WGTC: I finally caught Big Ass Spider the other day, and of course there’s a Lloyd Kaufman cameo in there, but I’m curious – what’s your favorite cameo you’ve been in? You’re always popping up and dying somewhere. Here I am watching Hatchet II, and there’s Lloyd Kaufman dressed as a hunter…
Lloyd Kaufman: All these directors are Troma fans.
WGTC: Well do you have a favorite cameo, maybe a death scene?
Lloyd Kaufman: [Laughs] All these films I’m in there and you don’t even know it’s me. I’ve done some movies where I’ve actually had to do some acting, but I don’t have a favorite death scene. I think that Big Ass Spider was a great film, though! A great buddy film. The two main actors were wonderful. They need a sequel, I want to know what happens to those two guys! Plus, I did a behind the scenes piece for Big Ass Spider. You need to go to the Make Your Own Damn Movie YouTube channel and check it out! In a fair world, that movie would make a lot more money.
WGTC: So, knowing the kinds of movies you make, what was the first movie you showed your parents, and what was their reaction?
Lloyd Kaufman: I’ve shown them everything. The first one I showed them was The Girl Who Returned, my 16mm black and white movie that put them both to sleep. The Battle Of Love’s Return my father was in, so he was required to actually go to the theater for that one. The Battle Of Love’s Return, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, – don’t, it’s awful [he joked] – but it actually got a good review in the New York Times, was Oliver Stone’s first job, and it got good reviews, but it’s unwatchable [Laughs]. We had a press conference when it opened here in New York. It was made for $8,000 on a 16mm, black and white AND color, but at least it was synced sound. It’s a movie about finding one’s identity, but it’s also weird. At the end of the movie I get machine gunned, I die, so they asked my father what he liked about the movie, and he says, “I think the best part was when Lloyd got killed, I liked that.” To get back at my father, in The Toxic Avenger Part II I had Toxie killing his father.
WGTC: That was a little jab his way then…
Lloyd Kaufman: A little? [Laughs] No, I showed my parents everything, and they were always polite. I don’t think my parents believed I was as driven until The Toxic Avenger. My father brought Leni Riefenstahl to an investor’s screening, I don’t even know if the film was finished, and my father brought her to see it. At that point he was pretty excited – or at least he was having fun with what we were doing. I’m sure my mother would have preferred me being more like Oliver Stone in a more mainstream fashion. I’m sure she would have been much happier if she could have taken her friends to see my films. Same with my wife. The musical was the first thing she could take her friends to see without grossing them out.
WGTC: So what do you think the appropriate age to be introduced to a Troma film should be?
Lloyd Kaufman: It depends on the parents. We did not permit our kids to see anything I made – well, the early movies might have been OK, but they weren’t worth watching. The only movie in the Troma collection we let them see as kids was Cannibal: The Musical – Oh, and Monster In The Closet. That’s it until they were 16. They weren’t really interested, but now they’re interested. When they went to college and would accidentally let it be know they were the progeny of Lloyd Kaufman, I was no longer their father, I was then a person of interest. [Laughs]
WGTC: Is there anyone you’d love to kill off in a Troma movie? Any certain actor or actress?
Lloyd Kaufman: I honestly don’t think in terms of actors. I’m more interested in mugs and types, big fat people, midgets – oh wait, you can’t say that anymore. Dwarfs, little shitheads, whatever you want to call them. I hung out with Andy Warhol – well not WITH him, but I hung around as they were doing stuff. I liked his movies a lot, and I liked the Warhol superstars. They weren’t really actors, but they had some magic. We used Ondine and Sugar Cookies – I was an Associate Producer on Silent Night, Bloody Night, and we used Candy Darling. I liked that whole idea of creating your own stars, which is what he did, and what I’ve done also. Instead of having Jackie Curtis, I’ve got the Toxic Avenger. If Warhol wanted Jackie Curtis, he needed Jackie Curtis. With the Toxic Avenger, it could be anybody. Warhol was a big influence.
For me it’s all about the director. I don’t mean to dismiss actors, because the wonderful cast we had on Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 brought so much to the movie, but as you can see, the subsidiary characters are all mugs. The big guy who kept lifting up his shirt – I probably filmed him more than the leads, I got very distracted.
WGTC: Let’s talk briefly about Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 2. What can fans expect out of this sequel, and when will we see it?
Lloyd Kaufman: Well 2014 is our 40th anniversary, so there’s all sorts of retrospectives coming out. The Museum of Modern Art is going to play Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1 as part of their contenders series which includes The Coen Brothers, Woody Allen, Steve McQueen, Sophia Coppola, and me! It’s a major series. After that, Vol. 1 is supposed to open here and Los Angeles. So far, it’s gone pretty well.
WGTC: So for Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 2 are we looking at next October or November?
Lloyd Kaufman: We’re hoping it can premiere at the Cannes film festival like Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1 if we can finish it in time and if we can afford to go there. We’ve got no revenue right now, so that doesn’t help. It’s hard to say, but Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 2 is better than Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1. Everything pays off. This is my Sistine Chapel, or my North By Northwest. [Smirks]
WGTC: Do you have any plans for after Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 2?
Lloyd Kaufman: We’re writing, well, right here… [shows me a script in progress]
WGTC: Oh, so another sequel to The Toxic Avenger?!
Lloyd Kaufman: Our own Toxic Avenger. This will the be the low-budget Toxic Avenger.
WGTC: What’s the working title?
Lloyd Kaufman: Well, Grime and Punishment. We want to go film in Chernobyl. It’d be exciting. We filmed The Toxic Avenger Part 2 in Japan, not all of it, but we thought we’d stir it up a little bit. It’s still about Toxie, but in each Toxic Avenger movie, Toxie gets older. In Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part 4, he and Sara had babies, so now those babies have become adolescents and go through puberty, but it centers on Toxie. The Toxic Twins are involved, though. We’ve got a long way to go, we’ve been working on the script for about four years and it’s still not there, but we’re getting there!
Did you see the recent Morton Downey Jr. documentary by any chance? We’ve had a bunch of writers, but the guy who is solving [Toxic Avenger V] directed the Morton Downey movie (Jeremy Newberger). It’s a documentary, but it’s written. Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie. There’s no sex or violence, but Morton Downey was more horrifying than any creature in any movie.
That concludes our interview but I’d like to thank Lloyd Kaufman for all of his time. Be sure to catch Return To Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1 which is touring major cities right now!