A Man Worth Listening To: John Cusack

In the new ensemble film Maps to the Stars, John Cusack was  given the opportunity to work with director David Cronenberg. As the chilling psychologist Dr. Stafford, Cusack embraces a dark storyline, the kind he’s never really gotten to sink his teeth into in films like American Sweethearts and Hot Tub Time Machine. While he doesn’t see the film as a satire about Hollywood (despite it being about two former child stars) Cusack did have some choice words about the industry as a whole.

Tell me about your own story of getting into this movie.

For me, once something comes on my radar I want to find out more and more. Once I knew that David had a new film, he was kind enough to keep talking to me about it.

People are always talking about how important it is to work with people you like and trust and admire. In that sort of situation, does it even matter what the project is? Or do you trust him enough that you want to work with him?

For a guy like David and the kind of films he makes and the way the movie business has sort of disintegrated–not totally thought because it just sort of shifted to cable TV where that’s the place you can make adult things–he’s still a connection to that past. If he had called up and said ‘I want you to do a cameo’ I would have done it, but I probably would have done whatever he wanted. Because I would know that it’s interesting and thought-provoking. But I did want to read it and see if the part was interesting. I thought it was pretty good.

I have a favourite author who writes satire, and he once said that satire and humour is what happens when we hear the truth quicker than we’re used to. This movie is obviously a dark satire, but I wanted to ask what truth are you guys saying quicker than we’re used to?

I would think that sometimes satire or absurdism is a logical extension of the current truth as it’s trending. It’s just that you follow it down the road or around the corner. I think this is sort of a lurid fever dream of Hollywood, but it’s also about family and ghosts and not being able to escape your past. Moving in concentric circles. What truth are we saying real fast? I don’t know, there’s a bunch of themes in the movie that are pretty relevant. If Dante’s Inferno were set in Hollywood; that’s what I think he did.

You’ve done a satire of Hollywood before (I’m thinking of American Sweethearts) and you wore leather pants in that movie because it was the 90s and leather pants were a thing. But, is it possible to make Hollywood satires without burning any bridges or biting the hand that feeds you?

There is no hand, there are only jaws. Nobody cares which dog eats which dog. No one gives a fuck. I don’t think there’s much to satirize about Hollywood. I think Bruce [Wagner, who wrote the screenplay] and David  used this setting to explore a bunch of themes in a clever way. Hollywood is the capital of illusion. It’s the dream factory and there’s still that pull to it. In any of those kinds of places there are going to be predators and opportunistic types and weasels and freaks. I don’t know what there is to say about Hollywood really, but it is still such a powerful myth. When I was coming back from TIFF, I turned on the TV and saw the TIFF coverage and they had a graph following Justin Bieber with a dot in real time tracking him into a mall to cover a kiss with Selena Gomez and figure out what they were buying. What fucking chance do any of those kids have? What are these fucking adults on these news shows doing? What editors do that and then go home and look at themselves in a mirror? And this is Toronto, this is TIFF, this is a classy place. Just think about what it must be like in LA. I was a little sad like ‘Oh, this isn’t Toronto.’ I’ve had great experiences here, the journalists are always great, there’s a great Midwest Canadian feel to it, everyone’s not full of shit and the paying customers get a better sense of what goes on. It’s way better in Canada. But during TIFF it goes celebrity berserk.

That’s one thing I think a lot of people admire about you is that you can see through bullshit.

Yeah. I mean, it’s not that hard to see through that.

Generally, I think that’s something that resonated with people about you. I wonder about these situations where you must want to talk about things that are more important than  entertainment journalism.

Yeah, but I do. A lot of the time, if I can get good movies like this or make my own, which is harder and harder to do, I do other movies just to fund other things I do like option a book or put on a play. So that’s how I’ve managed to do it, but I write and talk to other people about serious things from other parts of my life. I find that some people still write about film in an interesting way. The rise of  blogs have made everyone even more snarky and elitist, but there are also smart people who get to write about it. I like that they get equal time. There’s good and bad, but I think there’s better journalism now. There’s a resurgence of real journalism. Right now culture still feels snarky.