John Gulager discovers the on-set-secret to directing your first film while still getting a solid eight hours of sleep a night.

Last night, during commercial breaks and directly following the group-hug episode of Project Greenlight, Goldenfiddle spoke briefly, via telephone, with a slighty inebriated John Gulager, the contest winner/director of Feast (the movie that Matt (Damon) and Ben (Affleck) are helping to happen this third season), who was in New York City taking a meeting with the aforementioned Matt (Damon) and trying to sneak onto the set of Martin Scorsese’s new mob epic, The Departed. Despite our best efforts, reality TV’s answer to Paul Giamatti is, and unfortunately for the interview, as endearing and lovable as he appears on TV. Consequently, he was extremely limited in what he could say, due to the fact that the show is still airing new episodes through May, he has some sort of innate bullshit loyalty blah, blah, blah to the people who gave him his big shot and Bob Weinstein was holding a gun to his head during the conversation. Gulager wouldn’t really talk shit about anyone except himself. The bastard. So, there went the questions regarding the producers’ inability to shave, sit up straight, tuck in a shirt, even pretend to know how to tie a tie or why they won’t stop listening to their iPods (always with the headphones guys, jeez! we’re trying to make a movie here!). But more about the movie! Feast, with its (secretly auteur) director, (not so secretly) silly plot and (secretly awesome) cast that reads like an A list of C list stars, includes Balthazar Getty (last seen in Lord of the Flies), Henry Rollins (last seen screaming), Krista Allen (last seen giving Smallville’s junior Superman a case of the super-prematures), Judah Friedlander (last seen stealing every scene he was in in American Splendor), Eric Dane (last seen Crossing Gideon), and John’s Hollywood-lifer father, and the straightenest shootinest cowboy either side of the mighty Mississippi, Clu Gulager (last seen in… Tapeheads?!), might be the one that saves the excellent, but underwatched, Project Greenlight.

FIDDLE: Are you enjoying tonight’s episode?

GULAGER: To watch these things I have to get really blotto. I’ve already had a vodka tonic and three glasses of wine here.

FIDDLE: Congratulations. You deserve it. We hear you were pretty into music as a kid, punk rock and stuff.

GULAGER: When I was younger we made a whole rock opera, or we tried to make part of one, very seventies, you know, period piecey sounding, if you listen to it now. It’s about a psycho guy being raised by his aunt and her two kids, and they end up having a, well, they kill her, and they work in a slaughterhouse, and then they have a little battle themselves. You know, the usual.

FIDDLE: So the (rocky) horror genre has always appealed to you?

GULAGER: Yeah, since I was a kid, we were totally into horror films, we used to show films in our backyard to the neighborhood. Creature From The Black Lagoon, King Kong vs Godzilla, Frankenstein. I remember dad smuggled out (of Disney) Snow White one time, and I refused to watch it because it wasn’t a monster movie, but I ended up being so entranced by the whole thing.

FIDDLE: Scanning your IMDB page we noticed a cinematography credit for something called Pornstar Pets.

GULAGER: A friend of mine made it, and I shot. It’s really great, and it’s not pornographic. it’s mild. If you didn’t know what their jobs were, it’d be pretty G rated. I think it’s showing on the 30th at the Echo Park Film Center. A premiere sort of thing. I think it’s a great title, but people on the message boards really give me a hard time for it, but what can I say?

• If you’ve read the message boards at Bravo or IMDB, as John is prone, or addicted, to do, then it comes as no surprise that he is lambasted daily with the anonymous know-it-all rage of fourteen year old reservoir dogs, all of whom could, of course, do a much better job than John but, and not sadly, won’t. ever.

GULAGER: Oh my god the boards, they’re so mean! A lot of them just concentrate on my visage and bathing habits, but, I mean, how many pages can you write about someone taking a bath? If I ever responded I would have to spend the whole time defending myself, so I don’t.

FIDDLE: When you were first oh-so-awkwardly interviewed on Project Greenlight by the producers and Wes Craven, and you brought out that great, ghoulish, bloody-red painting and said, ‘this is how the movie should look,’ well, it didn’t look promising. But after seeing scenes like the one in which Krista Allen is covered in blood and the one where Judah Friedlander is hosed down with monster vomit, it actually looks exactly like the painting. I guess you did have a clear-cut vision from the start.

GULAGER: Matt (Damon) said something just like that. He said, ‘they thought you were totally nuts when you brought that painting out, but now they totally see it!’

FIDDLE: But back to Krista Allen.

GULAGER: Ironically, she’s really great in the film. (ED. note: there’s your excuse to Netflix the completely absurd, yet arousing -violently arousing, Emanuelle series, one through forty eight.) But the blood thing was funny because she was like ‘just don’t get any blood on my face or in my hair.’ I was like, what kind of movie do you think we’re making here?

FIDDLE: Many times on the show you appear unsure of the way things work, but considering your Hollywood background (mom, dad, brother and girlfriend in the industry) that seems implausible.

GULAGER: One of the things people say about me is that I’m naive, but really what it is, is that I’ve just decided not to go certain places and not to do certain things. As far as something that really surprised me, was the politics and the egos involved. And I don’t mean egos necessarily in a bad way, but just how much it means to be, you know, in the loop or out of the loop. If someone’s not informed of something, then suddenly you’ve made a value judgement on their worth, when it could have just been talking to someone on the phone.

FIDDLE: The producers, Chris Moore, Nick Phillips, Joel Soisson, and Mike Leahy, who comprise a large part of the cast of the show, all have final say over how they are represented on screen. So, in their own best interest, they all just come off as fun, okay guys that have to regulate every once in a while. Seems kind of boring.

GULAGER: Yeah, I think people don’t have that much to say about the producers.

FIDDLE: So, how honest is the show?

GULAGER: It’s pretty honest, as reality show, but I’m always surprised that things are in there. I mean this year there are going to be a lot of hurt feelings; me more than anyone. It’s like getting punched in the stomach. They don’t show anything that’s not true, though, but it’s very compressed. They play up more by omission. Obviously, there were more people in the mix for casting. There were more people I suggested. My whole thing was, if we can get some big shots to come to the table for casting, then I’m not going to be pushing Diane and my brother. But if they’re not coming to the table, then I want the people I want. And casting, most of your directing, most of your film is done in the casting. I talked to Matt (Damon) one day, and he said, ‘if the director’s talking to you a lot, things aren’t going so well. They cast you because they want you.’

FIDDLE: Michelle Gertz (the casting director and sister-in-law to Jamie, who lobbied for and seemingly snuck certain less desirable actors into the cast without the director or producers’ full consent, and who also takes it in the ass on the message boards so much so that it prompted Chris Moore to defend her on his own Bravo/Greenlight blog) has been the subject of much debate.Do you think Michelle was portrayed unfairly on the show?

GULAGER: You’re going to ask me? Um, no. From my point of view, if Michelle had been working with someone else, probably none of this would have come up. But she was working with me, and I have certain point of view.

FIDDLE: For the tech geeks out there, we didn’t see much film loading on the set. Was the film shot on tape?

GULAGER: Yeah. Feast was shot on the Sony 900. I guess they call it the HDW-F900, but when you talk to people they just say the Sony 900. It shoots at 24p. Digital is nice for the instant gratification, and you have a technition on the set to tweak the images as its happening. But the cameras are very big, very heavy, and for the whole last two third’s of Feast it’s all hand held. So it was very hard on the camera operators. It was grueling.

FIDDLE: Who are some of your idols?

GULAGER: I love Fellini, obviously. Well, I mean not obviously, but you know. I love Cocteau, Scorese, Coppola.

FIDDLE: Did you apply to be on either of the previous two seasons of PGL?

GULAGER: I hadn’t even seen all the episodes, I have now, though, but I shot and edited one of my friend’s entries, and when we finished his piece he just entered me into the contest, paid the entry fee, and said, ‘you’re entered, so, send something in.’

FIDDLE: So you weren’t even that interested in it?

GULAGER: I was interested in it, but the commitment aspect of doing something like that, and usually I’m always so broke, so.

FIDDLE: Do you have any idea what’s going to be on the show next week?

GULAGER: No. I spend half the show just yelling at the screen, with the vodka tonic in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other.

FIDDLE: Did you feel any respect from the “professionals” working on the movie?

GULAGER: Oh, no. I didn’t feel any respect. Zero respect.

FIDDLE: How does Feast stand right now?

GULAGER: I‘d say it’s finished but not completed, does that make any sense?

FIDDLE: Yes and no.

GULAGER: Well, we’re actually trying to get a little bit more money to patch a few holes in the boat, so to speak. But, you know, we got caught up in that whole Miramax/Disney divorce thing, and I think all that stuff is now coming to an end, and moneys are coming back into place, so hopefully, we’ll be able to finish the film. And I read in Variety about Bob and Harvey, and it talked about what they were taking with them, and they were only taking four pieces with them and Feast was one of them. Which was cool because they mentioned it by name, rather than just, you know, untitled horror project.

FIDDLE: Do you have final cut on the film?

GULAGER: Ha, no.

FIDDLE: Are you getting offers?

GULAGER: People are sending scripts, but I’m not that interested. But people are saying they could raise money. One really nice girl actually sent me some money. for whatever reason. But I’m going to send it back. I just thought that was really sweet.

FIDDLE: Of course you are. So, a fall release for Feast?

GULAGER: I can’t say anything about that. I’m sorry.

FIDDLE: Of course you are. So all in all, how’s the fame?

GULAGER: It’s pretty mild. Yeah, you know, I mean, it maybe came a little too late, maybe. But it’s nice. Makes us feel better. As far as getting recognized, it makes Diane feel really good. Or when someone jumps out of their truck when they’re going by the house, and they just come up and say ’ I watch your show and we’re behind ya, and we’re pulling for ya!’ That’s nice. We’re not to that point where we’re jaded. You know, one of the little previews on some magazine said ‘he’s called the wackiest guy in Hollywood history,’ but a year ago I was just the wackiest guy at home.

FIDDLE: Finally (in our worst Will Ferrell), if Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

GULAGER: Heaven doesn’t exist.

Spoken like a true veteran of Project Greenlight.

• Project Greenlight is on Thursday nights, on the Bravo channel, at 10pm, eastern standard time. So check yer local listings.