have
cried, they might not have destroyed Brandon." Hence, "Boys Don't
Cry."

And so it was important to me to be able to entertain as much of
the intensity without ever violating my actors or my characters. And
it was a transcendent scene for all of us. I mean, I just -- you
know, I feel like we got what it was that we were seeking that we
didn't know when we set out to do it.

GROSS: Let me just mention something else. Peter Sarsgaard, who
plays the murderer, the person who's the -- really the ringleader, he
played the -- a victim in "Dead Man Walking." He was the person who
watches his girlfriend get raped, and then he gets killed. So he's
got to have been through the other end of that on screen, so it must
have been difficult for him to become the killer and rapist this time
around.

PIERCE: Well, difficult, and also, I think, what's scary for
these guys was, it was tapping into something that was potential for
them. Not that these guys are rapists. I -- my guys are so warm and
vulnerable. But if anything, it's tapping into a potential that men
have simply because of who they are physically.

And the other, you know, important thing in that scene is to keep
John and Tom very separate. John is, you know, terrified of the rape,
and Tom is really driving it. He's kind of like the second lieutenant
who's finding power in control into a homoerotic, you know, that --
rape of Brandon.

So it's -- it was keeping those dynamics alive. And, you know,
and then all the stunt work. I mean, again, it's like those hits have
to -- they have to feel real, so sometimes you're doing eight takes to
make sure that a punch connects, because that's part of the visceral
matter for the audience. And then the recutting it so that it was all
through Brandon's perspective, that it's all a journey of his
identity.

In this scene...

GROSS: Hilary Swank, tell us about the scene from your
perspective.

SWANK: Well, you know, it was definitely a safe environment.
Everyone was fully aware of what we were doing, and the scene was
almost choreographed. Well, it was choreographed to make sure that
everyone felt safe. We all knew that at any moment, we could say,
Stop, stop, stop, stop, cut, cut, cut, I, you know, can't go any
further. And I think the actors were all aware of each other's
boundaries and really respected each other.

The hardest thing for me was -- it still makes me feel emotional,
because to think I was doing that scene, and that it wasn't real, and
that I had someone respecting my boundaries, yet this happened to
somebody, and they weren't respecting each other's boundaries, and it
was -- to think that that happened to someone is very hard. And I --
that was the only thing that almost got it so that I couldn't make it
through the scene.

I was very emotional, and I really had to hold back not just
going and falling apart. My heart goes out to victims that this
happens to. I can't imagine what that must be like.

GROSS: Did you find yourself wondering to what extent Brandon
Tina was able to maintain that kind of self-confidence and swagger and
likability that made him so convincing, made him so likable, able to
maintain any of that during this scene of total violation? Do you
know what I mean? How much he was able -- or she was able to draw on
that well, and how much...

SWANK: Well, I think what happened...

GROSS: ... she just totally collapsed, yes.

SWANK: I think there's a lot of things that you go through when
something like this happens. I don't know if you remember the scene
afterwards, where Brandon's hitting himself in the head, and looking
at himself in the mirror and pulling on his hair. I think that he was
thinking, I did this to myself, I caused all of this, I am the reason
why this happened. And I think that that's what happens in these
situations, we blame ourselves.

GROSS: I thought in that scene he was also thinking, What do I
think of my body now? What is my body? Who am I?

SWANK: I think (inaudible)...

GROSS: Do I like this body?

SWANK: Yes, I think it's all of that mixed together. I think
it's what has just happened, there's a shock, you know, he -- I think
Brandon was in shock. I think Brandon was forced back into his
feminine body. I think -- and just as I said before, I caused all of
this, I am the reason why I'm hurting right now.

PIERCE: And it's also the first moment that -- what I think is
important, is that -- in the self-blame and the awareness of self-
blame, particularly with rape stuff, or any kind of trauma, then is
the next step towards fighting back, because that's the first time
that he ever then lies to John, because after looking at himself in
the mirror and saying, I brought this on myself, they did this to me,
then he says, Oh, yes, I'll be right out. And then it's all about the
escape.

So it's the sense of empowerment comes from the admission of the
destruction to oneself.

SWANK: Right, there's different steps I think you go through
when you're suffering, and that...

PIERCE: And then he runs.

SWANK: And then he runs, then he says, OK, now I'm going to take
care of myself...

PIERCE: I'm going to live, I'm going to (inaudible).

SWANK: ... I'm going to leave now.

PIERCE: Yes, I'm going to leave, and then I'm going to live.

GROSS: He runs rather than remaining hostage.

PIERCE: Yes, it -- this is it, I'm going to save myself, as
opposed to -- and he used to think saving himself was recreating the
family and getting everybody's love. Now he's just, like, I'm going
to save myself and they don't -- they're no longer me. There was a
detachment from that world.

GROSS: My guests are Kimberly Pierce, who directed and co-wrote
"Boys Don't Cry," and Hillary Swank, who's nominated for an Oscar for
her portrayal of Tina Brandon.

We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guests are Hilary Swank,
who's nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Brandon Tina in
"Boys Don't Cry," and Kimberly Pierce, who co-wrote and directed the
film.

I'm wondering if, on the set, you, Hilary, stayed in character as
a male.

SWANK: I did. In fact, in the beginning, that was something
that I had intentionally planned on doing. And as we started filming,
we were working six-day weeks, 18-hour days, never less than 14 hours,
sometimes 22 hours. So inevitably, I was actually forced to live
this. It wasn't -- it became something that was forced and not just
planned any more.

But therefore, what ended up happening to me was I was living a
complete and different identity. I was masking all my own mannerisms
and never having a minute to be Hilary. So therefore I felt like,
halfway through filming, we had a few weeks left, that I had lost
myself completely. And it was actually scary. I felt like I was
never going to find Hilary again. I was kind of -- not kind of, I was
floating between genders. I was not completely girl and I was not
completely boy.

So that was interesting for me.

PIERCE: And it was also a thing that most of the people that I
interviewed, the transsexuals, went through in their transition. And
so it ended up being a really important part of Hilary tapping into
the character, and I think to her testament, you know, what she had
down was the charm and the humor and this, you know, inept criminal,
the confidence, but the fact that she also was able to show the
vulnerability and allow herself to go to a place that was terrifying,
I think, is what really rounded out the character.

GROSS: Kimberly, did you want Hilary to stay in character on the
set?

PIERCE: I did, absolutely. Yes, I mean, she met the actors as a
boy. I wanted her to be Brandon all the time, and actually she...

GROSS: Why? Why?

PIERCE: Well, and this is interesting, because she taught me
something, she told me -- I wanted her to be Brandon all the time
because Brandon had to be Brandon most of the time, pretty much all
the time, with these people. And I wanted to reapproximate Brandon's
life as much as possible on every single emotional level so that the
audience was really seeing a true experience, they weren't just seeing
an act, and because he didn't have the privilege of going home and
being a girl or getting comforted.

Now, I told Hilary -- she said, "Oh, my husband's going to come
out," and I was, like, "Oh, I don't think I want your husband to come
out because it's going to take you out of character." And she
insisted. She's, like, "No, Kim, he needs to come out a little bit at
a time, because that's where my security lies as a person." And I was
really, like, "Well, I don't think that that's right."

And I remember sleeping on it, and then I woke up and I realized
that she was right, which was, even though I wanted her to completely
be Brandon, we were making a movie, and part of her strength lie in
the fact that she has a kind of comfort that Brandon didn't have. So
that was, like, a lesson that I learned.

SWANK: And that was definitely what was going to make me do the
best job that I could, was having the things around me that made me
comfortable and (inaudible)...

PIERCE: And allowed you to reach the vulnerable and the
terrifying moments...

SWANK: That's correct.

PIERCE: ... and sit with that. I think that her bravery was
that she sat with the unknown...

SWANK: That's right.

PIERCE: ... and the unknown is what's so terrifying to all of
us.

SWANK: Having my husband with me, as she was just touching on,
did give me the security to go where I needed to go, because he knows
me better than anyone. I've been with him for seven and a half years,
and it gave me that safety net to really dive in fully. And he was
there, knowing me, and knowing me deeper than anyone, so he could say
-- I could go back to him and feel safe. That's really what that did
for me.

PIERCE: And then come back to Brandon. And then I was afraid
we'd lose Brandon, but if anything, Brandon existed. Once we created
him, we'd get to set every day, and bam, he was there.

GROSS: Hilary, a question for you. After having made this movie
and passed as a boy in the film, did you take away anything about your
own identity? Was there anything that suddenly changed about your
identity, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you smile...

SWANK: You know...

GROSS: ... the way you think of yourself?

SWANK: Yes. As I was saying before, I've learned a lot about
myself. And it's not an outward appearance thing. I didn't change
the way I walked or I didn't change the way I look. I've changed on
the inside, and I've grown a whole lot. I've realized -- Brandon has
been a huge inspiration to me, and in that he was someone who lived
his life the way he wanted to. He had the courage to be himself. And
I think in life, that's what life's about, is honoring yourself and
following your dreams and following your heart.
And each day, waking up and saying, What is my meaning? How can
I go out and be me today? And that's what this experience has given
me, and it's such a great gift, and it's one that I am very thankful
for.

GROSS: Well, I want to thank you both so much, and
congratulations on the success of the film.

SWANK: Thank you very much for having us.

PIERCE: (inaudible).

GROSS: Kimberly Pierce directed and co-wrote "Boys Don't Cry."
Hilary Swank is nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Tina
Brandon.

Coming up, rock historian Ed Ward profiles the New Orleans band
Huey Smith and the Clowns.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Kimberly Pierce, Hilary Swank
High: Director/writer Kimberly Pierce and actress Hilary Swank
discuss the film "Boys Don't Cry." The movie is based on a true story
about a Nebraskan teenage girl, Teena Brandon, who successfully passed
herself off as a boy, Brandon Teena. When her true identity was
discovered, she was raped by two men and killed after bringing charges
against them. Swank has been nominated for an Academy Award for her
portrayal, as well as her co-star Chloe Sevigny, who plays Teena's
girlfriend, Lana.
Spec: Art; Entertainment; Movie Industry; Homosexuality; Awards

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 2000 WHYY, Inc. All rights
reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc.
Formatting copyright 2000 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes
from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without
attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in
whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Director Kimberly Pierce and Actress Hillary Swank Discuss
'Boys Don't Cry'
_

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: MARCH 15, 2000
Time: 12:00
Tran: 031502NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Ed Ward Discusses Rock'n'Roll in Jazzy New Orleans
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:52

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TERRY GROSS, HOST: Spouting gibberish and featuring a cross-
dressing lead singer, Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns weren't your
average rock and roll band, or even your average New Orleans rock and
roll band. They had a number of hits, and even inspired Mack "Dr.
John" Rebennack to take up the piano.

Rock historian Ed Ward has their story.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "DON'T YOU JUST KNOW IT?" HUEY SMITH AND
THE CLOWNS)

ED WARD, ROCK HISTORIAN: One of the first rock and roll records
I ever got was a four-track EP that Dick Clark gave away if you sent
in some gum wrappers. It was, I think, responsible for my parents
deciding I'd flipped out. You see, one of the tracks on it, which I
played over and over, was, "Don't You Just Know It?" by Huey "Piano"
Smith and the Clowns.

I kept playing it because I couldn't figure out the words, other
than, of course, "Gooba gooba gooba gooba." What I didn't know at the
time was that I'd gotten a unique view into New Orleans rock and roll
history, as exemplified by Huey "Piano" Smith, whose piano style
echoed nearly all the city's masters of that instrument to date.

Smith was born in 1934, and, inspired by an uncle, took piano
lessons at a music school and watched the local hero, Professor
Longhair, every chance he could get. In 1950, he teamed up with a
Mississippi guitar player, Eddie Jones, who was known as Guitar Slim,
and wound up leading his band, although it was Ray Charles who played
piano on Slim's hit, "The Things I Used to Do."

Slim acquired a manager who fired Huey, so he joined Earl King's
band for a few years and did a lot of sessions. In 1955, he came to
the attention of Johnny Vincent, who ran the Ace label out of
Mississippi. He was one of the first to realize that New Orleans was
a hotbed of what was becoming known as rock and roll.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "LITTLE LIZA JANE," HUEY SMITH AND THE
CLOWNS)

WARD: Rocking up the nursery-rhyme song "Little Liza Jane,"
Huey's first record for Vincent was a local hit, so he was inspired to
write a song himself. Taking his cue from a line in Chuck Berry's
"Roll Over, Beethoven," about catching the rockin' pneumonia at a
rhythm review, he wound up with his first national hit.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "ROCKIN' PNEUMONIA AND THE BOOGIE-WOOGIE
FLU," HUEY SMITH AND THE CLOWNS)

WARD: "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie-Woogie Flu" was a top 10
R&B hit in 1957, but Smith didn't have a band to take on the road to
promote it. And anyway, he'd already contracted to tour with Shirley
and Lee, who were riding high with "Let the Good Times Roll."

One night they played Baltimore, and their opening act was
another New Orleans singer, Bobby Marchand (ph), whose current record,
"Chickie Wawa (ph)," Smith had played on.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "CHICKIE WAWA," BOBBY MARCHAND)

WARD: Realizing that it was silly for them both to have hits and
no band, they decided that night to start one, which Marchand named
the Clowns. Their first record stiffed, but the second was, "Don't
You Just Know It?" which had another hit on the B-side.

(AUDIO CLIP, SONG EXCERPT, HUEY SMITH AND THE CLOWNS)

WARD: Marchand was a more versatile singer than Smith, and the
record was a national top 10 pop hit. As a trivia note, "Don't You
Just Know It?" was a catch phrase the band's driver and valet, the
future X-rated comedian Rudy Ray Moore, used to say.

Their next hit was based on a Mardi Gras Indians tune.

(AUDIO CLIP, EXCERPT, "DON'T YOU KNOW YAKAMO," HUEY SMITH AND THE
CLOWNS)

WARD: But "Don't You Know Yakamo" was too similar to the
previous record to really make an impact. Furthermore, in 1958,
Marchand left the band.

But Johnny Vincent realized he had a winner with the Clowns, and
so he used them on the first record by a teen idol he was promoting.

(AUDIO CLIP, SONG EXCERPT, FRANKIE FORD AND THE CLOWNS)

WARD: The bland-looking Frankie Ford became a wild man with the
Clowns behind him. By 1960, though, Smith's style was going out of
fashion. He kept recording as a band leader and sideman for some
years, but eventually got religion and retired.

(AUDIO CLIP, SONG EXCERPT, HUEY SMITH AND THE CLOWNS)

GROSS: Our rock historian, Ed Ward, currently lives in Berlin.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our interviews
and reviews are produced by Phyllis Meyers, Naomi Person, Amy Salit,
and Monique Nazareth, with Ann Marie Baldonado and Patty Leswing,
research assistance from Brendon Noonam.

I'm Terry Gross.
TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Philadelphia
Guest: Ed Ward
High: Rock historian Ed Ward discusses the New Orleans rock'n'roll
band Huey Piano Smith & the Clowns.
Spec: Music Industry; Entertainment; Art

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 2000 WHYY, Inc. All rights
reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc.
Formatting copyright 2000 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes
from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without
attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in
whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Ed Ward Discusses Rock'n'Roll in Jazzy New Orleans
_
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.