The director of Topless Women Talk About Their Lives recalls Auckland in the 90s and making his "no inspiration" TV series and film.
Harry Sinclair/photo Dave Schwep
Topless Women Talk About Their Lives may have been the most unusual series on New Zealand television in the 1990s. Director Harry Sinclair began his guerilla experiment with Auckland actors Danielle Cormack, Joel Tobeck, Ian Hughes and Willa O’Neill on the weekend, and the series grew into 40 five-minute episodes and an award-winning film. Made pre-DVD, the series and movie have just been released on disc, with a new commentary from the director and actors. Sinclair, who now lives in LA, is working on a new film, and has directed episodes of the rebooted TV series 90210. He also has his own side projects, which can be seen on his website.
So Topless Women Talk About Their Lives is finally out on DVD? It took us an awful long time, we’re obviously not very good at marketing our own products. We could have done this years ago – [producer] Fiona Copland and I finally thought, “hey, we’ve got to get that out there”. Part of the impetus behind it was that no-one had seen the TV series unless you happened to be up at 11 o’clock at night. It was played on TV3 like once. So I’m particularly thrilled to get all those episodes out there and the film as well. I really wanted people to see it.
What was it like seeing the TV series all over again? I was very pleased at that kind-of audacity and the nuttiness of the whole thing, even down to the really whacky credits that we made in two minutes, just as bright and flashy as we possibly could. The whole idea was to be irreverent, it wasn’t studied and elegant and careful, it all came from the energy of the actors and the way they lived and the characters that they played; we were trying to create something that really captured that spirit of not giving a f—, living life to the full. So it was great to see it again.
There wasn’t anything like it around at the time. That was the unusual thing, it was kind-of before its time, there was a lot of that stuff about young people, the Slacker movement, in movies since. Not to say that it was hugely original, there just wasn’t much around like that especially in New Zealand that looked at those kinds of lives. That was part of why I was excited to be making it because it felt like there was a huge chunk of experience of life in New Zealand that was totally missed out by shows you might see on TV or in New Zealand movies.
Did you have any inspirations before you made it? That’s the thing, not only did I have no inspiration, I didn’t even have an idea for a TV show. It was truly me calling up Danielle and Joel and Ian Hughes, people that I knew as actors, and saying “hey, let’s do something in the weekend”, because I just felt like shooting something. There was really no plan, there was not like, “let’s talk about how young people are lost today”, there was no concept behind it. It’s just like, “let’s shoot something!” and I thought “okay, I’ve got Danielle, she’s great, what can she do?” and she’d turn up and she was hungover and I handed her these pages and we’d just go for it. It was not a very well thought-out project that evolved.
You got NZ On Air funding? That was later. We actually got a grant from the Arts Council after we’d made a few of them. Then we showed TV3 the first 20 episodes and they said “we’d like to play this” which of course enabled us to apply to NZ On Air for some money. And then Danielle got pregnant, and I thought, “let’s not stop at a TV show, let’s make a movie”. I suddenly saw a bigger story when she got pregnant.
What was local TV like at the time? Do you remember what else was around at the time? I can’t remember! Thank God for Shortland Street, that’s all I can say, it’s been a fantastic show.
What do you remember about filming Topless Women the movie? It was really fun. We had a very small crew, about 12 people, and we shot it with very little gear, minimal lighting. It had a very spontaneous feeling about it. We didn’t have tons of money to throw around and we worked very hard when we were working. The actors loved the process by which they would be given the pages on the day. Because we’d done a lot of the TV series already, there was a confidence about the tone and the characters, so the actors felt very comfortable. The atmosphere on set was extremely relaxed and I think that helps people do very true performances. I’ve been on a lot of sets where’s there’s an enormous amount of anxiety, like about “are we going to get it all shot before the sun goes down?” Sets are very pressured environments, but this was a very fun place to work. It was kind of a blessed project in a way because we all got on extremely well and we enjoyed the work.
They’re very natural performances. Even the taxi driver was great – I hadn’t even met him. We just called up this taxi company and said is there anyone who likes to do that kind of thing and they sent this guy along.
Danielle Cormack as Liz
The people – Danielle, Oliver Driver, Ian and Joel – they’ve turned out to be some of the best of their generation. Were you aware of that at the time? Mostly they were people who were used to being in front of a camera, I didn’t pluck them out of obscurity. There was a feeling that, yeah, these are some of the really good actors around at the time. I think the fact that they were experienced made it much easier. There was an ease in front of the camera.
Do you catch up with them now – does Joel come to visit if he’s over there? I’ve seen him back in New Zealand occasionally, but we all got together to do the commentary for the DVD, so that was a laugh.
How important was the Flying Nun soundtrack – that was quite unusual at the time to put in music like that? It was quite unusual, I’d grown up with the Clean and things like that. It seemed like an obvious choice because it suited the spirit of the thing. It was partly because we could afford it. We had a very small budget and Flying Nun was very helpful. It was very fortuitous that there was this vast catalogue of this incredible music – a lot of New Zealanders had never heard that music before so it was wonderful to help to make that more popular. I think the soundtrack is just fantastic, Flying Nun is going to rerelease it to coincide with the DVD.
When did you go to the US? About eight years ago. I lived in New York for a while then moved here.
Do you come back here very often? Pretty much every year.
It must be vastly changed from when you were filming? The look of the place hasn’t changed, but people’s lives have changed. I was thinking that if you tried to shoot that film now in a world of cellphones and texting and Facebook, it would look different. The mystery’s gone out of things a bit, I think.
You’re directing in LA as well as making your own projects? I make my own projects in my spare time which I put on harrysinclair.com, including a thing about cellphones – what the culture of cellphones has done to relationships. Well, that’s the concept, I don’t know if I’ve achieved that.
And directing the new version of 90210? Yes, the new version. I’ve done three episodes of that and I’m doing another one next month.
What’s it like to work on? It’s incredibly intense. My directing has pretty much been stuff that I’ve written and in TV here there’s a bunch of directors who are brought in, so you don’t know the show nearly as well as every single other person on the set but you’re supposed to be the boss, so it’s like jumping on a fast-moving train and trying to stay on. If you don’t have the confidence of the cast and the crew it can be horrific, I believe. People don’t tolerate fools lightly and you have seven days to shoot an hour of TV, so it’s intense, but thank God I did well on my first one and they asked me back. It’s incredibly high energy and a very good way of honing my directing skills with that intense environment. It’s really good.
Willa O'Neill, Tania Simon and Danielle Cormack
How are the young actors to work with? Mostly perfect. They play much younger than they are, they’re very experienced.
You don’t need to give them acting advice? Sometimes you have to think of the right thing to say at the right time. You’re trying to do the show that the producers want – you’re trying to do the same thing, yet give it your own little signature. That’s the trick – how can I make this scene better than it reads on the page. You’re definitely asking for different performances from the actors, but I wouldn’t say I give them advice.
American television is going through a golden phase at the moment – are there any shows you’d like to work on? Gosh, I dunno, I think there are some interesting things being made. I thought The Wire was an incredible show.
That’s a more naturalistic style of working. Yeah, The Wire was unusual in that it portrayed inner-city life with a kind of accuracy that most TV shows run screaming from, because it’s not very escapist to show how tough life is on the street.
The opposite of 90210. Yeah, 90210 is about rich kids driving around in their cars. It kind of relates to Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, but not quite the same.
TOPLESS WOMEN TALK ABOUT THEIR LIVES, directed by Harry Sinclair.