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Alan Ball: Towelhead and True Blood
By Tamara Palmer
Sep 12, 2008
Winning an Academy Award for writing the film American Beauty and creating the Emmy-and-Golden-Globe-winning television series Six Feet Under would be achievements on which any writer could rest his laurels, but Alan Ball’s creativity is seemingly boundless. Two projects are simultaneously consuming him: The coming-of-age flick Towelhead and the racy vampire series True Blood for HBO, both based on novels that caught his attention over the past few years. Down-to-earth and almost extraordinarily personable, Ball talks about his newest efforts and past favorites. He also serves as a personal example of the success that one can achieve by chasing their dreams.
Question: As we speak, you have quite a blitz coming on with True Blood and Towelhead launching at pretty much the same time. What’s this pace been like for you?
Alan Ball: Insane! I thought Towelhead would have opened a year ago. I started shooting the movie two years ago. But just as fate would have it with the timing, it’s all happening at the same time, which is pretty crazy. It’s a blessing in disguise and really reminds me that this is really the hard part. The work itself is the fun part, the reward, but then when you have to promote and show up and be there in the same room when people watch and worry about how it’s going be regarded, that’s the hard part.
Q:
There has been some recent controversy with Towelhead’s name, and the studio supports your decision not to change it since that was the title of the novel that inspired it. But when the film was first screened, it was called Nothing is Private. Why did you change the name initially?
AB:
I think that we thought that we wouldn’t be able to sell it to anyone with that title. Since the movie was not produced by a studio — it was produced independently — we were operating from a place of fear in saying to each other that there was no way that anybody would buy this movie if it’s called Towelhead. When Warner Independent bought the movie, they said, “You’ve got to change the title. It’s terrible: Nothing is Private!” And we knew that. It was the one thing you could count on in all the test screenings was [that people said], “Hate the title.” So we started trying to think of a different title and we just couldn’t because Towelhead is the best name for the story, the best name for the book and the best name for the movie.
Q:
This is not the first time something like this has come up in pop culture this year. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the rapper Nas, but his new album is called Untitled and he originally intended to name it by the N-word. He eventually gave in so that it could still be stocked in places like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Was this part of your thinking at all in any point with Towelhead? That maybe it would affect sales?
AB:
You know what, it doesn’t cross my mind. I’m sure it crosses the mind of people at Warner Brothers, but I was very happy that in the face of protest, they supported our decision to name the movie this. We’ve given the Council on American-Islamic Relations space on our Web site to state their case. Next week in LA, we’re doing a roundtable between them, myself and the two Middle Eastern actors that appear in the movie and we’ll post that on the Web site. We’re also going to do something similar in New York with [Towelhead novelist] Alicia Erian. I think it’s important to have this dialogue and for all sides to express their concerns and feelings. But I don’t think that censorship is the answer.
Q:
I agree, and also think it’s important for people to know that the way you direct the sexually sensitive and uncomfortable scenes in the film are not exploitive at all. You are respectful of the fact that the main character is 13-years-old.
AB:
Absolutely.
Q:
Do you feel like people are picking up on that sensitivity?
AB:
I hope so; I have heard a lot of people pick up on that and I’m glad. Even though the actress is 18, the character is 13. And I even put this on a little note before the title page on the front of the script when I sent the script out in the beginning process that it’s all about what’s happening to the characters emotionally. It’s not about what’s happening to them physically, and the camera will stay on their faces and all sex or sexual activity will be suggested or occurring outside of the frame. There’s no graphic nudity. The only nudity is with the girls in the nudie magazines [that Jasira looks through].
The book is very explicit, but a book can do that because you’re just looking at words on a page. And the idea is forming in your mind, but there’s enough of a disconnect that it doesn’t affect you so viscerally. It would be sickening to go any further than the movie goes.
Q:
It is so much fun to see Peter Macdissi as Jasira’s father Rifat in Towelhead. It took me a minute to realize that he is the same person who played Olivier on Six Feet Under. But so many of the cast members on Six Feet are doing amazing new roles and proving their range. How does it feel to see your family grow like that?
AB:
Fantastic, it makes me really happy!
Q:
Do you feel like you’ll be able to involve more of those actors in future projects, as you have with Peter?
AB:
Yeah, you know, if I work with somebody and it’s a great experience and I feel like they’ve done work, if they’re right for something else, I’ll totally work with them again. There are several people from Towelhead who ended up in True Blood: The woman who plays Rifat’s girlfriend Athena, the lady who plays the neighbor, the French teacher. There are a lot of small roles that people from Six Feet Under ended up in, in Towelhead: The teacher at school who runs the newspaper is the priest that Federico confesses his affair to. Barry, at the beginning, who shaves Jasira, is Claire’s boyfriend Ted. So if I work with somebody and I really like them and I feel like they have that thing that makes a character breathe on camera, I’ll totally go back there. When you work with somebody and it’s really enjoyable, why not do it again if the role is right?
Q:
Not just gratuitously, like, “Here’s Peter Krause [of Six Feet Under], because he’s so damn sexy!”
AB:
[laughs heartily]
Q:
With True Blood, what do you think it is that makes people so rabid about vampire fiction?
AB:
I have never been a vampire fanatic, and I don’t consider myself one now, even though I’m doing a show about it. It’s a very powerful metaphor that so many people respond to on different levels, but sometimes I feel like, okay, calm down!
Q:
The show is not for the squeamish at all, but then again, Six Feet Under made many fans out of people who normally loathe thinking about death. It’s like you like to issue people challenges to try and confront what makes them uncomfortable.
AB:
Yeah, I guess. It’s not conscious. I obviously have a relationship with death that has permeated my work in so many ways, and I imagine it will until the end of my life. But the vampire thing seems really fun.
Q:
There’s kind of a soap opera element to True Blood, wouldn’t you say?
AB:
Yeah, we screened it for a focus group and — it’s a total cliché — but women loved the relationships and the romance and the men loved the sex and the violence. So they actually put together two promos: One that’s all about the relationships and the romance and one that’s just all the sexiest and most violent moments of the show put together to a Rob Zombie song. [laughs]
Q:
I’ve heard you had never read Anne Rice novels or watched shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer before taking on this project.
AB:
It’s not that I avoided Buffy, but I was working as a sitcom writer until two or three in the morning every night.
Q:
Buffy was so over-the-top that it might actually have given you some inspiration as a comedy writer!
AB:
I don’t know. I hated the sitcoms that I worked on and I hated my life so much that I couldn’t even turn on a TV. It so disgusted me.
Q:
But you did find a way to make writing meaningful to you again at some point, obviously.
AB:
Yeah, American Beauty was that. It’s no accident that the movie is about a man who has lost his passion for life who rediscovers it, because that’s what was happening to me as I wrote the script. And then I was like, “Oh yeah! This is what it’s like to write something that you care about and you have an actual connection with. I had forgotten about this!”
Winning an Academy Award for writing the film American Beauty and creating the Emmy-and-Golden-Globe-winning television series Six Feet Under would be achievements on which any writer could rest his laurels, but Alan Ball’s creativity is seemingly boundless. Two projects are simultaneously consuming him: The coming-of-age flick Towelhead and the racy vampire series True Blood for HBO, both based on novels that caught his attention over the past few years. Down-to-earth and almost extraordinarily personable, Ball talks about his newest efforts and past favorites. He also serves as a personal example of the success that one can achieve by chasing their dreams.
Question: As we speak, you have quite a blitz coming on with True Blood and Towelhead launching at pretty much the same time. What’s this pace been like for you?
Alan Ball: Insane! I thought Towelhead would have opened a year ago. I started shooting the movie two years ago. But just as fate would have it with the timing, it’s all happening at the same time, which is pretty crazy. It’s a blessing in disguise and really reminds me that this is really the hard part. The work itself is the fun part, the reward, but then when you have to promote and show up and be there in the same room when people watch and worry about how it’s going be regarded, that’s the hard part.
Q:
There has been some recent controversy with Towelhead’s name, and the studio supports your decision not to change it since that was the title of the novel that inspired it. But when the film was first screened, it was called Nothing is Private. Why did you change the name initially?
AB:
I think that we thought that we wouldn’t be able to sell it to anyone with that title. Since the movie was not produced by a studio — it was produced independently — we were operating from a place of fear in saying to each other that there was no way that anybody would buy this movie if it’s called Towelhead. When Warner Independent bought the movie, they said, “You’ve got to change the title. It’s terrible: Nothing is Private!” And we knew that. It was the one thing you could count on in all the test screenings was [that people said], “Hate the title.” So we started trying to think of a different title and we just couldn’t because Towelhead is the best name for the story, the best name for the book and the best name for the movie.
Q:
This is not the first time something like this has come up in pop culture this year. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the rapper Nas, but his new album is called Untitled and he originally intended to name it by the N-word. He eventually gave in so that it could still be stocked in places like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Was this part of your thinking at all in any point with Towelhead? That maybe it would affect sales?
AB:
You know what, it doesn’t cross my mind. I’m sure it crosses the mind of people at Warner Brothers, but I was very happy that in the face of protest, they supported our decision to name the movie this. We’ve given the Council on American-Islamic Relations space on our Web site to state their case. Next week in LA, we’re doing a roundtable between them, myself and the two Middle Eastern actors that appear in the movie and we’ll post that on the Web site. We’re also going to do something similar in New York with [Towelhead novelist] Alicia Erian. I think it’s important to have this dialogue and for all sides to express their concerns and feelings. But I don’t think that censorship is the answer.
Q:
I agree, and also think it’s important for people to know that the way you direct the sexually sensitive and uncomfortable scenes in the film are not exploitive at all. You are respectful of the fact that the main character is 13-years-old.
AB:
Absolutely.
Q:
Do you feel like people are picking up on that sensitivity?
AB:
I hope so; I have heard a lot of people pick up on that and I’m glad. Even though the actress is 18, the character is 13. And I even put this on a little note before the title page on the front of the script when I sent the script out in the beginning process that it’s all about what’s happening to the characters emotionally. It’s not about what’s happening to them physically, and the camera will stay on their faces and all sex or sexual activity will be suggested or occurring outside of the frame. There’s no graphic nudity. The only nudity is with the girls in the nudie magazines [that Jasira looks through].
The book is very explicit, but a book can do that because you’re just looking at words on a page. And the idea is forming in your mind, but there’s enough of a disconnect that it doesn’t affect you so viscerally. It would be sickening to go any further than the movie goes.
The book is very explicit, but a book can do that because you’re just looking at words on a page. And the idea is forming in your mind, but there’s enough of a disconnect that it doesn’t affect you so viscerally. It would be sickening to go any further than the movie goes.
Q:
It is so much fun to see Peter Macdissi as Jasira’s father Rifat in Towelhead. It took me a minute to realize that he is the same person who played Olivier on Six Feet Under. But so many of the cast members on Six Feet are doing amazing new roles and proving their range. How does it feel to see your family grow like that?
AB:
Fantastic, it makes me really happy!
Q:
Do you feel like you’ll be able to involve more of those actors in future projects, as you have with Peter?
AB:
Yeah, you know, if I work with somebody and it’s a great experience and I feel like they’ve done work, if they’re right for something else, I’ll totally work with them again. There are several people from Towelhead who ended up in True Blood: The woman who plays Rifat’s girlfriend Athena, the lady who plays the neighbor, the French teacher. There are a lot of small roles that people from Six Feet Under ended up in, in Towelhead: The teacher at school who runs the newspaper is the priest that Federico confesses his affair to. Barry, at the beginning, who shaves Jasira, is Claire’s boyfriend Ted. So if I work with somebody and I really like them and I feel like they have that thing that makes a character breathe on camera, I’ll totally go back there. When you work with somebody and it’s really enjoyable, why not do it again if the role is right?
Q:
Not just gratuitously, like, “Here’s Peter Krause [of Six Feet Under], because he’s so damn sexy!”
AB:
[laughs heartily]
Q:
With True Blood, what do you think it is that makes people so rabid about vampire fiction?
AB:
I have never been a vampire fanatic, and I don’t consider myself one now, even though I’m doing a show about it. It’s a very powerful metaphor that so many people respond to on different levels, but sometimes I feel like, okay, calm down!
Q:
The show is not for the squeamish at all, but then again, Six Feet Under made many fans out of people who normally loathe thinking about death. It’s like you like to issue people challenges to try and confront what makes them uncomfortable.
AB:
Yeah, I guess. It’s not conscious. I obviously have a relationship with death that has permeated my work in so many ways, and I imagine it will until the end of my life. But the vampire thing seems really fun.
Q:
There’s kind of a soap opera element to True Blood, wouldn’t you say?
AB:
Yeah, we screened it for a focus group and — it’s a total cliché — but women loved the relationships and the romance and the men loved the sex and the violence. So they actually put together two promos: One that’s all about the relationships and the romance and one that’s just all the sexiest and most violent moments of the show put together to a Rob Zombie song. [laughs]
Q:
I’ve heard you had never read Anne Rice novels or watched shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer before taking on this project.
AB:
It’s not that I avoided Buffy, but I was working as a sitcom writer until two or three in the morning every night.
Q:
Buffy was so over-the-top that it might actually have given you some inspiration as a comedy writer!
AB:
I don’t know. I hated the sitcoms that I worked on and I hated my life so much that I couldn’t even turn on a TV. It so disgusted me.
Q:
But you did find a way to make writing meaningful to you again at some point, obviously.
AB:
Yeah, American Beauty was that. It’s no accident that the movie is about a man who has lost his passion for life who rediscovers it, because that’s what was happening to me as I wrote the script. And then I was like, “Oh yeah! This is what it’s like to write something that you care about and you have an actual connection with. I had forgotten about this!”
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