With Swan Song, Todd Stephens deftly explores the generational divide between queer life as it once was and exists today. It’s an approach that’s brilliantly embodied by its star, Udo Kier, the legendary actor and cult figure whose idiosyncratic aura and work with queer cinema luminaries has endeared him to legions of fans across his 50-year-plus career. At 75, Kier has been gifted his greatest role to date as the real-life Pat Pitsenbarger, a small-town hairdresser who’s called out of retirement to style a deceased former friend for her wake and finds himself reckoning with a faded past and confounding present.
The film rounds off Stephens’s so-called “Sandusky Trilogy,” which began with 1998′s Edge of Seventeen and 2001′s Gypsy 83. These loosely autobiographical films are all set in the director’s boyhood town of Sandusky, Ohio, where Pitsenbarger was a beloved eccentric. In bringing the character to life as only he can, Kier has won accolades from critics and audiences for his revelatory performance. But in dispelling some of the ostentatious aura that the actor acquired from his days working alongside artists like Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Paul Morrissey, Andy Warhol, and Madonna, Swan Song, surprisingly, steps back and makes room for Kier to hoist his freak flag in a way that’s altogether poignant and entirely his own. We sat down to discuss the film, the actor’s legacy, and how he feels about being labeled a gay icon.
You’ve worked all over the world with some of the biggest directors ever, but did you ever imagine you’d end up in Sandusky, Ohio making this film?
No. [laughs] But don’t forget, I’ve been all over. I met Lars von Trier when I was unknown in Copenhagen and then we started working together after he had made only one film. I met Gus Van Sant in Berlin after he had made Mala Noche and he said, “Oh, my next film is going to be with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves and I want you to be in it.” So, I did films with a lot of directors who were unknown when I stared working with them. I mean, not Fassbinder or Wenders or Herzog, but there’s a lot of people I worked with [who’ve taken me to different places]. One day I got the script from Todd and I liked it. I read it and then I read it again. I imagined myself going back in the past because I was the generation where, when I was young in Germany, people with AIDS, they died. There was no medication. It was totally different.
In that vein, Swan Song is very much about respecting and acknowledging generations of queer people that came before. Was that message important to you?
Yes! In my generation, people, when they went, for example, to a gay bar, they had to look in front of the door to the left and right to make sure that nobody saw them going in. Now, the young gay people, they’re holding hands in Applebee’s or McDonald’s.
How did you prepare for the role of Pat Pitsenbarger?
I went to Sandusky and I said to Todd, “I would prefer to shoot chronological as much as we can. And I want to start in the retirement home and I would like to stay there one or two days on my own before shooting so I could get a feel for this place and the bed and the window and the door.” I had to touch everything because Pat has been there for years. And then, in the second-hand store, the woman offers me the green suit and that became my costume for the whole film. The moment I took it on for the screen, I never took it off.
It’s an instantly iconic look!
When I [was growing] up, it was David Bowie, Elton John—very flamboyant with crazy sunglasses and all that. And, of course, I’m very glad they got the music they wanted, because [I love it] when I’m sitting in the wheelchair in the green suit and all the cars behind me [are] going crazy and the music is, “I did it my way!” [sings]
You’ve spoken previously about how it was important for you not to “act” or over-perform in this role, and many feel like they’re really seeing you for the first time here.
Well, yes. I mean, it was my decision not to act and my decision to wear the green suit. I went in that green suit to a bar and I said, “Could I have a Chardonnay?” That was after work, and then I was “The Man in the Green Suit.” Everybody in the street, they all knew me and then they found out slowly that we were making a movie. Before, they didn’t know!
You began your career working with some legendary gay artists. Do think that your previous work in queer cinema prepared you for this film?
You see, I have never been to acting school, so I was a lucky to meet all these people. I was discovered in England when I went to school to learn English, and I got discovered for my first film. The agency, William Morris, signed me up worldwide and they called me “the new face of cinema.” I liked attention, so I became an actor. All these people wanted to meet me.
Once I sat on a plane and the man next to me said, “What do you do for a living?” And I said, “I’m an actor.” I already had my headshot under his nose. And he looked and said, “Give me your number. I’m Paul Morrissey. I’m the director for Andy Warhol.” So, a couple of weeks later, I got a call, “Hey! It’s Paul from New York. You remember? From the plane? I’m doing a little film, Frankenstein in 3D, and I have a role for you.” And I said, “Wow! That’s great. What do I play?” He said, “Frankenstein.” Then I became Dracula for Paul. So, things all came like that.
I met Lars von Trier after his first film and I liked it and he gave me a Medea script by Carl Theodor Dreyer for the main male part and we became friends. I became the godfather of his child, and we made movies together. Everything came like that. Of course, I always learned and learned and learned and learned. When you work with Martin Landau, and Marco Wirges, and Willem Dafoe, of course you’re learning because they’re wonderful, experienced actors.
But do you embrace the title of “gay icon?”
I find that ridiculous. Why an icon? Why gay? Do they write in papers “a straight icon”? [Laughs] I mean, it doesn’t really matter, but it’s just when you’re in a gay story. I mean, it’s the same when you play a killer. You don’t have to kill people. You know? It’s all okay. Whatever they write and make me compliments…that’s wonderful and I like it.
The film is very concerned with legacy, so how do you hope to be remembered?
That I was a lucky man who got wonderful opportunities in film. I can tell you I have never asked in my life a director, “I would like to be in this film.” Never. I mean, imagine if I would say to David Lynch, “I would like to be in your movie,” and he would answer, “Who doesn’t?” I want to be remembered that I had a good time and that I did comedies and drama and thrillers and gay hairdressers—everything, so why not?
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