Meet Hollywood

Mari Kornhauser

Interview with Tonya Todd

“My dog’s on Prozac. That should be the headline of this article”

When I met with Mari via Zoom, and she spoke to me with said dog in the haunted room of a very spooky house, it was immediately clear that I was in for an unconventional ride. Please give the readers a brief overview of your artistic journey. I was always interested in writing. I was molested at seven and eight, and I didn’t tell my parents. I then started using writing as a sort of outlet. And I drew, but that went away because they stifle that stuff really quickly through judgment. So, if you’re not good at it in school, it goes away. But I was really good at writing and photography. And I was going to be a poet. Then, I discovered Taxi Driver. That changed my life. So, I switched from poetry to film. You found poetry on screen.

Yeah, and all this dark noire stuff. And my poetry professor— he meant this kindly—said, “You’re a whore!” Whoa. No, no. He meant a whore for commercialism. Just going toward the easy media and leaving a brilliant career as a poet. Which may have been true.

And that’s about Scorsese, who now feels that way about superhero movies. Right! He was channeling Scorsese. How did you get to where you are now? I applied to UCLA Film School, which was really tough to get into at that time. My parents didn’t want me to go too far. They wanted me close to home in case something happened to me… or something else happened to me. My siblings convinced them that this was like getting into Harvard. So I went, and I had some scholarship money and student awards, grants and scholarships. And of course, everything that they feared happened to me. But this is what people should know… if they are lucky enough to go to school or go to a workshop or go to a place, that’s where you find your people. And I was extraordinarily lucky enough to find my people. Not just creatively, but emotionally. And we’re still really close. I was extraordinarily privileged to be exposed to such diverse people and different cultures. I don’t know if I’d be alive today if I hadn’t gone to UCLA.

When Katrina hit, why did you choose not to evacuate New Orleans?

Mari Kornhauser (Cont.)

New Orleans saved me in a way that in a moment in time that only New Orleans can save you in. I felt I owed the city. And if I was going to go down, then I was going to go down with the city. I know. That sounds ridiculously romantic. It sounds poetic. I don’t know. I was younger. I had more war correspondent genes in me than I do not. Simultaneously, I had walked away from the career, and then LSU had offered me a teaching job. And then, ironically, I was hired to work on “Treme,” which is an HBO show that David Simon and Overmyer created, which was about New Orleans recovering after the flood. That was amazing. It was really difficult and really hard, but to work with that level of people…it was amazing. Tell me how surviving Katrina influenced your life and if it had any impact on how you faired since the COVID situation began.

Well, I’m immune-compromised, so COVID is problematic for me. I was germophobic before this. And we were on the front end of it because in 2019 I was in the King’s Court in a couple of things. It was here over Marti Gras. People were getting really sick. I’m a loner, anyhow, so it affected me more in my work. It put me in an existential crisis. It was more like, what am I supposed to do now? It just seemed useless to write all this stuff. It was like, how do I write myself out of this? What am I going to write now? Are you working on something right now?

Yeah, I’m working on a few things, but… I’ve been really fucking privileged that my whole life was always driven by me wanting to write, since I was a kid. And all the sudden, that goes away. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I can deal with recreating myself, because I was still writing. I was always writing. And then, now, it stopped me. So now, I’m working on a website that is about should I stay or go, Earth or Planet B. It’s sort of like an art education site. Which is also a data mining site, like a video interview to apply for resources. And we’re going to do some sort of performative piece afterward, but we don’t know exactly what. It depends on what people say. And I have a TV pilot, the half-hour anthology thing. Some sort of graphic collage novel, which is taking a lot longer. Everything with collaborators takes a lot longer. So, I’m working on that, and the idea is to then repackage it or not or just have it be its own thing. And then I want to do Ibby Dog—my dog’s name is Ibby—I want to do her in space, just like stupid coffee cups and things. Like one really poorly drawn panel. I’m doing things that I can control myself for very little money, at this point. I’m interested in a convergence of media.

Reading your piece “Heaven” was a surreal, delightful experience. And with all your various writings—television and movies, plays and flash—I’m curious what you like to read.

I just discovered this young, British, Romance author, and it’s really not literature. It’s bringing me a lot of joy. She’s a really interesting person; you should look her up. Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert. She’s really young. And she’s written like four-thousand

Mari Kornhauser (Cont.)

books. And next, I’m reading A Girl Like Her. She’s really interesting. I discovered her on Twitter.

I’m also reading a non-fiction book called The Tear in Peril: America in 1942 by Tracy Campbell. Everybody was all hyped up after Pearl Harbor, and then in 1942 everything was falling to pieces. And it was a year where fascism was rising again. It has a lot of parallels to the time that we’re in now. I’m also reading a series of short stories, which you’ve probably read with some of your people. There, There by Tommy Orange. I actually have read that.

And then Maurice Carlos Ruffin, who’s a New Orleanian, American author, quite renowned. He has a new collection out, The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You. And then also, The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California by Mark Arax. So, it’s kind of like a blend of my areas of interest. (Then, she added with a laugh.) Yeah, I have an attention span problem. Tell me about your interest in photography, specifically with regard to your fascination with capturing accidental ethereal images. And we’ll end with this.

As I mentioned before, I had a very troubled childhood that led to very troubled teen years. What focused me out of that period was a 35mm film still camera. So, I understood film, but I didn’t understand digital. And if the image could not be captured in a full frame, you could not print it. That’s what they called the decisive moment, and it had to be full frame. The sprockets were there because that’s how the film mechanically moved through the camera, either automatically when you pressed the shudder or you could manually move it ahead. The Magnum School was all about finding that decisive moment that picks what it is that you want to portray to the world. And that’s why I point to that classic photo of the person at the point of impact. Full frame. No manipulation. No filter. No nothing. It had to be perfectly zoned in the black and white zones. The Holga was a proper film size and you didn’t want it to be in focus. It just had this dreamy, dreamy quality to it. The things you’re seeing, I’m shooting on my iPhone. And I think I’m attracted to them because I like out-of-focus photography. It reminds me of analogue. Lost Highway, the David Finch film, that really put out-of-focus photography solidly into the lexicon of syntax of film language. Now out-of-focus shots mean something. There’s a whole zeitgeist around it.

Mari Kornhauser Mari Kornhauser is an American screenwriter. She is a staff writer for Treme. She joined the crew for the second season in 2011. She wrote the teleplay for the episode “Slip Away” from a story she co-wrote with the series creator David Simon. She has also worked on the films Zandalee (1991), F.T.W. (1994), and Housebound (2000).

M.O.M. SQUAD

By Brenda Daly

I got into acting as a child. My mother was the forefront of it. She got on a bus at 18 from Iowa to become an actress. Of course, a beautiful young woman found love instead and had three kids. She involved my father and all of us in her love for the arts.

I was so enamored of doing plays working on or behind the stage that it was the only thing I wanted to do. My parent did split but they both made sure that I pursued my love. I too fell in love and had three kids but only one really loved to act. I had helped her get an agent and paid for lessons and she excelled being the 1st person form Nevada excepted to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. I of course was thrilled but I was now an empty nester and needed to let go and find my passion again. I took filmmaking and acting classes and my creative juices started to flow. I wrote a produced two short films. When I watched my fellow students and great actors, I just wanted to write things for us. M.O.M. SQUAD came from that. With all the push for equality in the entertainment business and because I love to laugh. I wanted to add Comedy to a very important subject. So I put a twist on it. Women today are breaking the glass ceiling everyday. I am so proud of that!

But “What of the wrong women were tasked to save the world “

I wanted to add levity to what is a very serious subject. I have always loved shows like get smart and I thought how fun would it be to create a slapstick comedy for women about women like that.

When I pitched it to two of my classmates. One of which was a beautiful Russian girl who was doing such dramatic roles in class. And not getting notice for anything but her beauty. I remember the 1st time she came to class and the teacher was asking her funny questions. Like are you a spy? And that’s when it clicked. I wrote the 1st episode and she loved it. So, I decided to put it up on YouTube and

M.o.M. Squad (cont.)

start writing. The show itself is about a middle aged woman that in her youth was the best of the best as a spy. Unfortunately , she was duped into a cushy assignment and set up to be accused of killing a important diplomat. Instead of doing away with her, the agency decided to make her the trainer of the untrainable.

She was made to be the joke of the agency. They called her M.O.M. Mother of Misfits. And she heads up a group of women they call M.O.M. Squad. This group of women are giving a super secret task,”because if they fail they will be blamed” to save the world leaders from a mind control substance.

Jane is thrilled to be back in the field but she is left to work with her quirky Squad. I am trying to finish it by the end of January the original idea was to make it a micro series for YouTube but we are thinking about make it a feature. It is winning a few awards for the teaser episode on the film festival circuit. And I am so proud. Just goes to show you it’s never too late to follow your dreams.