Director Rachel Talalay looks back at creation of cult comic book adaptation.
The event is remarkable and not just because of the extraordinary times in which the world finds itself.
“It ruined my career,” she says.
Credit: Everett Collection
“It put me into movie jail.
It was a disaster.
I couldn’t talk about it for 10 years.”
I mean, in so many ways this film is such a seminal part of us.
Not that everyone is a fan of the film.
Indeed, a quarter of a century on,Tank Girlremains a hugely polarizing movie.
And that’s just fine with Talalay.
“You’re either going to love it or you’re going to hate it.
you’re not the right audience for this film.
I had that very clearly in my rebellious mind when I made it.
I was like, I don’t give a s—!”
“I just opened it and I’m like, ‘Okay, this is me!’
I was such a punk-rocker and such a rebelor at least a rebel in my own mind.”
“It was very much an independent movie.
The neighbors were calling the police, trying to get rid of us.
We were the only movie that had scaryhairdressersworking on it.
But she handled it really well.”
“It took me a year to option it,” she says.
“I didn’t have a studio behind me, I didn’t have money behind me.
I just pursued them and pursued them and pursued them and finally I broke them down.”
“The first pitch was with [James] Cameron’s company,” she says.
What do you say, right?
I can’t do this if that’s what the response is going to be.
I just can’t do this.'"
says Talalay of the late executive.
“I had a wonderful meeting.
Dawn had a reputation of being a total hard-ass.
But at one point she stood on a chair and went, ‘IamTank Girl!
Iwillhave this project!”
The director also pitched the project at Steven Spielberg’s company, Amblin.
In the end, three companies showed firm interest inTank Girl.
I didn’t know that Palace could really afford to do the tanks properly."
Talalay today admits the auditions were simply an attempt to promote the project.
“That was a publicity ploy,” she says.
“I mean, that was all MGM doing their thing.
But it was terribly fun and it spawned the Spice Girls.
Three of the Spice Girls met in line for it.
“I don’t know if it’s appropriate even now to talk about that,” says Talalay.
“Lori just knew that she was Tank Girl,” says the director.
Lori just knew it was herand Lori did everything, she did half of her own stunts.”
“I’m just a huge Malcolm McDowell fan,” says Talalay.
“Clockwork Orangeis probably the movie that influenced me most for this and one of my very favorite films.
He was absolutely my first choice.
What was great about Malcolm was he understood it, he had the cheeky sense of what it was.
He had been so shocked at how unbelievably seriously everybody tookStar Trek.
He was getting death threats from fans.
“We were worried about her being blonde,” says Talalay of the actress.
The director recalls Watts being very shy.
“‘You’re supposed to be there, where you’re on camera.’
I mean, just pure introversion.
“We couldn’t afford Stan Winston,” says Talalay.
“He just wanted to do the movie more than anything and came and cut his feeso much.
I’m sure that he was funneling money fromCongohe was funneling the money fromsomethingto us.
“And Catherine came in with a truckload of ideas.
When I said this is who I want, I remember the producers saying, ‘What do you mean?
She doesn’t have enough credits!’
I thought I could hire the production designer who I thought was right for my movie that I developed.
It was a no-brainer.
She had doneThe Crowbut that’s pretty much all she had done.
She was doing covers forRolling Stoneand stuff at that point.
[The producers] were like, ‘Well, where are her credits?’
I said, ‘Everybody else comes in with tear sheets that are the work that Ariannedid.
Why don’t I go to the real designer?’
For me, it wasn’t about experience it was about being right for the project.”
“She was coming into audition and then Kurt killed himself.
So needless to say [she no longer wanted to appear in the film].
But she still wanted to be involved.
Most of what she did was send me lots and lots of ideas.
I have reams of wonderful notes from them of how to take it back intoTank Girl.”
Talalay recalls the shoot being a hard experience for all concerned.
“But the big Water and Power stuff is all this closed-down copper mine.
We were always being stopped for chemical spills.
I’m sure we were all full-on poisoned,” she adds, not entirely joking.
“It was a hard, hard, hard, physically hard movie,” says Talalay.
“It was very hot in the Arizona desert.
I just remember, the Rippers, their suits were like wearing couches.
And the guys arescorching, they’re sweating like hell.
I so adore him.
Everyone’s like, ‘Ice, you never complain, you never ever complain.’
He just goes, ‘Better than prison.'”
While Ice-T may have been cooperative, the film’s hero propthe tank itselfwas not.
“The tank tended to get sand in its tracks and then stop,” says Talalay.
“But also you couldn’t ever back up.
“That’s because I am and was obsessed with Hollywood musicals,” she says.
“Growing up, absolutely obsessed.
That was my escapism.
And Adam Shankman (director of 2007’sHairspray) ended up choreographing it.
“Then he was replaced by John Calley and there was not oneiotaof this movie that John Calley understood.
From then on, the experience was really tough.
I was just in a battle all the time to try and keep it as fresh as it remained.
Yeah, it was a war.”
“Well, so Tank Girl’s bedroom was decorated with dildos,” says Talalay.
“[An] entire wall of dildos.
He was just appalled by that.
So the whole sequence had to go.
“He just didn’t like the fact that she’s ugly,” says Talalay.
It’s very Jim Cameron-esque, the reality of how awful this is.
We’ve got to cut this sequence.’
We’d done a test screening where it was one of the favorite sequences in the movie.
I’m like, ‘Well, this is one of the favorite [sequences].’
‘Well, you’re gonna cut it way back down.’
Can we put it back?’
And he went, ‘No.’
It’s the worst when everything is just personal opinion.
‘This offends me.’
‘This offends me.’
Now I understand that the filmscaredthem, itscaredall the male executives. "
Talalay’s stress levels were not helped by the fact that she was pregnant.
“It definitely added another level of hardness to it,” she says.
“You’re getting up and having morning sickness and going to work in 110 degrees.
Fortunately I was only pregnant near the end of the movie.
But then I was pregnant through the entire editing and postproduction.”
“Tommy Boyopened the same weekend and did much better than we did.
We were told by theater owners that people bought tickets toTommy Boyand then went to went to watchTank Girl.
So, that screwed our statistics, because they expected a much higher box office.
It has sexual innuendo but it’s not extremely violent.
Basically, the MPAA screwed us with the rating.”
Tank Girlopened on March 31 1995 and earned just $2 million over its opening weekend.
“It was devastating,” says Talalay.
“I mean, they didn’t havemassivelyhigh expectations for it.
It was really mind-blowing to see the box office so bad.”
“Suddenly I was like, wait a minute, this has a whole other [life].
And on one side is the TARDIS and on the other side is Tank Girl.
I said, ‘My love children!
My wedding cake love children!
Bless you!'”
Talalay believes that the movie has accrued an added resonance in the age of #MeToo.
“Twenty-something years later, it was the first time I could sit through it.
I went, Wow, yeah, okay.
We really called #MeToo.”
Remarkably, it looks like Tank Girl could be driving her way back to the big screen.
Last year, it was reported that Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap production company is developing aTank Girlreboot.
The director is currently at work on a family-friendly Netflix family film titledA Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting.
But Talalay makes clear that she will always feel pride toward the familyun-friendlyTank Girl.
“All women have a piece of Tank Girl in them,” she says.
“It’s that piece where we’re not repressed for being women.
It’s embedded in our spirits.
The way men behavewe need an icon to feel that freedom for us.”
