Happy Birthday: Mary Harron

Mary Harron

Born: January 12, 1953 in Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada

Married to: John Walsh (15 August 1998 – present) (2 children)

There’s a scene in American Psycho (2000) that, to me, was a real dividing line between male and female, the scene where “Bateman” [Christian Bale] has sex with two prostitutes. Because when I read that scene in the book, clearly it was written as a parody of a Penthouse fantasy. As written, the girls are really hot and everybody’s really into the sex and having this insane sex experience and, of course, that’s a fantasy — you know that they’re prostitutes and they’re not getting into it. It’s a job. So my direction to the actors, to the girls, was that this is routine. This is a job you have to do. It’s not like you’re really excited about this. I think the portrayal of prostitution in Hollywood movies…