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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Who on "Project Runway" played to the cameras the most?
Definitely Daniel Franco, which is of interest to the second season as well, because he's on it and he's a cheese nut. He's definitely the cheesiest person ever created. And of course Wendy [Pepper] played to the camera ... People held back, definitely. Especially in season 2, because they know the formula and how it works so they're going to be careful with their words, whereas we were like, "What the fuck is this show?" I mean, it could've been the worst show on TV. We didn't know; we were just on it. We had no idea what we were doing. Our first judging process we were like, "Why is Heidi pulling those stupid buttons out of that ugly bag?"
So how do you feel about Wendy Pepper these days?
Oh, you know, just add her to the list of weird fame whores. She's really doing a lot out there with "Celebrity Poker Showdown"...
You're kidding.
She won! She beat Camryn Manheim and Kevin Nealon. I mean, of course I got asked to do "Celebrity Poker Showdown," but I'm not going to do that fuckin' shit. I'm a designer. I'm not like a kook. It's fine for someone like Sammy from "Days of Our Lives," but I don't know. It's a really fine line, and I feel like a lot of the designers that were on the show are having a hard time with it, because we were marketed as half designers, half TV personalities.
Going through this past year and seeing how disgusting Hollywood is and how queer people are and how ego-driven people are ... It's all about money and ego and "You've gotta stay in the spotlight!" and "Strike while the iron is hot!" and all that bullshit, and I just wanted months to fucking change my hair color, grow a beard, and gain 50 pounds in a cave. It's retarded. It's really hard dealing with people being like, "You're great!" It's really nice from a lot of people, but, with really nice comes "Let me e-mail you! Here's my card! Let me call you and call you and call you." And I'm like, who the fuck is this person that I met in a drunken stupor in a bar? Fame is weird. Now I'm on Out magazine's Top 100 Gays of 2005, and I'm like, "You people wouldn't have cared about me until now, and I didn't do anything for the gay community. I just did my fucking work because I'm a creative person and all of the sudden now I'm something?" It just makes no sense to me.
Do you feel that contestants on the show have trouble saying no to things?
Oh yeah. And I did, too, for months. The first couple months I was like, "Yeah, I'll do interviews for everyone!" and "I'll consider making clothes for a dog for a celebrity dog-walking show!" But after a while, you're like, "I'm not making a dress out of chocolate. The only charity I care about right now is me, and I'm broke." So you have to be careful, and that's where the Wendy Peppers and the Austin Scarletts of the world -- you know, great for Austin, it seems like he's doing fashion-related things, at least -- but Wendy is jumping through tires on "Battle of the Network Reality Stars."
Who's doing the most in the fashion world?
None of us.
What's that about?
It's taking everyone some time. We're trying to sort out what the fuck just happened to us. I've been trapped in my studio for a decade, and then nothing more. I would just make stuff and put it on a rack. Then you have that extreme media attention. I mean, why the fuck am I in People magazine? Why am I in Elle or Newsweek or Time? Why do these people care? And then you need time to process that. I think if you're a weak individual and you're not a thinker and you're a fame whore, then you'll be like, "It's great! This is exactly how my career's supposed to be!" But if you're really cerebral like I am and really conscious and you're just trying to find the light in life, and you can see through all that bullshit, then it takes more time. It's taken me months to process it.
