Archive

A Quickie with Joni Lefkowitz

With a new web series, a pilot for HBO in post production, and a “Reality Bites for the MySpace generation” project in development, out writer-actor Joni Lefkowitz is one of the women to watch in 2009.

Lefkowitz and her writing partner and co-star, Susanna Fogel, first gained notoriety with their wry YouTube videos in which they filmed themselves looking for parking, going for fast food, and complaining about the early picket line hours during the WGA writers’ strike.

Less than a year later, Lefkowitz and Fogel came up with the eponymous series, Joni & Susanna which is now a part of the original programming line up on TheWB.com, Warner Bros’ video-on-demand website.

Lefkowitz talked to AfterEllen recently about her new show and its depiction of the darker side of women’s friendships; lesbian films; and why being gay isn’t interesting enough to be the focus of her work.

AfterEllen: Congratulations on your new original web series Joni & Susanna. What’s it about? Joni Lefkowitz: It’s basically about two co-dependent best friends who secretly don’t want the other one to be ahead of them in life. So, there’s a lot of passive aggression and subtly sabotaging of the other one, so that neither one of us is ahead in life. But at all times, we’re like: “This is my best friend. I love her!” AE: Well, that’s healthy. Please tell me you’re commenting on the stereotype that women don’t support each other, and not just acting like two bitches. JL: Yes. Unfortunately, I think that stereotype can happen a lot. Usually, when you see it on TV, it’s very obvious. But I think it’s a little more subtle than that in real life. It’s usually about the jealousy we have with each other and an underlying competitiveness in real life.

AE: How long have you been collaborating with your frenemy/co-star/writing partner, Susanna Fogel.

JL: We met at a sketch comedy class at Second City in LA in 2002. We sort of bonded by making fun of the other people in class, as we do on our show. That was where I discovered that writing was what I wanted to do.

AE: And Susanna is straight. How much of a gay-straight alliance is the show? JL: It’s not made into a huge deal. We wanted to make a point of not calling much attention to the fact that I’m gay on it. We have one episode where I come out to my mom, but other than that, it’s dealt with very casually. We wanted that to be one thing about our friendship that we don’t really have an issue.

AE: Lesbian-straight girl friendships haven’t been explored as frequently as the Will & Gracedynamic. JL: Lesbians and straight girls are the perfect marriage because the lesbian isn’t a threat to the straight girl’s game, and the straight girl gets validation from the thought that if she were gay, the lesbian would want to be with her.

AE: They don’t bother imagining they’re gay — deep down, they think we want them. I think it’s the other way around. JL: I guess it’s just perfect for the straight girl, actually.

AE: Do you think Susanna wants you? JL: Uh, I’m not going there.

AE: Fine, be that way. Well, the series is up now. I saw Bridget McManus guest stars in the first episode. JL: Yes. Susanna and I are going to a girl’s birthday party and we bash everybody else, like saying that the girl who’s turning 28, really looks 35. At the party, we’re alienating everybody with our inside jokes. And I have a crush on Bridget’s character, and Susanna has a crush on this guy, and we set each other up on assignments to help us get our crushes. And then, each one kind of sabotages the other.

AE: Who doesn’t have a crush on Bridget? People might not remember that you were the very first guest on Brunch with Bridget.

JL: Yeah. I think that was the best one, personally. It has not been the same since. AE: After you, there was nowhere to go but down? JL: [laughs] “Just stop!” She should have quit while she was ahead.

AE: You know Bridget doesn’t quit. Is she going to be a series regular? JL: She’s in at least four out of six episodes. She plays my crush, and we have a very short-lived love arc.

AE: So, it’s a lesbian relationship in real-time? JL: Yeah. Like real life. It’s a really, over-the-top, moody, bi-polar lesbian.

AE: It is like real life! An over-the-top, bi-polar lesbian relationship is always a good ride. I think the number of hyphens in a relationship’s description is inversely proportional to the length of it. JL: Yeah.

AE: When did you realize you and Susanna had the same writing sensibilities? JL: Susanna had known since she was like, 14, that she wanted to write. She’d been making short films and being in these festivals. It was something that I was definitely intrigued by, but I didn’t think it was realistic to make a living that way. Meeting Susanna and learning that we work really well together, and have a single writing voice made me I realize that I wanted to go for it.

We suffered through many, many temp jobs and retail jobs before we got a dime for writing, but it’s been worth the wait. AE: Temp jobs are treasure troves of material. Do you have any good stories? JL:I have a butt load of temp anecdotes but my favorites are all about this 60-something administrative assistant-for-life named Debbie.

AE: They’re all named Debbie. JL: Yeah, so she sat right across from me at my old job a corporate office. [She] used to call me over to look at pictures of kissing babies and stuff.

One day, she was all riled up and was asking everyone if they’d seen her boss. Finally, she came to my desk and goes, “Joni, if you see Dan, will you tell him I had to leave? I have the screaming sh–s, and I’ve had to go to the bathroom every five minutes.”

AE: Oh goodie. JL: She also used to routinely yell at her mother on the phone: “Mom, do you have the phone to your deaf ear? Put the phone to the ear that is not deaf.”

AE: Awesome. JL: Fun times in my life. I got fired from that job because it was “clear I didn’t want to be there anymore.” I was just proud that it took them a year and a half to realize that.

AE: And now, you and Susanna have your web show, and a project with HBO called Washingtonienne. What’s going on with that? JL: It’s a half hour comedy about women in their late 20s working on the hill. It was inspired by the real-life events of this intern [Jessica Culter] in Washington who got caught up in a sex scandal. But we put it more like, “What if your friend got caught in a sex scandal in DC?” It’s more like the tone of Sex and the City. It’s kind of grounded and true-to-life.

AE: When does it go? JL: We shot it and are in the editing stage right now. We’re awaiting word on whether we’ll be picked up to series.

AE: It has a title that’s fun to spell – thanks for that. Frankly, I’m sick of typing The L Word because it always comes out The L Owrd, and I have to fix it. I’m glad that’s almost over. If you had a chance to write the finale, what would that look like? JL: I would like for the characters to realize they’ve dated their entire social circle, so they all get sex changes to gain access to the world of straight women. Except Max: He continues to make podcasts.

AE: Fantastic. What about lesbian films? Which one is your favorite? JL: I liked that Imagine Me and You. I thought that was cute.

AE: You said that with a little bit of apology in your voice. JL: Well, I mean, it’s not a “good” good movie, but I thought as far as lesbian movies go, it was decent.

AE: What’s the worst one you’ve ever seen? JL: The worst one I’ve seen? Oh, this is going to be bad. It’s Go Fish.

AE: I thought you were going to say Claire of the Moon. JL: My parents took me to see Go Fish when I was 12 or 13.

AE: Why in the world would your parents take you to see Go Fish? JL: My parents just took me to all kinds of movies when I was too young to understand them. They’re pretty hip. My dad listens to Radiohead and my mom calls my dad “homeboy.”

AE: Have you ever seen Everything Relative? Do you enjoy endless processing? If so, that’s the film for you. JL: Me and Julia went through a phase where we rented every lesbian movie in the store. Have you ever seen Mango Kiss?

AE: Showgirls is so bad, it’s good. It’s one of my favorite non-gay, gay movies. JL: I agree. But I’m first in line for any film that has good-bad potential. Like any Lindsay Lohan movie or films of that ilk.

AE: If you don’t like the films that are out there, why don’t you make your own? Thanks for saying “ilk,” by the way. JL: I would love to. We had a close call, but those things take forever. It’s like an updated Reality Bites. Not gay.

AE: You don’t sound very interested in doing gay projects. JL: I am definitely interested in writing gay projects. My problem with gay movies is usually that they are only about the gay world, at the exclusion of everything else – as if gay people exist in some parallel universe and aren’t part of the “real world.”

I personally prefer an accurately drawn gay character in any environment, whose role isn’t only about being gay – coming out, struggling to fit in, all the hard emotional stuff we have to deal with – but is just a part of who they are.

AE: I agree. JL: That’s sort of why we don’t harp on my character’s gayness in the web series. It’s just a fact about me. Except there is an episode where my character has to come out to her mom at the family farm around horses because she knows her mom won’t yell in front of animals. But we just did that because it’s funny.

Lesbian Apparel and Accessories Gay All Day sweatshirt -- AE exclusive

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Back to top button