 "Alan Ball")
 "True Blood promo")
The Georgia-born writer-director-producer Alan Ball first came onto our entertainment radar working on scripts for TV shows including “Grace Under Fire” and “Cybill.” After a few years in the business, he became an “overnight” success writing the script for and grabbing one of the five Oscars awarded to the film “American Beauty.” On a roll, he created and had a tremendous five-year run with the HBO series “Six Feet Under.”
Ball is currently having a great month. His new HBO show, “True Blood” – a rather offbeat take on vampires – premiered on Sept. 7, and his new film, “Towelhead,” which he adapted from the Alicia Erian novel and directed, is slowly opening in cities around the country.
A very dark comedy, “Towelhead” tells of 13-year-old Arab-American Jasira’s (Summer Bishil) dealings with her difficult parents, and of her sexual awakening – part of it with her school friend Thomas (Eugene Jones) and part of it with her troubled, bigoted and unhappily married neighbor Mr. Vuoso (Aaron Eckhart).
How come the film was being called “Nothing Is Private” for a while?
The novel it’s based on is called “Towelhead.” I optioned the novel with my own money, and we financed it through independent means. Everybody was scared of the title, because it is offensive. I think Alicia, who wrote the book, could get away with it because her father is Egyptian. And I was just a coward. We tried to find a new title that would convey the movie. We called it “Nothing Is Private” for a long time. But the one constant we had through all of the test screenings was that people hated that title. It was generic and didn’t mean anything. When Warner Independent bought the movie, they suggested that we go back to the title of the book. So I was OK with it.
How did the project come to you?
My agent called me. He said he just got a manuscript of a book that’s about to be published and thought I should read it. He sent it over and I read it over the weekend, and I totally responded to it. I said, “Let me option this myself. Let’s not take this to a studio to get it developed, because this story will never survive studio development.” So I optioned it, wrote it on spec, then we paired it up with producers, and they took it to studios, and every single place passed. That was about three years ago. So we just made it ourselves. We shot it two years ago, and we sold it last year in Toronto.
Were you shocked when you first read it?
I wasn’t shocked. There’s very little that I find shocking. But it was certainly compelling and horrifying and gut-wrenching. I was really invested in this poor girl’s plight. At the same time I found it really funny. The characters are unintentionally funny because of their fiercely held mistaken beliefs and because most of the adults behave like children.
The film is set in 1991, during the Gulf War. With another war going on in the Middle East now, did you ever think of bringing it to contemporary times?
No, because then it would seem like it was trying really hard to make a political statement about the war. Whereas the fact that it takes place 15 years ago, when America was at war in the Middle East and people named Bush and Cheney are calling the shots, that makes enough of a statement.
Why did you choose Summer Bishil for the lead?
Well, it’s not like there’s a huge pool of 18-year-old actresses who can play 13 and carry a movie and look Middle Eastern. I wondered where we’d find this girl. Her agent called her and told her she was right for it, and she should go in and read. And was she ever right for it. She had such an innocent, sympathetic quality. And the camera loves her.
How did you approach the sex scenes? Some of them are so intimate.
I certainly sat down and talked to her at the beginning of the process. She knew what she was getting into. She had read the script, she knew what was happening. It didn’t seem to be that embarrassing for her. I think the most embarrassing thing for her was [the scene of] the glamour photo shoot, where she was all done up in red and had to make sexy faces. When I sent the script out, I put a note on the front of it making it clear that the sex scenes in this film are not going to be graphic. There won’t be any gratuitous nudity. We’ll focus on the actors’ faces, because what’s important is what’s happening for them emotionally, not physiologically. Even though the actress was 18, I think Aaron had much more difficulty with it than Summer.
Have many people told you that they feel some sympathy for his character?
Yes. It’s an amazing performance.
Was that performance his acting or your direction?
I feel that was a real collaboration. Ultimately it’s him in front of the camera acting, but we spent a long time talking, and he was really a delight to work with. I knew it was a tough role for him, but he’s so interested in exploring complicated characters and finding the humanity there. And I think he really did it with this one.
Did you learn a lot when Sam Mendes was directing your script for “American Beauty?”
I was on the set every day. That’s rare [for a screenwriter]. But that was my request. I didn’t really know anything about filmmaking. I had been working on sitcoms, which is pretty much videotaped theater. But I wanted to learn about filmmaking.
And that led to you writing as well as directing some episodes of “Six Feet Under?”
Yes. I think I learned enough about the process to be comfortable enough to direct the pilot of the show. I ended up directing six of them. That show was like film school for me.
Was directing “Towelhead” very different from directing “Six Feet Under?”
A movie of this scale and this low budget felt very similar to the kind of television I’d been doing, in a lot of ways. You always feel the clock breathing down your back. But for the most part, I didn’t have a studio there, questioning every single decision I was making, just as I don’t have HBO there questioning every decision with “True Blood.” I was very comfortable.
How old should a viewer be to see “Towelhead?”
Well, it has an R rating, so kids under 17 can’t go unless their parents go. I have a friend who has a 13-year-old daughter, and she brought her to see it, and they had a whole conversation after it. I think if parents have that kind of relationship with their children, it’s something they should see [together]. But if they don’t have that relationship with their children, and it’s going to be awkward and weird, I would say to avoid it.
Ed Symkus can be reached at esymkus@cnc.com.
