There will be plenty to say once Shopgirl comes out in the fall—I'll even try to swing a press pass so I can report back to you sooner—but for now it seems best to collect the available data into one post and say: Ecce Homo! Ecce Danes! I'm sure that's not proper Latin. Corrections from Bostonians and smartypants relatives are welcome. Anyway, here is the official site, where you can watch the trailer; here it is on IMDb, which, while not my favorite movie resource, is my daily helpmeet. This is the poster.

Furthermore, Steve Martin has, of course, been talking about both the movie and the book. Meghan Daum interviewed him for the May Believer; the whole text is on AlterNet, which has a stern no-reproduction policy and which I sense (probably erroneously) I shouldn't piss off, but there are tons of questions about Shopgirl in both its forms, not to mention Martin's non-obvious inspiration for his Shouts & Murmurs pieces and a bit about his Osama riff in the March 5th New Yorker. (Randomly: someone's nutty compatability chart for Osama and Martin.)

And from a little About.com interview with Martin in 2003:

For “Shopgirl”, how did you get into the mind of a young girl?
You know, it's a tough question to answer because the answer is really just experience. Talking to people. I'm this age, I've lived a lot.

But you got into her mind.
Well, that's from listening and asking. It's not conscious, the listening and asking. It's when you go to write something like that that you realize, “I remember this, I know this.” You're surprised at what you know. Let's put it that way.

You once said the writer was taking over the actor.
Well, I'm having a lot of fun re-writing this “Pink Panther” script and working on it, let's say. So I guess that's writing. But it's also going to result in a movie. I don't know, my career's all over the place now because I had this terrible thing happen to me. I had a hit with “Bringing Down the House.” Everything was so fine. I had time on my hands, and occasionally I'd do a movie. Then suddenly I have a hit and a lot of demands and offers, and suddenly your head is kind of reeling about what to do.

Is there another play in the works?
No, there's not another play. There's nothing sophisticated in the pipeline at this point right now.

Why did you write “Shopgirl” as a novel first? [!]
Well, I never thought it was going to be a screenplay, that's why. I had a story to tell as a novel and I told it. I never thought it could be a screenplay. Then I started thinking about it even two years afterwards, the scenes started coming into my head. I thought the images were lovely. Then your mind starts working at night a little bit and then one day, you pick up your computer and you start typing.

What are the major differences between the film and the novel?
Well, in the book there is very little dialogue and in a movie there is only dialogue. You can't go inside a character's head like you can in a book. So, I discovered one thing. The character Ray Porter in the book is much more sympathetic than in the movie. Because in the book you can go inside his head and see what he's thinking, and why he does certain things and how he justifies certain things. How he comes to conclude certain things. In the movie, he just does them and they look a little harsh sometimes. I think I could be wrong. When the movie's over, it's a whole different animal.

Did you pick out Claire Danes for that part?
Yes, she's been fabulous. I can't believe her emotional intelligence at her age, 24. We're two weeks from finishing the movie, so it won't be ready to be seen for six months.

Do you still have time for your music?
Playing the banjo? Yes. I play almost every day, or try to. Sometimes I get together with friends. It's hard. I play with Billy Connelly. There are a few of us. We've played before. Kevin Nealon plays the banjo.

Is this how you thought your career would pan out? Are you blown away by it?
Yes, I am. When I first did my standup act...And you think you're over. 2003 and I'm still here.

Two years later, I'm ready for Shopgirl, and while the trailer makes me a wee bit nervous (Jason Schwartzman, styled as he appears to be here, is a laughable rival for Martin at any age—I know he's supposed to be a lost soul, but this is going too far), I liked the book a lot. I would post my Newsday review of it, but I can't find it in the pile o' clips. Anyway, I liked it, and I'm always willing to give adaptations a try on their own terms; as the columnists at The Nation like to say shortly before press time, conclusion TK. In the Believer interview Martin says, "Because you don't know if it's the corniest thing in the world until you put it out there in the world." That's pretty much my motto.


Memo to Jason Schwartzman's haircut: No.

Categories: Movies, Books, NYer, Martin