Original Interview conducted by Ellie Dolan-Yates was published in Starry Magazine 2019
What attracted you to the film?
Echoes Of You recently had the opportunity to screen at Newport Beach Film Festival, I was very excited about this because of the whale watching community and conservation in Newport Beach, I learnt recently that in the echo of a whale, there is recorded, in the textures and every scratch of its tone; a map of everywhere it has been, its social groups, how it felt about its environment and all the other creatures surrounding. Contributions to this song by the individual members changes the complex fabric of its sound. That is just like us, and the echoes that we as people leave on others. You can tell so much about a person just by talking to them and then you carry a piece of them as you walk, some people you carry a lot of them with you.
Art is created and used for lots of reasons, it is a complex way of communicating when all other avenues to do so, fail. Sigmund Freud said it was just another will to power, this would assume that fame and money are the only end goal for every artist. But I do not think like Freud that the only the purpose of art should be a commodity item that furthers the social agenda of the artist, dealers or collectors. All those things do factor in, but ultimately it should also be used to inspire people, if not to shine a light on humanity and a particular aspect of ourselves, affect and inform communities for the better. That can be ironic or genuine, this film happens to be very genuine, loving and heartfelt.
I remember first reading the script and bursting into tears when I came to the end. That message of faith in the capacity for even the smallest of moments can be reimagined through the artist’s lens to something illuminating and beautiful.
I think it’s rare to find that sort of message in the modern world, there’s a lot out there that’s just attention grabbing nonsense. It also depends on the person receiving the thing, to one person a flower could bring them to tears in pure exaltation at the complexities of existence, to another it might be nothing but a wet twig. It depends on the capacity for sensitivity and sensual faculties of the individual. As an artist that is the aspect that’s pointless to even try and control, any attempts to do so will leave the work itself feeling inauthentic. For those reasons I really have become immune to what the reception to my work is a lot of the time. To make anything of worth you have to have that sort of conviction in your own ability to create what you know to be good work, and to do what you want to do. The artist Anselm Kiefer said that each work of art cancels out those that precede it. He was talking about the language of history as a contribution to culture.
But don’t get me wrong, it’s nice when my performances are well received, often that helps to get the next opportunity. I knew for this piece specifically if it was structured for the effect of a beautiful karmic experience, that was designed to inspire compassion. That in itself is very difficult to accomplish, so it had to be real love, really beautiful and powerfully compassionate. It had to be the biggest moment in this man’s life. Bigger than winning an Oscar. Like being rekindled with the love of one’s life, seeing their child or anyone they have loved and felt really deserved it, become a success in the world. I knew I had to open up and be vulnerable in front of the camera, which is impossible to fake, the camera sees everything, it took digging deep and talking to the ghosts of my past.
That’s the only way to get through to people with this sort of message, is to speak the truth from the depths of your humanity and have faith that people will listen, because if it is authentic then, they will, they will. All the lead roles I’ve had so far in “Road To The Well”, “Apostle Peter & The Last Supper” and “Paint It Red” have been about a person losing their faith and then finding it again with stronger conviction in some other form later on, that is much the same with this piece too.
Henry showed me a short documentary he made about discovering his grandfather through a box of letters and journals he found in the attic. We discussed how eerily similar the project which fills my days is, a film about my father, the late art critic Peter Fuller and going through his journals almost every day from the TATE archive. I’ve made my way through a huge chunk of his writings public and private, to piece together who he was. Of course to understand him I also needed to read through the work of his collaborators and all his influences as well. And now his echoes speak to me, and some things are so special they take more than just one lifetime to complete. That's really what this piece is about, the Greek philosopher Hippocrates said "Life is short, but art is long”.
I saw this film as an opportunity to contribute to something beautiful.
“Echoes of You” shows just what can happen when a little kindness and compassion is shown to others. How important do you feel this message is right now?
It’s also about how early experiences can have a huge effect on who you ultimately become. I’m personally grateful for the challenges I faced as a boy, growing up without a father, I had to become very independent and strong willed, it’s the sort of challenge that a lot of young men simply fall into addiction and troubled behaviors they never manage to escape. I did not suffer from that fate, I can proudly say that the arts saved my life. I hope I can be a symbol to young men who’ve suffered similar challenges to go on and live their dreams, it is possible to find the right roles models to replace the ones who were not able to be there for you and create your own journey.
However saying all this, I don’t think all films need to have a moral purpose in a direct way, a lot of narratives are cautionary tales, which also have their roots in early fables and biblical stories. Artists are not educators and should not be held accountable as such, artists create to expand the imagination, to push the limits of human experience, to experiment with aesthetics and sometimes as in this case, that does align with a compassionate message. On the subject of censorship I think people should look to artists like Ai Wei Wei, whose work is essentially humanitarian and yet the old regime of the Communist government in China has been trying to censor him for decades, too strong is his will.
I found it fascinating the way Quintin Tarantino just recently with “Once Upon A Time in America” was able to take a fable that happened in cinematic history and pop culture and redesigned it to a more satisfying ending, to give us the version of what happened that we all wanted to see. As he was able to do with “Inglorious Bastards”, taking the idea of Magical Realism which sets the narrative in the real world but opens it’s laws up it magical elements. If Quintin was censored to only ever say something for the purpose of morality, or if his films were to only tell stories in a moral way, then his films would have no effect whatsoever, he would not be serving his true purpose as an artist, and the world would not benefit from his own unique contributions.
Obviously there’s a lot of negative attention seeking going on from our political leaders, and that has an unfortunate tendency to trickle down. I just see it as a sort of collective desperation, it’s sad to see people treat others badly or to try and put people down to meet their own ends. A good leader should set examples and come up with progressive solutions. I’d personally rather give no attention than to respond to negative behavior at all, just go on and live my life and fulfill my purpose, further my journey. What you choose to pay attention holds a lot of weight. It’s your decision what to pay attention to and to decide what not to pay attention to, that is a power that we all have.
Good role models, the right kinds of aspirational icons, not just popular celebrities are really important to us collectively right now. If you have good role models growing up, or chose to pay attention to the people who are actually inspiring others to make positive moves in their life and treat others with respect when it’s due then it changes everything. Narcissism is on the rise so pervasively that it’s hard for people to maintain that sort of discipline. Racism and sexism on both sides is separating people for superficial reasons. And then look beyond the West and there’s still slavery and genocide going on in a number of countries. It’s not that our time is any worse than any other throughout history, in fact it’s a lot better for social mobility, it’s that humankind has always been a paradox of light and chaos, it has always been locked in a power struggle with itself. What matters is not that power in itself is inherently evil, but what the individual chooses to do with it.
When Narcissus drowned in the river a flower grew in his place, the garden of fulfillment in the arts is rich and beautiful. Paradise within is the cultivation of the soul. It takes a lot of discipline to feed your mind and nourish one’s soul in the right way. There’s so much to live for, the gates of paradise are shut to those who do not choose to live fully.
“Wisdom cannot be passed from one having it to another not having it, wisdom is of the soul.” - Walt Whitman
For me that is both in the act of moviemaking and its reception. To make the kind of films that come out of ones soul, to act from the soul, to write from the soul and then to inhabit other’s work from the soul.
A lot of people like the Impressionists because their work is beautiful, it’s structured for beauty, it is the representation of beauty, but to me the post-impressionists put so much more of themselves and their soul into their work and were therefore more beautiful. As with acting I see the work of Brando or Philip Seymour Hoffman far more beautiful than that of John Gielgud whose technical proficiency was mastered, yet he used that technique to hide his humanity whereas Hoffman used it to expose the bare nakedness of his expression.
“Echoes Of You” is beautiful and there is a lot of honesty and vulnerability to the piece, however I do not feel this piece is about unconditional love, I personally don’t believe it is man’s purpose to love unconditionally either, nor that this should be the ideal state of man. Andrew believes in the boy, because he shows up, consistently he participates in his own development, expresses the desire to improve at Christopher’s mentorship. He picks up the keyboard and makes the decision to ask questions and learn from his mentor. That’s why this message of hope is so satisfying because the boy really deserves it and clearly works hard to become the man that he does.
To me that is what Chivalry is really about. I’m grateful to have not gotten into Drama School my first year auditioning, I got in the second year and in that time learned a lot on my own, I came back the next year stronger and ready for the experience. My audition pieces were from “Richard III” and “The Seagull”. I recently went back to visit my teachers at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and the experience was brilliant, to get to tell them about the films I was doing in Hollywood and seeing their eyes light up when I walked in, it made so much of the struggle really worth it.
Chivalry is perhaps the biggest reason why I practice martial arts for so long now, it was something I initially picked up at BOVTS honing the instrument for character work and achieving synergy with one’s own physical and emotional expression. As I went on and began sparring, with some really good fighters, some who’ve competed in the UFC, some like my friend Mojean Aria who honed his craft for acting, for his role in “The Bronx Bull”, I also learned the values of Chivalry that come with that sort of participation in combat. Knowing instinctually in the heat of the moment, still to fight with honor and integrity. People ask me if I will compete and maybe I will have one amateur fight, but I’m doing it to try and become a better person, to complete a spiritual practice that enriches me everyday. The self control, discipline and inner strength needed to be good at it is as strong as any of the fine arts. Bruce Lee for instance was a brilliant showman but also a great philosopher, there’s that famous quote where he said:
“Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water.”
Martial arts are so often misrepresented as a bunch of thugs punching each other in the face, and there is a lot of that, it’s sensationalism and entertainment for the masses. But there’s a lot of form involved, a lot of discipline needed to practice throwing kicks, punches, combinations, blocking, countering while often taking a lot of hits from another person. To see when to strike, or when not to strike at all, to seek out the right opponent, and most often to know when not to fight. Working in all sorts of social domains that the art life requires, that empires knowledge of Chivalry is important.
I have been considering for a while now, the concept of Augury, that if you were truly destined to do something you have to stitch it like a crest into your heart.
That is much like taking on a character or forming a relationship with another person, you have to adapt to what happens, if you come at the given circumstances with a script or set way of behaving you’ll be completely out of step with reality. That was my reason for rebelling against the institutional methods of theatre production I found to be stale in England, like Noel Coward’s idea of ‘just say your lines and don’t trip over the furniture’. That often breeds an atmosphere that is not conducive to authentic performances. I look up to Daniel Day-Lewis, Robert DeNiro, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Brando whose facilities for spontaneity and incorporating improvisation into their work, allow for real human emotionally driven performances, where free will is valued, people go after their desires, stand up for their humanity and the free will of others. Or if it’s an antagonist, the opposite of all those things.
With every great antagonist comes a great sense of humor; growing up I also looked up to my uncle the comedian Brendon Burns and his friends for their subversive culture of underground live comedy and when I was in my late teens and early twenties I spent a lot of time, hanging out with and observing the underground comedy scene in Britain. I went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival a number of times and shadowed my uncle as he went on the road touring comedy venues around England. It was telling to observe the odd few in the crowd who became easily offended or the angry heckler. Moreso it was fascinating to see how much of an impact the comedians made on their audiences, where such cult iconic characters as Richard III and the Joker must come from, the Jester in the high court who occupies a seemingly low position and yet is able with a turn of phrase or an abstract observation reveal the underlying fabrics of that society, in ambiguity to come closer to any truth than reason. Often the most effective moments of Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance in There Will Be Blood were suffused with a dark sense of humor. Needless to say I cannot wait to see Joaquin Phoenix performance in Joker Movie!
In a way the little boy Christopher is an antagonist, many people have pointed that out to me. I think the concept of whether or not the boy ‘steals’ the song is interesting, because where else was he going to learn it? We all learn all sorts of things from each other, like the whales. I remember the head of my course at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Bonnie Hurren telling me that “at first we as actors are of the tendency to think that it’s all about us, it’s all about the way we feel and expressing our emotions, but then we come to realize what we do is more of a public service”. A skill like acting or any of the arts are very similar to languages, we learn how to speak a language from other people, eventually we speak in our own voice with our own ideas. It depends what you decide to do with it that counts. Whether he’s the antagonist or not is up for debate.
Max Quilici, Henry Quilici & Laurence Fuller at Studio City Film Festival supporting Echoes Of You.
With “Echoes Of You”, people are really responding to the compassionate message in this film. The intention is not necessarily humorous irony, it exists more in a sort of sacred space. It is about two people coming together who really make a positive impact on eachother’s lives, give eachother a purpose, which extends out to a much wider community. To see something special in another if it is there, to believe in them and their worth regardless of circumstances. To believe in the person this boy shows himself to be. It is about humility and an offering.
What is it like working on such films where the cast and set is quite minimal?
On “Echoes Of You”, the set was very intimate, which helped as there was often scenes with minimal dialogue where a lot had to be conveyed in quiet moments. I would say we were only aided by that aspect of production on this one.
On “Road To The Well” we had a very small tight knit cast and crew, I think there were around 12 core people for the whole feature and then day players too. There were very deep and long lasting relationships built on that one. The director Jon Cvack just proposed marriage to his long time girlfriend who was also the make-up artist on that one. It was Jon’s first feature, and Micah Parker (the other lead actor in the film) and I were very excited to be carrying such a substantial piece. But it turned out, because of that intimate set I got to go off on my own a lot and work on scenes and then we had a lot of rehearsals too so there was a lot of room to play, a lot of creative freedom. It’s funny on projects with bigger casts and crews it can feel like you’re more on your own at times as the structure is more about production, understandably, so the priorities change a bit. But with discipline you can get to where you need to be artistically regardless.
That one was quite like a PT Anderson, existential, psychological thriller with ideas taken from philosophy and reformed into this quirky narrative in a similar vein to “Magnolia”, where a lot of the odd bits of eccentric dialogue was left in. So it helped to have a lot of rehearsal time with the director, discussing philosophy, novel likes “Crime & Punishment”, Camus’ “The Stranger” even Satre, the character was a philosophy drop out and going through an existential crisis of sorts when something very intense happens to him and completely changes the course of his life.
In terms of the set on that one we had the benefit of Lake Tahoe providing us with much of what we needed. The set on “Echoes Of You” was largely provided by two locations, the beautiful old theatre and the grimy back alley, the juxtaposition between the two spoke volumes.
What preparation did you have to undertake for the role of Andrew?
The biggest thing was finding the internal objects for what the piano meant to me and my journey.
The struggle that I’ve been through as an artist, and the people in my life I’ve been doing this for. I saw the ghosts of my ancestors who I imagined knowing, what it would mean to them to see me on that stage, the underlying sense of loss knowing that I will never have that, I will never see their faces in that audience. But to live it out like Stanislavsky would say ‘as if’ for the rest of us living to enjoy.
The accent was one aspect to this performance, I’ve worked with an American accent a lot in LA it’s bread and butter. Speaking in my natural voice out here people say to me ‘you have an accent’, but everyone who speaks a language speaks with an accent and we learned that accent when we were young from the people around us. The same can be done in adulthood if need be.
Andrew is very masculine, and very feminine at the same time. That paradox is something I could identify with. I’m heterosexual, but I also feel left out of the discussion when it comes to rigid gender definitions, I feel misrepresented.
There are three female artists in England right now who have depicted The Minotaur, there is this masculine sensual creature that has a physicality, a powerful frame, a capacity to rule as king of paradise and yet by that same token a beautiful emotional complexity as he sits reading through pages of poetry. There’s something amazing and compassionate about that to see the redeemable and positive qualities of this creatures contributions to the world when all else would see him as something frightening to destroy. Regardless of some of the more superficial representations of The Minotaur throughout art history, I feel there’s something a lot more genuine, passionate about these females extension of where Picasso left off, the myth of the minotaur. In the paradox of extremities of both the masculine and the feminine.
What were some of your favorite moments from filming?
Shooting that final scene was the most rewarding of all, I remember after the first take walking down the isle I could feel from Henry things were going really well, I could see the excitement in his eyes.
Going through it I imaged lined up in the front rows of the theatre the ghosts of my past present for my proudest moment. For me that’s a personal thing what specifically. But I imagined my own personal paradise taking place in that theatre. You can read my poetry to see what my version of paradise looks like - http://laurencefuller.squarespace.com/blog
The epochal and transforming convulsions in the shape of our world is causing ruptures in civilization. The ice flows are breaking up, the earths plates are shifting and clutching together to form something new. But what is happening to us? History is being re-written.
When our world changes so do human dreams, our vision of paradise is transformed by the swelling sky. The air tastes different, birds flock south to a different home, flowers grow from uncommon rocks, fish spawn in unknown rivers.
Cascading corridors line the ridges of the deep, and its endless volcanic reach into the dark pushes up the ancient into something new. History is being re-written in our minds, conclusions are unfinished, but its images in nebulous states provide omens of the coming reformation.
Now the fluidity of form, now the ambiguity of edge, now the indecision of matter and the stretching fabric of existence.
What do you hope viewers take away from watching Echoes of You?
Compassion.
The longer I’ve been on this journey as an artist the more I see how my work coming back at me, in the little marks its left on others and that is increasingly rewarding, sometimes confusing, but mostly rewarding.
I think this film really shows that the only thing you can control as an artist is your performance, how someone else chooses to receive it is their decision. You don’t have to like it, but it’s not your problem.
That’s something I got used to early on, luckily auditioning for drama schools alone gives you pretty tough skin, but then having to work with British drama school teachers, is a baptism of fire. They rarely give praise for anything. So usually by the end of it you end up not liking them but coming out stronger, more well versed in a lot of things. More anxieties, but also more competent. A lot of my peers did not enjoy their training at all. I accepted the realities of what it takes to make it as a professional artist as this was what my upbringing and my life has been about.
As well as acting, you've produced and written films. Do you feel it more of an achievement seeing the finished product of your own films or do you get just as much satisfaction seeing those you've acted in?
Comme si comme sa, looking at Possession(s) today, I wrote the screenplay with director Jim Lounsbury and acted in that film when I was 19. I reached out to Jim with an idea for a film about a collector who becomes so obsessed with a work of art it destroys his entire life. I owned the painting by Peter Booth, ‘figure with bandaged head’ at the time and I ended up selling the piece with the film’s release through auctioneer Damien Hackett, it was a really interesting experience to pull off an illusion like that, which extended out to the real art world.
They gave me a co-executive producer credit on “Paint It Red” as I helped out with casting bringing on a few key actors to the project including Randy Wayne and Jacinta Stapleton. Who both killed it in the film. I think that one is worth watching for the performances of the ensemble of leading actors alone. And a very funny script by my good friend the late Paul T Murray, this was his last film and it was an honor to be a part of his legacy in that way.
Right now I’m working on a screenplay about my late father, which I’m on the 4th draft right now. That experience has been incredibly rewarding as I’ve gotten to know my father perhaps even better than I would have living, as I got to internalize his thoughts and character through his writings and the marks he left behind. A historical piece this size has been a very challenging endeavor in all sorts of ways, there’s so many people involved and so much at stake, being at the centre of it has pushed me to develop in all sorts of ways, as an artist and as a human being.
Peter Fuller
How did you get into acting? Is it something you always wanted to do?
Yes from as young as I can remember I felt very connected to cinema, I watched a lot of films in my youth and it helped me to understand the world, learning from the camp fire fables of our time. I also had sects of the contemporary art world happening around me as my mother is an artist, Stephanie Burns and my step-father after Peter was an art critic too, so we were really at the centre of things. I felt like a conduit between those two worlds, the social world of the arts and the stories flickering on the screen. I got the feeling that the best stories are made from the stuff of life, and that the art about art was less authentic. The stuff that touches the nerves of real life, is the real raw material for creation.
I started acting in the theatre in amateur productions in Australia throughout school, then went enrolled in Narrabundah College in Canberra because of its theatre program, they gave me the freedom there to focus almost entirely on my drama education, I made it clear I wanted to go to drama school after high school and set that intention, they were very supportive of that. Peter Wilkins and Ernie Glass were running the drama department at the time, they were notoriously good dramatists.
It’s hard to say what it was specifically about acting as appose to other mediums that I gravitated towards, I suppose it was in some ways the magic of transforming into someone else, I thought it was almost superhuman the way the great actors were able to inhabit the skin of other people. Like an ancient shaman, but the more I looked into it the more I found the best actors were not using snake oil, but altering their physical and emotional states, with deliberate conditions over time, like top athletes training for a big fight. That’s what I think is so mesmerizing for people about Robert DeNiro in Raging Bull, he was like a top contender training for the championship with that character and he won the Oscar for that role.
As I got older I became obsessed with DeNiro’s working method’s trying to find out as much as I could about how he went about inhabiting a character as well as Daniel Day-Lewis, learning from the same teachers as they did, dreaming of one day being part of an ensemble like the actor’s studio and taking on that craft into film. I found that home at Bristol Old Vic and then the theatre productions I worked on in England especially Madness In Valencia, the passion we found in that collective to tell that story to its fullest potential. I believe anyone looking to get into film, should also spend lot of time in the theatre, working with other creatives and be informed by a community of like minded peers. The director of that piece Simon Evans, is now directing movie stars in top West End shows.
When I came to Los Angeles I found homes in the different acting studios around town, I would spend up to a year working with one coach and then find a different approach, as long as they were fundamentally Stanislavski based I tried all sorts Michael Woolsen, Michael Monks, Eric Morris, Beverly Hills Playhouse, Bojesse Christopher, Ivana Chubbuck. It was Ivana who really started to get me journaling more in an emotional way, writing out my inner dialogue and using those memories to inform my work as actor. As I started reading back some of the background work I was doing for characters I realized some of it was actually pretty good so I started writing essays, more screenplays one called Devotion that was a finalist in the Shoreline Scripts completion and developing the screenplay about my late father, which is now in it’s 4th draft and nearly ready for development. Reading his work more on a daily basis got me thinking about aesthetics in a totally different way and enhanced the inner objects I was using in my acting, I also heard from a number of his colleagues that really he wanted to give up art criticism eventually and become a poet or novelist, I found amongst his journals a whole book of unpublished poetry that I might go about getting published sometime. He was very inspired by Boudelaire and had a very formal approach that is also inspired by his life and relationships, like a method poet.
All this inspired me to start writing poetry of my own, my work is a lot more freeform than my father’s was, more emotional and contemporary but still telling my life through the narratives of art history, cultural movements, philosophy and mythology. I spent the better part of this last year writing poetry everyday in between working on film projects, my morning ritual would be to get up, roll out of bed and straight into Muay Thai class and then sit down at a cafe writing poetry for a couple hours then begin work on my films and acting projects. The result was I came away with two books of poetry now finished, one called “Elysium Verto” (Paradise Is Changing) and “Minotaur’s Song”, both of them I feel are underlying currents that run through my life and thoughts and feelings about things, like extensions of myself and the world around me.
You are a part of social media. Do you enjoy the instant fan feedback you receive to the work you do?
Yes more to that point I’ve found social media if used in the correct way can be a great tool to work out artistic matters, it’s a communal camp fire like anything else. My main page on instagram and twitter is @laurencefuller on their I put out a lot of my activities and thoughts about film, sometimes martial arts and occasional glimpses of my adventures, that’s the main one people follow, but I also have a page that is more art and poetry focused called @praxisaesthetics
Social media is a lot of things, I it think serves as another platform to express one’s own creative life and desires, it’s also good motivation to stay accountable to yourself and others to show up and train, improve, go to the event, network, create. It can be all those things, so it can be used for good or the complete opposite, it depends what’s going on with the person using it and what’s going on with the person at the receiving end, you can only take accountability for your intentions. If someone else gets that wrong, it’s their problem. Regardless of those flames at the barricades of good intentions, if the motive one has behind creating something to show the world is done for the affect of broadening the minds and nerves of a collective audience then it’s done right. Obviously there are a lot of people using it with the wrong intentions and the less said about those people the better. I believe as a living organism that social media will ultimately succeed those who have the most to offer the world, with persistence talent rises to the top. I have faith in humanity as a collective.
Here is a excerpt from The Minotaur’s Song that I’m making available for people before I go about getting the full thing published.
When I think back to how previous generations were thinking about the oncoming modern culture I think about a book like ‘Ways Of Seeing’ which is really prophetic of social media. The idea that the image can be reproduced and then it has its own value as an entity, it then depends who uses that image and for what purpose. As oppose to the original object which has its material basis in the external world and it’s own qualities that contribute to existence. A great film takes what is in the given world of living breathing organisms, takes what is inherently authentic and in a sense “real” and then reforms the images, the sounds, the sequence of moments, and makes out of those elements a narrative.
I just read an article by the art critic Waldemar Januszcak which said that Leonardo Da Vinci’s presence today actually exposed the stupidity of the modern world, with the hordes of selfies being taken next to the Mona Lisa, among a lot of other things. I think there’s something funny about that, but also at least those people are taking selfies next to the Mona Lisa... There’s a lot of people out there with huge followings now for the oddest things, just creating memes or whatever, pop culture idiots that sort of thing, but at the same time they now have the power of the public’s ears and eyes, it depends what they do with it that really counts. The lower level thinker seeks out attention for it’s own sake with no consideration to the cost of its viewer. That is why artists like Andy Warhol who reproduces popular images with nothing but the cold emotionless expressions of look at me and Jeff Koons, the YBA’s, pop artists and conceptual artists, much of what you see at an institution like the Broad (with some exceptions), advertising, mass media are all such a deep wound to the soul of culture. I would encourage people to look away, preserve the capacity for romance and love which has its roots in a deep connection to all the world, that humanity will prevail and the faith that is enough. Curate your own life.
Art presupposes that there is a great power in commanding someone’s attention, what will you do with it?
What advice would you give to those wanting to work in the film industry?
Know who you are, you will be faced with a lot of rejection and the expectations that will be placed upon you will be exceptionally high, you will have to meet them.
An audition will often take up days of your time, you will be required to put your whole mind, body and soul into it, you will not be paid, they may not be particularly nice to you when you show up, there will be 30 other people just as qualified as you auditioning in that same morning. But you might still get the part. Then it’s up to you if you want to take it.
Are there any other projects that you're working on that we should keep an eye out for in the near future?
I’m very excited about Adam Cushman’s plans to turn “Five Families” into a feature, that is a gangster film I had the honor of working with Barry Primus as my grandfather, acting with him felt like being part of a legacy of gangster movies, he was such a close colleague of DeNiro and Scorsese, so much so he directed DeNiro in a couple of films. There has been a lot of interest for Barry to take on a leading role in this sort of film for a long time so it was an honor to act opposite him and bring what I could bring to the table.
I first met Adam when he was directing his second feature “The Maestro” I had a small part in that as the young John Williams, and producer David J Phillips who I met on the festival circuit when I was promoting “Road To The Well” had brought me on. I’m a twist of fate “Five Families” premiered at the same festival where we met, Dances With Films, three years later.
As part of preparation for this piece Adam and I discussed how there was something rooted in Romanticism about this character’s longing for the past so he asked me to read Shelley and I wrote a poem to help me get into his mindset:
“Adam Cushman helped me find my darkness with this piece, it was rooted in a longing for the past in adolescence and lost love, a time when people followed their desire without consideration for every consequence, but to challenge status quo with action. The last of a dying breed of gangster, nostalgic and Romantic for another time when passions followed glory and the challenges of the will, were met with the force of present days. Today I am a better man, today I feel that carnal longing, tomorrow is destroyed by the turning of coming authority. They pressure me to give up my sword, but I shall die by valiance and go down in history as the first forever gangster glory.
Six shooters shuddering in my pockets, there I am wishing for you to change your ways to musty running hallways of life and lofty dreams. Protect your family, know who they are, know that legacy will be written on your tombstone carved in marble, heroes are carved in marble and the weak go silently by. Shelley’s letters of a time in a course of crossroads between God and invention told the story of man and monster, broken by his own innate creation.”
I’m to the end of the 4th draft of “The Peter Fuller Project” (working title) about my late father the art critic, Peter Fuller, it has been a personal pilgrimage of sorts to find my father. He was one of the most controversial figures in at 20th Century art world in Britain and had a growing reach out here in the US too, he wrote 15 books, started the magazine Modern Painters and was one of the most widely read writers on art during his time. His relationships with the top intellectuals and artists of his day were deep and provocative. Working on this project has been a lifelong passion, and studying my father’s writing as I developed into an artist in my own right has brought me a consolation I didn’t think was possible. My hope is when it comes time to making the film that I can connect with this character and therefore with the spirit of my father.
I also have a two poetry books and an art exhibition in the works, keep up with those projects here: http://laurencefuller.squarespace.com/blog
What would like to say to your fans and those who support you?
I love you, thank you for taking the time to read my work and watch my films, I hope you will take it with you and it will serve to develop and heal your spiritual matters and I look forward to seeing how it comes back around one day, like Andrew in “Echoes Of You”.
