Issue 19 (Mar 2012)

Many, many years ago Brandon Auret and I spent most of our days studying drama at Pretoria University of Technology, and most of our nights either rehearsing for plays, performing them or playing guitar and singing covers in bars and restaurants all over Pretoria, sometimes getting paid in pizzas and beer. Hey, what else did we need?

Initially our careers were pretty closely matched; we both had our first professional break in Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor® Dreamcoat, we both made our television debuts as costumed characters in children’s shows and we even shared the stage in Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story in 1998/99.

But that’s where our paths parted. Brandon went on to make his name as the fan-favourite character Leon du Plessis, in the South African television daily drama Isidingo, and I went to London to starve to death.

For eight years Brandon graced our television screens before moving on to bigger things.

A brief appearance in District 9 lead to a friendship with director Neill Blomkamp, which has led to him being cast in Blomkamp’s new movie, Elysium, currently in post-production.

Brandon’s latest film, Rancid, is set to open in the US on 200 screens – not bad for a low-budget South African movie.

Your latest movie, Rancid, is apparently getting a 200-screen theatrical release in the States. Is that right?
The director told us two weeks ago that he’d signed a deal with an overseas distributor and that they’d like us to go over there and be part of the publicity tour for 200 cinemas. It’ll be a six-week tour.

That’s amazing. So you’ll be doing premieres and red-carpets and all that?
Oh, I hope so.

[laughs]Let’s face it, it is the only glamorous part of this job, isn’t it?
I want to know if it’s worth it. I want to walk down there and just go, “Oh, so this is what those okes experience. Awesome.”

Tell us a bit about Rancid.
The story is about a company that’s busy designing some kind of wonder drug and they have these participants come in who all have different diseases and different personality disorders. They all sign their lives away for the next four days, take these tablets and wake up four days later, alone in a hospital. There are these creatures running around and they are, slowly but surely, turning into something of the sorts. That’s what the story is about, and yeah – there’s a nice little twist at the end as well.

Sounds like a 28 Days Later, that takes place inside the hospital.
Pretty much like that, that’s a very good way to describe it. It was also shot on a Canon 7D and the director and the DOP… Just they way they shot it, because it was a very small crew, there was only one cameraman, and one focus-puller and the cameraman did his own lighting. But because it’s such a small camera they were able to get some really, really interesting shots in the movie, you know it’s shot really beautifully and it’s edited really cleverly.

I’ve watched the trailer, and it looks fantastic. It also looks extremely messy.
Yeah, there’s a lot of blood and guts in it. A lot, a lot. And you know what, it’s amazing, this is how small the crew was – the girl who did the make-up was also the girl who did special effects and also did special effects make-up and did costume and did food and everything like that.

[laughs] It really was a skeleton crew that we worked with. But you know it was all about the end product, and the end product looks amazing. I think that’s why the Americans bought into it, because I don’t think they believed that Alastair [Orr] was able to shoot a movie of that quality on that budget, if you know what I mean. In our terms, I think it was a R380 000 movie. Which is low, low, low budget, but for the Americans it works out to about $70 000, which is ridiculous, I mean, that’s not even the budget for a pilot.

That’s like a student film budget.
Ja. So for them to realise that they can make their money back by distributing this film all over the world, flight it in 200 cinemas, invite some of the actors over there for six weeks and do, what I suppose at the end of the day we want all our movies to achieve, and that is have the appreciation of the people that go to watch it.

Which brings me to my next point. That’s the problem in this country [South Africa]. The problem is not our filmmakers or our films; the problem is our filmgoers. And it’s a cultural thing, it’s easy for them to go and watch a Leon Schuster movie or a Bakgat or whatever, but the minute you label something South African, they’re like, “Hmm, we don’t really know about it, we’ll wait for it to go to DVD.” But the minute something in South Africa gets international approval then all of a sudden their ears get perked and they’re like, “What? So it’s a South African movie, and it’s good? Wow.”

We’ve been saying the same thing about South African books. There has been a wonderful bout of local genre fiction writers…
They’re not writing movies for the South African market, which is the way to go. Screw the South African market if they’re not going to support us, we know that the rest of the world does. Because to the rest of the world, South Africa is a honey pot.

Absolutely. We have the worst view of ourselves than anyone in the world. If you tell someone you’re South African people go, “Wow, that’s awesome,” but we’re embarrassed to say that.
And the enlightenment comes, and you’ve experienced it yourself: when you go overseas and work on an international movie, your race, country, religion, or wherever your loyalties are, doesn’t really make a difference. You’re seen as ‘the talent’ and you’re treated as such. You’re not a worse talent because you’re South African, you know, you’re as important as the next talent.

Absolutely. Cast is cast – you’re all there doing the same job.
Exactly. It’s important to them and I think in this country that’s the biggest problem – that we do undersell ourselves and accept mediocrity, and I think that’s where the bullshit lies and we’ve gotta stop that. At some point it has to stop because somebody has got to realise that there is a real business out there. Somebody needs to sort it out, because who ever is running our film industry and our distribution industry, really don’t have any idea what they’re doing.

But let’s get back to Rancid. You play a character called William Hunter, is that correct?
Yes.

And are you one of the test subjects?
Yeah, he is. You get introduced to the test subjects one –by –one. There are four of them, and, once again, I think that’s my calling, I kind of offset everybody’s worst nightmares. But you know, with it being a horror genre, things always, without giving too much away, they don’t always turn out to be what you think they are. But maybe it is.

It’s a very well-written script. And that’s the problem, a lot of times people see “low-budget” and they don’t go and audition for it. But it was a really well-written script and it unfolds beautifully on screen. He’s an interesting character, I enjoyed playing him. He has a lot of anger, a lot of anger issues.

Yeah, there’s a shot in the trailer of you chucking a bunk bed against a wall.
[laughs] I won’t explain why.

So when does Rancid release?
It releases in the US in May.

You started out on Isidingo? Was that was your first gig?
No. Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor® Dreamcoat.

Aah, but that was on stage. You did Joseph? When did you do Joseph?
With Mark Sykes, at the Theatre on the Track.

Oh, so six months after me. Right, that was ’94.
Yeah, Philip Godawa was the director. That was my first gig.

But you really came to the public eye in Isidingo as the character Leon du Plessis (Dup).
Well I did a lot of stage and a lot of musicals. I didn’t really get on TV until ’97. Up until that point I’d done basically musicals, stage shows, rockumentaries and tribute shows, stuff like that. But I knew what I wanted to do, which was get into film. I kind of left it in destiny’s hand, but, as actors do, we do what we need to survive.

Absolutely, especially here. How long were you on Isidingo?
Long time, eight years.

You played a single character for eight years, and obviously you got to know the other cast members, so it must’ve been a bit of a family there. So what was it like leaving that and going back out on your own again?
I think the choice was easy, but dealing with the aftermath of leaving was hard. The reason I left was because I’d only played one character for eight years. I was getting tired of it and it was becoming mundane and boring and my artistic integrity was taking a bit of a dive because it became like a sausage factory, you know what I mean? It became a job.

But the problem is you get stuck on a TV programme that long, you kind of carry that label with you. I’ve been out of it now for almost eight years and people still call me Dup, you know.

And that’s, I don’t know, I see it as a compliment, because it means somewhere down the line my character embedded himself into the viewers minds, but the problem is that directors and producers and big companies that are busy getting their ads cast, they see that and they go, “You know you’d be great for this ad, but you’re Dup.”Or: “We’d like to cast you in this TV series, Brandon, but… you’re Dup.”

[laughs] I did Angel’s Song, and I did One Way after that, but then for about three years I, phew, hey dude – I can’t even remember how I survived. Thank God for my credit card, it kind of got me through some hard times, because people were just not… they were not seeing past the Dup character. So I went on a massive diet, lost a shitload of weight, cut my hair all off, and then I landed my first movie role, which was minor, in an international movie, Catch a Fire.

That’s with Tim Robbins, right?
Yeah, directed by Phillip Noyce.

And what was it like transitioning from a daily television show to a film set?
It was like starting all over again. It was like walking onto a totally new environment but it felt good, it felt right. It felt like, “yeah man, this is what it’s all been [about], all I’ve been through up until this point has been worth it because of this moment.”

And I kind of knew then that things were going to start happening. I didn’t quite know how but I kind of knew that this was right.

And there were some really good movies after that, and some really shit ones, you know. A lot of the times in this country we don’t get paid for a movie. I think Hansie is a very, very good movie, I think it’s a beautifully shot movie, but they didn’t pay me for it. They paid me [a couple of days pay] and then they said to me, “No, no, we don’t have any more money,” and this was after the big theatre release and all this shit and I’m like “Whatever, dude.”

But I’m glad that I did it anyway, you know, it’s the same with the Race-ist; I’m glad I experienced it. It’s a crap movie, but they didn’t pay us for it. But then you get the gems, you get the Night Drives and the District 9s, you get the Rancids, where they do pay you. It’s not a lot of money but you’re working with amazing people and you learn so much in that kind of environment when you’re around people who are backing you up 100% in whatever it is that you’re doing.

So I did like a movie a year, and in between I had to go and do other stuff like Barnyard [Theatre] stuff and corporate functions and this and that.

But I really want to get involved in the film industry in our country. I’ve got a company called A Breed Apart Pictures now and it’s time to take our stories to the rest of the world.

I really believe we can. We’ve just got to somehow, I don’t know, get finances behind it, people that believe in the industry and know that it’s not going to happen overnight, and invest in it.

I think it’s more to do with the marketing than the financing, to be honest, because over the years we have become extremely good at shooting excellent product for very little money, but then that product just gets buried. No one watches it.
Ja, ja, you’re 100 percent right there, Joe, it’s the marketing and distribution. We only have Ster-Kinekor and NuMetro and they rip the companies off because they take 60% off the tickets, just right off the top, and nobody is going to make money unless you are Leon Schuster and you’ve been offered 94 cinemas as opposed to a movie like Night Drive, which was only offered twelve.

Yeah, I wanted to see it, I had seen the trailer, I knew it was coming and then it was gone already and I didn’t even know it had been released. It just disappeared.
But that’s my point, again. A movie that didn’t do really well in this country, is doing well overseas. Its opening weekend in China was unbelievable, you know.

Well, it’s a terrifying movie, I mean, just from the trailer. It is fucking terrifying.
[laughs]You know that M-NET [SA Cable network] said no to it? “It’s just not something we can show,” and I’m like, “Are you kidding me?”

Whatever, but it was a really good movie. That really made me fall in love with acting again, because I worked with a director who really pushed the limits and was more obsessed about the characters than the storyline, you know.

Of course you worked with your old Isidingo partner, Chris Beasley.
Yes, and he’s amazing in the movie. He’s wasted on Isidingo, and you can quote me on that.

To be honest, I think most actors are wasted on Isidingo; you and I studied with most of them and we know they’re all fucking phenomenal actors.
Ja, but you know dude, it’s lekker, you get caught up in it.

Sure, it’s a steady paycheque.
I’m not gonna lie, dude, it was the most comfortable eight years of my life. It was a salary every month, it wasn’t an amazing salary but believe me when you have a salary every month your problems become less. Suddenly banks take you seriously: “Can we have six months worth of statements?”

“Yes, you can. Here are my payslips.”

[laughs]You know what? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have never had six months worth of payslips.
[laughs] It’s a relief, hey, it’s an amazing feeling, but you get caught up in it. And that becomes your reason for [losing] any kind of momentum. Which for some people, I suppose, is cool, but people like us, who need to go and explore, and go and have an adventure in somebody else’s life for a minute, it’s not lekker, you know what I mean? It’s what we do.

Ja. Now, you were in District 9. Did you have any idea when you were shooting that film that it was going to be the most successful South African movie of all time?
You know Joe, I’ve got a story for you, my broer. We had no idea what Neill [Blomkamp] was doing. I mean Neill had me running through Soweto dressed up in old South African Defence Force browns, with full gear on, chasing after a black dude, calling him the K-word, telling him I’m going to put a bullet through his head if he doesn’t stop… I’m scheming, “My broer, why am I doing this in the middle of Soweto? Somewhere along the line someone is going to jump out and go, ‘Hey, you’re on Candid Camera.’” But it wasn’t.

It was callback, after callback, after callback. I think it was about three or four callbacks and then I was up for one of the leads, for the part of Kobus.

David James’s part.
Ja, and it came down to a decision between Peter Jackson and Neill, and because Peter Jackson had the final say he kind of went with David James, but in saying that, Neill came up to me afterwards and he said, “Look, do you still want to be in the movie?”

And that’s how I ended up being in the movie. Normally, you know what it’s like, you audition you don’t get the part and you never hear from them again. [laughs]

So I had a small little part in District 9 and then at the after-party Neill put his arm around me and he said, “You know, don’t worry about it (?),” because he’s a dude, you know, he’s not caught up in the whole la-dee-da-ness of movie making, he’s an oke, you know, and he says, “Dude, we’ll make a movie together one day.” And ja… I got the call, hey.

He came through.
He came through; he said to me he’s got a part for me in Elysium, would I be interested?
[laughs] I was like, “Ja, let me think about it…”

Let me check my calendar.
I had to send through an audition tape. They do things professionally, they had to go and show the producers, and I ended up working with… and I wish I had got to know him better in District 9, because he’s actually an incredible actor but he’s just a very complex person, is old Sharlto Copely. Because I didn’t spend a lot of time with him on District 9, we had no scenes together.

Ja, you’re on opposite ends of the storyline.
And in this movie we end up doing just about every scene that we have together. We end up playing these… um, you know, without giving away too much, we are a specialised unit that operates in the black-ops kind of regime and we are told to go and kill somebody for something.

[laughs] Right. And of course you got to work with Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, and one of my absolute favourite frikken actors, William Fichtner.
Ja dude, I didn’t even get to see him, man. He did a lot of his scenes in Mexico City. I had one day with Jodie Foster and… dude, you must understand, I hate to box actors, but she’s like one of my top five, you know what I mean?

Ja. Didn’t you play Bugsy Malone at some point?
[laughs] Listen dude, don’t even joke, you know what happened? [American accent] “Oh hey, how’s it going, you’re the guy playing Drake.” And of all the things I could’ve said to her, I went, “Hey, I’ve loved your work ever since Bugsy Malone.”

[laughs] She was like, “Really, Bugsy Malone?” And I am like, “Just keep walking, just keep walking.”

I could’ve said to her, “Hey, the first show I ever did as an actor was Bugsy, and I played Bugsy,” but no, I had already put both my feet in my mouth, so…

[laughs] So you’ve got a lot of fingers in a lot of pies, you’re an actor, you’re a singer, you’re a producer. How do you manage to juggle your time across all these things?
Um, it’s called survival.

[laughs] You know, it’s amazing – I tell people, “I’m not a singer”, I never have been, I’ve been able to kind of bullshit my way across all that. You know, at the end of the day I’m an actor. That’s one thing I’ve never been able to lie about, and I wish I could spend more time acting, but I can’t, because there’s just not that opportunity, so I’ve had to ‘act’ as a singer and ‘act’ as a this and ‘act’ as a that to try and make sure that, should something come along, like Elysium, or Rancid, that I have that time available to myself that I can say, yes, you know. So that’s why I do it. I keep myself busy for that one call, or for that one audition that we can go to and get that lekker part.

And now, I’m a dad as well, she’s going to be one-years-old next month. That’s the real reason, bro – I was doing so much just to feed my own ego, but right now it’s not about that, it’s about making money and making sure my daughter never has to go through what I went through.

You and I have the same background, I also started in musical theatre and all that, but I love the permanence of film. I love that my daughter, regardless of whatever happens to me, can see what I have done.
Isn’t that the best thing?

Of course, the movies that you and I do, our kids won’t be able to watch for another eighteen years. But it’s just that knowledge, and it’s silly, but I feel like I have left my mark in the world for her.
Your legacy.

Ja, no matter how small it is, no matter how silly it is.
Exactly what it is, broer.

So, what’s next for you? Anything lined up, other than a six-week tour?
Right now I’m waiting to go on the publicity tour for Rancid, and then it’s back to what I’ve been doing for the last three years, producing and trying to raise funds for scripts that I’ve been given. I’ve got two really, really good scripts that have been written by Justin Head and I want to produce them and I want to get them done in this country and I want take those films to the rest of the world. It’s business time now; I’ve got to take the Brandon actor suit off and put on the Brandon corporate suit on and go and convince people that putting their money into this movie is a good idea.

We wish you all the best for the future. Thanks a lot for talking to us, Brandon, and congratulations on everything.
Thank you, and thanks for this opportunity. I wish you guys all the best as well.

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From Issue 16 (Dec 2011)

DANNY TREJO HAS ONE of the most iconic faces in movies today, yet very few people know his name. Ask anyone if they’ve ever heard of him and most people will say no, then show them a picture and watch the recognition bloom across their face.

For nearly three decades Danny Trejo has been playing every type of convict or bad guy under the sun but thanks to Robert Rodriguez’s casting of him as a Mexican “Q”, who provides all the gadgets and toys to the heroes, in his Spy Kids movies, Danny Trejo’s popularity has evolved beyond “bad guy to have in your film”, to “fun guy to have in your film”.

Last year, of course, everything changed as Danny got his first-ever starring role, the Grindhouse fake-trailer inspired Machete (and soon Machete Kills and, we hope, Machete Kills Again), once again directed by Robert Rodriguez.

I was privileged enough to meet and work with Danny last year on Death Race 2 and I was completely taken aback by him. When you meet Danny he blows your preconceptions out of the water; this quintessential Hollywood bad-guy/thug/assassin is incredible friendly, funny and generous to a fault. He never turns down a fan asking for an autograph or a photo, so much so that it can take twenty minutes to walk out of a restaurant with him. And everybody recognises him. We were shooting in the township of Philippi last year for a few days, and Danny was accosted by a group of school kids just wanting to say hello to Uncle Machete. You literally could not get farther from Hollywood than Philippi, and yet even there he was recognised.

This industry can be very trying. There are lots of egos to contend with and the day-to-day work, although always different and interesting and fun, can often be extremely tiring and involve rather unpleasant working conditions or locations, so when an actor who’s been in the business for as long as Danny has, and has worked as much as he has is as pleasant and positive as he is, it really is a wonder. Every day he’s like a kid in a candy store. He is always excited about the day, is always in a good mood and is an incredibly positive person who, regardless of how hard or gruelling the day is, keeps everyone’s spirits up.

The following interview is a combination of two interviews we did with Danny, one by Vianne in March of 2010 and the other by me while recently on a set visit to Death Race 3, where Danny was gracious enough to squeeze in an interview while taking a coffee break.
Unfortunately, due to the Cape Town wind blowing through my entire interview, my video footage is barely usable so I have added little snippets where the wind died down enough to hear Danny’s responses.
Vianne’s interview is available in its entirety at the bottom of the page.

What up, Homey?

Welcome back to Cape Town.
I love it here, I love it.

You’re not sick of it yet?
No, no, no, you can’t get sick of this place. This is where God takes a vacation.

How many times have you been here now?
Three now. It’s been a great experience every time. We did From Dusk Till Dawn two and three here.

How did you get into movies, Danny?
I was a drug councillor and I was working with this kid, and he called me one night and said, “Hey, come on down, I’m having a lot of problems staying off of drugs.” So I just went to hang out with him and ran into a friend of mine I knew in the penitentiary, a guy named Eddie Bunker, and he actually offered me a job training Eric Roberts how to box. So I started training Eric…

This is on Runaway Train?
…Runaway Train yeah, and Andrey Konchalovskiy, the director, saw me, saw that I could handle Eric, saw that he was scared of me (he says with a smirk) and asked me to box as his opponent in the movie.

So it was kind of accidental.
I call it divine intervention.

Did you ever expect to be here?
Nah, I mean I could’ve made that first movie and then been done with it, but every movie I did people would come up to me and say, “Good job!” “Are you sure?” “Yeah.” They paid me scale – it was more money than I’d ever made. First five years of my career, I never had a name, I was like, ‘Inmate #1’, you know. I thought that was cool.

Was that weird, to step back into a film version of prison after having spent as much time as you did in actual prisons?
Nah.

At what point did you realise that you were no longer that bit-part actor and that you had become a recognisable star?
I don’t know that I’ve ever stopped being a bit-part actor, you know. (Laughs) I’m just working and I’m happy to do the job. My first starring role was a movie called Machete and the only difference was that I get to kiss the girl, you know, I didn’t have to rape her.

As far as international stars go, you are an incredibly recognisable personality. How do you handle all the attention?
Well, people see me in the movies and then they see me in the street and they ask me for my autograph and “Can I take a picture?” Yeah. I’ll give anybody my time – I won’t let anybody take it, but I’ll give it to anybody.

What is your most memorable fan experience?
Oh God, I’ve had some great fan experiences. In an airport in Germany, I forget which town, but in the airport in Germany, I gave a little girl a card I used to carry, that said, “You are now a Spy Kid”. Thank God her mother was there ‘cause this little girl just started screaming [with excitement] looking at this card. Everybody in the airport was looking at this big Mexican guy in a tank-top in front of this little blonde girl screaming her head off, but her mother was right there so…

You are seen as a cult figure, very iconic, larger than life, how does any of that process to you as a human being?
Well, you know the whole world can think that, but I can’t. I even feel dumb saying the whole world. You know I am a parent, that’s what I am, and I want to be a good example for my children. I have three kids who adore me, whom I worship the ground they walk on… and all I want to do is be a great parent, so all that other stuff is just what I do.

What percentage of you is the badass we see on screen and what percentage of you is the good old-fashion gentleman?
(Laughs) The only bad-ass that there is, is the one on screen, other than that, you know I… I don’t even argue.

Which of your movies do you get mobbed for the most?
Well I’ve got to say Spy Kids, because all the kids know that, and kids have no qualms about running up to you anywhere they see you, and I enjoy that. I loved that movie, that was a Robert Rodriguez movie, and Robert told me when we did it, he said, “I’m gonna make you a household name,” and he did, Uncle Machete from Spy Kids. And for the adults, Con Air, everybody loved Con Air, everybody loved Desperado, Once Upon Time in Mexico, those big action movies, and now, all over the world… Machete.

When did you first hook up with Rodriguez?
I hooked up with Rodriguez when we did Desperado. He called me in to talk to me and I walked into his office and he said, “You remind me of the bad guys in my high school,” I looked at him and said, “I am the bad guys in your high school.”

We hit it off straight away. Then we found out later on we’re second cousins.

You now have a recurring role in Sons of Anarchy, this is your first recurring role on TV.
Yeah, I’ve done a lot of TV but usually one or two shots. They gave me eight episodes and then the ratings went up so they brought me back.

How does that differ from working in features?
It’s faster, a lot faster, boom, boom, boom, you know. It’s kinda the difference between a no-budget movie and an $80 million movie. 80 million you have time, you know, 6 million, you don’t, you know, it’s like, “let’s get it shot”.

I think some directors are just unbelievable with that, it’s like Robert Rodriguez, it’s just boom, boom, boom. I love his movies. I love Roel’s movies. Roel comes under the same umbrella, it’s “let’s get it in the camera,” and I think that’s what I like to do, I hate sitting in my trailer.

You’ve done a lot of movies, I mean in the 18 months between shooting DR2 and DR3 you’ve added just over forty credits to your resume.
Yeah, look I gotta confess a lot of those are like student films that they ask me to be in, or some super low-budget first-time project, and I love giving them a shot and I love working, not just on major films, I like helping people out. I’ve literally gone from student film to student film, three in two days, you know, bang, bang ,bang.

You just love to work, basically.
I love to work, and I love seeing, like a bunch of students, just really happy that you’re there. I love to see a first-time director think like, “wow, I really got somebody” (Laughs)
Fuck, it’s just me, man.

Now Machete was your first-ever starring role. What was it like to work with De Niro, whom you had worked with before?
I had worked with De Niro [in Heat], but De Niro, when he saw me on Machete he was like, “You… You’re number one, you’re number one on the callsheet, you,” and all I remember saying was, “can I get you some coffee Mr. De Niro?”
(Laughs) So once we got De Niro on there everybody else signed on. We had some heavy hitters on it; it was an honour to work with those people.

And Machete Kills?
It’s happening. We start in January. That’s what Rodriguez wants.

Last question Danny. Personally I find you one of the most inspirational people I have ever worked with. You’re an incredibly positive man. How did you get to that from where you began? You’ve been doing this so long, and you always seem so happy, so proud, so positive.
You know I think part of that comes from where I come from, you know? 1968 I was on my way to the gas chamber, so, I’m not even supposed to be here, so for me to be upset is like…it’s like slapping God in the face, you know? For me to come to Cape Town, South Africa, how can I be upset? I love teasing, I love teasing with the 1st AD saying, “I have no TV reception,” I don’t give a shit, I hate TV.

(Laughs) Or, “can I have a Chai latté with soy, hold the foam.” I mean we’re out in the middle of the fucking desert here, you know, I just tease. It’s really hard to upset me, if you see me upset then something’s wrong, it takes a lot, you know. I have lost all right to be upset, besides, you know, people ask me, “don’t you ever take a vacation?” Come on, I’m in Cape Town, South Africa, staring at Table Mountain, I’m underneath the 8th Wonder of the World, so what the fuck? I’m blessed, man.

Vianne Venter’s Interview with Danny Trejo – Mar 2010

Image from Machete © 2010 Twentieth Century Fox
Photo Credit: DeObia Operei

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Issue 12 (August 2011)

TO ANYONE WHO DOESN’T know her personally, Lauren Beukes must seem like some superhuman creative force of nature. Her credits include producer, scriptwriter, director, ex-journalist and novelist, to which she recently added Arthur C Clarke Award winner and comic-book writer. To those who do know her, she is all of these things plus the mother of a three-year-old, a fervent promoter of South African writers and all round lekker chick.

In every interview she has given since having won the Clarke Award, Lauren has never failed to mention other South African writers worthy of international recognition.

Now that really is what makes her a superhero, using her power to do good.

I interviewed Lauren a week before the Clarke Awards were announced, and at the time, neither of us knew she had won. Three months later I thought I’d catch up with her again to see how things had changed since the win, and to help promote her tour to the US in August for Worldcon.

The last time we did an interview with you we were both sneak-attacked. We were doing a Clarke Award interview and neither of us knew it. So this time around I get to ask the question; how does it feel to be the winner of the Arthur C Clarke award?

LAUREN: Very, very strange, I’m still getting used to it, it’s still kind of weird. When they announced it on the night, I didn’t believe them. Firstly, it didn’t register and secondly my hands were shaking for like half an hour afterwards. The next day I was terribly hung over; I’d had two hours sleep, my brother had ensured that I really did celebrate it, and I was riding the subway to meet some friends for lunch and I was thinking, “Maybe I should get off at Angel, or Highbury & Islington, that might actually be a better stop and – HOLY CRAP I WON THE CLARKE AWARD” There were just these little moments of amazingness – it didn’t seem real and then suddenly there were these bright bursts of happiness and disbelief, it was really nice.

And it was handed to you by China Miéville.

LAUREN:Yes, just ridiculous, it was ridiculous.

Has it sunk in now, properly?

LAUREN: I think it has sunk in, mainly ’cause people keep harassing me for interviews, [laughs], but ja, it’s been very strange. We’ve got an amazing South African satirist called Tom Eaton, and he sent me this hilarious email asking, “What do you do with the corpse of a dead guy? You’ve got to make sure to keep the cats and babies away from him, make sure the flies don’t manifest too much,” But it’s been interesting because I suddenly feel a lot more pressure. I feel like I have the ghost of Sir Arthur standing behind me, kind of peering over my shoulder as I type, going, “Yeah, it better be good. Better keep typing, better be better than the last one.”

Oh, don’t do that to yourself. The point is I think you’ve been awarded on the merit of your creation and therefore continue to create the way you created before.

LAUREN: Well it’s nice because I’m working on the new novel and I’m going through agonies of insecurity and self-doubt and I’m like, “Oh, this is the Clarke Award, it’s messing me up,” and Matthew is going, “No, this is your normal process, trust me, I’ve been through it three times before, this is how you are when you start a book.” And I think that helps a lot. It is this incredible, amazing accolade, and the international recognition and to be ranked up there with authors like China Miéville and Margaret Atwood, but at the same time it’s also… You know my normal life continues and my friends and my family keep me grounded. My kid climbs on my head and my husband’s like, “Yeah, yeah okay, whatever, award winner, wash the dishes,” and that’s great. It’s really nice to be able to just live a normal life and be grounded and not get a giant head where I can’t walk through doors.

Well I think the point of awards like this is to give you recognition and to show the world that, “Hey, this is a good author, check her out.” But I think from your peers’ perspective, it’s a pat on the back that says, “Well done, keep at it.”

LAUREN: Yeah, absolutely, definitely. There’s also been a lot more interest in the book in South Africa as well. It’s gone onto two new print runs in SA.

Which is unheard of.

LAUREN: Well, it not unheard of if you’ve written a boarding-school memoir, but ja, that’s really cool. I’ve got a lot of people reading it. I’ve also had a lot of people recognising me on the street, which is really weird, it freaks me out.

That’s really weird for a writer.

LAUREN: For a writer, I know. If you’re Die Antwoord, fine, but so I feel like I can’t step out and run to the garage in my slippers anymore.

The problem with recognition is it always happens when you least expect it. Most recently I was recognised by my plumber, “Aren’t you in Death Race 2?”
And it’s 8 O’clock in the morning and I’m my pjs and slippers.
“Yes, yes… Um, the toilet’s not flushing.”
It’s not what you want is it? You have these ideas of the glamour, but it never works out that way.
Have doors opened up that were previously closed?

LAUREN: I think they might have been ajar, but now they’ve bust open. Certainly I’d had some press interest before and it’s just now coming from unexpected angles that hadn’t paid attention to my work previously. So in South Africa, for example, Huis Genoot and You magazine did a feature on me, which was awesome.

There’s 700, 000 readers right there.

LAUREN: I know, and Die Beeld and Die Burger, and I’ve never really had attention from the Afrikaans press, minor abuse, but suddenly they’re doing like a full-page article and that’s really amazing to be able to address that audience, and to get that kind of reach is awesome.

Doesn’t it freak you out that you kind of need to break all barriers overseas before your fellow South Africans take notice of your work?

LAUREN: It is weird and I do see that happening. I mean we saw that happening with Die Antwoord for example, and Neill Blomkamp, who made Alive in Joburg [in 2005], which was amazing. I think there is a cult following who do see that. I think it’s the difference between more mainstream people and the pop-culture addicts. I mean I went to see Die Antwoord when they were Max Normal, and when they were Constructus Corporation, every single incarnation that Waddy Jones has had, I’ve seen, and just because the rest of South Africa hadn’t heard of him didn’t mean he wasn’t recognised or a success, but it was just in such a small community.

I think what the international thing does is it breaks it open to the mainstream and suddenly you get the people who weren’t paying attention. It kind of breaks through… I guess they have cultural barricades up, and I think a lot of that, unfortunately, is against South African stuff, you know. I was reading on a major women’s news website in South Africa recently, on the book reviews page, about how the writer just hates South African books, or she doesn’t read them because they’re not entertaining. And I’m like, “You are reading the wrong books. I don’t think you’ve tried a South African book in ten years, because that is absolutely not true.” I mean, Deon Meyer’s Thirteen Hours was riveting, I couldn’t put it down, it’s an amazing thriller, and SL Grey’s The Mall was just horrifying and terrifying. I never read Chick-Lit but Fiona Snyckers’s books Trinity Rising and Trinity on Air are just fabulous and fun and smart and they’ve got a nasty little satirical edge and they get a dig in on social issues. I think that is what South African literature does so well, even our entertaining stuff does kind of address those social issues as well, but not in a ham-fisted or laborious or painful way. So when I read stuff like that [writer's comment] I just wanna shake people.

Having said that, at least it has introduced South African readers to your work and through your interviews you never stop punting other South African writers, and hopefully that allows South Africans to discover the wealth of talent we have in this country.

LAUREN: Definitely. I think any international success is like that. When Damon Galgut was up for the Booker last year, suddenly people were like, “Oh, a South African is up for the Booker, oh, well maybe there’s some other good stuff out there.”

I’m just thrilled. Five years ago, personally, I didn’t know a single writer and I didn’t know any South African writers and now I’m just so excited to be surrounded by successful South African writers everywhere. I think there is beginning to be more of a following and support for local writers, which is amazing. Especially with places like The Book Lounge putting so much behind that.

LAUREN: Absolutely, even Exclusive Books, though they get a bad rap, and there’s lot of controversy about books being slammed into the “African” section, which is a book store apartheid and it’s really painful because no one looks there. But I think they are very supportive of local authors, and I’ve had a lot of support from Exclusives, which has been amazing.

But besides books, at the moment you’re busy on the third novel, but you’ve also been working on comic books, and your documentary, Glitterboys and Ganglands, premiered last month at the Encounters Festival, and how did that go?

LAUREN: It went fabulously. It’s about the biggest female impersonation beauty pageant in Cape Town. We followed three hopefuls right through the process of getting through the semi-finals, right through to the big night. We got all the girls along who participated in the pageant to come to the premiere and it was really fun and fantastic, and everyone looked completely gorgeous. It was such a pleasure to work on, it was really fun.

And it obviously had a good response, I think you added an extra screening or two.

LAUREN: We did add an extra screening, it sold it really, really quickly and it’s going to be on at the Out In Africa festival, which is happening in August.

And are you sending it to any other festivals?

LAUREN: We are, we’ve sent it to Sundance and Toronto and The London festival and we’ve got a whole list of places we’re sending it to, and it’s also been sold to the SABC so it will be aired on SA TV.

Now tell me about the comic books. The last time we spoke you had just done the one shot and now there have been more developments.

LAUREN: Well, it’s just been announced at Comic Con so I am actually allowed to talk about it now. So what I did was a short 9-pager called All The Pretty Ponies for Strange Adventures, which was an anthology collection. And the editor I worked with really liked it and really liked my ideas, but I had spoken to her two years before that, I think somebody commented on this the other day, “Oh my God you make it look so easy, ” and I’m like, “I’ve had two years of email with this editor and waiting for months and ‘yes we’re interested’ but no it’s not ready yet.’

You don’t see the backlog of which goes in behind that and the real hard work to get to this point.

So I put in a proposal two years ago and it got approved a couple of months ago and I’ve been since working on that and it’s actually a spin-off of Bill Willingham’s Fables, which is about magical fairy tale people who are fleeing from the homelands, and they’re kind of refugees in New York, so it’s really great. It’s just a wonderful, incredibly imaginative, epic scale series. I met Bill at World Con in 2009 and he actually sent me to see his editor at Vertigo and they asked me to pitch specifically on the character of Rapunzel, so I pitched a story on Rapunzel set in Japan, because I’d never really got into Japanese fairy tales and I really wanted to explore that and play with that. And they loved the proposal and I’ve just finished the first one and I’ve got another… It’s going to be a six-parter.

So all of these things are basically just coincidence that it’s all happening at the same time. I mean since winning the Clarke award it’s been kind of like, Zoo City, followed by Vertigo, followed by Fables followed by doccies.

LAUREN: It’s terrible, on Twitter I sometimes feel like I can’t talk about it because I’m like, “Oh god, you know I was promoting my book a moment ago, well I also have this comic, and then I also have this documentary and… I’m sorry I’m going to shut up now.” But ja, it’s pure coincidence and the timing is actually terrible because I’m having to work on everything at the same time, and I just got this TV series for the SABC on Matric Dances, you know it’s “Not My Super Sweet 16″.

We’re really looking at what it means to be young in South Africa today, and the range of experience of what that is and just using the Matric Dance as a kind of a lens and that’s happening now as well, so I’ve got the comic book and I’ve got the TV show, I’ve just done a Facebook game and I have a new novel which my agent is hakking me for so…

When’s that due?

LAUREN: Hmmm, I can’t talk about it.

Okay. Now you’re off to the States soon, so lead us through your tour.

LAUREN: I’m going to [World Science Fiction Convention] Worldcon, it’s happening in Reno this year. I’m mainly going because I’m up for the John W. Campbell award, which is not a Hugo award officially, but it’s part of the Hugo ceremony. But I’m up against some really solid writers, including Lev Grossman, who wrote The Magicians, who also is Time Magazine’s book critic, as well as Saladin Ahmed, Larry Correia and Dan Wells.

So I’m up against some really amazing, amazing writers and I don’t know how much chance I stand, and it is a popular vote so there might well be readers who have never heard of me, or I don’t resonate with them because South Africa is just too strange and weird or somebody else is just an infinitely better writer.

My philosophy in awards is if you’re going to lose, lose to amazing brilliant writers.

So you’re safe with this crowd.

LAUREN: [laughs] Well the BSFA award I lost to Ian MacDonald (The Dervish House) and I’m happy to lose to Ian MacDonald any day. And in the South African awards, The M-Net Literary Prize and University of Johannesburg prize [Ivan] Vladislavic (Double Negative) won, and that’s fantastic.

So other than Worldcon, where else will you be?

LAUREN: I’m also stopping in New York on the way there; I have a reading at the New York Public Library in Manhattan, which is really cool. And that was organised for me through Twitter. I asked if anyone had any contacts and this amazing architect set me up with the New York Library the 15th of August. I’m doing KGB Bar, which I have always wanted to do, on the 16th in the evening and then I’m going to Reno, and I have a whole bunch of different events which I’m going to put up on a schedule on my website, and then I’m going to San Francisco and do a reading at Borderlands, and maybe some other readings at some genre bookstores in Berkeley.

That sounds fantastic.

LAUREN: It’s really fun. Oh, and I’m stopping in London on the way. I’m going to be there for twelve hours, but the guys from The Clarke Awards and from PornoKitsch.com have organised some kind of event at the British Library, which will be really fun.

That sounds insane, you don’t even know what it is. They’re just going to pick you up from the airport and whisk you out there.

LAUREN: I know. Well, they’re going to whisk me to somewhere I can have a shower and then let me out in public after that.

Well Lauren, let me say, first of all, thank you for giving us this interview and secondly, thank you for putting South African genre fiction on the map, on the global map, and for just being a lekker chick.

LAUREN: Can I end with a reading recommendation list?

Absolutely.

LAUREN: Okay, South African authors you must read, and they’re not all genre writers:

The Mall by SL Grey, which is an amazing, terrifying horror which is all about consumerism and is devastating and very creepy.

Deadlands by Lily Herne, which is a YA set in a zombie apocalypse Cape Town. Very cool, very fun.

Sidekick by Adeline Radloff, it’s a book about a time-travelling superhero and his teenage girl sidekick, who has real issues. She lives in Tamboerskloof, which is my hood and it’s kind of a teenage rom-com meets superheroes, it’s great. Really, really fun and kick-ass.

Charlie Human has an amazing manuscript, which I’ve read. He was my MA student and it’s called Apocolypse Now Now and it’s about magical creatures in Cape Town and an apartheid chemist and general insanity. A giant mantis mecha features at one point, it’s just completely mad, it’s wonderful, it’s amazing, I can’t wait for him to get a publishing deal.

Sam Wilson has got a book called Commedia, which is a comedy set in Rome, about an acting troupe that is forced to perform religious plays, but all they want to do is plays with penises on their noses, which was apparently a big thing in ancient Rome. It’s like a Roman heist. It’s awesome, I can’t tell you how great it is. So those are upcoming titles.

Sifiso Mzobe has just won the Sunday Times Fiction prize for his novel Young Blood.

Fiona Snyckers writes fantastic, really kick-ass sharp, smart chick-lit and Deon Meyer’s thrillers are just amazing, also great crime-writers Margie Orford, anything she’s written, and Mike Nicol as well, really smart writing and he writes to musical soundtracks and he gives you a soundtrack list at the end and he’s like, “These are the songs I recommend you play while reading the book.”

Also, Zukiswa Wanner’s book about living in Joburg, and her last one was up for the commonwealth book prize.
There is just a wealth of amazing amazing writers, and people are missing out.

If you’re not reading South African fiction you’re missing out, and I know that there are duds out there, but just go to a bookshop where people actually know and get advice and get recommendations, and sit in the coffee shop and read ten pages and see if it grabs you.

To see Lauren’s full tour schedule, check out her Books Live blog

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	From Issue 11 (July 2011)
	approx 21 min

The doctor is small and grey-haired. He talks rapidly and jumps between subjects. It’s hard to believe that this abrupt little man headed up the team that implanted the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence into the body of a brain-dead teenager.

My editor is going to have a field day.

“It worked out well though. Her parents had given up, they were looking for a reason to pull the plug. Donating the body to science must have seemed easier.”

“And the purpose of the project Doctor, just to remind our readers?” My tone is neutral and engaging, but in my head I am grinning.

The little man looks up at me sharply and I stare back, feigning good-natured interest.

He picks up a biscuit and replies carefully, “We needed a way to teach them. The AI’s I mean. There was no other way they’d process us properly. Not without ‘knowing’ human, without experiencing it.”

He studies his biscuit intensely and I can see the slight tightening of his jaw as he speaks.

“It was a… a learning experience”

In my head, my grin becomes wolf-like.

Outwardly, I smile pleasantly and ask him about the science, to keep him relaxed. I will ferret out your secrets, Doctor; every horror, every monstrosity, every small abandonment of ethics. Everything that causes you to tighten your jaw as you lie to me.

I smile again, and sit back listening, as this unassuming old man plunges into the story of the most controversial science experiment of the century.

“The problem with the surgery was its technical complexity, keeping the synaptic connections alive, making sure the organic tissue didn’t reject the synthetic material and… are you listening?”

I nod placidly, watching his irritation with private amusement.

He is charmingly straightforward, this old man.

“Anyway, after the project stabilised, after the surgery – we managed the surgery seamlessly by the way –”

There is a touch of wounded pride in the offhand way he says that.

Perfect. Let him be angry, let him be defensive, let him be vulnerable.

That’s how people get careless.

“Anyway, after stabilisation the team decided to choose a name. No one had ever dreamed of attempting this before, and we had just done it. We wanted a name to, you know, celebrate.”

His face is softened for a moment by some distant memory.

“But the name had to be perfect, you understand.”

He is all enthusiasm now, trying to draw me into his long ago excitement. He forgives quickly then, this elderly scientist. That is useful too.

“We needed something to show that she -“

I start at the pronoun.

“- was a groundbreaker. Some of the others wanted Virginia, but that was vulgar.” He frowns.

“I suggested Core. Like the middle of a reactor.”

He looks at me pityingly. “Like Persephone, daughter of the Greek goddess of the moon and deity of spring and new life. Core was her other name. It means Maiden, as in ‘first’.”

I nod, stupidly, trying not to wince at his horrible pronunciation. Kohree, old man, not Core. And Demeter was never a moon goddess.

He continues, looking out into the garden. He has an omnitree orchard. It’s a nice touch, something like that in the middle of the city. He continues. “Well, I suggested Core- “

Kohree

“- and Core stuck.”

“The first few years were hard. For a long time she -“

This time I can’t help myself. “Wait. ‘She’? As in the machine?” I ask, gesturing incredulously at the thing wheeling itself clumsily along the path between the omnitrees. They’re producing pomegranates today. Nicely ironic, although I’m sure the reference is lost on the old man. He is talking again.

“We couldn’t just shove in a computer with no concept of personality or gender or social interaction or anything. The transition was hard enough, even after we programmed her with everything.”

I berate myself silently for being distracted by the trees. I almost missed that opening.

“Everything? Even emotions?”

Caught off-guard, he looks away sharply.

I swallow a small smile.

Then he turns his head back to me, his eyes on the ground and a softness like defeat in his shoulders.

“No,” he says evenly, “No, those came later.”

After that he natters on for a while, every bit the retired scientist. I tune out his heartfelt descriptions of the hardship of the years of catatonia, as he waited for the programme to learn its new operating system. I tune out the quiet regret with which he tells me how his team splintered around him, leaving him alone with the experiment. These are not what I have come here for. My editor pays me for scandal, not sentimentality.

It’s really only when his voice changes, hesitating, that I prick up my ears.

“It was after she woke up… after she began to adapt to the body that the … unexpected developments occurred.

I listen, waiting.

He steeples his fingers and sighs. A frown etches the wrinkles deep into his face, making him look older than he is.

“We were watching a film. ‘Human movies’ she calls them. Even now. I had to leave the room, I can’t remember why, and the next thing I knew she was calling for me desperately. I didn’t think. I just ran. She’d fallen out of her chair. She could hardly move then, worse than now, though I doubt she’ll ever be able to walk, not without major surgery to try and fix the damage to the donor body, at least.”

I file this away for a possible sympathetic slant on the machine, although the thought of doing that makes me cringe.

“I… tried to pick her up, see what had happened. And she just clung to me. She clung to me and she was, you know, crying.”

He tracks an imaginary tear trail down his cheek.

I watch, fascinated by the way the memory affects him.

“Crying uncontrollably, just like a scared little girl. A scared human girl.”

He lifts his head to the garden again and his eyes soften.

“She’d cried before but not … nothing like that.”

“Why?” I ask it candidly without meaning to, and clench my jaw in frustration. I don’t like uncalculated moves.

The Doctor doesn’t seem to notice though; he’s too caught up in his story.

“I sort of, tried to pick her up off the ground, but I couldn’t lift her. So I just…” He looked lost then. “I’ve never had children.”

I could see them then; the man struggling to hold it, this machine he had built into the body of a girl. I could see the way he’d try to comfort this thing that he had watched growing into a young woman while she was catatonic. I could see him afraid, he who had never had children. I wouldn’t have been afraid. I’ve seen chat-bots that cry, computers that laugh – hell, even skytrains are programmed with basic emotion simulation routines. Tears are easy enough to fake.

I ask again, controlled this time, “Why was she crying?

He looks up at me and for a moment I think he must have noticed my earlier lapse, then his expression evens.

He drops his voice conspiratorially: “You know, I asked her that too. She couldn’t tell me. She didn’t know.”

He sits back, regarding me keenly. “I think she has a lot less control than she pretends sometimes. Control over the body, I mean. The donor body. There’s so much we don’t know about cellular memory.”

It would have been heavy. A young woman’s body is heavy. He’d have known that he’d never be able to lift it, but he’d tried.

The Doctor is talking again. I swear under my breath and feign interest.

“Wait, cellular? Forgive me Doctor, but I don’t really understand computer terminology.”

Any act becomes more convincing with a grain or two of truth.

He sighs and begins explaining to me slowly: “Not battery cells, human ones. The biological unit of living matter.”

“But… cellular memory? What do you…”

“It’s a well documented phenomenon. Well, inasmuch as we know it exists.”

I can see him warming to my interest now, drawing closer to me through my questions. His animation almost brings out my smile.

“Cases of transference of properties, tastes usually, from the donor to the recipient, even if all they share is a kidney.”

I can see the trust, kitten-cautious, as he sneaks a glance at me. I keep my eyes gentle.

“- research into facial recognition of the donor’s family by the recipient. It was inconclusive, sure, but that was because it was never finished.”

I will win him over with gentle eyes and soft questions.

“Why?”

The Doctor smiles, rueful and knowing.

Just a little closer, old man.

“Funding was cut. The board couldn’t see enough practical application.”

I glance out at the machine under the omnitrees and quirk an eyebrow. The old man laughs with me.

“We know that something happens. Knowledge shifts from one body to the other, carried by constructs that are surely too small, too simple to have memory. But they do. Even a single cell of a single organ of a single human being… knows. And sometimes they can share that knowing.” He’s holding my gaze now, leading me along a chain of reasoning, confidently, surely.

I have no choice but to follow.

“I saw her crying and shaking and cringing away from the screen and trying to get out of her chair. There was a train wreck, you see, on the screen.”

He looks at me as if I should understand. I shake my head.

“The body donor was on the one-four-seven.”

I know that name… It was something to do with … “That was the skytrain collision? Head on, derailment, no… no survivors…”

I gape at him.

“If I were looking for a trauma so great that it imprinted onto the very cells, I wouldn’t look much farther than that.”

The fragments of science suddenly mesh into clarity

“That’s preposterous! Isn’t it?” I only just manage to soften the end, moderating my cynicism, giving him space to correct me. “The body wouldn’t – couldn’t- remember something like that surely?”

My tone is coaxing, placating, because even this nonsense, mad as it is, is not what I’m here for.

He doesn’t correct me, though. Just sits back and looks away.

“That’s what she said too, when I suggested cell memory. But it would happen sometimes. She’d know things she’d never learned, hate things she’d never experienced, prefer things for no reason. At first it terrified her.”

I must have looked sceptical because he smiles indulgently at me.

“Imagine a rationalising machine, because that’s all an AI is, when it starts out. Imagine a… a fancy pocket calculator that suddenly encounters uncontrollable, inexplicable reactions? It’s no wonder she hated it. It undermined her sense of self-determination. ”

I pick up a biscuit, nod to keep him talking and try not to scoff at the idea of a machine with a sense of self-determination.

The Doctor goes on. “Soon enough though, she adapted to that too. She even began to enjoy it, the freedom that irrationality can confer. She discovered baseless preferences, choices without recourse to objective logic. Free will, if you like.”

I nearly choke on my biscuit. A machine with personal preference? A computer making choices for nothing but itself? With the same ability that allows each one of us to become whatever we dream: writers or wreckers, dancers or dictators?

He laughs into his cup, glancing at the thing in the wheelchair and then at me. I swallow my shock. This is the moment.

I may not know machinery and I may not know science, but I know this.

This is the moment that he decides if he will trust me with it. He will choose if he will tell me the thing that has been shifting his eyes from mine, keeping his fingers drumming the table top. Now he decides if it’s safe to reveal to me the scoop that my editor is waiting for, the transgression or mistake or lapse that would shut down his project if it were to be printed. (It will be printed, old man, because scandal sells papers.) Now he is deciding if he will give me that which I have come looking for and if I will protect it as he has.

The Doctor licks his lips. I hold my breath, pulse racing. I have played my part well, but…

He darts a glance at me, something like shrewdness in his gaze.

Trust me, old man, my eyes say. Trust me, trust me.

He laughs into his cup, glancing at me, the kind-eyed journalist in front of him.

“Can you imagine a rationalising machine with fears and favourites and dreams?”

His tone is gentle, but still I’m stunned. Dreams? Tears I can buy, you can fake tears. Preferences I can buy, because of that whole cell memory thing, but dreams? We still know almost nothing about dreams. We can’t create what we don’t understand right? Right?

“You programmed it to dream?”

“I didn’t, no, but human can never be just a casing.”

“What?” the idea shocks me into honesty.

He drops my gaze then.

Incredulous, I realise he has more to say.

He stirs the coffee in his glass cup. It is probably cold by now. And then he tells me how they, how he and the machine, were sitting here a few days ago, when it told him it had been dreaming.

“She surprised me the way she said it. So unselfconsciously, totally unaware that nothing in her programming, nothing in her code should have given her dreams.

She just looked at me, her lips blue from that terrible children’s cereal she eats (that she eats because she likes blue). She sat here -”

He gestures at the empty seat next to him.

“- among the grass and the synth-soil and the omnitrees, and she said to me…”

The Doctor pauses and I wave him on impatiently.

“She said: ‘I dreamed of a green place where I could no longer go.”

He switches his gaze to mine and his eyes are sharp and wise.

He holds up his coffee, catching the late afternoon light in the depths of the dark liquid. “Don’t you think,” he asks, appearing to address the cup, “don’t you think that we’re just lonely? Humans, I mean. As a species. Why else would we chase the hope of other intelligences out among the stars so desperately? Why else would we ache to build machines that could understand us?” He turns the cup and the light splays out through it, refracting onto his fingers. “I think that. That we’re desperate to be seen by something other.”

“Can you imagine,” he asks, something thrilling through his voice that I have not heard before, “can you imagine being seen by an Other that is neither servant nor judge?”

Before I can answer, he points at the machine.

“There are things that she can never know because she is not human.” He pauses momentarily, decides against saying something more and then continues. “And there are things we cannot imagine knowing, because we are not her.”

I shake my head violently. “Rubbish!”  But the word is hard to say.

Outside in the garden, the daily four-fifteen shower has started.

“That’s rubbish!” But it’s an empty phrase. He knows that I hear him. He knows that I understand and that makes me hate him.

“You’ve done nothing more than put an electric motor in a dead human. That thing is nothing more than a twenty-first century zombie!” But his eyes see my confusion and laugh at me. I have no words now, no accusatory, shocked, righteous words, and he knows it.

He’s won.

But the Doctor’s gaze does not hold a winner’s complacency.

He sits up, pointing.

The machine is holding its hands up to the rain. It doesn’t seem troubled by it. In fact, it is singing.

I think I can see what he’s trying to show me. I think I know now what he wants…

“That’s nothing,” I croak, “nothing. The body is just used to songs.”

The Doctor shakes his head. “The voice is an instrument of the body, but the words… She chose that song for herself. The body donor never listened to vintage music.”

I begin to tremble.

I demand: “What have you done here?” but I already know the answer.

It sings of silver cities and flowing rivers.

“What have you made?”

The Doctor looks at me, almost kindly. I look at his creation, reaching from its wheelchair to the sky with the dead girl’s wisdom in its fingers.

“I’m not sure what I’ll send my editor now. He was expecting something big, you know, something shocking. This is the first interview you’ve allowed, after all. It was supposed to be a scoop.”  I try for annoyed but it comes out whiny and lacking conviction. I want to say more, but I can’t find the words. The Doctor is silent. His eyes say enough.

I watch the blonde girl tasting the rain.

Neither servant nor judge.

“The garden path will be slippery by now. Too slippery for that chair to manage. She’ll need someone to fetch her.”

He doesn’t move. I hesitate and stand up awkwardly.

I think I want to be seen.

As I step out onto the lawn, she turns her head towards me -

(Things we cannot imagine knowing…)

- There is hope in her eyes.

I walk out across the wet grass, calling over my shoulder as I do so:

“What do I even call her, now?”

The Doctor smiles very slowly, and tells me:

“Something New”

Copyright © 2011 by Abi Godsell
Illustration © 2011 by Vincent Sammy

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The Resident Member – A Radio Play

Written by Paul Marlowe

Adapted for Radio and Directed by Digby Young

On any given day, the intrepid members of the Etheric Explorers Club can be found frustrating prophesies, wrestling with ancient evils, and generally striding boldly down the dark alleys of life, in order to fill in those portions of man’s map of reality that are, perhaps, better left blank. As with any club, though, there are always members who stay behind so as not to miss a second helping of pudding. This is their story.

Starring Gideon Emery, Joe Vaz, Digby Young, Damon Berry and Christa Schamberger Young.

Final Mix by Simon “Fuzzy” Ratcliffe at Sound and Motion Studios in Cape Town

Originally Published in Something Wicked Issue 7

http://www.PaulMarlowe.com

© 2009 by Paul Marlowe, Digby Young and Something Wicked

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Read live by Lauren Beukes at The Lounge of Horror. Recorded at The Book Lounge in Cape Town on the 23rd of October 2009. In Association with HorrorFest V ((http://www.HorrorFest.info) and Something Wicked SF and Horror Magazine (http://www.SomethingWicked.co.za)

Mechanical Rights 2009 by Something Wicked and Inkless Media

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Read live by Sam Wilson at The Lounge of Horror.

Recorded at The Book Lounge in Cape Town on the 23rd of October 2009.

In Association with HorrorFest V ((http://www.HorrorFest.info) and Something Wicked SF and Horror Magazine (http://www.SomethingWicked.co.za)
Mechanical Rights 2009 by Something Wicked and Inkless Media

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Read live by Nerine Dorman at The Lounge of Horror.

Recorded at The Book Lounge in Cape Town on the 23rd of October 2009.

In Association with HorrorFest V (http://www.HorrorFest.info) and Something Wicked SF and Horror Magazine (http://www.SomethingWicked.co.za)
Mechanical Rights 2009 by Something Wicked and Inkless Media

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Joe Vaz, editor of Something Wicked, was on board to interview actors Jason Cope and Vanessa Haywood, as well as supervising producer Michael Murphey before an eager audience, covering everything from character, special FX, blowing stuff up and the movie’s theme, to shooting in South Africa, the director, and much more.
Special Q and A screening produced by Paul Blom and Sonja Ruppersberg for Flamedrop Productions.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Interviewer: Joe Vaz (Something Wicked)
Cameras: Paul Blom, Vianne Venter, Sonja Ruppersberg
Edited by Paul Blom
Music: “Venus Rising” by TERMINATRYX

http://www.FLAMEDROP.com

http://www.SomethingWicked.co.za

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Damon and Shane have a job to do, but one more beer won’t hurt. The streets are thronged with people, harmlessly going about their business… but night time is a-coming.

Night Time is a-Coming is written by Werner Pretorius and performed by Joe Vaz. Werner Pretorius was born in Pretoria in 1979, he holds degrees in Publishing and English from the University of Pretoria and is completing his Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Cape Town.

He is a part-time scriptwriter, a crack addict and has been to the moon, four times (Most of this is true.)

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Evan Morris is a full-time corporate drone who intends to become a full-time novelist, film-maker, poet, magician, indian rope trickster and rogue of the high seas. He lives in Centurion with his wife and two children and spends most of his spare time plotting their escape from quotidian reality, so far with only minor success.

His children have some promising ideas, though, and the whole family is committed to a life of high adventure involving, at the very least, balloon rides to the moon, aquatic jeopardy, and frequent swashbuckling. There might also be bodice-ripping and international intrigue in which the lives of billions hang in the balance. Possibly also a thousand elephants.

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Episode #1: Originally Printed in Issue 2 – Summer 2007: When Klippies Oosthuizen starts his routine journey from coast-to-coast across the South African plains to deliver a generator to a film set in Namibia, he has no idea what is in store for him. On The Road Again written and performed by Digby C. Young.

A retired Cinematographer, Digby Young started out as Principal Film Cameraman for the then brand new SABC.He’s co-written several TV series while directing hundreds of TV commercials. Digby now tends the fires of guerrilla filmmaking with keen young actors and directors, or holes up in his lair to write at ‘the clunker’.

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