Happy Birthday: Penelope Spheeris

Penelope Spheeris

Born: December 2, 1945 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

[“After Wayne’s World (1992), you directed a bunch of studio fodder including The Little Rascals (1994) and Senseless (1998). What steered you in this direction?”) When someone offers you $2.5 million to direct a film, you just fucking take it. I took the money and made a bunch of movies – The Little Rascals (1994), The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), Black Sheep (1996) and Senseless (1998). After I did Wayne’s World (1992) – I tried like hell to direct movies I had written and books that I wanted to adapt for film. I tried so hard to do something beside television remakes but I couldn’t get anything going. That is where the sexism in the film industry becomes all too apparent. If I was a guy, I swear to God I would have been able to get my own shit going after “Wayne’s World”.

My whole career up until Wayne’s World (1992) didn’t produce any monetary funds. When I directed Wayne’s World, I made close to $150,000 – the biggest payday I had to date. My percentage points from Wayne’s World enabled me to pay off all of the debts from my previous works, but I only came up even in the end.

[on Mike Myers] I hated that bastard for years. But when I saw Austin Powers, I went, ‘I forgive you, Mike. You can be moody, you can be a jerk, you can be things that others of us can’t be – because you are profoundly talented. And I forgive you.’

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