SLIFF 2015 Interview: Rosemary Rodriguez – Director of SILVER SKIES

SILVER SKIES screens Sunday November 8th at 6:45pm at The Tivoli Theater as part of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. The film’s director, Rosemary Rodriguez, will be in attendance and will receive SLIFF’s ‘Women in Film’ Award.Ticket information for the event can be found HERE

With humor and compassion, SILVER SKIES chronicles the unexpected developments that occur when a group of eccentric seniors have their lives turned upside down by the sale of their beloved apartment complex. A refreshingly original story about getting older and trying to hold tight to the American Dream, the film features a cast of much-loved screen icons: George Hamilton, Valerie Perrine, Barbara Bain, Jack McGee, Alex Rocco, Mariette Hartley, Jack Betts, and Howard Hesseman. Far from playing their usual roles, however, the actors fully inhabit characters of real complexity: Long-time pals Phil and Nick (Hamilton and McGee) tenderly face Phil’s descent into Alzheimer’s (including episodes in which Phil delusionally believes he’s Dean Martin); Ethel (a still-sexy Perrine) and Frank (Rocco) find that friendship trumps love; Harriet (Hartley) discovers that life is good when you let down your guard; and Eve (Bain) feistily demonstrates that age is no impediment when it comes to defending what’s right. Now in their twilight years, facing the unknown, these old-timer underdogs won’t yield without a fight. Having established a stellar career helming such TV shows as “The Good Wife” and “Empire,” director Rosemary Rodriguez returns to SLIFF with her second film more than a decade after winning the 2001 New Filmmakers Forum for ACTS OF WORSHIP.”

We Are Movie Geeks: You will be receiving a women in film award at the St. Louis International Film Festival so congratulations on that.

Rosemary Rodriguez: I love that film Festival.

WAMG: Have you been to St. Louis before?

RR: I was there with my first movie ACTS OF WORSHIP in 2001. It was such an awesome experience. At that time I was involved in a New Filmmakers Forum and won that award there too, so they’re just really enthusiastic and I appreciate them supporting my work.  They have a great lineup this year and I’m excited to be part of it.

WAMG: Where did you grow up?

RR: In New Hampshire.

WAMG: Were you always a movie buff?

RR: I was always a movie buff. We had the 4 o’clock afternoon movie and I would watch great old films like NIAGARA and RIVER OF NO RETURN and whatever Hollywood movie was on. It’s like now my go-to channel is Turner Classic Movies. I’m very much into old classic movies.

WAMG: What filmmakers have inspired you?

RR: I’d say John Cassavettes, Robert Altman, and Steven Soderbergh. Those are my three favorite filmmakers. Kathryn Bigelow is amazing too.

WAMG: Kathryn Bigelow was of course the first woman to win a directing Oscar. How do you see female directors cracking that male dominated industry?

RR: I think we just have to keep doing great work. My head is bruised all the time from hitting the ceiling. I’m always pushing against it so I’m willing to have that pain to keep going because there’s nothing else in the world I can do. I don’t have any choice. It’s difficult, I mean look at the gap between my first movie and my second movie.  It’s real and it’s not a joke. It’s real pain that goes into that.

WAMG: It looks like you’ve been very busy doing a lot of television work. Now that you have SILVER SKIES, do you want to go back to TV, or would you rather continue making features? 

RR: I’m doing both. I have my next movie project ready to go.  I have a project in development for Showtime and I’m doing some episodic TV, so I like having a lot of stuff going on.

WAMG: What inspired you to make your film SILVER SKIES set in a retirement home?

RR: Actually, it’s in over-55 apartment complex. It’s about working-class people. Some of them are retired and some of them are still working. I guess what inspired me was that I was adopted when my mother was 42 and I watched my mother and father get older at quite a young age. They were everyone else’s grandparent’s age. It’s a different experience, a young person watching their parents get older. The movie is a tribute to my parents.  The different characters are parts of my mother and father. You watch people get older and you watch their invisibility in society grow. You see the struggles that they have but their love is the same. I saw what they had to go through and a lot of it felt unfair. My first movie was about drug addiction and drug addicts. I like to give the underdog a voice. So many people want to visit old people for a few minutes and then get back to their lives. It’s more of a sense of obligation.  It’s not out of a sense of enriching our souls and who we are. When I made SILVER SKIES, I had these older actors, The cast fell into place. I had this wonderful producer, Fred Roos, and this casting director Beth Holmes, who put the cast together. I ended up spending time with artists who have had 50 and 60-year careers. They’ve survived in this business and I’m a newbie compared to them. They’ve been through so much and there they are showing up for me for this little movie, for not a lot of money. They put their hearts and souls into it because they loved the characters. They were so inspiring. Someone like George Hamilton showed another level of who he is in this movie and his talent is kind of mind-blowing.

WAMG: There are a lot of actors in your film who I haven’t seen in awhile. People like Valerie Perrine. I can’t remember the last time I saw her in a film, and she looked great.

RR: She’s amazing! And Barbara Bain too. A lot of what the movie is trying to say is that people are valid and worthwhile, and they need to be given the chance to keep working. That’s part of who we are and if we don’t embrace them, then we’re not going to embrace ourselves. We’re a youth-oriented society. We don’t want to talk about dying or getting older. But we’re all going to get there.

WAMG: Just last night I watched an old movie from 1972, THE RETURN OF COUNT YORGA, which was an early role for Mariette Hartley and then I watched your movie this morning and there she was more than 40 years later. And she looks great too.

RR: Oh yes, she’s had a great career and she is so talented.

WAMG: What were some of the challenges of working with an older cast?

RR: I’d say the physicality of it can be a little daunting, but I’d say there weren’t any real challenges. The pacing is the pacing. There were more advantages than challenges with the cast. The challenges were just making a movie on a tight budget and a tight schedule.

WAMG: How do these older actors influence the script? Did they stick to the script, or did they want to do some improv? Did they have some ideas?

RR: A combination. They pretty much stuck to the script. They may have thrown in a few little bits here and there, but I would say for the most part they really stuck to the script. George Hamilton is so hilarious, so when he throws a little zinger in here and there, that’s a gem.

WAMG: Alex Rocco is an actor I’ve always liked and I know he passed away soon after acting in your film. What was he like to work with? 

RR: What a sweetheart! He took the part in THE GODFATHER, Mo Green, which is a pretty small part, but he made it this iconic role. He’s so grounded and he’s such a character. As a result he ended up doing so many dark roles and dark movies. He was like a teenage boy doing this movie. His character chases Valerie Perrine around. He was so excited about playing her lover instead of a killer and he kept asking me how he was doing. He was like a teenage boy who had a crush on someone he was never going to be able to get. He was so sweet and I miss him dearly.

WAMG: Was he ill while you were filming?

RR: No, he ended up getting cancer later and he went pretty quickly.

WAMG: You worked with a lot of actors and actresses on TV. Who are some of your favorites to have worked with outside of this film?

RR: Juliana Margulies is a gem. I love her. So deep and so talented. Denis Leery of course is hilarious and so is Greg Kinnear.  There are so many. Alan Cumming would be right up there near the top of my list as well, and also Krysten Ritter.

WAMG: Tell me about your next project.

RR: I want to direct this movie called Loose Girl. It’s based on the best-selling book by Kerry Cohen. It’s about a young girl’s descent into promiscuity and her journey to try to connect with her own voice and find out who she is.

WAMG: Where are you in the process on this film?

RR: We’re in development, meeting with some producers and raising money.

WAMG: Good luck with that project and also good luck with your screening this weekend in St. Louis of SILVER SKIES at the St. Louis international film Festival.

RR: I’m really looking forward to St. Louis