Pauley Perrette Online
10 Questions with Pauley P. (2000)
Q: I imagine you having very supportive parents. Where does your family fit in to this busy life that you have?
A: My Folks live in Alabama in a house in the middle of the woods that my father built. They grow food & flowers. Dad's retired. Part time preacher/Sunday school teacher/fireman/carpenter. Mother a beautiful southern belle. Everyone is very Southern. The South couldn't contain me.
I'm too busy, too loud, too strange, I think.
My body grew up down south, my mind develped in Manhattan & L.A. I come from a long line of very respectable, upstanding, southern people, so I was bound to happen eventually. My sister is an artist who lives in Nashville. I told her recently, "I love you because you are amazing, not because you're my sister". She is my person who gives me my freedom in my blood family. She understands creativity and weirdness in all forms. She has never, ever and would never judge me in any way. I couldn't live without her. "Family" to me are those kinds of people. I have the most outstanding group of friends who inspire, support and amaze me daily. I love the art and eccentricities in all of them and they love it in me. We sustain each other. Never judge, just experience each other.
Q: You were very seriously studying criminology and forensic science. How did you decide to take the path less travelled into acting and music?
A: I've lived so many lives in the one that I've been allotted. I stilll am obsessed with Forensic science and consider those who work in that field heroic, fighting for those who are truly defenseless (the dead). I don't understand those who want to/need to make victims of others in any way. The crime and criminal obsession is an insatiable desire to understand this. I still consider myself a criminologist, although I am not working in the field, because I think about it constantly. Coexisting with this is an insatiable need to create; a sound, a song, a character, an idea, a piece of prose, apparel, furniture, whatever. Although my varied careers and the million things I do may seem schizophrenic, it is all quite organic to me. I do not stop myself or define myself in any way, therefore all things are possible and available for me to try.
Q: Discuss your approach to acting. Are you prone to a lot of preparation? Where do you draw inspiration for your characters?
A: "acting". Such a bizarre concept. I believe that if we are in touch with our humanity, the humanity that is shared by all of us, trading shoes is quite natural. It's Empathy, Understanding. It should be a desire to know "us" and to not see ourselves as all that different from one another at our core. Just millions of lives with varying circumstances. "Preparation" is every second of my life and every person I encounter.
Q: The Price of Kissing has developed quite a fan base. How much does that film mean to you, personally and professionally?
A: Oh I love that film. To me, it brings me back to the experience of making it. We made the movie for NOTHING and worked our asses off. I had 18 wardrobe changes in one day. Luckily, that was my first real feature film job, and certainly my first starring role. The lucky part was the writer/director Vince DiPersio. I hadn't been in the business long enough to know how rare someone like that is. I came in to read for a small part in that film when I had been in L.A. like two seconds. He called me "the Great Bullshit detector" within 5 minutes of meeting him; called everyone and told them he wanted me for the lead and wouldn't take no for an answer. He is such a believer. He trusted and gave me free range, showed me ultimate respect, and was guided by his passion for the project. The respect and trust between us was so mutual (his writing and vision amazed me). I know now how incredibly blessed I was to start off in such an environment.
Favorite line from P.O.K: "Passion is the space between wanting something and getting it."
Q: Are there any actors or musicians you would like to work with someday?
A: Hmmm... Not really actors/musicians. It's more a range of people.
Alive? I've always wanted to hang out with the real Serpico, a seemingly honest & brave man.
I'm delighted with the life and generosity of Dolly Parton.
I would love to spend time with Jon Douglas, who developed criminal profiling for serial killers. ("Mind Hunter", great book).
Post Mortem? I would have loved to have had drinks and long, long conversations with: Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., Freddie Mercury, Emily Dickinson, Rene Descartes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, C.S. Lewis, Shel Silverstein, John Brown...
Q: You've really taken advantage of the internet in showcasing the music of your artists. Do you view the onset of technology as a good thing for the future of music?
A: There is no telling what is going to happen in the music business in the next few years (hours, minutes, seconds). Giving artists the chance to produce and distribute their own material is great, very empowering. The technological changes that are happening so rapidly now, amongst all the opinions, are in truth, only two things, inevitable and unstoppable.
Q: Where did the idea to start GO Records come from? How important has music been to your life?
A: Music is one of the VERY few constants in my life. Could not live without it, it's like oxygen.
GO records started from hearing great, talented performers go virtually unknown. All the while, record companies are spitting out so much crap... music for 8 year olds, that we all are forced to listen to. Absolutely soulless. GO does not mean an artist is signed, like the blood money contract labels have. There are no contracts. We just produce and assist unsigned artists in getting their stuff recorded and replicated. Building websites. Producing shows. Whatever it takes to get an artist's music out there.
Q: There's a very revelatory quality to the spoken word pieces you've recorded. What is it that your writing accomplishes for you?
A: EXORCISM. I must write. I've been writing forever and have pieces from when I was eight years old. I think and speak in poetry. I came that way. My favorite pieces by other people are "Renascence" by Edna St. Vincent Millay, "In The Playground" written by Scott Nichols, and an untitled anonymous piece that starts "Comes the dawn..." that my aunt had on her refrigerator when I was about ten. I copied it down and keep copies of it with me all the time still.
Q: Do you make time to sit down and write or are you driven by other environmental factors?
A: I will be eating, driving, talking...anything, and something, someone will inspire me. It's like a compulsion. They come to me in complete form, beginning to end, immediately, and I must write them down immediately, on a napkin, table, my arm; anything. Anything to get it out of my head and written down.
Q: And finally... You obviously have a healthy attitude towards living a full life. What philosophy allows you to take on as much as you do? Are there ever any moments of doubt?
A: Faith, faith, faith. Faith in God, in myself, in time, in change, in infinity, in resiliency, opportunity, fate, learning, faith in the sameness and the differences between us... Mostly faith in the absolute okayness of things being really bad or really good. We must have both, and they are equally necessary, and we will survive.