Cindy Sherman: Characters | Art21 "Extended Play"

(drawers scraping)

- (Cindy) Did you know they have
press-on nails for pedicures?

(chuckles)

- (Speaker) Wait a minute-

- (Cindy) I haven't tried them yet,

but I'm really dying to try them,

isn't that crazy? (chuckles)

I'm thinking of just wearing them myself

just for a party,
just as a joke, you know?

I mean, they just, I mean,
except these aren't as obvious.

These are maybe more obvious

because they have
little polka dots on them

and they just look like,

'Who would wear little
polka dots on your toes?'

My work is not about fantasizing

about characters or situations.

Some people, I think,
have thought that

the characters I do were,

yeah, as if I've always fantasized

about being a femme fatale
or whatever, you know,

in my film stills.

Yeah, I don't think of
it as that literal to me.

When I'm doing the characters,

I really don't feel like
it's some sort of something

that grows out of my fantasy,
my own dreams.

In college when I would do it,

I would become a character

and then sort of think,

'Well, gee, here I am as Lucille Ball,
and what do I now?'

So then it became sort of a thing

and a little more like performance.

And I started to do it
going to parties sometimes.

I remember once getting all in character

and wanting to go to some opening

and feeling like something was missing,

and then I put a pillow under the dress

and went as a pregnant woman.

When I moved to New York,

I did it a few times,

but it suddenly wasn't the same

I think because in the city

I felt like I needed my own

sort of, street armour, or whatever

just to deal with the street,

and people out on the street,

and the crazy people,
and the real crazy people

who looked like some of the characters

I was looking like.

And I didn't want to be confused,
I guess, with them.

That's the advantage
of being in them myself

is I can just play around.

When I've experimented
with other people in them,

as models, paid models,
or friends or family,

I feel like I just,
I don't know what to tell them to do

because I don't really know

what it is I'm looking for until I see it.

So I tend to sort of rush them
through the whole process.

Then I redo it with myself,
and it's like grueling,

and it's like grueling,

so even though I love to do it,

it's much more work

because I'm like frustrated

at trying to capture on film

something that I can't even articulate.

Because I don't really know

what it is that I am looking for

until I see it.