Q&A with Diablo Cody

A paragraph doesn’t seem like enough space to tell you all that’s happened to Diablo Cody in the two years since we introduced her, let alone to encapsulate the entire life of the twenty-nine-year-old, just-gone-Hollywood screenwriter. But what the hell. Former Catholic schoolgirl Brooke Busey moved from Lamont, Illinois to Robbinsdale, Minnesota (via college in Iowa) after meeting her One True Love, Jon Hunt, a Minneapolis musician she met on the internet. She was a secretary at Fallon when she adopted a stripper’s alias, Diablo Cody, before actually becoming a part-time stripper. She started a raunchy blog, Pussy Ranch, that was simultaneously legitimized by both a gig at City Pages and a new book, Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, which she promoted on Letterman (she’s still the only member of Dave’s Book Club). Then she wrote a screenplay, Juno, and moved to California (with Jonny), to await Juno’s release (December 14—there’s already Oscar talk) and Showtime’s inevitable production of her first TV series (Toni Collette was just cast in the pilot). Need. Glass. Of. Water. 

5 Things You Didn't Know About Diablo Cody 1. She’s an expert on roller coasters. (And very excited the Mall of America is getting something called a Gerstlauer Eurofighter coaster.) 2. She’s really into the Beach Boys. 3. To the point where she knows where Brian Wilson eats breakfast in Bel-Air. 4. Thinks she has a broken toe right now but hasn’t had time to have it confirmed by x-ray. 5. “I’ve always been fiercely proud of my chub, but now that I live in Los Angeles, I have a personal trainer.”

So how did this come together so fast?
I wish I could understand. I wish I could find a reason behind it. I think about this a lot, because I’m aware of how improbable this all sounds, and I know it’s definitely an atypical situation for a writer. A lot of the time I feel like a fraud, because my peers went about things the usual way and had to fight to be where they are.

And you don’t think you have?
No. Honestly, I haven’t had a lot of doors shut in my face out here. It’s been a warm reception.

But you were a secretary in Minneapolis.
Oh yeah, before Hollywood, sure, I faced my share of rejection. Absolutely. But as soon as this happened, it happened. I mean, God knows, I never succeeded at anything prior to trying my hand at writing. Never. I’ve been fired from so many jobs. I’ve been told that I’m incompetent, socially retarded, maladjusted. I still know that I couldn’t function in reality. Los Angeles is a good place for me.

Let’s say $100 million gross, little gold man—does that mean, bye, bye Jonny?
WHAT? Are you kidding? That’s a ridiculous question. Like, he’s sitting right here. He’s not going anywhere. Everything we do we do side by side. I’ve got him tattooed on my arm for god’s sakes.

So you’ve done the stripper anthropology book, and the teen pregnancy movie, now if you do something on anorexia you’ll complete the Lifetime holy trinity.
I could do a comedy about anorexia. That would be great. It could be called, like, Wasting Away. That’s not wacky enough though. That’s sounds dramatic. It needs to have a wacky title. [Juno director] Jason Reitman and I have both this fascination with writing about sort of controversial topics and poking fun at them. We both like to do that and we have similar politics the more I get to know him. But the idea for Juno was really a random spontaneous thing. I guess I’m inspired by awkward situations. I love awkward silences, I love forced politeness. To me, there is hilarity to be found in that. 
What inspired Juno?
I was kinda sitting in my kitchen in Robbinsdale, and thinking about the image of a teenage girl sitting across from these uptight yuppies in their living room. They’re basically auditioning to be the parents of her unborn child. And I was like, that’s possibly the most awkward thing I could imagine, and it is therefore hilarious. And I wound up building the film around that image. And then I just based the character of Juno on myself as a teenager, although I was never that cool.

That’s what people are saying—that it’s an idealized wit.
Well, I always found the perfect comeback, so it’s steeped in reality. I’m kidding, by the way. That was clearly sarcasm.

Are your parents exceptional wits?
No, I don’t come from a family of writers. I did not come from a family of cinephiles. My position in the family was the youngest child and the clown, and uh, kind of the wild card.

Youngest of how many?
Just youngest of two, but that was enough. And uh, I’ve just, um, yeah, I’ve always been different. I think I have one member of my extended family that people frequently compare me to: this sort of eccentric aunt in San Francisco. But that’s about it. I couldn’t really relate to anybody else in the family.

What do your parents do?
My dad works for the Illinois Tollway, and my mom is an office worker at a construction company.

So straight-up blue collar?
They’re actually not blue collar. My dad has a white-collar job. I mean, he’s sort of like a big boss at the Tollway. But they’re middle class.

You grew up outside Chicago?
I did grow up in a very sort of blue collar southwest suburb, Lamont. And I went to high school at, like a tony Catholic school in a suburb called Lisle.

How long did you live in Minneapolis total?
I lived there for four years. I think it was college, I now have an undergraduate degree in “Minnesota.”

So we can claim you?
Here’s the thing, I never expected you guys to claim me, because I was there such a short period of time in relation to the time I spent in Chicago. And yet, my whole ride as a writer began in Minnesota. Google has the feature now where you can see who’s Googling you regionally, and like 99 percent of my Googles are still coming out of Minnesota. LA is second place, New York is third, and Chicago is way at the end. So I think you guys have officially adopted me. I don’t think Chicago necessarily cares about my origins.
So since you have a B.A. in Minnesota. you realize that we will soon resent your homegrown talent and success?
What are you talking about? You guys have resented me since I was in town like a month. I’m a pretty blunt person, and Minnesotans do not like that, and so, indeed, like 99 percent of the criticism I receive has also been from Minnesota, which continues to perplex me, because I always feel like your home turf is where you get the most support and love.

You said you have a degree in Minnesota.
It ceases to surprise me at this point, but it still hurts. It still hurts.

We’re mean to all our great writers.
You really are terribly cruel to your writers, and it’s not just me. It’s so weird to me, because I didn’t think I cut like a swath of destruction through town. I thought I made a lot of friends and had a good time.

You’re a cultural omnivore—what are you influenced by?
Everybody knows that I’m not a snob when it comes to pop culture, obviously. I love reality shows. I will go see crappy movies, happily. I’m not an especially highbrow person, but I have always loved small, quirky, edgy movies. To use a string of obnoxious adjectives. And you know, like I loved Harold and Maude, I loved Rushmore. I saw Napoleon Dynamite for the first time while I was in the process of writing Juno. And it kind of renewed my vigor for writing. Because I thought like, this is a total oddball little movie and yet all these people have responded to it so maybe my script isn’t going to get lost in the shuffle. That was inspirational to me. Even though I think [director, Jason] Reitman has tired of the Napoleon Dynamite comparisons, they’re somewhat warranted. Movies that are smart and meaningful as opposed to a big corny ass movie where a pretty girl falls down.

But smart meaningful movies are making money now—this dork with a heart of gold.
Yeah, I met Judd [Apatow] a couple days ago, and I was like, “Dude, let me in.” I make no qualms about it.

But as a contrarian, as someone who searches out the misfits, once that’s the norm, isn’t there a part of you that wants to write a big, dumb Adam Sandler comedy?
Yeah. And eventually I think I will. I don’t see why not. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel completely comfortable in my own skin so I’m bound to write a lot more tortured misanthropic things. I’m actually writing a really broad comedy right now for Universal and I’m enjoying the process immensely. But you know what . . . it’s about misfits.

What’s it about?
It’s about these three teenage girls in college. It’s sort of my female Porky’s or Losin’ It. Sex comedy. You know. And you know, it’s risky to put women front and center in movies. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.
T&A and soft-core freaks people out way more than violence does.
It’s true. Which is upsetting. I never understood that. Like when I was a kid, I was never really sheltered from violence, but god forbid, if one tit appeared on screen my father would literally get up and turn off the television.

Right.
So that’s always been absurd to me, but I have a feeling my parents fancy themselves libertines these days now that they have the notorious ex-stripper daughter.

Back to this comedy cycle that we’re in right now. It’s a very teenage boy sensibility, but now they have a girl that can do it. But you wrote something on your blog, where you were on a panel on “females in film” . . .
Oh, that was mortifying. That was in Telluride. None of the women who had been selected to the panel were real cheerful about that. But to paraphrase one of the participants—and this is such a terrible thing that you may not want to print this, but I’ll tell you this—one of the women on the panel whispered to me, “This is like the Special Olympics.” Cause it kinda felt like that. It felt like, (English maid’s voice) “And here are the ladies in film.” And the title of the panel was really insulting, “Is There a Woman Behind Every Good Film?” Like we were the suffering wives of cinema. I mean there were people up there that I really respect like Tamara Jenkins and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and we’re all just sitting there, like, OK?

There’s no tokenism with Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Yeah, it was strange. And Jennifer Jason Leigh said, “I don’t understand why in 2007 we’re still having panels like this at film festivals.” But honestly, I don’t get asked to participate in the female-centric Hollywood events, just because I’m kind of thought of, as I don’t know, I think I swing my dick around too much, so to speak. I’m not really thought of as traditionally feminine in a lot of ways, so I don’t really get invited to, you know, a luncheon where everybody is sitting around wearing pearls and drinking mimosas.

At the same time, you wrote a teenage pregnancy movie. And my sister, who’s a single mom living in Maplewood, underlined meaningful passages in Candy Girl. How do you feel about being an inappropriate role model?
You know, I like it. I’ve always been such an avoidant person, and kind of a misanthrope; I never ever thought that I would be in a position where people would be reaching out to me, or that I could like make them happy. And so the response that people have given me to the book or to Juno, it’s like, I don’t even know what to do. If somebody comes up to hug me because they love the film, it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It’s so out of my realm of experience, it’s strange.

You were a television critic for City Pages. You were good at it.
Well, I appreciate that. I never really felt like a true critic. I was more just a cynic sitting on a couch.
Now you’re writing a TV series. So what TV clichés are you constantly trying to avoid? How do you think, now that you’re on the other side?
Actually avoiding clichés and avoiding bad choices is not really the challenge anymore. Because there’s so much amazing stuff on television. The challenge is coming up with fresh ideas and competing with awesome shows.

Which shows are awesome?
[My series is] on Showtime. And if you look at the recent cable dramas and dramadies in recent years, like Big Love and The Sopranos, and Weeds, that’s good stuff. So to me, that’s the challenge. That’s what’s daunting about it—as an inexperienced writer, sitting down and trying to write something on that level. I’ve seen enough bad television to know that spit takes are not funny.

How does your day flow?
Well, lately, I’ve had very little time to focus on work. Which is frustrating because of this impending [writer’s] strike. I have been doing a ridiculous amount of promotion for Juno. It’s gotten to the point where sometimes I’m doing four or five interviews a day. And generally, those involve going somewhere. And Los Angeles is no easy shake. And the last couple of weeks, if I’m not at a film festival, I’m in my car, or I’m talking to somebody about Juno.

Will it end on December 14, or will there be Oscar talk?
God willing. But that would be amazing. And I don’t take any of this stuff for granted. I might grumble about doing a lot of promotion. But at the same token, I’m thrilled that [FOX] Searchlight is so supportive of the film. Plus, it’s fun, you know, it’s fun to go out and talk about your movie. And I tell ya, like, it’s an exhausting process, I don’t know how people do it when their film is getting bad reviews. I don’t know how they do it. Because the only thing that is fueling me at this point is I know it’s going to be a pleasant conversation and I know they gave us a good review.

The press loves you, Diablo Cody. 
I’m doing my best to undo all that goodwill right now.

You crush during press conferences or as a guest on a talk show; are you tempted to shift into performance?
I am absolutely a terrible actor. I really like to speak candidly in front of crowds. I enjoy that. I have to admit I bandied the idea of writing some stand-up last year.

What about a one-woman show, that way, you don’t even have to call it stand up.
Yeah, I know. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility. But let’s put it this way: I don’t have a head shot.

You were an average-looking stripper, and now you’re an above average screenwriter, but you had a shot at being a truly hot alternative weekly writer.
Oh, come on, there’s some stiff competition. Really, I’m not concerned about aging. Because you know, that’s the one freeing thing—as a writer, you can hit the craft service table all you want. And nobody expects you to be hot.

So what does going Hollywood mean to Brooke, your inner Catholic schoolgirl from the Midwest?
It has enlightened me in so many ways and made me a much more optimistic human being. Because I really thought life was going to suck. It’s thrown me for a loop.

And what does optimism do for you on a daily basis?
It frees me creatively; it’s made me a more outgoing person. It’s made me unafraid to squelch certain tendencies I used to be ashamed of. Now I kind of celebrate my weirdness a little more. Which anybody can do in Los Angeles. I was a dark person. There have been times in the past where I thought about ending my life. And I guess, at the risk of sounding incredibly cheesy, it’s just life affirming. I feel like I did something that made a difference. And I want to continue to do that. And I certainly never thought that would happen.

Here’s the thing, nobody can ever take Juno away from me. That film, I’m so incredibly proud of it. No matter what people say, no matter what people do, no matter what happens with my career in the future, the experience is carved in stone and I can carry that it me forever. That’s really all the comfort I need.

Is there a small part of you worried that it’s going to take an Academy Award to keep you off the pole?
I don’t even know that an Academy Award could keep me off the pole.