Actor Martinez INTERVIEW
Mike Ott is the co-director of Actor Martinez, a film that blurs the line between fiction and reality. The drama focuses on Arthur Martinez, a Denver computer repairman who has dreams of being an actor. He hires two filmmakers (Mike Ott and Nathan Silver) to direct a film with him as the star, but doesn’t quite get the genre film he had anticipated. Actor Martinez opened nationwide in theatres this week. Ott’s newest film, California Dreams, premiered at SXSW this week.
Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ser8MSr15Bk
Dawn: How do you know Arthur - who reached out to who?
Mike: He initially approached me. I met him in 2010 at the [Denver Film] Festival. He picked me up from the airport and instantly started telling me his entire life story from the airport to the hotel. And I thought he was like really interesting. He was telling me he had all this money, that he was a millionaire and he was retired from his job. I was like, oh, well ok. And then around that time...Littlerock was getting a lot of steam and press and all these awards and stuff and we had to pay for music rights and soon after that I saw him said, hey, man, so I was thinking - you have all this money, and I was like you know, we’re looking to bring on someone [to help finance]. And he was like, well how much money? I was like, probably not much, $10,000 or something. He was like, oh no, that’s way too much. I was like, who the fuck is this guy? He tells me one minute that he’s a millionaire, then I’m asking him for $10,000 on a movie that’s getting press and getting known and he totally shut me down.
Then I saw him the next year and in 2012 Nathan was there, and Nathan met him and Nathan felt the same way. He was like, this guy is a total maniac, he’s interesting. We were talking about it and then we were talking about making something together. And then I guess it was 2014, we were both there with films. I was there with Lancaster, CA and he was there with Stinking Heaven. And again we were talking to Arthur...Arthur approached me and said hey, would you be interested in, if I paid you, I don’t know what he said, like $15,000 or something, would you be interested in making a film with me as its star?
Dawn: But he wanted it to be a fiction film, right?
Mike: Yeah, I think he thought we were gonna make some kind of genre film. You know, like, a Western, or I don’t know what he thought, but I think he thought he was gonna get to play some character other than himself.
The very first thing we shot was a long interview with him, which initially, instead of the round table interviews where we’re sitting drinking whiskey with him, we had interviews we were doing with him about all the stuff we thought was interesting about him. But when we actually started interviewing him for the movie he was not answering questions like he was during the festival, and he was being really evasive and just like, annoying. He thought he was being really interesting, playing hard to get. And I was trying to explain to him, like Arthur, no one is gonna watch this movie. This isn’t interesting. No one wants to watch that for an hour and a half. I don’t even wanna watch it, and I’m making it! So that was kind of the start of the battle, and restructuring the movie while we were shooting it.
Dawn: Have you seen I, an Actress?
Mike: No, I haven’t.
Dawn: While watching your film I was thinking about how the Kuchar brothers would push their actors to the limits. I, an Actress was just an 8 minute screen test that they were doing with an actress, but George Kuchar just keeps pushing her, and he goes in and interacts with her. It ends up being this beautiful stand-alone piece.
Mike: In all my films I use Cory [Zacharia], and in Nathan’s movies he uses his mom and a lot of times he uses non-actors as well, and we’ve both gotten slack for our films for exploiting the people we use. It doesn’t bother me one way or the other because obviously if you don’t fuckin’ like the movie, go make your own movie with that person.
I also just don’t believe in the idea of exploitation in that sense. Everyone on Actor Martinez got exploited, us included. We didn’t get paid very well, everyone worked for super cheap...you know what I mean? So exploitation goes all the way around.
But I mean, I definitely think we’re interested in pushing those ideas in the movie, just to see how people would react when we showed it, you know. Even though things weren’t very exploitative, making it seem like they were just to get reactions to have that discussion of what is and isn’t exploitation. Arthur signed up for the entire movie and could’ve left at any time. He was in from the get-go and shows up to every fucking festival, and every Q&A. It’s always funny when I run into someone who’s implying that I exploited him and I’m like, well, you see this motherfucker here with a smile on his face. He’s riding this entire wave. And if you don’t like it, I totally understand it’s not for everyone.
Dawn: Maybe there’s just a different word that I’m thinking of other than exploitative, because that seems so fucking harsh, but at the same time it’s appropriate for this.
Mike: I know what you mean, it seems like it’s too harsh, but I don’t know what the other word would be.
I also think like it almost becomes this offensive thing when someone says something like that. Because I sometimes feels like they’re saying like this person isn’t worthy of being a lead in a feature film because they don’t have the stereotype of being the most handsome or being the most beautiful woman. This idea that only a certain kind of person is worthy of leading a feature film, which I just don’t agree with. Like why can’t Arthur be a lead in a feature film, or let’s just say a kid with Down syndrome, or whoever. Like why can’t you watch a movie with that person, and let it be what it is?
Everyone in their life says stupid shit all the time. The smartest person in the world says stupid shit all the time. Or people like Arthur, or someone like me. And I think that’s ok to celebrate that and be like, not everyone has to look cool all the time because the fuckin’ truth is, that’s what Richard Linklater says, most of us are losers most of the time. And that’s ok, I think. Sorry if I’m not Brad Pitt. If it’s not Brad Pitt, it’s not a real film and you’re exploiting the people in it. Fuck off. It’s such a weird, narrow-minded idea of who is allowed to be in a movie.