Cindy Sherman: Characters | ART21 "Exclusive"

Cindy Sherman: Characters

Did you know they have press-on nails for
pedicures? [LAUGHS]

I haven’t tried them yet, but I’m really
dying to try them.

Isn’t that crazy? [LAUGHS]

I'm thinking of just wearing them myself just
to...

...for a party, just as a joke, you know?
I mean they just... [LAUGHS]

I mean, except these aren't as obvious.

These are maybe more obvious because they
have little polka dots on them

and they just look like, "Who would wear little
polka dots on their toes?"

My work is not about, kind of, fantasizing
about characters or situations.

Some people, I think, have thought that the
characters I do were...

...yeah, like, as if I've always fantasized
about being a femme fatale or whatever,

you know, if... in my film stills.

I don't think of it as that literal to me.

When I'm doing the characters, I really don't
feel like it's some sort of...

something that grows out of my fantasy--my
own dreams.

In college, when I would do it,

I would, you know, become a character and
then sort of think,

"Well, gee, here I am as Lucille Ball. What
do I do now?"

So then it became sort of a thing and a little
more like performance.

And I started to do it going to parties sometimes.

I remember once getting all in character and
wanting to go to some opening,

and feeling like something was missing--

and then I put a pillow under the dress and
went as a pregnant woman.

And when I moved to New York I did it a few
times, but it suddenly wasn’t the same,

I think, because in the city I felt like I
needed my own, sort of,

you know, street armor or whatever just to
deal with the street,

and the people out in the street and the crazy
people

and the real crazy people, who looked like
some of the characters I was looking like

and I didn’t want to be confused, I guess,
with them.

The advantage of being myself is I can just
play around.

When I've experimented with other people in
them, as models--

paid models, or friends or family--

I feel like I just...

I don't know what to tell them to do

because I don’t really know what it is I’m
looking for until I see it,

so I tend to sort of rush them through the
whole process.

And then I re-do it myself and it's, like,
grueling, so...

I mean, even though I love to do it, its much
more work because, you know,

I’m frustrated at trying to capture
on film something that I can’t even articulate

because I don’t really know what it is I
am looking for until I see it.