Maria
Maggenti: Yes! I’m so excited, I got to do
a commentary, so for people who love making movies, hopefully
that will be really nice for them to hear.
I look back on that film with nothing but love. It was a great
experience, a great process.
AE:
Did you expect that the two actresses, Nicole Ari Parker
(Soul Food) and Laurel Holloman (The L Word),
would go on to such successful careers?
MM: I knew they would be working actors,
they’re really really good. I’m just grateful
they’ve both had stable work over the years, that’s
fantastic.
AE:
Are you surprised the film is still such a classic in the
gay community today?
MM: I’m honored and thrilled if people
think of it that way.
AE:
2 Girls has some serious themes in it, but it’s
a romantic comedy at heart. There have been several serious
lesbian teen dramas in the last ten years—Lost
and Delirious, All
Over Me, Show
Me Love--but very few other lesbian teen romantic
comedies since yours, besides But I’m a Cheerleader
and Better Than Chocolate. What do you make of
this?
MM: You know, I don’t have a firm
take on this, except that it just depends on the filmmaker
and her voice; comedy comes very naturally to me.
AE: I guess I would have thought
that more lesbian-themed romantic teen comedies would have
followed after yours…
MM: Well, comedy is very hard.
It’s about timing, and situations, and not everyone
can pull it off. I hope I can pull it off in [my current
film], because it’s non-stop comedy.
AE:
You wrote The Love Letter in 1999, which also had
a lesbian twist…
MM:
Yes, it was an adaptation of a novel by Cathleen Schine,
who is a lesbian. Tami Reiker who shot 2 Girls
also shot that.
AE:
Were you involved in the process after it started shooting?
MM: Yes, I was on that job for 3 years,
actually, and grew very close to the director, Peter Chan.
It was exciting, because it was a big Hollywood movie. It’s
a lot easier having a bigger budget: everyone gets paid,
you’re not scrambling for crew.
AE:
What did you do after The Love Letter?
MM: I built a really nice career as a re-writer
for four years, and then continued to write my own stuff.
We got really close to making Puccini for Beginners in
1999 with October Films, and then October was sold to USA,
where the film was dropped. And then I got a job in 2002
working on the CBS series' Without a Trace and
moved to L.A.
I’m
on hiatus right now--the way television works is you work
for 10 months and then get 5 to 8 weeks off--and I’m
using this time to shoot my second feature film, currently
titled Puccini for Beginners and then the day after
I finish filming I go back to work at Without a Trace.
AE:
Tell me more about Puccini for Beginners (previously
titled Us, Them and Me)...
MM: I'm
doing it with InDigent, the same people who made Pieces
of April and Tadpole. We’re in pre-production
right now--casting, costumes, locations, production design,
etc.--and we
start shooting in 3 weeks.
AE: What’s the film about?
MM: It’s
about a woman in love with a man and a woman at the same
time, and then finds out the two of them are ex-lovers.
AE:
Have you cast it yet?
MM: Yes,
but I can’t tell you who it is yet because I haven’t
signed on the dotted line, but they’re major actresses
so that’s exciting...
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