1 00:00:07,500 --> 00:00:10,100 Cindy Sherman: Characters 2 00:00:12,420 --> 00:00:16,660 Did you know they have press-on nails for pedicures? [LAUGHS] 3 00:00:17,880 --> 00:00:21,480 I haven’t tried them yet, but I’m really dying to try them. 4 00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:22,940 Isn’t that crazy? [LAUGHS] 5 00:00:24,939 --> 00:00:27,640 I'm thinking of just wearing them myself just to... 6 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,589 ...for a party, just as a joke, you know? I mean they just... [LAUGHS] 7 00:00:30,589 --> 00:00:32,850 I mean, except these aren't as obvious. 8 00:00:32,850 --> 00:00:35,360 These are maybe more obvious because they have little polka dots on them 9 00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:39,700 and they just look like, "Who would wear little polka dots on their toes?" 10 00:00:45,640 --> 00:00:53,120 My work is not about, kind of, fantasizing about characters or situations. 11 00:00:53,130 --> 00:00:58,760 Some people, I think, have thought that the characters I do were... 12 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:04,720 ...yeah, like, as if I've always fantasized about being a femme fatale or whatever, 13 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:07,260 you know, if... in my film stills. 14 00:01:08,180 --> 00:01:13,460 I don't think of it as that literal to me. 15 00:01:15,140 --> 00:01:19,900 When I'm doing the characters, I really don't feel like it's some sort of... 16 00:01:19,909 --> 00:01:24,749 something that grows out of my fantasy--my own dreams. 17 00:01:28,020 --> 00:01:29,800 In college, when I would do it, 18 00:01:29,810 --> 00:01:33,380 I would, you know, become a character and then sort of think, 19 00:01:33,380 --> 00:01:38,080 "Well, gee, here I am as Lucille Ball. What do I do now?" 20 00:01:38,940 --> 00:01:42,330 So then it became sort of a thing and a little more like performance. 21 00:01:42,330 --> 00:01:47,590 And I started to do it going to parties sometimes. 22 00:01:47,590 --> 00:01:51,549 I remember once getting all in character and wanting to go to some opening, 23 00:01:51,549 --> 00:01:54,170 and feeling like something was missing-- 24 00:01:54,170 --> 00:01:58,439 and then I put a pillow under the dress and went as a pregnant woman. 25 00:01:59,040 --> 00:02:03,920 And when I moved to New York I did it a few times, but it suddenly wasn’t the same, 26 00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:11,580 I think, because in the city I felt like I needed my own, sort of, 27 00:02:12,820 --> 00:02:17,720 you know, street armor or whatever just to deal with the street, 28 00:02:17,730 --> 00:02:19,440 and the people out in the street and the crazy people 29 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:23,620 and the real crazy people, who looked like some of the characters I was looking like 30 00:02:23,620 --> 00:02:26,600 and I didn’t want to be confused, I guess, with them. 31 00:02:28,880 --> 00:02:34,060 The advantage of being myself is I can just play around. 32 00:02:34,580 --> 00:02:38,940 When I've experimented with other people in them, as models-- 33 00:02:38,950 --> 00:02:40,940 paid models, or friends or family-- 34 00:02:40,940 --> 00:02:44,530 I feel like I just... 35 00:02:44,530 --> 00:02:45,560 I don't know what to tell them to do 36 00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:49,410 because I don’t really know what it is I’m looking for until I see it, 37 00:02:49,410 --> 00:02:53,110 so I tend to sort of rush them through the whole process. 38 00:02:53,920 --> 00:02:57,260 And then I re-do it myself and it's, like, grueling, so... 39 00:02:57,270 --> 00:03:00,910 I mean, even though I love to do it, its much more work because, you know, 40 00:03:00,910 --> 00:03:07,550 I’m frustrated at trying to capture on film something that I can’t even articulate 41 00:03:07,550 --> 00:03:12,630 because I don’t really know what it is I am looking for until I see it.