Exclusive Interview with ALAN BALL

Since my very early childhood I had always been labeled as ‘the different one – the weirdo – the one that everyone loved to hate or blame – a lost soul in a crazy and damaged Wonderland’. Somehow I ended up causing people around me a feeling of discomfort, pain, and jealousy that built an endless river of rumors, admiration (I guess) and criticism. The truth is that I never settled for what was easy and expected. Tattooed on my skin, right next to a cemetery of scars and wounds, I still carry memories of people making fun of me because I was unconventionally dreaming big. Needless to say it’s been painful, and that the past 15 years of my life had been a desperate and deadly effort to change, and to hide my true nature, in every possible way.
I had to go, and with a novel and a screenplay in my hands I moved to Hollywood. When it comes to writing, among the many authors that I love, there’s always been a special one I wanted to know and work with: his name is Alan Ball.
Last June, my dreaming big and my urge to write in order to get through life (or through the end of the day) brought me to the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, where Mr. Ball was promoting the fourth season of True Blood.
It was my chance to shine, and with this very unusual blog I want to honor and remember that day in a very simple way: by sharing each and every single word of those 20 minutes of hope, admiration and professional growth.

If you are familiar with my writing, you know I usually turn my articles into stories, but I wanted to make an exception this time, because the interview was so intense that I didn’t want to take away the spotlight to the main character and to his honest and very articulated thoughts. The recipe is very simple: easy to read, no poetic cream cheese frosting, but with the cherry on top:

Alice Carbone - Ok Alan, I need to tell you this. In the last episode we saw Tommy turning into an alligator; I really thought you would make him eat his parents. Have you ever thought about it? Because he had to make them disappear…

Alan Ball - Ahahahahahahahah!!! I never thought about that, it never occurred to us…we just thought it would be fun to see Tommy become an alligator, but…. 

WOW….YOU SHOULD WORK WITH ME AS A WRITER!

And in the luxury of the Four Seasons suite, let’s get started with much more than blood and vampires…because we’re about to awaken primal instincts, religion and mythology, sex and other (not so) secret human fears:

Alice Carbone - In one of your old interviews you talked about the ‘fetishization of the victimization’, and I also know that, as it is for myself, this is a personal issue for you too. How did you embody this concept in True Blood and in which way did it affect your life?

Alan Ball - I think the concept is part of who I am, because in my life I always felt I was a victim, I truly believed I was a victim. In True Blood, under the vampire surface, a lot of people are victimized, like Tara, who is finally taking control of herself.

Alice Carbone - What did you mean by fetishization? Was it to explain how, from a victim position, we actually get something out of it, without actually being aware of what that is?

Alan Ball - Yes, that’s definitely the personal fetishization of it, and it’s a very deep concept, but I also wanted to convey something different, and my movie Towelhead is the perfect example: such a story is usually told in a strict black or white-cartoonish way, but what I loved about the original novel is that the woman character is a victim indeed, involved with a very powerful and very bad man that drags her deep into his immoral decisions, but she is still curious; she is still able to discover pleasure, without that severe form of self-judgment that oppresses our society. I think that, especially here in America, people really like to play the victim – a woman gets raped, just to make an extreme example – and she is blamed for her provocative style. To me, this is just a rationalization for brutalization; the result of having grown up with the American media, that created this sort of fetishization of victimization. Think about it: how many women are raped every day? In how many movies men with a dramatic or damaged environment at home just rape or kill as an excuse to their pain?

Alice Carbone - And we’ve seen a twist in this sexual attitude in the new season of True Blood with Jason, who is raped by several women. It’s very unusual to see a man in that position, especially if he is known as the playboy-kind-of-guy…

Alan Ball - Of course it’s unusual, because society wants to victimize women, and wants to keep women under control, so that men keep having all the power.

Alice Carbone - Is it why, in this season, you went back in time to the Spanish Inquisition and to the extermination of witches? It’s an interesting historical connection…

Alan Ball - Absolutely, it’s all about purging powerful free thinking women; it’s history.

Alice Carbone - When people ask me why I love True Blood so much, I try to explain that it’s actually not about vampires, but a metaphor for the our world instead; the V element is genius. Did you see this metaphor direction in the original book, or was it your own personal way of making this show unique?

Alan Ball - Well, in the first book we have this scene when two humans are trying to drain Bill, since vampire blood is a drug on the black market. But what I like about True Blood is that it becomes a metaphor for our most primal impulses. I am talking about the idea according to what the things we fear the most are those we secretly desire - what I really like to do is exploring the really dark, murky, swampy primal parts of the human psyche; that’s where mythology comes from, and mythology is extremely violent. How many time Zeus becomes an animal and has sex with a woman, or with a man for that matter…it’s all just about our wild primal urges that get to be expressed somehow. True Blood is real fun, and it’s an outlet for this part of the brain to get fed.

Alice Carbone - Just like what Marianne said in Season 2, that in the past we were free to express those wild emotions, but we’re not anymore because we’re forced into the walls of modern society.

Alan Ball - Exactly!

Alice Carbone - I know that in one of your first pitch to HBO you described True Blood as a story about the ‘Terror of Intimacy’, which is something that affects a lot the modern human being…

Alan Ball - True intimacy is terrifying, because when you truly and completely open up to someone else you become incredibly vulnerable; what if they leave? What if they die? What if they betray you? It’s terrifying. You know, we grew up on a steady diet of: “True love, they fall in love, they live happily ever after, but hey…it doesn’t happen in real life!” I mean, true love is deeper and exists, but it’s extremely complicated. I think we have become so separated from nature, and that we’re here in an AC environment; we’re stuck in our cars, driving everywhere, and we don’t spend much time outside. We need a special occasion to be outside, we have to go on a vacation to the beach to actually be in touch with the ocean, which is the source of our life. We should go back to the primal forest, the primal swamp which is the place where we come from. I think that’s why a lot of people love True Blood, because it brings our brain back into that original place.

Alice Carbone - In True Blood there’s also a very strong contrast between religious creed and bigotry. I know that you always try to put your Buddhist creed into your works. I was really fascinated by reading your philosophy of the Miracle within the Mundane. Do you think that this religious bigotry applies to every religion?

Alan Ball - I think that every religion can be taken to a place of extreme, let’s simply think to what just happened in Norway, and you see somebody that is just so deep into fundamentalism, that it’s just a form of pure racism. Look at what’s happening in America where people say that gay and lesbian shouldn’t be allowed marriage because it’s against the Bible. I think that people use religion as a mean to control, while true spirituality is a rule to live your life. It’s about you and your relationship with the divine, or nature or whatever name you want to give to it. And when religion starts to be organized, it becomes all about power. Of course it’s not just about Christianity, look at what the Islamic fundamentalism is doing…it’s sad, that’s all.

Alice Carbone - Can you give a practical example of this miraculous within the mundane? Because I know that you always try to live the moment, and you try to apply this philosophy to your everyday life;

Alan Ball - There’s a miracle taking place just in front of our eyes, and these miracles are true. They are everywhere, but we are not used to see them, being so conditioned to think about our iphone, ipod or radio…

Alice Carbone - Was it hard for you to learn how to appreciate these small things?

Alan Ball - That’s what meditation is all about. Meditation is just practicing the being in the moment, and the more practice you do, the better you get at it, and you can just do it on a daily basis. I try to meditate, I try to practice the being in the moment myself, and that hopefully will also translate it into my work, which still remains the old craft of storytelling.

Alice Carbone - Ok, this is an intimate question – [laughing] - I am not afraid of intimacy: have you ever wanted to have sex with a vampire? Because honestly, I wish I could…

Alan Ball - Are you kidding? Of course I would love to have sex with a vampire…I would love to have sex with a werewolf, with a shapeshifter… with all that stuff, absolutely…(laughing)

Alice Carbone - Because the way you and Charlene describe it…well, you make us really want to try…and your works are very close to an erotic novel…

Alan Ball - That’s the thing about her books, they are so detailed and deep into descriptions that they’re almost romance novels; some people describe romance novels such as lady porn, but honestly it’s all about body parts with the emotional connection. Trust me, this is going to be a great season to this regard!

I don't know what kind of path my shoes will walk, I don't even know if Mr. Ball will ever read this, but what I can say is that he was right, the season was a mysterious journey into some of our most compelling and controversial fan(g)tasies; not only for the erotic and dark ingredients in it, but because as he says, these kind of stories nourish and feed the most primal cells of our (often too anesthetized) brain.
REMEMBER: it's ok to be different, it's absolutely fine to want more, to feel pain and to look for a cure; but when you find it, just like Joseph Campbell says in his documentary Finding Joe, FOLLOW YOUR BLISS. It's the hardest road, but you'll get there, alive.

This interview was possible thanks to KikaPress.