The Henry and Tanna Show, Part III
April 25, 2008

The third and final entry in a week of posts highlighting my extended interview with filmmaker Henry Jaglom and actress Tanna Frederick of Hollywood Dreams (Rainbow Films/TLA, Street: May 6) focuses on the pair’s exploration of Tinseltown fame and its effects, and how it will be examined in an upcoming Hollywood Dreams sequel.

VB: I loved the idea that Hollywood Dreams was about the pursuit of “film fame” more so than even “actress fame.” 

HENRY: You’re absolutely right—it’s a totally different kind of desire. The sequel to Hollywood Dreams, which we’re going to be shooting at the end of the year, is about what happens when you get film fame and it’s not the film fame that you want and you realize that you have deeper, real needs that you want to exercise

creatively. I’ve watched that in the second stage of my Hollywood life. In the first stage, I was involved with people who were trying to get famous, and now I’m involved with people who are famous and I can observe their various problems and their being discontent with that fame.

VB: And you’ve wanted to explore this idea for two decades now?

HENRY: I remember after I made my second film, Tracks, in 1978, I went up to Jack Nicholson’s house. By ’78, he had become world famous and was making millions of dollars for movies and had done some huge things. As his friend, I was watching the effect it was having on friends, his environment, on going out in public, on himself, on his life. I described my idea to him, which was basically an early version of Hollywood Dreams. He said ‘Nobody’s going to be interested because it’s too rarefied. The public can’t identify with it because it’s such a rarefied drive among such a small number of us.’ Well, since then, of course, fame has become the subject of every TV show, every reality show, of American culture, in general.

VB: Famous for being famous.

HENRY: So, our next movie will begin with Margie Chizek of Hollywood Dreams, who has been renamed Maggie Chase and is now an action hero, but she’s under house arrest for DWI. So, I’m going to be looking at the second side of film fame.

VB: Tanna, there are obviously a number of autobiographical elements in Hollywood Dreams, but I can’t imagine you were as mercenary or single-minded as Margie, or were you?

HENRY: You can’t imagine she’s like that!?

VB: No, she seems charming to me. Talking to her now and reading her interviews in other magazines, I’d love to bring her home for a seder.

TANNA: You’re sweet.

HENRY: But she has some of those elements, though they’re much more elegant and much more disguised. The obsession and need is there. That’s why Tanna worked it so hard and that’s how she got the inspiration to write me that letter, that’s why she was doing three waitress jobs and working every angle to break through and career and move to the head of the class.

VB: I’m imagining that you can take the girl out of Iowa, but you can’t remove Iowa from the girl. What’s it like when you go back to visit, Tanna?

TANNA: It’s kind of surreal for me at this point and that’s why we’re taking a film crew with us to Iowa when we go back next time—so that we can film me going back as Maggie Chase. It’s going to be really fun—we’re having a huge dinner at my mnon’s house with all of my relatives. We’re going to conduct interviews about Maggie Chase as she was as a young girl and get the whole home town response. It’s a weird thing—there is such a glorified view of Hollywood. I was such a Podunk farm girl there and now I go back and people want me to sign things and put my posters up on their walls.

HENRY: Again, it’s a thing I’ve seen year after year. It’s not just the effect that stardom has on the person themselves, but the effect that it has on people’s family and friends and environment. And they’re trying to maintain a kind of equilibrium and a sense of self, while the others begin to treat them totally differently. The film is going to explore some aspects of that and the problems that take place as a result of trying to remain who you are.

Posted by Laurence Lerman on April 25, 2008 | Comments (1)