Your films are experimental, yet you live in Hollywood. How does that work?
If I had moved there when I was younger, it might have been more in my bones, but I grew up in Berkeley, which was kind of countercultural, and lived in Portland, Oregon, through my twenties. Then I moved to LA. I have all of this in me, which makes me so much stronger than the little slice of my life that is trying to get these movies off the ground.
So you’re not part of the LA scene?
There’s the Eastside where most of my friends and I live, and the Westside where my agent lives. I avoid going to the Westside unless I have to. I just don’t go to those parties.
Your new film is called The Future. How have you thought about your own?
In my twenties, I had so many hopes and dreams and I lived in the fantasy of those. Then, in my mid-thirties, the future got more real and more finite. Part of it had to do with getting married. I’m not going to do every single thing in the world; I’m going to do this thing. It’s not sad, but it is a shift. You realise what your life actually is and that it is going to end.
You cast yourself as the less sympathetic character in the film. Why?
It’s more interesting to play the person who makes mistakes. I also wanted the woman to have the affair. I’m never able to convince anyone how little the character I’m playing is me. To my friends, it’s so obvious that the creepy guy is me, too – the kid is me, the cat is me . . .
Does it frustrate you when you’re conflated with your characters?
It’s hard because it is personal and I’m not trying to dodge that, but it’s not autobiographical.
Do you worry about being branded a narcissist?
It comes with this territory for me. I put myself in my own movies; I obviously get something out of things revolving around me, and people looking at me. That seems illegal, shameful. I’m always wrestling with it.
Do you make work for yourself, or an audience?
Oh, I’m making it for an audience. The great challenge is if I can work from my unconscious and allow things to be mysterious but still have the audience “get it”. Even my early, weirder, experimental stuff was more normal than other people’s weird stuff because I always wanted an audience; I wanted to bring people in.
Could you imagine a life in which you weren’t making art?
I never had a plan B. When I was younger, it seemed demented how unable I was to conceive of alternatives. The best I can do is imagine writing a lot if the economy were so bad that people like me couldn’t make films any more.
Is there a moral or message to your work?
It’s probably there despite myself. I don’t want to do that, but I hold myself to grilling codes of right and wrong.
Where does that come from?
The harsh critic in me started young. I feel that one should be of service in the world. I don’t just want to entertain, I’m trying to make a space for minor things that are overlooked.
Your character is hooked on YouTube. Do you share that obsession?
Sometimes I think I’ve never had any vices – I barely even drink. Then this vice was invented in my lifetime that is the perfect one for me – I’m totally weak to it. I have to expend a huge amount of energy struggling against it.
So, how do you stop yourself?
It’s called Mac Freedom – I use it every day.
What worries you?
Pretty much everything.
Do you vote?
Yes. For Barack.
Are you disappointed in his presidency?
Not as much as most people. He just needs us to guide him. I feel like he believes in a lot of things I believe in, but he has to take risks, he has to be braver.
Is there anything you would like to forget?
A couple of gaffes on my part. They just don’t need to be there in my mind.
Is there a plan?
I’m pretty planned out in the sense that I’m the boss of my life. When you are making movies or doing long-term projects, you have time to think. I know I will be working on a novel for quite a while, and then I have a lot of sub-plans.
Is the book a sacred object to you?
I grew up with books – my parents were publishers. A book! You don’t mess with that.
Are we all doomed?
In the sense of the planet, I think so. Not that there aren’t things we can do. But, yeah, my sense of my grandchildren’s future is not great. It is startling to me that I think that and yet walk around doing almost nothing about it.
Defining Moments
1974 Born in Vermont
1996 LaunchesJoanie 4 Jackie, a video chain-letter with films by women
2005 Me and You and Everyone We Know, her debut feature, wins the Caméra d’Or at Cannes
2005 Publishes her first story as a chapbook
2007 Scribner publishes her first short-story collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You
2009 Marries the director Mike Mills
2011 Releases second feature film, The Future, and publishes a memoir, It Chooses You
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