Zoe Lister-Jones is a New York actor, singer, playwright, screenwriter, and also plays Kim, "Jon"'s on-again, off-again girlfriend on Delocated, which just wrapped its second season early last month. Her latest movie co-written/-acted with her boyfriend Daryl Wein, Breaking Upwards, made a big splash at festivals last year and recently came out on DVD. Lister-Jones told us all about her love affair with political thrillers, singing about feces as a pre-teen, and pretending to have seen every movie that's ever been made.

No. 8: The Fisher King

[Laughs.] I've still never seen this. There are major holes in my cinematic bank of knowledge. I hadn't seen The Godfather or The Godfather: Part II until last year, or a lot of mafia movies. I haven't seen Goodfellas. Yeah, so this is a film that I've always wanted to see. I'm down with Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams in a homeless comedy.

Everyone's got those gaps in what they've seen, though. Are you working through some sort of mental list, or did something spark you into wanting to see this?

A little bit. I just recently re-watched The Big Lebowski.

You're getting ready for Tron?

[Laughs.] Yeah, I'm getting ready for Tron! I'm not big on the Bridges canon so to speak, but Lebowski is the greatest rendition of a character of all time. He has long hair in this one, too, and I think he has Hawaiian garb. So I felt like it was a close second.

He's got a ponytail, too.

Yeah, he's got like a half-pony, which is almost better than a pony. But, yeah, I am waiting for Tron. I think it'll be fun to see Bridges go like Benjamin Button, go back in time a little onscreen. I watched a bunch of awards-acceptance speeches from last year--for Crazy Heart, which I also didn't see. That was riveting.

No. 65: Pink Flamingos

Pink Flamingos I haven't seen since I was 12, when I was on a real John Waters kick. I grew up in Brooklyn and went to the video store with my friends--back when people went to video stores--and the guy made us get [my friend's] dad, we were staying at her house that night, to come and give permission to watch Pink Flamingos. We didn't know what we were getting into. We didn't know why we would need a parent's permission, being 12-year-olds, but then, you know, there are various cuts of meat being shoved up a tranny's ba-hoo-hoo. Blowjobs. And then there's the classic feces-eating scene at the end of the film. But I started a band called Obadiah Divine when I was 12 because of my experience watching Pink Flamingos. Our single was "Eat Doody."

“I started a band called Obadiah Divine when I was 12 because of my experience watching Pink Flamingos.”

What kind of music was it?

Kinda singer-songwriter, coming from 12-year-olds obsessed with John Waters. We never played any shows, nor did we record. But we wrote them down on paper and then sang them at sleepover parties.

Do you remember any of the lyrics from "Eat Doody?"

Um, no. [Laughs]. I just remember the chorus went, "Eat doody, eat doody, eat doody / Eat doody, eat doody, eat doody."

That sorta sounds like the Ramones.

Yeah, it was sorta like the Ramones meets Liz Phair. [Laughs.]

No. 207: The Player

I've still never seen this, but I love Robert Altman and I like me some Tim Robbins and I like players. This is supposed to be a great movie. I've been in Hollywood with my writing partner, who's also my boyfriend, and we're working on a movie together and people reference it all the time... so I pretend I've seen it. I think it's supposed be a funny commentary on the Hollywood game. Who doesn't appreciate that? People are always referring to this [eight-minute, uninterrupted single-shot] opening in our meetings and I'm always like, "Yes. That's exactly what our movie's going to be like."

What other movies do you pretend you've seen?

[Laughs.] Most! I sort of was proud of my lack of knowledge about the classics only because my mom is a video artist. We would always watch really bleak foreign films growing up. For Mother's Day one year she made me go to the Knitting Factory to see this weird Japanese cult film called Iron Man, way before the Robert Downey Jr. franchise, where a Japanese guy's **** turns into a drill. And he's pulling razor blades out of his face because he's turning into iron. I saw that when I was like 10, which was a great experience I have to say, but I feel like I've got some knowledge in other areas that doesn't make me feel too bad about having not seen The Player.

No. 138: Dead Ringers

I tried watching that in college and I fell asleep, and it's not a movie one falls asleep to. There's twin doctor killers, gynecologist killers at that, which any woman can relate to. Twin gynecologist killers, oh my God. It's kind of a classic David Cronenberg film, and Jeremy Irons is in it and he plays both twins. I fell asleep, but I might've been on drugs. I'm not sure what happened. We tried watching it very late at night, and it's also so creepy and I get so creeped out so easily. I've never been a huge fan of things that scare the s*** out of me, so maybe I emotionally shut down. What's crazy is this is listed as a "medical drama," which I wasn't even aware was a genre of film. I wish there was a genre that was "gynecological drama." I think it would have a broader audience.

“I wish there was a genre that was ‘gynecological drama.’”

No. 20: Airplane!

I've never f***ing seen this, which is another one I'm so embarrassed about. But I did a play with Julie Hagerty a couple of years ago and she's the greatest woman of all time, and I've wanted to see this for a long time. You think I'd just make the time to watch it but, alas. It's a classic, and she's so funny as a person and as an actress. So, yes, I want to see that.

So this wasn't inspired by Leslie Nielsen's passing?

No, it wasn't inspired by that--although that makes me sound like a better person. I just love Julie Hagerty, she has that amazing high voice that kind of became her trademark. We had this amazing time backstage one day. We were always just messing around, because this is what actors just do because we're inherently really dorky and always just regressing in all moments of our lives, and so we would pretend to be ducks backstage when we had to cross behind the curtain in the middle of the play. So we'd always be really cute and funny because she's really cute and funny and then one day she just made a voice, [Adopts really high voice.], "Oh, the duckies are walking backstage. Come on, duckies!" And then be like, [Adopts gravelly low voice.] "I can't wait to stop f***ing talking like a little girl all the time!" I loved it. That was the moment where I fell in love.

No. 29: Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

Watch Trailer on YouTube.

It's about the making of Apocalypse Now, and it's supposed to be an insane documentary. Apocalypse Now is insane in and of itself, but people say that this documentary is more frightening than the movie. F***ed-up, crazy s*** happened on that movie and, yeah, I've just always wanted to see it because it always comes up in conversations with film nerds. So I'm excited to see how many drugs those actors were on. Supposedly Dennis Hopper was on acid for the entirety of the shoot and Martin Sheen I think was super drunk for a couple of his scenes, too, which is fun trivia to know because it really opens the door for any of us actors to take hallucinogens on set... which is really what happens on Delocated. We're all on LSD all the time. Jacob Kogan, who plays David, he's our dealer. He brings it because he's got a great hook-up at Dalton Private School.

“I'm excited to see how many drugs those actors were on.”

No. 86: The Pelican Brief

Love that movie. [My boyfriend and I are] sort of trying to write a psychological-political thriller/medical-gynecological drama about genetically modified food. So we were adding a lot of these great thrillers to the mix, and we also love Alan J. Pakula, who's the director. I loved this movie when it came out, and I always love revisiting movies that I loved when I was younger. Sometimes it backfires. I tried it with Reality Bites and it didn't really stand the test of time. But The Pelican Brief, yeah. The Firm is right before it. Those are both such good thrillers from the same year. God, a good year for thrillers.

“I always love revisiting movies that I loved when I was younger.”

It seems like that's a genre that hasn't really been too active lately. Why do you think that might be?

I feel like maybe people wanted to be scared more in the '90s, and now everything is scary enough that we're like, "Ah, f*** it. We should probably just watch The Hangover again."

That's probably true. When Snakes On A Plane came out, we were ready to see movies with terrorists in them again.

Yeah, totally. Also the thing about Hollywood is they're really reductive in terms of what will be successful and what will fail. So if the past two political thrillers that came out as tentpole films failed then they just decide the genre is dead. I think that happened and now "political thriller" is a bad word if you're pitching a film. It sucks, because there's so many great ones that have stood the test of time and still could be made.

Maybe that's what happened to the gynecological drama?

I think that's on the rise. If you go and pitch the gynecological drama, you'll probably sell it in the room.

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