From the "People" Archives:

by Joshua Moss

A sudden downpour hit Manhattan as I headed up Sixth Ave. to the studio/home of animator Bill Plympton. Arriving at Mr. Plympton's apartment drenched like a wet Chihuahua, I cut a less than impressive figure, but the wacky animator famous for his twisted cartoons like "25 Ways to Quit Smoking" and "Your Face" didn't seem to mind. He was cordial, friendly and enthusiastic as he answered questions about his new feature film, "I Married A Strange Person," which premiered last weekend at a special retrospective of the animator's work at the American Museum of the Moving Image, in Astoria, Queens, and gets its theatrical release from Lion's Gate Films this Friday, August 28th in LA and New York.

"I Married A Strange Person" debuted at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the only animated feature ever to screen in the esteemed Dramatic Competition. The film follows Grant, a newly married man, who discovers he has the power to make his every wish or thought come to life. Kinky sex, tortured in-laws, singing blades of grass, bullets turned to hamburgers -- very little it left to the imagination in the strange world of Bill Plympton.

indieWIRE: I understand you just got back from San Diego where you were promoting your new film, "I Married a Strange Person". What's in San Diego?

Bill Plympton: I was attending Comicon (an annual Comic Convention), where I showed a clip from "Strange Person," some of my shorts...talked about the film, handed out flyers, and generally tried to spread the word about the film.

iW: Now I understand you did the film entirely by yourself? Plympton: Well, I was the only animator. I did thirty thousand drawings, it took about a year to animate, and it had taken a year to script, then about six to nine months of post-production, you know, editing the sound, that kind of stuff, where I had help.

iW: (disbelieving) And you did every drawing?

Plympton: Yup. (pointing around the room) There are boxes up there,...boxes over there... Drawings everywhere!

iW: So what's the distribution plan?

Plympton: Well, it all depends on the press and the numbers we get. Right now it's just New York and LA. But if we get some good numbers on the first weekend, more theaters will jump in. Lion's Gate's been handling it, so far so good. A lot of press, and you know,...we'll see!

iW: Now the lead character, the "strange person" -- who is this based on?

Plympton: Well, for lack of a better person, me. Although I'm not married, I've dated some strange people! (laughing) But I think the concept, being an animator, is creating worlds out of nothing but imagination. And that's sort of what this character does. So I guess the character is me, sort of, but I've added a lot of side trips. Like this mega-corporation called "Smile Corp", which is kind of a Disney-esque paramilitary corporation controlling the entertainment of the world...

iW: You had a bad Disney experience, right?

Plympton: Yeah, but I'm not a Disney hater. I love the Disney product, and am always on line to see a new Disney film. They've shown me a lot of ways of merchandising, and they really are pioneers in a lot of that stuff...I'm just making fun of that more than being anti-Disney.

iW: So are there any animator groupies out there?

Plympton: (laughing) I don't know about that... I just came back from this comic convention and it's mostly guys. They just want to know what type of pencils I use, stuff like that. What bugs the shit out of me is they keep asking me what computers I use. That really irritates me. If I used computers it would take forever and cost a fortune. By doing it by hand it goes so much faster, and is more similar to what I see in my brain.

iW: So who casts the voices for the film?

Plympton: I do. But I did have a co-writer on this, as well as five assistants to help with cel painting after I completed the drawings.

iW: Do you ever worry about the content of your films limiting the distribution?

Plympton: I can't worry about that. The only thing I worry about is that the audience watches it and enjoys it. I come up with ideas that are very weird...sometimes they involve sex, sometimes they involve violence, and if that's what I enjoy doing and that's what audiences enjoy watching, I can't be concerned with theater owners or distributors.

iW: So the film opens at the Angelica here in New York?

Plympton: Yup. In fact I'm going to be there handing out free books and videotapes to the first twenty or thirty people who show up on August 28th, 29th, and 30th. The first twenty or thirty people who come for each show.

iW: Wow, talk about hands-on P.R.!

Plympton: Hopefully we'll get a big turnout!

[Joshua Moss is a screenwriter and filmmaker living in New York. His 1995 short film, "August Roads", played at over 7 film festivals and was picked up for distribution by Tapestry International. He is currently at work on his first feature film, "Wankers."]