“It’s like asking a woman when she’s crowning, ‘Do you want to give birth, again?’ ” explains Patricia Arquette of being asked about future directing ambitions while still waiting to screen her debut. “You’re like, ‘Not now!’ ”
Arquette’s feature, Gonzo Girl, is an adaptation of the book by Cheryl Della Pietra, who drew on her time as Hunter S. Thompson’s assistant in the 1990s for a fictionalized story about an aspiring writer who is tasked with extracting the latest novel from a drug-addled iconoclast. The script first came to the Oscar-winning actress, who had begun talking to her agents about nascent directorial aspirations, as an offer to star. In reading it, she saw the chance to explore themes, according to Arquette, that included — but were not limited to — “celebrity distortion, co-dependence, addiction, unhealed wounds, art, joy, life, sexuality.”
Arquette was also drawn to the ’90s time period, hinting that she may have witnessed some “celebrity distortion” during a decade in which she broke out in movies like True Romance. She says, “There were experiences that I had in the ’90s, being on the fringe and being at some of those parties with celebrities and up-and-coming celebrities and bad boys and blah, blah, blah.”
Willem Dafoe was attached to play the Thompson stand-in (named Walker Reade in the film), and Arquette cast Camila Morrone — who recently scored an Emmy nomination for her work in Daisy Jones & The Six — off a self-taped audition.
While not named, the originator of gonzo journalism loomed over the production. Onscreen, there are Thompson hallmarks — of tinted aviators, cigarette holders — and an unbridled affinity for handguns and an obscene amount of narcotics and hallucinogens. But the goal, says Arquette, was to “not re-create Hunter and not make a caricature, but generally be inspired by him.” Arquette encouraged Dafoe to lean into his character’s moral deficiencies (see: sexism, verbal abuse, narcissism, etc.).
“He really does a lot of incredibly unpleasant things,” says Arquette. “I’m so sick of seeing movies where everyone is the good guy. Everyone is so earnest.”
Production ran for 21 days, with Park City subbing for the Colorado Rockies. “People drove across the country, people flew in to be scenes just for background [work],” says Arquette. “So many people showed up for me.” The first-time feature director enlisted Sean Penn, who directed Arquette in his feature debut 1991’s The Indian Runner, for Gonzo Girl, for a small part, as well as Rick Springfield, who makes a small but memorable appearance as himself. During post-production, she turned to directors like Emmy winner Jay Roach, with whom she recently worked on the Apple TV+ series High Desert, as well as her siblings, including fellow performers Rosanna, Richmond and David, for notes.
With a cast comprised of veterans and rising stars and the promise of Arquette’s feature debut, Gonzo Girl, which premieres on Sept 7 at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, is seen as a major sales title heading into the festival. But Arquette’s greatest sense of accomplishments came even prior to production, when she made a promise to her stars, saying, “I’ll tell you this right now, I will always cut to the performance. I don’t care if the camera work doesn’t work. I don’t care if something doesn’t match something. I don’t care.” In her over four-decade-long career, Arquette can’t recall a director making her a similar offer.
She says, “That was a greedy and delicious thing, as an actor, to be able to do for other actors.”
This story first appeared in the Sept. 6 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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