The man behind the lively essay in narcisism that is Red Rocket picks apart the moral ambiguity of his “suitcase pimp” lead.
Interview by HANNAH STRONG Illustration by MICHAEL DUNBABIN
In Conversation
After winning over America with his portrait of a spirited young girl and her mother in The Florida Project, Sean Baker returns with a new exploration of small-town tensions. At its heart is Simon Rex, sometime rapper and Scary Movie actor, who delivers a career-best performance as motormouth ex-porn star Mikey Saber.
LWLies: When did Simon Rex come to your attention?
Baker: We’re about the same age, so I remember when he debuted on MTV in the ’90s. Then he had a bit of controversy with a few videos that surfaced and there’s so much stigma applied to that sort of thing. I always thought that was unfair. But then I saw him come back with the Scary Movie franchise, and I realised this guy’s a survivor. He keeps going. Then he resurfaced a few years later with Dirt Nasty [Rex’s rap alter ego]. I think it was when he started doing Vines that I realised, ‘This guy’s been entertaining me for 20 years. Why hasn’t the industry given him a meaty role? What the hell?’ And then I saw him in Joseph Kahn’s Bodied – that’s what really sealed it for me.
Sex work, including porn, is often presented in quite a derogatory or puritanical manner in films. Do you feel a responsibility to be more nuanced in your approach?
We knew with Mikey’s character and the topics in this film, we were tackling one of the elements that could potentially paint the industry in a negative light. So it was my duty to really flesh out the female characters, but also make sure that people understood Mikey is a suitcase pimp. We met a handful of Mikey Sabers while we were shooting Starlet, and even after that, so we had consultants from the adult film world who read our script and gave us notes. What they brought to the table was minor, but helped with the balancing act, such as the way Mikey talks about the women from his past. We had originally written that one of his co-stars overdoses, and one of our consultants said, ‘No, let’s change that.’ We had a long discussion about it. So we changed it so she married a software guy and went to live in Salt Lake City, which is a happier life for her. But in Mikey’s eyes, it’s no longer servicing him or the industry, so that’s a boring life.
The ending of The Florida Project and the ending of Red Rocket both have an element of magical realism to them. Do you see them as modern American fairy tales? I’ve never been asked that, and I’ve never gone into it consciously that way. But
