Alia Shawkat: Coming-of-Age & Sexuality On Screen
Podcast Transcript Season 2 Episode 28
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Illustration BY Black Women Animate
This week’s guest is Alia Shawkat. Alia is an actress, producer, writer and artist. Among her many credits are starring roles on Arrested Development and Search Party. She also wrote, produced and starred in 2018’s modern erotic love story, Duck Butter. Liz and Alia talked about navigating coming-of-age in Hollywood; her upbringing as a child of a strip-club owner; and how she is invested in changing depictions of sexuality on screen.
The following is a transcript of the interview from the episode:
Alia Shawkat:
Thanks for having me. Our voices sound so nice. Crisp.
Liz Goldwyn:
Oh yeah. I wanted to do phone sex when I was a kid.
Alia Shawkat:
I used to do prank call phone sex where we would call somebody and be like ... Some people fell for it but we'd act like somebody sent them a gift of phone sex so we're like, "Your friend Bobby hooked you up, buddy." Then you do a phone sex thing until right when you get them on the hook. Then you laugh and make a fart noise and then you hang up.
Liz Goldwyn:
How old were you?
Alia Shawkat:
This was like four years ago. No, it was a little longer ago. I think like six.
Liz Goldwyn:
I love prank calls. I feel like no one-
Alia Shawkat:
I love prank ... And I was talking about it.
Liz Goldwyn:
No one wants to do them with me.
Alia Shawkat:
April Fool's is coming up and I was talking about pranks that I used to do all the time, and now it feels so serious. Like, I don't know, people are like, "Yeah, that would be funny," but nobody does it anymore. I used to do a lot of pranks.
Liz Goldwyn:
I actually do do them with one of my friends. The problem is everyone has caller ID and no one has landlines.
Alia Shawkat:
Star 67.
Liz Goldwyn:
Is it star 67 or star 69?
Alia Shawkat:
I thought it was 67. Maybe it's 9. The one that you put before, right?
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah, so that they can't-
Alia Shawkat:
You put it before the number. They can't see.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah.
Alia Shawkat:
I know, things are different. These kids, they'll never use pranks.
Liz Goldwyn:
So we were just talking about ... that your dad owns a strip club.
Alia Shawkat:
Yes.
Liz Goldwyn:
Since you were little?
Alia Shawkat:
All my life, yeah. My mom and my father met at the Body Shop on Sunset. The bright yellow one, which is now nude and no alcohol which I think is weird, but it used to be topless and alcohol. They think if you see the pussy, men will lose their minds. They're like, "Don't give them booze and the vagina," but they met there. Yeah, my dad was from Baghdad, from Iraq. He came over when he was like 22 and my mom was a law school dropout. Her dad was an actor and so she was born and raised in Hollywood, but she needed to get a job, so she was a waitress there, and my dad was a bar back. He didn't speak a lot of English but he kind of fell in love with her right away, was like, "I will marry you." She was like, "Yeah, you wish."
Then, yeah, they finally got together and they moved to Palm Springs where they opened up their own nightclub called Showgirls. The first one was called The Pink Lady actually. It was a smaller one and then they opened one called Showgirls. Yeah, they painted the walls of their first place. They did it all together. My mom was the door lady for a while and they moved to the bigger location 25 years ago, so they've owned and run a nightclub for 30 years now. They still run it. My mom, when she started having kids, kind of left to be a mother and let my dad take over.
Liz Goldwyn:
So you kind of always had a normalization of sexuality or nudity?
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah.
We had a very traditional childhood. My dad was always home for dinner every night. He was the coach of the soccer team. The business was kind of separated but we always knew of it. It was nothing private, but also I remember me and my older brother when we were younger finding magazines that were like nudie magazines but they were actually just to buy sex toys to sell at the club, so it was kind of like business magazines. Like if your dad sold cars and he was looking at car pieces, so it wasn't like, "What are you doing with these?" My dad wasn't shamed for it. It was just like, "Don't look at those," you know? Yeah, just kind of always present.
But at the same time my father is Arabic, so we were raised like kind of Muslim. Not really. More culturally, but when I went through puberty, I'm the only girl. It was like, "Okay, now we're Muslim," and I was like, "Since when? What the fuck are you talking about?" I wasn't allowed to dress a certain way or have as much independence as my brothers. I'm almost 30 now so it's like we've learned to ... We understand each other, me and my father, but there was a lot of irony of him owning the business he did and yet his only daughter, treating her with very different rules of sexuality. So yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
I find that a lot though, amongst people I know who are in the business who have kids, or even my own parents. My mom is super liberal, was on the board of Planned Parenthood, took me to my first pro-choice rally when I was nine. My father loved his Playboy magazines and was a bit of a playboy himself, but I almost find that the more open they are in their careers or their personal lives, it's still very difficult for parents to be open with their children.
Alia Shawkat:
Right, totally.
Liz Goldwyn:
Right?
Alia Shawkat:
And how long does it take ... We realize that our parents aren't perfect at a very ... Depends ... young age, but also realizing their own past and history and remembering that they were sexual and young and trying to figure it out. I went to therapy earlier today and my mom called me. Within two seconds I was like, "Hey, what's going on?" She was like, "What's wrong? Something sounds wrong." I was like, "Nothing, I'm fine." She's like, "You don't sound fine. What's wrong?" I was like, "Nothing, I just went to therapy and realized you fucked me up." She was like, "Okay, give me a break."
We have a really good relationship. I love my mom, but it's because ... I don't know, for me in this life, I'm just so fascinated by, and we all are, so affected by this first relationship that we saw. We're just like, "Is this how people love each other? Is this how people trust?" And as much of my own independent life and experience I have, I still go back to their traits and their own baggage and their own stuff and their own relationship to sex and yeah. Just like watching it evolve.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah. I think we all do, just work through our attachment issues if we're conscious of them.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, totally.
Liz Goldwyn:
The other thing I notice around people now who are in the adult business who have kids is that they are really freaked out to tell their kids' school friends parents what they do for a living.
Alia Shawkat:
Right. I was actually just talking to my mom about that because I went to a private school my whole life and then I was homeschooled the last two years of high school because I was working too much, but it was like small ... Palm Springs is a lot of wealthy kids and so the parents there are definitely country club-y and my parents ... We had money but it was like we were kind of middle to upper class, but it just had a different vibe to it because my dad was working on a nightclub all the time. It wasn't this kind of ... I don't know, a lot of the people there had a different feel to their wealth than us. We seemed like the scrappy ones. We were like, "We made it in the big time" or something. We're in the private school.
But I asked my mom recently, I was like, "Did you used to tell these ..." Because they were very country club-y, kind of WASP-y women, "that you owned a strip club?" She said, "I would say we own a nightclub, and if they kept pressing, I would say it, but I would never bring it up." She's like, "Because there were people who would put their nose up" to them or something. She's like, "But then I would just realize that those aren't people I wanted to be friends with." She's like, "But depending on the crowd," she would never suggest it, you know? She would always be like, "Well, we're in the real estate. We own real estate and stuff."
I thought that was so funny because I was like, "Yeah, what?" I used to say it all the time because I was a real tomboy when I was younger and I really wanted ... It was really about wanting to seem equal to boys at the time. As I got older, I find tomboy to almost be ... not offensive, but it's just not what it used to mean. If I see a little girl who's a tomboy now, I'm like, "No, you don't have to be a boy. You could do everything you want." I feel like I had to identify as a boy to be seen the same.
Liz Goldwyn:
You have brothers.
Alia Shawkat:
I have brothers, yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
How many?
Alia Shawkat:
So I don't have to be as tough as them. I have two.
Liz Goldwyn:
I have four. It's funny because I was also ... I never have been competitive with women my whole life but I find myself ... Even now I have to watch myself, but since I was a kid, being more competitive with men-
Alia Shawkat:
Same.
Liz Goldwyn:
Who were in a totally different field than I was even interested in, but I think it was that same thing of just feeling like I had to do so much more to be taken as equal to my brothers.
Alia Shawkat:
Totally. Yeah. I feel that way. I still get jealous when it comes to work stuff with guys more than girls.
Liz Goldwyn:
Me too.
Alia Shawkat:
With girls, I'm like, "Oh yeah, she's better for this part," or whatever, but when a guy ... I'm like, "I couldn't have gotten that part," but for some reason I feel like ... Yeah, I don't know. I'm like, "They got an upper hand because they have a dick. That's the only reason why ..." Some version of that, I guess, but yeah, when I was younger ... So I was a tomboy, really wanted to prove how much I was a tomboy and I used to tell all these guys when I was so young, I was like, "Well my dad owns a strip club. I could get you guys in if you want." Like trying to use that as leverage, and they were like 13 or 12, and they're like, "Yeah, let's go." I'm like none of us are allowed in obviously. But I used to brag about it a lot.
Liz Goldwyn:
I used to steal my dad's Playboys and I organized a date with this boy ... Well, in my mind it was a date but we were eight or nine, to look at this Playboy after school.
Alia Shawkat:
Oh wow.
Liz Goldwyn:
He was so freaked out by it. He was so freaked out. It did not go as planned, and then we went and got ice cream. Maybe we were 10. We went and got ice cream and ran into these boys from our class who made fun of us for being together and asked if I'd gotten my pee red yet.
Alia Shawkat:
Oh my God.
Liz Goldwyn:
The whole thing was a total disaster.
Alia Shawkat:
Sounds like a nice date. If someone asked me to come over and look at a Playboy now I'd be like, "Yeah, that sounds kind of [inaudible 00:11:30] ..."
Liz Goldwyn:
I think I kind of sprung it on him. So I guess retrospectively there were some issues around consent or child pornography that he could come up with.
Alia Shawkat:
Well it's a child looking at pornography. It's way different than child pornography.
Liz Goldwyn:
That's true.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
So you're going through puberty and then you're acting, because you started Arrested Development when you were like nine or 10?
Alia Shawkat:
I started that when I was 14.
Liz Goldwyn:
14.
Alia Shawkat:
But I started acting when I was nine. Yeah, the first film I did, I did this film called Three Kings.
Liz Goldwyn:
Oh yeah, I love that movie.
Alia Shawkat:
This David O. Russell movie, yeah. I played an Iraqi refugee, and then I did another TV show for two and a half years called State of Grace before that, and then yeah, Arrested when I was 14.
Liz Goldwyn:
Was that weird going through puberty in that space?
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, puberty hit definitely during Arrested Development. Ironically just the word, the title itself, but yeah, it was strange, I think for any actor at that age, especially a girl, when you're having to get dressed up and just have costumes in general and being seen. I don't know, I was very self conscious at that age. I grew tits over a summer and I was just like everything ... I wanted everything to be kind of big and triangle-y. I wanted to dress like a boy but I had such a woman's body and I couldn't cover it up, and I was pretty insecure. I was really funny, and me and Michael Cera were best friends, so it was like a fun environment but I remember being very ... Having lots of obsessions over sexual desires and stuff that I couldn't act out. I didn't kiss anyone til I was 16 and a half or something.
So I was kind of a late bloomer in that sense. Yeah, and I mean I haven't in a while but I used to ... When I look back on my diaries at that time, they were very intense. I was like, "Everybody hates me. Nobody thinks I'm funny." I feel like it was the same for anybody going through puberty maybe. The costume fittings, I remember, always being really rough. Just being like, "These jeans don't fit me right," and having to be on camera with that. It was just more amplified, but we didn't have social media or anything. I didn't have any photos except disposable cameras. My parents were really great in that way.
I never lived in LA until I was much older, so I never ... I only grew up ... I didn't feel like I was growing up too fast, you know what I mean? I still felt like a proper 16 year old who just wanted to smoke pot and go to the mall. I didn't do anything too crazy when I was that age.
Liz Goldwyn:
So you didn't have a sense of how the system of Hollywood operated?
Alia Shawkat:
No, not at all. Not at all. We would go ... Me and Michael would get invited to Fox parties and stuff and we would just drink cranberry juice and do pranks on people. That was pretty much it, or he would dare me to go up to people and say bad pickup lines.
Liz Goldwyn:
When did you first become conscious of the industry's expectation?
Alia Shawkat:
Probably not til I was 18. I went to go to college at Sarah Lawrence in Bronxville but I only stayed for two days. I was like, "This isn't for me. I'm not gonna stay here." I was paying for it. It was a very expensive private school and I had a job already, this independent film, and I was like, "Well I want to be working." I was gonna be studying film and theater there, so I was like, "I'd just rather work than study it." So I kind of had to make the choice because they wouldn't let me shoot simultaneously. So I moved to the city and there was a year there I was seeing somebody, like my first boyfriend, and I kind of was feeling really bitter about auditions and stuff.
All the auditions I was going on were reminiscent of the part I played on Arrested Development. Just like a snarky teenage girl, but just not as funny, not as well written. I would go in on auditions and I just had so much attitude, but not for the part. I was just like, "Yeah, I don't really give a shit. I didn't like it," and that was the feedback I was getting. It seemed like I didn't want to be there, is what my agent said. I was like, "Well I don't, really." It was really a protective thing because I didn't feel like I fit in. I was either ... I couldn't be the lead ingenue part and I was only getting sent for the small bit part teenage girl or the ethnic best friend or all these things that just didn't feel genuine to me, and simultaneously I'm falling in love for the first time and having sex for the first time.
So I was 19 in New York and I was dressing crazy. I was wearing old fashioned bathing suits. I mean, not crazy in a bad way but it was like I was blossoming into my body for the first time so I was just like ... In New York City nobody cared, so I was like, "This is amazing. I'll walk down the street wearing practically nothing and nobody would ..." Everyone was like, "You look great." I'll be wearing platforms and old fashioned bathing suit bottoms and some crazy hat and I would dye my eyebrows red. I just was really trying to express myself and figuring it out and acting wasn't matching that at all. They were like, "No, you have to be this." I was like, "I don't understand."
But it was all I knew because I had been acting since I was a kid. So I kind of took that year off whether it was by choice or not. It just wasn't working, and I started painting. So my boyfriend at the time was really great and let me use his parents' basement in New Jersey and was like, "Just paint. Do whatever you want." So much came out and I was making these huge pictures and paintings all the time and drawing a lot. So I kind of did that for a year and that's when I was like ... Yeah, kind of had a disdain for the industry and then I had to come back around to it and be like, "Oh no, I know how I want to do this but I have to be a lot more involved and I want to do it with people I actually like, and there are parts out there but it's maybe not gonna be the most typical or the biggest movies."
So I started doing a lot more independent film. There's this film, Whip It, that was the first job I got after this year break that Drew Barrymore directed. When I read that part, even though I do play the ethnic best friend in that, but it was a good, well written version. I was like, "Oh, I really want to do this," and I really prepared for the audition and I had a drunk scene in the audition. I was falling over. I really got into it, and it ended up being one of the most magical jobs of all time where I was surrounded by these badass women. Yeah, that's when I kind of got my confidence back and my taste for it again.
Liz Goldwyn:
It's hard to do things your own way in Hollywood.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, it's still not possible all the time. Every other day I feel like, "I got it figured out. Oh wait, no I don't." I still get so insecure. I'm like, "What am I doing in this thing?" Then other times it feels like you're really expressing yourself honestly and meeting the coolest people. It fluctuates so much just like everything I guess.
Liz Goldwyn:
But a lot of that has to do with you taking control and being more involved in the projects that you make, right?
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, definitely.
Liz Goldwyn:
I mean, I was a fan of yours as an actor for a long time but I went to see Duck Butter at the Vista which you co-wrote and starred in and I believe were a producer on too?
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, and that's my house too, so-
Liz Goldwyn:
Oh really?
Alia Shawkat:
Locations manager.
Liz Goldwyn:
Locations manager, which you co-wrote with Miguel Arteta and he directed it and I was just ... I mean, I was so blown away. I want to really get into this. You can now stream it on Netflix or buy it on iTunes and I strongly suggest that you should especially if you're listening to this podcast and you're a fan of real expressions of sexuality which we rarely see on screen, right?
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah. Well thank you, that means a lot to me. That was our goal, 100%. It took some kind of practice but I think not in a way that any of us were kind of expecting. It was very important to Miguel and I from the beginning to ... It was obviously ... There was a lot of sex in it about two people who decide to have sex every hour on the hour for 24 hours. So we knew it was gonna be a film that was filled with lots of sex, but we were like, "How do we show sex in 24 hours that's almost ... that depicts people who've been together for years? How it starts, how you could be lusty at first and it's exciting and then you could be kind of intimate and silly with someone and then it's just you get kind of angry and then you're just fucking, and then you're feeling distant and one person's disconnected and the other person's into it and how you start to lie to each other."
I was like, "We wanted to show all those different versions of sex that way," so each version would kind of tell a story. So we really made notes on each time, each physicality. It wasn't choreographed, like you put your arm here or whatever. That stuff was just natural between me and the actress, but we had an intention behind every scene. It wasn't just like, "And here's another sex scene and here's another sex scene." I feel like so much of what is out there, especially in heterosexual scenes, sex scenes, it's a very typical way. Like right, and the penis goes in the vagina and five, six, seven, eight, and the girls comes and it's great and it's all over, and you're like, "Okay."
So since I was young when I watched porn or in sex in movies, you have some version of what you think sex is like. You're just like, "I guess it's this," and then sometimes when you have sex, you realize your partner also thinks that's what it's like and when you're younger, less experienced, you're like, "I guess we're both just going off of this basic idea and none of us are connecting to our bodies or talking to each other." So it was important especially because it was with two women, I was like ... Each scene had to have an intention behind it, every sex scene, so it didn't just feel superfluous, and so it had an arc, each of the physical scenes.
Liz Goldwyn:
It was interesting too in the use of nudity that a lot of it was taking place outside of sex too.
Alia Shawkat:
Right.
Liz Goldwyn:
That was very frank, which you often don't see. Normally when you do see nudity it's always in relation to foreplay or ...
Alia Shawkat:
Totally, or like the big reveal of the nipple, we're about to see it. It was super important to me to show me topless getting a beer from the fridge. I was like, "That's a very important scene. As important as any other one," just to show nudity casually. I've always been like ... I'm like, "I want to see ..." I spend so much of my time naked on the toilet, and I was like, "Why don't I ever see that?" Women picking at their pubic hairs on the toilet. It's like an imagery of a woman's body that we just never see and it's a problem to make it so perfect.
Someone was telling me a story, and not to steal her story but she was on a set and an actress, they were doing a sex scene and she was lying down, so her boobs naturally fell to the side, and the director who was a guy was like, "What do we do about this? Her boobs are to the side. Maybe she should be back on top, so they sit upright." The woman who wrote it was so upset. She was like, "That's what boobs look like. They fall to the side. They're natural. That's completely normal." It's like you just don't ... You're not used to certain imagery of things, whereas like ... Also, naked men. We don't really see naked men a lot, and if we do, it's still this certain idea of how it's supposed to be. Men are not sexualized. It's comedic when a guy's naked always.
Liz Goldwyn:
Like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, right?
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, it's like, "Look, we can see his weird pubic hairs."
Liz Goldwyn:
Flaccid penis.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah.
Alia Shawkat:
His soggy ass, you know? It's just like no, a male body's beautiful naked. Why isn't that sexualized. Barry Jenkins, I think, does a great job of that. Like really sexualizing a man's body but not in a ... Like you're connected to it, you know what I mean?
Liz Goldwyn:
But you rarely see that in heterosexual themed love stories, right?
Alia Shawkat:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Liz Goldwyn:
I think more homoerotic POVs do a better job of deifying the male body.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, definitely.
Liz Goldwyn:
What was also interesting about this idea of in your film Duck Butter, of having sex every hour on the hour is that your character, Naima, is is intimacy avoidant when we first meet her.
Alia Shawkat:
I just got that from ... I made that up.
Liz Goldwyn:
Came out of nowhere?
Alia Shawkat:
It was really hard to figure her out.
Liz Goldwyn:
But this idea that you can stay in the stage of lust in a long term relationship, which essentially your characters are fast tracking, when we know scientifically that sexual lust or that state of limerence or love only lasts between one and four years.
Alia Shawkat:
Oh right, is that the technical term?
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah.
Alia Shawkat:
Wow.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah, limerence.
Alia Shawkat:
Limerence.
Liz Goldwyn:
You have this idea that, oh, the sex is gonna be amazing forever and it's ... I mean, that's not true. So then your character is in this strange place where you almost start to get tired of the sex and you're really faced with the intimacy.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, that was my ... Miguel and I, we're very different people. He's like an older Puerto Rican man and I'm not that, but he's one of my best friends. When we first met it took us a while to write this from both of us working and coming back together but the first thing we came up with was the question of why does it hurt so much to not be with somebody that you don't want to be with and it just not working out, and yet still longing for it ... Like just wanting to be with someone who you know is wrong for you, and so we both had had these relationships that we kind of analyzed and broke apart.
As we kept writing it, it was very personal to me to show this kind of ... This dynamic between people where you throw yourself in because you think that's the only way to be honest, to ... your version of being intimate. You're like, "Yeah, I'm in. Let's do it. Let's be physical. I can give you my body. I have that to give you," and then once they're asking more of it, it's just like there's ... It's hard to explain it. It's just like complete shutdown. I was just like, "I don't know who you are anymore. I don't know how much to give you. I don't know what version of me you want," and what's even worse is that not being able to be honest about that, being like, "Everything's fine. Everything's totally normal and kind of hoping that the pilot light's gonna come back on, you know? You're like, "I did like her a second ago. What happened?"
It is obviously a fear of intimacy but ... Yeah, like through the physicality, it's a form of communication, sex, and sometimes you can really communicate wonderfully with someone and you're like, "We kind of don't have to talk about other stuff. We don't really verbalize it but when we have sex, everything makes sense. It's like a beautiful language," and yeah, when that's kind of gone, you're forced to face your truth and this other person's truth and hope that you can both accept each other.
Liz Goldwyn:
But sex can also be a really good way to avoid intimacy.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, definitely.
Liz Goldwyn:
I mean, I definitely have been more ... I mean, I know in traditional therapy, relationship therapy, they always say "Take your time and get to know the other person and it takes time," where I'm like, "No, I need to know what the sex is like right away. I need to know what that's like to see if there's anything else there," but sometimes that can be a really good defense mechanism.
Alia Shawkat:
Definitely. I know, the rules of that kind of stuff, like dating, when to have sex, dating stuff, I feel like it's so ... It depends on the person. It's really hard to gauge, because for a while I would see people and we would usually sleep together very early on. Like the first date, and I was always like, "There's nothing wrong with that." Like any time I would talk to my mother about it, she was like, "Well, that's your problem. You're sleeping with these people too soon." I was like, "It's not 1952, mom. People sleep together. It's normal. I want to know what it's like. If we don't have a connection, blah, blah, blah," and then I realized that it wasn't just that I'm like, "Oh, I don't want to have sex with people right away anymore," it's that I was choosing to show a different side of myself when I chose not to sleep with someone right away. It was harder for me.
The sex part was easy. It was like actually sitting there, being like, "And what's your family like," you know? Keeping going deeper instead of just the first layer of fantasy, of being like, "We know how to play this game. We know how to charm and seduce each other," and I got really good at that and then I got really tired of it. I was like, "I'm doing the same seduction version kind of over and over again," and it was fun but it wasn't going into a deeper layer where I was actually sharing myself with anybody.
Liz Goldwyn:
So was making Duck Butter and writing it a process of working that out?
Alia Shawkat:
Definitely, yeah. Personally I'm going through another stage passed that but when it first happened I had gone ... I was kind of simultaneously going through a relationship that was very similar as I was filming it, and I feel like in this lifetime for me I'm trying to make art out of the shit that I'm processing, so it was very helpful to be more aware of it and to be able to talk about it with other people as well, to be like, "We all kind of experience this," because I think I had a private shame about it, that I was like, "I really am avoidant personality," you know? And never thought of myself as that. So yeah, I've changed. I have issues in a different way now, but I've definitely evolved past that somewhat.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah. I mean, I don't know, I felt like it was so validating, seeing that movie. I went with a girlfriend and just seeing that movie on the big screen was so ... Because a woman watching the way that you just reclaimed female sexuality, even the title of the film, Duck Butter, which is essentially smegma or vaginal discharge, everything was elevated and celebrated in this way that I hadn't seen before, and another thing that I really loved is that it's a queer love story but it's not at all about coming out. That's not even touched on.
Alia Shawkat:
That was super ... Originally when we first started writing it, it was between a man and a woman, and through casting and through the evolution of the script, we had met with a lot of guys, actors, really talented actors, and every time ... It was me and Miguel sitting there talking to them about the story and every time, even these really talented actors, there was a form of ... a fear that was palpable, and I started to feel like a weird concubine because I co-wrote this thing and I was starring in it with them but then I was also sitting there being like, "And I'm the one you'll be doing all this stuff with," you know? So I kind of felt like I was offering myself up.
Then Miguel and I ... I was like, "Maybe I shouldn't go in the meetings. It's a little too much right away. Maybe you should talk to them first," and it just kept being like, if we can't get past this, discussing filming sex, how on earth are we gonna create this intimacy or be able to really delve into what this story is and these characters? And also Sergio, the character Sergio, needed to be the one who kind of took the reigns, who was the energetic one, who didn't question themselves. So we were just kind of ... It kept falling flat with all these people, and it was kind of disheartening for a while.
Liz Goldwyn:
Were they comfortable with the nudity and the sexuality?
Alia Shawkat:
No, that was the thing. Most of them weren't. There was a couple actors who were into it, who were comfortable, they said, with the nudity, but then they just kept being like, "But how are we gonna shoot this and how is it gonna be shot? What will we show? What won't we show?" And I understand that as an actor. I'm not like, "Don't question anything. Fuck it, man." I understand it's scary but for me and Miguel, we weren't trying to make any kind of version of a porn, porn-y like ... "You just gotta ... We're fucking on camera. Let's go. We're doing this for real."
It was like no, the sex wasn't ever gonna be real but we wanted to be able to set up an environment where we're actually telling each other real secrets, whether the camera catches it or not. We wanted to be ... Just to have room to discover stuff on set, to be really connected and trust each other, and then the physical stuff ... That's the thing that's so funny about it, is you can't really plan ... You can't say which way your butt's gonna be or where my hand's gonna be. I was like, "There has to already be enough trust to know that once we start doing the sex scenes, that it really feels like we're just a couple fucking each other and there's a camera there but we're not aware of it. It's not about angling it like most sex scenes are," being like, "we're gonna shoot this in a very specific way."
So it's just like none of the male actors could fully give themselves to us, pretty much. We got close with a couple and they were like, "This is asking too much of me, and I just want to be an actor." That's kind of what we got the consensus of. I was like, "Okay." Then this actress, Laia Costa, was gonna play a smaller part and she's in this film called Victoria. I don't know if you've seen it but it's like a one shot film, and it's such an amazing movie. It was pretty much her first acting job.
When we saw this film, and even though ours was different because we shot the 24 hours in 24 hours, Duck Butter, so we had two crews going at once, so it was another weird time movie, and we had spoken to her and we're kind of telling her of the style. We're like, "Yeah, we're gonna shoot at one house for 12 hours and then we'll transfer all in Ubers and we'll go to the next location and then we'll continue shooting for another 12 hours and the story will go in order as the characters will, so it was kind of like a live play."
She was so thrilled by this and she was gonna play a smaller part, and she was like, "I'll do this small part but only if I could come watch the whole 24 hour sequence. I want to watch it," and Miguel kind of, afterwards we got off the phone with her, was like, "That is such a Sergio thing to say, to be like, 'I don't care about the part, whatever. I just want to watch how it's made.'" He was like, "I think that's Sergio. I think Laia's Sergio. We thought about it for a couple days because it changed ... The thing is it didn't even change that much but we were like, "Whoa, from a guy to a girl? What the fuck?" And then everything made sense, all of our ...
Because we also had questions about how many times within the character's story a guy could stay hard, you know what I mean? Would that have to be ... We didn't really want to talk about it. The guy being like, "I can't come anymore." I was like, "I don't want to-"
Liz Goldwyn:
Needing a fluffer on set?
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, and I was like, "I don't want that to be a part of it." It was really more about showing a relationship in this kind of metaphor that they want to challenge, you know? So all these questions just got answered for us, and then the script got so much better and when Laia got there we rehearsed it and it just became the movie, which was what we always wanted it to be.
Liz Goldwyn:
What about when it came out? Had you already been ... Had you done nudity on screen before that or that much nudity?
Alia Shawkat:
Not that much. I was on Transparent on the fourth season.
Liz Goldwyn:
That's right.
Alia Shawkat:
And there was some there but I think I had shot Duck Butter before that. There's this film, Paint It Black, that Amber Tamblyn directed that I'm in and there's a scene where I'm walking and you see my butt walking and that was the very, very first time I had ever done it, and I kind of said yes when she asked. I was like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm totally ... I'm fine with that," and then when the day actually came, I remember having a robe on and I was like, "Oh shit, this is kind of weird," you know? Then the minute I took in ... You know the wardrobe, women are being so sweet and they're putting a bunch of tape on my boobs and covering me up and they're like, "We gotcha. I have the robe right here." Everything's very sensitive, and then the minute I took the robe off, I was like, "Oh, I'm fine. This is totally normal."
Then they were rushing and I was like, "No, no, I don't need the robe." I felt really comfortable in it. It's like, you know, it's only gonna get worse from here. Might as well get it on camera. But when I was younger, since I was a kid actor, I was like, "Natalie Portman doesn't do nudity and I'll never do nudity," even though she has done it since, but I remember thinking like I would never do that, and then the first time I was asked as an adult, I was like, "Yeah, that completely makes sense to me to do nudity." I was naked most of the time on Duck Butter's set, talking to the crew members and stuff with my top off. Like I didn't even care. That was not important.
Liz Goldwyn:
It must be very liberating. Is it different when other people see it or are you just kind of divorced by it? Divorced from it by the time it's like, you've shot it, it's done, it's not yours anymore?
Alia Shawkat:
The first time we did a screening and it was like my agents and lawyers and then just a bunch of random people, the first test screening, I had microdosed on mushrooms that day which probably has something to do with it, and I should not have, so I was feeling extra sensitive, but that first time I stormed out of the screening and Miguel was so concerned. He's like, "Are you okay?" I was just like, "I can't ... This isn't what I thought it was." I just got really upset. It didn't have anything to do with the nudity, I don't think, but it did have something to do with how vulnerable I was in that film. It was like ... It's one of my favorite performances I've ever done because it's so real to me and we're actually shooting in my house too, so I'm watching myself tell somebody "I don't know how to love them," and I'm like, "I've done that before in that house, in that room," so that part was the more intense part, like facing my own shit, watching it, but then after that, then it was really fun.
At the premiere at the Vista, my whole family was there and that part was funny, sitting next to my brother while it's happening, watching somebody go down on me. I'm like, "You enjoying that? It's very good, right?" But they were really supportive about it.
Liz Goldwyn:
There's this oft repeated phrase in Hollywood that you're not allowed to say anymore because you're gonna get fired.
Alia Shawkat:
Oh no, what is it?
Liz Goldwyn:
Which is ... Well, I think it's not really women who say these phrases, but essentially it's, "Is she fuckable? She's fuckable. Have we seen her tits? We've seen her tits."
Alia Shawkat:
Right, right.
Liz Goldwyn:
And now in making Duck Butter, you totally took ownership of that but I'm wondering from your perspective of being in the industry for over two decades now, how much do you see that changing and how much is it because there's been a spotlight shone on those kind of conversations?
Alia Shawkat:
I mean, definitely the fact that the light is ... I feel like the bugs are kind of scattering and people are dragging the people back to really look back on how fucked up things have been. I mean, I was having this conversation which I feel like lots of people are now about how many things ... Like say the Woody Allen thing or the Michael Jackson thing, I mean, different cases, but things that were so right in front of our face, that we were just all so okay about, like why are we pretending like we were like, "He did what?" It's like Woody Allen's been making movies about fucking underage girls for a long time and we all have given him awards for it. We're like, "We love it." Like him talking about his sexual desires and how he's struggling through them and he's had all this time and privilege to sit there in his New York fucking penthouse and process, "I'm just attracted to girls who are 14. I don't know, I just am," you know?
And even Louis CK talking about this stuff openly, and that's just like seeing it and then acting now like it's the very first time, when I think it's like we're actually taking responsibility for our own stuff, you know what I mean? Us being able to process it is almost harder. It's like the pill that we have to swallow to be like, "We've been accepting of this kind of stuff. We've allowed it to go on for so long and now we really aren't, or it's at least starting," and that part is very exciting and also scary.
I think that a big part of my own experience and something that I'm still trying to do in my work is that the narrative of women desiring sex has been ... is not being talked about because with the Me Too and all these things that are happening that are so important, what's important to me is not to victimize women as much as it does sexually to be like ... as if women are like, "I never even thought about it until he exposed himself," or "I don't even think about sex. I'm just an innocent girl trying to get my job done." It's like, no, I'm trying to get my job done and then I go home and I have healthy sex.
It's like I have both of these things and men have ... The ones who have taken advantage of that power have just been like, "I get it where I get it. Work, sex, whatever the fuck. The minute I see a woman, I just think about sex," and women, why we're also the superior gender, is because we're able to understand the separateness of it. You know, not all women but the majority and it's like what's important to me in the kind of work I make is to remember how much women enjoy sex and to also teach, which is what's so amazing about all the work that you do is like to teach healthy dynamics of sex, for women at a young age to understand what feels good and what doesn't. How to take care of their body, how to listen to it and not just pick up the little pieces of ... We're told so little about it, to only learn about it through the filter of how a man likes it.
You might not even discover it but you might not even be attracted to men or only men for a while, you know? Like all these things that we're only identifying how we come, how we look, how we feel good about ourselves based off of mens' desires. It takes so much time and there's such a well of it, of understanding how to even properly come. What that means. Women's biggest sexual organ is their brain, so ours is like ... There's a lot more to process and to work through than it is. It's a lot easier for men.
So that part's really important to me and obviously the gray area in between, there's ... Did you ever read that story called Cat Person?
Liz Goldwyn:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alia Shawkat:
I love that article so much. I mean, that story, and that's something that has really been triggering to me when I read that as like, "Oh, I've definitely done this." Most of my young adult sexual experiences were versions of that. Following through with something that I was like, "I'm not into this but might as well just get it over with. It's easier to just hook up with this person and then leave instead of ..." Because I'm like, at first I thought I was into it. I came into his room, I had the drink, but I got turned off because the bathroom's a mess and he just said a really weird joke. I'm like, "Oh, I lost it. My boner is gone."
Liz Goldwyn:
And you don't want to be offensive.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, and you don't want to be offensive. There's a moment of maybe danger?
Liz Goldwyn:
Which is in and of itself crazy.
Alia Shawkat:
So toxic. Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah.
Alia Shawkat:
That we're so scared to be like the undesired or this role. We're not allowed to feel how we feel every moment and that's the only way that good sex can happen, whether it's in a relationship where you just met the person or a relationship for years. It's like you have to consistently be honest about what's happening and that's something I've had to practice and learn. So that's something that I want to start to attack in more of my narrative work, is that in between area, so that younger girls can learn how to say, "No, no, now this part isn't good. No, go back to this or actually I don't want to do this anymore" instead of, yeah, feeling like they have to play some role. I feel like I've had to play a role a lot sexually and I'm tired of that.
Liz Goldwyn:
Where do you get validation from?
Alia Shawkat:
That's a good question. My painting. I find just the practice of it is where I get my validation. I mean, my confidence, those are different things I guess. Validation and confidence. It's kind of like my meditative process so when I paint all day, like if I'm in a weird mood or questioning myself, I'll go to my studio and paint and by the end of the day I'm feeling filled up again. So that's a very nurturing self practice. My mother. Classic. Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
Some alone time?
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
Some being comfortable with being alone?
Alia Shawkat:
I spend a lot of time alone. Yeah. I'm almost too good at it. I think I have to practice being around other people a little bit more. I'm like a sociable person but every time in between ... I like to travel a lot alone, so I do that a lot and it's always really fun for me but I think my next journey is like practicing how to share a little bit more.
Liz Goldwyn:
But I think so many of our sexual decisions come with an uncomfortability of loneliness.
Alia Shawkat:
Definitely.
Liz Goldwyn:
Or needing validation from someone else.
Alia Shawkat:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I'm still working through that for sure.
Liz Goldwyn:
I think most of us are.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
How important do you think orgasms are to your mental health?
Alia Shawkat:
Oh God, very important. I think that a healthy sex life is almost ... It's like working out, kind of. You know what I mean? I feel like it's a certain kind of blood circulation that needs to happen. It's tricky though because it's not something you could just go and do. You can't just sign up for a workout class. You can't just go have great, healthy sex.
Liz Goldwyn:
But you can just go and masturbate.
Alia Shawkat:
That's true, which I think you have to do at least once or twice a day. I mean, that saves me. That's all I have. Yeah, I think sex is very, very important to your physical wellbeing.
Liz Goldwyn:
It's funny because I think from a young age, young boys are sort of encouraged to masturbate where it's not a regular practice for women, like, "Okay, it's 4:00 o'clock. We're gonna have tea and an orgasm solo."
Alia Shawkat:
Yes. It's the best thing ever though.
Liz Goldwyn:
Or even before you are going to go out on a date with someone.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah. That's like a necessity. You have to ... I almost did right before I came over here but I didn't have enough time because I was watching this Sopranos episode.
Liz Goldwyn:
Which is great, great masturbation-
Alia Shawkat:
There was this really hot sex scene ... Yeah, like Meadow Soprano was getting lucky with another guy and I was like, "Oh my God, this is so hot," because I had been waiting for their characters to get together and I was like, "Oh, it's a quarter til. I gotta go." No, I'm always a little surprised. I think it's more common now that women are masturbating but I still have some girlfriends who don't do it regularly or as consistently and I'm surprised. I'm like I don't know, I have to.
Liz Goldwyn:
I love giving vibrators as presents.
Alia Shawkat:
That's a great gift.
Liz Goldwyn:
Vibrators and hula hoops.
Alia Shawkat:
Hula hoops?
Liz Goldwyn:
Hula hoops, yeah, because it keeps you juicy.
Alia Shawkat:
Oh wow, just like the movement?
Liz Goldwyn:
The movement of moving your hips and then you can practice your Kegels while you're doing it and it's a circle.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
Symbol of life and the moon and the earth. Yeah.
Alia Shawkat:
I gotta do that.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah. Now you're producing Search Party too and you're painting and you're writing, you're making music. Is there some of that that you keep for yourself and some of it that's commercial?
Alia Shawkat:
I don't think I've ever really understood commercial, not in a ... "I don't understand, it's too big for me." Just meaning I don't think I've ever really fit in it. We kind of ... if me and commercial were two people at a party, we'd both nod at each other and walk the opposite direction. You know, I'm up for things that are more commercial but it's kind of just never ... hasn't fit. What's important ... I've been in between ... I wrapped Search Party and now I'm trying to write and paint more, so I'm in a much more internal kind of phase of making stuff and not as external as acting is or press, where it's like kind of presenting yourself and being out there and talking a lot.
The writing and painting, it's a different side of me, which is like it's a steady practice. It's taking care of myself on a different level. It's like routine. It's staying in LA. It's being around my family. It's like a different kind of side. But yeah, so when it comes to commercial projects, it's like ... I don't know. I just don't think I fit the bill.
Liz Goldwyn:
I guess I mean commercial with the sense of Hollywood where there's a product and it gets sold and it's on a certain cycle versus maybe the way you paint or approach music, which you're not necessarily thinking of ...
Alia Shawkat:
How people are gonna respond to it?
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, I mean I still ... I feel that way with the work I do. I mean, acting-wise. Search Party I feel like is the most commercial thing that I do just because it's on a network and the way they advertise it, and even that, because I'm a producer, I'm more involved in we've got to make sure people see this show and I care more about it, but I'm kind of always ... When I make something, my job is done when we wrap, so I'm kind of ... and I'm done so now I'm free.
Liz Goldwyn:
Unless you're producing it.
Alia Shawkat:
And unless you're producing it, then you start to give a shit more. Like with Duck Butter too, I was like I really want to make sure it's seen. Where do we play it? The poster was super important to me and all these little things that you work so hard for and then at a certain degree it's like you only have so much control and then it's kind of done. I feel like I've been kind of ... I'm a little bitter about what's successful and stuff because I'm just like, "Fuck it." Everything that I think is really great normally isn't commercially that successful.
Liz Goldwyn:
But maybe it affects people in a different way. Again, I know it was last year and now Duck Butter, but I've brought it up so many times when I'm doing talks, especially when people are asking me about cinema and queer cinema. What I recently watched the other night again was Kissing Jessica Stein.
Alia Shawkat:
Oh yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
Okay, and I remember when that came out, I was in high school and it was not a Miramax. It wasn't a Weinstein movie but I remember it was sort of an independent film that got picked up by I want to say Fox or something and just watch ... I mean, it's really hetero. It's basically like a heterosexual woman that needs a woman who's mostly fucking men but wants to try being with a woman. I mean, is bisexual, more fluid but wants to give a lesbian relationship a try and the Jessica Stein woman kind of gets pulled into it and then at the end actually she ends up with a man.
Alia Shawkat:
Right. So it's not even like-
Liz Goldwyn:
There's not that much-
Alia Shawkat:
That one lesbian in the movie.
Liz Goldwyn:
No, in like mainstream cinema that I'm aware of between that movie and Duck Butter, so maybe Duck Butter didn't have that same commercial viability but it strikes a chord and it touches people more deeply in a way. It's authentic, it's real. Maybe that makes it live on longer, makes it get taught in gender studies classes.
Alia Shawkat:
Hey, that's the best win for me ever. Yeah, I think also with the amount of ... You go on Netflix and it's overwhelming, the amount of things that come out and how things are shared, that the stuff that reaches everybody on a commercial standpoint, it's ... Not to belittle those things. They're very powerful because they reach a lot of people but I feel like all I can do now is just try and make work and put it out there, and you realize that things have different cycles to them. I've kind of had a weird kind of reputation or not even reputation but just like ... that a lot of things I do, people don't see until afterwards and then they're like, "Hey, that thing was actually really good," and I'm like, "Thank you, yes, I know. Did that five years ago." But it's kind of the pattern of the ...
But not to flatter myself, but I think it's things before people are ready to kind of see it, and yeah, and again, there's so much stuff out there that it's like as long as I could get mine, you know what I mean? I just want to make it and have enough money to go to nice restaurants.
Liz Goldwyn:
So what's next? This new project you're writing?
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah. Yeah, Search Party, we got picked up for a fourth season which is exciting so we won't that til the fall and until then, yeah, I'm gonna be writing this story about my family, which is ... It's like I'm doing it kind of solo. I mean, I'll have people obviously working with me but I don't have the same kind of partners I did with Miguel. So it's tricky and then also my life and art are very much blurring even more so than with Duck Butter, so as things are happening with my family, I'm writing it in my notes. I'm like, "And then what did she say?" So I'm really writing my own kind of life as it's happening and sometimes it's hard to step outside of it but yeah, I'm doing that and painting most days. Those are my days.
Liz Goldwyn:
What are you still learning about sex?
Alia Shawkat:
Oh God. I feel like I start back from the beginning all the time, you know? As much as I feel like I know, all of a sudden I'm like, "Well, I don't know shit." I'm learning that I have to learn about a lot of ... about what I need a lot more, you know? Which I feel like is a recurring ... Like an onion. Every year I just have to get deeper and deeper, but yeah, I'm doing a lot more practice in certain things on my own, kind of before I bring in a partner, before I get influenced a little bit, learning how to maintain my energy around somebody and physically learning how to do that.
Liz Goldwyn:
That's tough.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, it is really tough.
Liz Goldwyn:
Well thank you for being so honest and talking to me and sharing all this.
Alia Shawkat:
Yeah, thank you for having me.