Madonna says she’s having trouble adjusting to the stresses and demands of being a filmmaker – and longs for a little time in her garden.
“It seems like the whole world is against you,” Madonna told filmmaker Gus Van Sant, who chatted with the Material Mom in Interview magazine’s May issue about her upcoming film, “W.E.” – which she is thick in the process of writing and directing.
“I’ve never had that experience before, because making records and putting my shows together – except at the very beginning of my career, I’ve never really experienced much resistance,” she continued. “But when you make a movie, it seems like there’s nothing but resistance. It’s kind of a miracle that any movie ever gets made. Every other day, it’s like, ‘What am I doing? This is insane. I could be off gardening right now. This is too stressful. Who do I think I am? Why am I putting myself through all of this punishment?’ That’s what it feels like-for me, anyway.”
The singer, who is co-writing the script with Alek Keshishian, said she’s trying to balance her parental responsibilities with her filmmaker duties.
“I tend to write during the day so I can see my children at night. But if my kids aren’t with me and I have a chunk of time when I’m a single woman living in my house for a miraculous week, I will get to write at different hours,” she explained. “I mean, we’ve burned the candle. We’ve stayed up all night. We’ve done it every which way. But generally we schedule chunks of time to be together and work on it.”
Madge explained that she’s loved collaborating with Alek, who also penned 2006’s “Love and Other Disasters,” she even enjoys their occasional fights.
“I think it’s good to get into arguments with people and have them say, ‘That sucks’ or ‘You’re crazy’ or ‘That’s cheesy’ or ‘What do you think of this?’ If anything, it helps you understand what you believe in and what you’re passionate about and what is s***,” she told the mag. “I think it’s important to have a sounding board. I’ve known Alek for years, and we have a weird kind of brother-sister relationship. One minute we’re hugging each other and crying on each other’s shoulders, and the next minute we’re slamming the door in each other’s face and not speaking to each other for a month.”
The singer-turned-filmmaker said the press got the details of the film’s plot wrong.
“Everyone thinks I’m making [a movie] that’s supposed to be a musical about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I don’t know why that got in the newspapers. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor are in the movie, but it’s not going to be about them. It’s really about this other woman’s journey, and the duchess is kind of her spiritual guide,” she explained. “It’s set mostly in pre-World War II England-like, 1936 to 1937 –and then in New York in 1998. It goes back and forth in time. I use the Sotheby’s auction in 1998 of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s estate as a device to flash backward from.”
In true Madonna fashion – the film promises to big on glitz, glam and vintage couture.
“I didn’t realize it when we were writing the script, but once I started casting and planning and working with my production designer, I went, ‘Oh, f***. I wrote a script about a bunch of rich people. That’s going to be great for the budget,” she told the mag. “The duchess has, like, 80 costume changes. She was dressed by Balenciaga and Christian Dior and Vionnet and Schiaparelli… It’ll be a combination of real vintage pieces, others we’ll get remade based on patterns that have been dragged out of the archives, and then new stuff we’ll make. Next time, I’m writing a movie about one person in one place who has no wardrobe.”
According to Madonna, casting for “W.E.” will begin shortly and the film is slated to start shooting in summer.
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