\u201cHe\u2019s just a different breed,\u201d Wilde says of Araki. \u201cThere\u2019s absolutely nothing Hollywood about Gregg.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde in the movie \u201cI Want Your Sex.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Lacey Terrell \/ Magnolia Pictures)<\/p>\n
Except, of course, that he has long lived in Hollywood itself. Born to a Japanese American family in Los Angeles, Araki grew up mostly in Santa Barbara and returned to L.A. to attend graduate film school at USC and has lived here ever since. All 12 of his feature films, including those not set in Los Angeles, have been shot here. He recently told his manager he doesn\u2019t want to take any TV directing jobs that require him to be out of town.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve always loved about L.A. is it\u2019s very surreal and kind of cartoon-like,\u201d says Araki, a remarkably youthful 66, during a recent interview one afternoon inside the empty theater at Brain Dead Studios on Fairfax before a photo shoot. \u201cThe collision between fantasy and reality \u2014 the land of dreams and Tinseltown and all that. But then there\u2019s also that seedier side. It\u2019s just totally unique in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a shrunken, purple T-shirt of his beloved band My Bloody Valentine wrapped around his slim frame and a signature sweep of black hair with only a slightly graying mustache to belie his age, Araki has a joyful, curious, up-for-anything air people half his years would die for. The tensions of keeping the industry of Hollywood at arm\u2019s length while warmly embracing all the contradictions of the city of Los Angeles have long animated him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been in a city that feels like L.A., that has the vibe of L.A., that has the visual splendor and squalor,\u201d he says. \u201cDavid Lynch has obviously been a huge influence on me. And he was similar in his vision of the surreal, the dreamlike, the strange, the ugly and the beautiful, all kind of mashed together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recently, Araki found out from his mother that his 1993 film \u201cTotally F***ed Up\u201d \u2014 which declares Los Angeles \u201cthe alienation capital of the world\u201d \u2014 had made The Times\u2019 recent list of the 101 best L.A. movies<\/a>, coming in at No. 79.<\/p>\n \u201cShe saved it for me,\u201d he says with a warm laugh. \u201cShe\u2019s excited.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never been in a city that feels like L.A., that has the vibe of L.A., that has the visual splendor and squalor,\u201d says Araki, photographed at Brain Dead Studios.<\/p>\n (Christopher Patey \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Araki feels he has often found himself in the right place at the right time, from the exhilaration of the early \u201980s L.A. punk scene and seeing a band like X play at the Whisky a Go Go, to turning to filmmaking just as inspirational low-budget movies such as Jim Jarmusch\u2019s \u201cStranger Than Paradise,\u201d Wayne Wang\u2019s \u201cChan Is Missing\u201d and Spike Lee\u2019s \u201cShe\u2019s Gotta Have It\u201d were coming out. Araki, like directors Richard Linklater and Todd Haynes, then began a long relationship with the Sundance Film Festival right when the indie boom of the \u201990s was taking off.<\/p>\n \u201cI Want Your Sex,\u201d which premiered earlier this year at Sundance<\/a>, features an unhinged Wilde as Erika Tracy, an L.A.-based art star whose sex-forward work is by turns cynical and challenging as her fame is fading fast. Cooper Hoffman (\u201cLicorice Pizza\u201d<\/a>) plays Elliot, a recent college grad and low-level studio assistant soon entangled in a kinky affair with his new boss, one made all the more charged by the obvious power imbalance between them.<\/p>\n Araki made the film in part, he says, to reach out to a younger generation and shake them out of their digital-age complacency.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re afraid to venture out of their bubble,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re afraid to take a chance. They\u2019re afraid to be uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n Being uncomfortable is exactly what made Araki the person he is now: \u201cThat is literally my whole life. If it wasn\u2019t for me being a 19-, 20-year-old kid and sneaking out to a gay bar for the first time with a fake ID \u2014 it was all driven by sex, by curiosity and confusion and all of the stuff that as a young person you feel. I was very specific with Cooper because that character has a lot of me in him when I was that age.\u201d<\/p>\n Araki quickly points out that there is also much of himself in Wilde\u2019s artist character and some of her most outrageous dialogue comes straight from things Araki has said in his own past interviews.<\/p>\n Wilde, who says she based both her look and performance on \u201cTruth or Dare\u201d-era Madonna mixed with contemporary photographer Nadia Lee Cohen, shot \u201cI Want Your Sex\u201d before production on her own recent \u201cThe Invite.\u201d Her performance is marked by a startling fearlessness regarding nudity and sexuality and outlandishly revealing outfits.<\/p>\n Wilde found further inspiration in Araki\u2019s own fortitude, his steadfastness to his ideals and how it sets him apart from many other filmmakers who parlayed early indie cred into payday careerism.<\/p>\n \u201cSlowly their edges are worn down by the desire for larger houses, bigger pools, whatever it is, and then there are occasionally people like Gregg Araki who aren\u2019t affected by the temptation to acquiesce and homogenize,\u201d she says. \u201cWhy would he start now?\u201d<\/p>\n For those in the know, the movie also has a number of cameos from many familiar Araki collaborators, such as Darcy Marta from the early features \u201cThree Bewildered People in the Night\u201d<\/a> and \u201cThe Living End,\u201d Nathan Bexton from \u201cNowhere\u201d and Michael Hitchcock from \u201cSmiley Face.\u201d<\/a> When James Duval, a veteran of six Araki projects, often as the director\u2019s stand-in, arrives on-screen it feels like an applause break for fans to cheer.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m moved by the idea that no matter what time period you\u2019re in, people are searching and trying to connect,\u201d Duval says during a recent video call from Los Angeles, connecting the dots from \u201cThe Doom Generation\u201d to the new one. \u201cJust breaking out and being who you are and not adhering to these labels and not being put in this box \u2014 that mentality is in all of Gregg\u2019s movies.\u201d<\/p>\n Duval, 53, met Araki when he was just a teenager and he credits the filmmaker with setting him on a path to being a professional actor, appearing in movies as varied as \u201cIndependence Day\u201d and \u201cDonnie Darko.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s literally the punk rock in me,\u201d Araki says, reflecting on his connection to the New Queer Cinema wave of the 1990s. \u201cI can\u2019t even describe how important that movement was to me as a young artist, as somebody who was just developing, literally coming out in terms of my sexuality.\u201d<\/p>\n (Christopher Patey \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Though \u201cI Want Your Sex\u201d is Araki\u2019s first feature film since 2014\u2019s melodrama \u201cWhite Bird in Snow,\u201d he doesn\u2019t see that time as idle. He was first sent the \u201cSex\u201d script as a spec written by former Vogue sex columnist Karley Sciortino some 12 years ago. He and Sciortino would collaborate on writing Starz\u2019s 2019 psychedelic comedy series \u201cNow Apocalypse,\u201d<\/a> directed by Araki and executive-produced by Steven Soderbergh, during the years it took to develop and set up \u201cI Want Your Sex.\u201d (Araki and Sciortino share final credit on the script.)<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s never been a break,\u201d says Araki, taking a longer view. \u201cThis is something that my old indie buddies like Gus Van Sant will relate to because we work every day. You\u2019re constantly trying to get these things going. And the industry is in such a crazy place that it\u2019s harder than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n The new film includes a series of scenes with just Wilde and Cooper in intimate, sometimes hilarious situations, often trading dialogue back and forth regarding conflicting generational attitudes toward sex and sexuality. While Erika decries \u201cretro sex negativity,\u201d Elliot stammers, \u201cMy peers have not been well-served growing up in a time where nothing feels safe or OK.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe movie is purposefully kind of pop, entertaining, funny, sexy and it\u2019s 90 minutes,\u201d Araki says. \u201cAnd I just want to provoke a conversation. Just go out with your friends after and just argue about it. Feel however you feel. If you don\u2019t want to have sex and you don\u2019t care, that\u2019s fine. But at least have that conversation with your friends and start communicating about it.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784934679_870_.jpeg\")
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