THE INTERVIEW :

Guinevere Turner Interview 15/07/03
Ok, first let me explain how this all came about. As you know we have been lucky enough in the past to talk via email with Guin about how love, work and life is going for her and we’ve always shared it with all you lovely people out here in cyberland. Basically we were going to be in LA for the first time for a few days during the summer and we thought well hey, we have Guins email address so why not just send her an email asking for an interview for the site on the off chance she might agree. A few weeks passed and then a mail from Guin pops into our inbox with her cellphone number on it and a note saying when we get to LA we should call her and if shes there she’ll happily do the interview. Ok… you know those moments when you have to read things a few times before you actually can comprehend them, hello! That was definitely one of those moments. You can imagine me, sitting there in my pjs checking the mail first thing in the morning and that being there. Certainly put a smile on my face. Anyway the next thing that happens is of course the nerves set in… the.. oh.. my… fucking .. god.. I might be meeting Guinevere Turner in a few weeks and have to actually coherently talk to her in a manner that won’t forever brand me as a gibbering geek in her mind type of nerves. Not an easy task let me tell you. Anyway, I put it to the back of my mind so that I wasn’t constantly sick to my stomach and the trip to LA came along. We had so much going on that week that the first half was luckily spent at a yoga retreat in Joshua tree. Thankfully that chilled me out sufficiently enough to call Guin up. I was so nervous. This woman is like a dream to me. My first on screen lesbian crush. Seeing her as Max in Go Fish confirmed to me that it wasn’t any little phase I was going through, I was into women in a big way and into Guin and her whole look completely.
As I dialled the number I could feel my temperature rising with nerves but in my mind I was repeating over and over ‘just be normal’. How sad. I tell you though, I was star struck in a big way and even more so when she answered the phone. I stumbled my way through explaining who I was and she was just the most adorable, kind little soul to me. She said she was extremely busy right now and she was in the middle of a deadline in which she had to completely rewrite an entire script of her new project The L Word in a mere couple of days before flying back up to Canada with it ready to go for shooting. At this point I thought, ok.. here comes the ‘I’m sorry but I just can’t make it’ speech. It never came. She graciously said that because we’d came all this way and she was in town she’d love to meet us if only for an hour to answer some questions for the fans of hers who visit our site. I was over the moon. If I could have jumped around at this point without looking like a lunatic, I think I quite possibly would have. Still, I managed to remain fairly ‘normal’ on the phone and asked where we could meet. She asked for our address and when we told her we were in the little gay neighbourhood mecca of West Hollywood, she told us we were only a few streets away (by LA standards may I add!) and so we should just drive over to her house and chat to her there… yes.. we were to go to her apartment. Oh the times I’ve dreamed of that.. but that’s another story altogether…

The next day we were to go to Guins place at 12.30. We spent the morning touring around LA being star struck Scottish Girls and then the lovely Guin called. Oh dear I thought, this is the big cancellation. Nope. It was Guin calling to say she was held up someplace and could we come over slightly later. How cute is that. I was very impressed before I even got there, as you can tell no doubt. After we got over the obvious ‘oh god what will I wear’ problem off we drove to her street and pulled up bang on time. She was driving into her apartment building carpark as we drove in so we all met at her apartment door at the same time.
First impressions? She is a lot thinner than I was imagining. She is also extremely beautiful in person. Not that I wasn’t expecting that, but somehow those big baby blues just leap right out at you and knock you over. She was wearing a very pretty outfit and a nice hat to top it off, keys in one ring adorned hand and cellphone in the other. She invited us into her apartment and it was just as I’d imagined it. I always had this impression of Guin as this really cool funky dyke with all the right design going on which was totally true. Her apartment has lots of interesting items and personal effects around and of course pride of place in the centre of her lounge is her chair, desk and apple mac ibook for writing which she told us she’d just bought and absolutely loves. She asked us if we wanted something to drink to which we both replied yes and she brought us peppermint tea. She sat down, we chatted for about 15 minutes off tape about various things in LA, tourist places, shops, people, her work etc and then we got on with the interview. Here it is for your enjoyment. Forgive me, I was an interview virgin up until this point and tend to waffle a lot.

Tracy: How is the TV show going?
Guin: The TV show is going really well. I have an episode to watch right here, I’m very excited! (at this point Guin shows us the video tape with the first episode on it!) Umm.. it’s going really well, it’s hard work, I’ve never done.. I’ve never worked in television before and I didn’t realise that you shoot an entire episode in 7 days, which is, it means like things move really fast. Especially, writing. Things are always changing, writing wise, theres a lot of rewrites at the last minute and I’m just not used to working with that. Theres a lot of, as an actor, theres a lot of.. umm.. well you don’t get ten takes, you know what I mean? You gotta get it right in two or three. If you don’t then you’re really going to mess everyone up. I mean like the director has to do a certain amount of things in a given day so, but its fun. It’s interesting, I’m learning a lot and it makes me want to do my own TV show.
Tracy: Sounds good. How did you get involved with it in the first place?
Guin: Umm, partially through Rose Troche because she is an executive producer on the show and she directed the pilot and then she asked me to come and write for the show so she hooked me up for a meeting with Eileen “NAME” who is the creator of the show and umm, I just got hired as a writer and then after writing an episode and just getting really involved with Eileen and Rose and stuff, Eileen asked me if I wanted to be on the show which I was really very excited about.
Tracy: Everyone is really excited about it, really hyped about it. We keep getting all these emails about the show and people are going crazy about it and they can’t wait for it to come out.
Guin: but how.. I mean I wonder if you guys are going to get it..
Tracy: Yeah I know.. I hope so.. I mean theres people in Australia and New Zealand asking about it and you can’t even get onto the website if you’re outside of America
Guin: Really?
Tracy: Yes, it’s only US access. We can’t get into it.
Guin: Oh!? I’ll have to talk to those website guys about it because I talk to them a lot so I’ll have to mention that to them because I’m sure that they would love to have more access to it. I wonder why that is. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as websites that are only accessible to certain countries
Tracy: I think its maybe just a Showtime thing.. we definitely can’t get into it..
Guin: Well if the show is… well.. say.. I think by September the show is going to have its own website that’s not just related to show time.. but then I guess if the show isn’t going to show any time soon anywhere other than here then once it airs and they see how popular it is then I guess it will.
Tracy: It looks like a channel 4 type of show which is the channel that we have that had Queer as Folk on it so hopefully they’ll pick it up. Ok back to my questions…Are you working on anything else right now? I know you have the Betty Page project still ongoing?
Guin: Actually the Betty Page thing.. I’m not playing Betty Page anymore, I don’t sound upset about it because it happened so long ago that I’ve recovered. I was very disappointed needless to say, basically they needed to have a bigger name to raise the money. I mean they could have done it starring me but they would have had to have such a low budget that I didn’t even want to press it. Like I’d rather have it be a good movie than that..
Tracy: But its not the Liv Tyler one right?
Guin: No No… it’s basically the script that Marry Harron and I wrote, which is the one they’re doing now and Gretchen Mol is the actress who is to play Betty Page but they’re just having a really hard time getting the money they need to make it. I mean the hard thing is it’s a period piece and you really can’t do a period piece well with no money ya know.. I mean whatever. Its gotta be good but I’m just surprised I mean its sexy women in their underwear, you think it’d be an easy sell.
Tracy: (laughs) Yeah you really would. You look so like her though.
Guin: (sighs) I know
Tracy: We keep seeing t-shirts and things because she's not really that famous at home, we see t-shirts and things with her on it and you just look so like her.
Guin: I know. I met her brother when I was first doing research for this thing and we went down to Nashville and met her brother and just interviewed people that she knew and stuff and we didn’t tell him that I was going to play her and he just turned to me at one point and he said ‘you look an awful lot like betty’ and I was like ‘see even her brother says so!’ But its not meant to be. I mean I am really invested in it being a big budget movie that looks really good. I mean.. I cried when I found out that I wasn’t going to be Betty Page but I mean that was a year ago so..
Tracy: You put such a lot into that though.
Guin: A LOT. I mean we were working on it for six years. We took a break to make American Psycho but I feel like I know Betty Page so I found every little piece of her that I was able to find other than actually meeting her.
Tracy: You look a lot like a lot of other people though. We have this page on our website for look-a-likes and we have you, Betty Page obviously, Sherilyn Fenn..
Guin: People always tells me that I look like Sherilyn Fenn a lot.
Tracy: You do. And we also have another actress Marla Sokoloff I don’t know if you have heard of her?
Guin: No.. is she an American actress?
Tracy: Yes she's in The Practice, she was also in a band called Smitten. She could play your younger sister because she looks so much like you.
Guin: That’s so funny.
Tracy: You also look like the lead singer from Evanescence.
Guin: How do you spell that one.. Marla..
Tracy: Marla Sokoloff… S-o-k-o-l-o-f-f.
Guin: I’ll look her up and see if I think I look like her. My friend used to say to me we have to get you onto that show to play Sherilyn Fenns sister and I was always like yeah yeah do it do it!
Tracy: (laughs) True I could totally see that.. ok here's a question we had from the webpage. If you could have complete creative control over a movie, what would it be and why and who would you cast and why?
Guin: Oh my god. That’s such a huge broad questions. I would cast myself. That’s a really hard question to answer. I mean if I had the answer to that question I would probably have done it already. So I’m just gonna have to let that question go.. I really don’t know how to answer that.. the other thing is I’m so deeply involved in this TV show right now that the rest of my creative energy is on hold because this is such a big deal for us in terms of the first lesbian drama and trying to represent everyone whilst still not alienating a non lesbian audience, ya know it’s a really big thing.. its hard because ya know you want the show to be true to the audience that’s really gonna love but you also can’t go too far out to the edges because people aren’t ready for you know, like, reality reality.
Tracy: How will you do that? I mean how can you possibly get in there and represent everyone..
Guin: Just wait till the show comes out there is going to be so much bitching. (laughs) I mean I know if I wasn’t working on the show I would sit down and watch it and bitch ya know.. that’s just what lesbians do (laughs) Umm I think that what.. all the actresses just did a thing.. I forget what they call it, where TV critics come and ask them about the show and one of the questions that one of the critics asked was ‘why are all the women so beautiful?’. Which is like on the one hand an offensive question because it’s like are you saying they should be ugly because they’re lesbians? And on the other hand they are all more beautiful than the average person that you know but then all TV shows are like that. I mean everyone who works in an Emergency Room doesn’t look like someone who is on ER. You know what I mean? That’s TV. People like to see pretty people.
Tracy: Yeah sure. I know what you mean. Like in a way they’re thinking, because it’s a lesbian show theres going to be some really ugly people in there?
Guin: Yeah I mean I think that..well the other thing is that the show does take place in LA.. and like I mean a LA lesbian is like its own animal ya know? The difference between a group of women in a lesbian bar in LA and a group in NY is night and day.
Tracy: Yeah totally.. like the other night in West Hollywood, I mean they’re all so glamourous.
Guin: Yeah.. I mean at least its true to that. The LA lesbians. Although you know then you go to Silverlake and theres still the tattooed dykes and the rocker chicks so there is still that element but then the prototypical LA lesbian does look like an actress.
Tracy: The actress Katherine Moenning (Shane in The L Word) has a HUGE lesbian following.
Guin: Yeah she does because she did that show.. where she like..
Tracy: Oh sure.. the American show where she played a boy or something?
Guin: Right.. or a girl who pretended to be a boy or something? She has a website too and lesbians love her.
Tracy: On the newsgroups people are talking about her all the time. Her character is named Shane right?
Guin: Shane. Right.
Tracy: They’re all like ‘oh she's so hot’
Guin: Yeah she really is, she's cute. Her character is totally the stud of the show. She always has a new girl, she's the heartbreaker
Tracy: I really hope that we get to see it.
Guin: It starts here in January. I wish it were on sooner as I just want instant gratification. It would be really nice to be getting audience response whilst we’re still writing but we’ll be so done writing by the time it goes on the air which is just how it goes. I just want it to be on now. (laughs)
Tracy: So do I!
Guin: (laughs) Yeah I want it to be on now. Like January seems like 5 years away
Tracy: So with all this in mind, how would you describe your state of mind at the moment? I think you’ve pretty much already said!
Guin: I’m really overwhelmed because I’m doing this episode and I have to rewrite the episode in the next 24 hours and theres been a major character change and a major character has changed and become a different person so theres a major rewrite umm then I’m committed to doing a screen writing lab for Outfest where they do this thing, they pick five people who have submitted scripts to a competition where they have like 150 scripts and then they ask people like me who do it professionally to come in and be mentors for three days screen lab but then I have to go to Canada so I can’t do all three days so I’m doing all day tomorrow and I have to rewrite the script and then I fly to Canada in the morning on Thursday so umm and also I wrote this short film that I’m going to star in which we’re going to start shooting in three weeks so I’m trying to pull in every favour I possible have to get people to work for me for free and to think about where the hell we’re going to shoot it and how the hell its all going to come together so umm I’m overwhelmed but happy. I like being this busy.
Tracy: did you think when you started off way back with Go Fish that you were going to end up with all this madness
Guin: God no. I mean I didn’t even really think of it as the beginning of a career. I mean I think it was different for Rose but I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to do so I thought in the mean time while I try and figure out what I want to do I’ll make a lesbian movie (laughs) and then now its like my life ya know.
Tracy: That’s so cool though that must be fantastic to have that.
Guin: Yeah the overwhelming thing is that the first thing we did .. it affected peoples lives so much. I mean a lot of people do their first movie and it’s a good movie but it doesn’t have that.. you know.. people coming up to them ten years later and saying ‘I saw your movie and it changed my life I mean that’s so satisfying that I almost feel that I can just quit and become a teacher or something I mean it feel like I’ve made my contribution.
Tracy: That’s so true though. I mean before Angela and I met, I mean when we just met, I remember saying to her, you have to see Go Fish, that’s just such a good movie and I took it over to her house. I loved that movie so much. I remember they had like Go Fish t-shirts and things out and I don’t know if you know about that?
Guin: Oh really? They did?
Tracy: Yeah and I remember wearing it before I was out to my parents and they’re like.. what's that movie? And I was just like.. umm…
Guin: (laughs) just a movie I like! (laughs)
Tracy: it’s so cool that you made that movie though and in a way it made you famous in the lesbian community.. would you like to be more famous?
Guin: Who wouldn’t want to be more famous?
Tracy: Would you like it?
Guin: I’ve always said that I really can’t wait for that moment in my life where I can say “all this money and fame in my life really isn’t making me happy” (laughs) Oh I’m just soooo famous. (laughs) I would love to be more famous. Wouldn’t everyone or is it just me?
Tracy: I don’t know.. I mean I think I’d like the things that go with it like the money and the adoration..
Guin: (laughs)
Tracy: .. but like the other day we were here in LA and we saw Michael Jackson.
Guin: That’s too famous. It probably is a pretty miserable existence at that level. I don’t think I’d want to be as famous as Michael Jackson.. I think its made him a little crazy (laughs)
Tracy: (laughs) I think so.. but when we saw him he was being mobbed and he looked so terrified.. which is like.. so weird he lives like that all the time..
Guin: .. I had this idea for a short, a story about a really really famous person at that level like Madonna or Michael Jackson or something who is so sick of it that they decide to just walk out into the street by themselves and I was thinking about what would actually happen. I mean people would actually literally tear their clothes off. And it would be really scary and I think it would be a really good short film to see the reality of what would happen because I think that at some point people don’t really see like say Michael Jackson as a person anymore because when you're that famous people think they own you or that you’re like a character and not a real person.
Tracy: The weird thing was when we saw him that you knew it was Michael Jackson because he had on a bright silver shirt and ten million bodyguards around him and like maybe if he just went in there like in a baseball cap and some jeans ya know.. people wouldn’t notice him so much.
Guin: But then I think that the thing is that someone would notice and then it would be crazy. I mean I think that someone could actually die that way.
Tracy: I was worried for him yesterday. We had it on video and then I thought oh we shouldn’t do this anymore and his bodyguards were trying to stop people and his kids were there.
Guin: That’s weird.. I just realised what the name of the short could be.. it could be Celebrity Suicide when the celebrity just decides that they hate their life so much and they’re going to kill themselves and that’s how they’re going to do it… they’re just going to offer themselves up to the people
Tracy: That’s so true… Ok I have to ask you about this whole lesbian icon business. How do you feel about getting called that?
Guin: (laughs) You know people always say that to me.. and I’m really not sure what that means. I will go and look it up. (at this point Guin goes to the huge dictionary in the corner of her lounge room and looks up icon and reads it out to us) I guess I’m flattered to be considered that important! It can be a little strange though. I remember this time I was in England and I was with this cute girl and we were totally making out and about to get it on and we’re in her bed and she suddenly says ‘oh my god I can’t believe I’m about to do this with Guinevere Turner’ and I was like (mimes being totally turned off).. I find that so strange. (laughs) Like she was going to go and tell all her friends about it the next day.
(tape ran out and we turn tape over to other side but during this begin a conversation about pets for some reason!)

Tracy: We went past the pet store the other day in the Beverly Centre and there was this cute little tiny white fluffball of a dog and I just wanted to take it home it was so cute.
Guin: Oh everytime I walk past that store I just have to look the opposite way because I just can’t.. because I could be there for hours talking to them, wondering where they’re going to go
Tracy: Someone came when we were there and took it home.. it was sooo cute..
Guin: Oh that’s so sweet
Tracy: it really was.. anyway back to these questions. Ok.. what scares you more than anything? ..other than being a crazy old lady (this is something Guin mentioned earlier off tape)
Guin: (laughs) What scares me more than anything.. (laughs) That doesn’t really scare me. I think its an inevitability really, that I’ll be a crazy old lady. Luckily I have a lot of friends, but I probably wont have a partner. Rollercoasters (laughs) I hate rollercoasters and I actually went to an amusement park last summer with all my friends and I was like ‘ok guys I’ll go with you but I’m not getting on a fucking rollercoaster’ and even when you're actually there people will go like ‘oh come on’
Tracy: (laughs) I do that to Angela all the time.
Guin: (laughs) Really? I hate rollercoasters. I really hate scary movies. I mean I get scared at scary movie trailers. I really can’t watch. I’m really afraid. If I watch a scary movie I will have nightmares about them, like its automatic so scary movies scare me so like the idea.. like I mean when I was 13 we had a slumber party and the slumber party thing was to get tons of horror movies and watch them and we were on like the 5th one called like My Bloody Valentine or something where they open up the candy heart box where theres a real heart in there and I’m watching and I’m so scared and I’m glued to the TV and I realise that everyone else is asleep so I’ve been watching the scary movie by myself and then of course I’m so scared that I’m afraid to turn it off and I think I was traumatised by scary movies. I can barely watch American Psycho. It scares me
Tracy: But how does that affect your view of it if you’ve been in the movie and seen how they do it. Does it alter your perspective?
Guin: Not in the slightest. I mean that movie scares me and I was there when they were shooting the scenes and it scares me to see myself killed. I get freaked out. I mean writing American Psycho was really bad because like the book is.. its really really gruesome and we had to read it over and over and over and me and Mary who I wrote it with we’d just like wake up in the morning, we actually went down to Mexico where we got a house for a few weeks to just write it and we’d get up in the morning and be like so ‘what was your nightmare like?’ Some of the things I read in that book I just could not shake.
Tracy: yeah its really gory..
Guin: have you read the whole thing?
Tracy: Yeah I read it way before the movie was planned so I read it when I lived by myself and I really I mean I literally had to just stop at points and not read anymore. The bit with the tramp was the worst for me, where he just kills the tramp was too much.
Guin: Theres another book I read a couple years ago and its even scarier because its real and it was written by an FBI profiler and they’re the people who they bring in when theres a serial killer and they’re experts at seeing behaviour patterns and trying to find the person and so its all a case of real life stories. So fucking scary because its true and theres things that I’ve never heard of. Like you know you think you know all the famous serial killers, no no no.. he did work with stalkers and you know just like lower criminals and like men climbing into windows and you know like whatever and I have a lot of windows. And at the time I read it I was living with my sister and I had to read the book, I was glued to it and I had to read it for something that I was writing and I was terrified and she comes in the room and I’m like hi… and she says ‘I’m gonna go to my friends house’ and I’m like ‘please don’t leave me’ and she's like ‘whatever I’m out of here’ and I seriously went into the kitchen and got a kitchen knife and went back into the bedroom and kept reading the book (laughs)
Tracy: I think the most scary thing is other people. Like in movies when it’s a monster its not as scary but when it’s a person then its even more scary because you know it could be real.
Guin: right its like super scary and I’m also just a really like.. I’m a scaredy cat. Like all this time this happens to me. Like if I’m doing something and say someone walks into the room and I don’t see them.. I will just scream at the top of my lungs. If I’m turning a corner and someone turns the corner and I wasn’t expecting it I will scream at the top of my lungs. I look so crazy to people in the streets because I’m like ahhhh! And they’re like .. woah lady. (laughs) My aunt is the same way. It’s a genetic thing. I’ll like walk into a room and see that she hasn’t seen me yet and I’ll be like ‘hi Molly’ and she will scream. It’s a weird genetic trait that I hope I don’t pass on to anyone. My sisters not like that at all. She's just like ‘you’re crazy’.
Tracy: So what's one of the things that people always mistake about you? Is there like one thing where people misjudge you or anything?
Guin: probably all kinds of things that I don’t know. I mean I've always thought that if you really heard the things that people say about you, you’d just be really devastated. (laughs) you know what I mean. Umm… oh well I do know. I don’t think people expect me to be smart. That’s not people I work with or people who know me through work, I just mean in the average interaction you know of like meeting someone at a party I always get the sense that people are surprised when I start talking. I think that just in general people don’t expect pretty girls to be smart. They expect smart girls to be ugly and pretty girls to be dumb and theres no.. ya know.. that’s a fun thing to have people mistake because you know.. you’re usually smarter than they are.
Tracy: Someone sent us something out of the blue and it’s a photocopy of your High School Yearbook.
Guin: Really?!? (laughs)
Tracy: Sure. I didn’t even know who the person is* and they just sent it and it has you as most sophisticated.. do you think you lived up to that?
Guin: you know what's most funny about that? Is when I got voted that I was happy about it.. I was 18.. but you know what I realised actually that at the time when I was in High School I lived with my boyfriend and his family and I really think that everyone knew I wasn’t a virgin. (laughs) I think it really meant like most slutty ya know what I mean (laughs) that was like.. at first I was really flattered and then I was like.. ‘wait a minute.. they’re calling me a slut!’ (laughs)
Tracy: The pictures are cute though.
Guin: (laughs) yeah.. I was wearing a little hat?.. I loved that hat. It was so retarded now. I thought that hat was so cool. But you know it was 1986.
Tracy: Its weird though because you don’t strike me as.. well because in your yearbook, all the stuff that you were involved with is typically geeky, the yearbook, the newspaper. You don’t seem that way in interviews and stuff.
Guin: You know what it was that in my High School there were two groups, you were either athletic or you did theatre and newspaper and I was like ohhhh not athletic so I did theatre and newspaper. Like theatre was very, ya know.. its where the gay people were and even though I didn’t know I was gay at the time I was very.. you know.. you’re just secretly drawn to the big queen drama teacher and all the fags are in the plays and stuff and you know they’re so much more fun than the jocks ya know. Hmm.
Tracy: So what was your big moment when you thought oh god I’m so not straight. Did you have one of those?
Guin: Yeah. I think it was the first time I kissed a girl. I really didn’t think that I was gay, like I just.. I told a friend to tell a friend that I thought this girl was cute and then I was totally nervous and I was like why am I doing this, this is so retarded I’m obviously not gay so I’m just going to hurt this girls feelings or whatever and I did end up hurting her because I didn’t want to go out with her but I was like ‘Oh! There we go! That’s what was missing!’ That was when I was 18.
Tracy: That’s all the questions I had.. I don’t have anymore with me.. but thank you so much for doing all of those for me.
Guin: Alright! I hope I uh.. all the best stuff I said probably isn’t on tape so.. you’ll just have to remember..
Tracy: I know.. oh it’ll be fine. I have my ibook with me so I’ll type it up and put it on the website. Thank you so much.
Guin: You are welcome. Its just a really sophisticated form of procrastination I have so much to do that I’m just like.. I’ve just had lunch with someone. I’ve been talking to you guys. I’m just no good.
Tracy: So you only have all of tonight to finish the script and that’s it?
Guin: I can probably do it.. I can probably get away with handing it in.. or emailing it to her at like 3 in the morning but I have to be on a plane at like 8 in the morning and I have to look good because I have to be on camera. Oh did you notice I have a bandaid on my nose?
Tracy: no..
Guin: It’s a pretty good bandaid. That’s another stress I have right now. I have this scratch on my nose and I have to be on camera. Thank god for makeup.
Tracy: I’m sure the show will be a big success. It sounds really good.
Guin: Yeah I’ve watched a few episodes of it and its gonna be good. (whispers) its going to be better than queer as folk. Have you seen the American version of Queer as Folk?
Tracy: I’ve seen a couple of episodes.
Guin: I’ve seen the British one but apparantly yours is so much better than ours.
Tracy: The British one is quite good actually. Its got way more sex in it than the American one.
Guin: really? I didn’t think that was possible. We have so much sex in ours. I was shocked.
Tracy: It was so out there. It was a huge thing which was weird really because it didn’t get that much criticism really. I expected it to be a huge thing
Guin: That’s the trick really isn’t it.. if you can just write something really well and do it really well then people just can’t talk shit about it because its good. They just have to admit that its good.
Tracy: The good thing about the L Word is that you’ll probably get a lot of straight guys watching it which is good for the ratings
Guin: I was doing a panel a few months ago, me and some of the other writers and someone in the audience said ‘aren’t you worried that straight guys are going to tune in just to see two women get it on’ and I was just like ‘no I just want people to tune in and watch the show’ and if that’s the only reason they’re tuning in then ya know just go rent some porn they don’t have to wait through people actually talking to each other and other storylines and if they’re going to do it they’re going to do it ya know. I don’t really care. I just want people to watch so that we can have a second season.
Tracy: Do you think that’s a possibility? Is it completely dependant on the viewing figures?
Guin: I’m not sure what its dependent on. I think its that and what kind of press it gets, what the critics think of it. It’s kind of this elusive thing called buzz. Do you know what I mean. I’m actually not sure how it works but I think its also the networks and the executives, if they like it themselves but I mean if Queer as Folk can be on for like four years and its not like it’s a well liked show but it hasn’t had a lot of critical acclaim.. so if they can have four seasons we’re in the bag.
Tracy: I think at home it was only two seasons
Guin: I think its still on and its on season four. When I got this job I watched the first season. I went to the video store and rented it just to know whats been done and what its been like. I got really hooked on it I have to say. Its fun, all partying and sex and ya know.
Tracy: Well we’re hopefully going to get our friends to send us the copies of the show. Thank you so much for all this time you’ve given us. We wont keep you back from your rewrites.
Guin: Thank you so much too.

Tracys POV (Max): So that was it. The hour and a bit we spent with Guin Turner in her apartment. I have to say it was one of the coolest days I’ve ever had my entire life. I was totally on a high for the rest of the holiday and it just makes me smile to think about it. Guin was one of the most charismatic, down to earth, smart people I’ve ever met. She was genuinely open and honest and seemed to be very comfortable in her own skin. She clearly knows what she's doing and has a real passion for writing. The fact that she took the time out of her busy schedule to meet us even though she had a million other things to do really made it feel special and made me appreciate her even more. She kindly let us take photos with her, recommended a great Chinese restaurant and also some cool shopping areas and she was really sweet and walked us out to the front porch where she collected her mail and we headed off full of excitement and happiness knowing she’d made my life by just taking that hour out. Good on you Guin. You Rock.

Angelas POV (Maddy): Meeting Guin for me wasn't nearly as exciting as it was for Tracy who of course idolises the woman, although I thought Guin was a good actress and writer I wouldn't really call myself a 'fan' as such. Meeting Guin for me renewed my hope in people, she was amazing... yes I mean it. To take the time out of her busy day in the first place was more than enough to make me appreciate the lady but to sit and chat totally relaxed just added to it. I can't get across to you all just how cool she was / is. I appreciated her time and her honesty and was actually sad when the interview was over but not for the reason I would have initially thought (that of Tracy not getting to talk to her anymore)... I was sad because I myself was completely loving it, it was pure class and truth be told I could have sat and listened to her ALL day and all night. She was smart, witty, charismatic, intelligent and interesting. And yes.. in my mind she now also ROCKS!