CS Weekly Archive > From the Trenches > 11/02/07

Starting Early:
Fat Girls' Ash Christian

By peter clines

A young writer-director-actor-producer talks about his semi-autobiographical new film and the simple, direct approach that got it made.

Young actor Ash Christian slipped onto Hollywood's radar with a spot in a national series of commercials, a position he parlayed up into numerous bit parts and small roles on shows like Boston Public and Six Feet Under. Unsatisfied with just being a child actor, however, he began to expand his vision, writing and directing the short Secrets Underneath at the age of 15. Before he was old enough to drink, his first feature screenplay, Fat Girls, was written, shot, and doing the festival rounds.

Fat Girls is the story of Rodney (Christian), a semi-closeted gay youngster surviving deep in Texas's Bible belt and trying to find "his inner fat girl," that blissful, comfortable state where self-appreciation and self-confidence surpass the negative views of everyone around you. Only a few weeks from graduation, Rodney plans to flee his family and hometown for a dream life on Broadway. First, though, he wants to score a prom date with wise and worldly Joey (Joe Flaten), then make it through those final days of madness with the help of his best friend, Sabrina (Ashley Fink).

The morning after the Los Angeles premiere party for Fat Girls, Christian took some time to talk with CS Weekly about the finding his own pace with writing, Hollywood's double-standard when it comes to age, and Woody Allen as a filmmaker.


So, the important question first…you did a "Got Milk…?" commercial. Which one?
Yeah I did. (laughs) It was called "Shake it." I was the kid who scratched the barcode off the milk bottle so the check-out lady would shake up the milk. It was chocolate. That's the high point of my career.

You started off in community theatre. Where there any movies you loved as a kid?
I guess my favorite movie as a child was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The original. Welcome to the Dollhouse, that was a really inspiring movie to me. I just answered this question yesterday. Hocus Pocus, I loved.

How did you end up in the industry?
I sort of got bitten by the film bug and moved to LA and started as an actor, but I wasn't really getting the kind of roles that I wanted. I was getting roles like "the quirky best friend." So I decided to write something for myself.

How did you learn about writing a screenplay?
I read a couple of books on screenwriting, but I think it's a sort of trial and error. And I'd read so many scripts as an actor. So, I knew how a story worked and what you needed to complete it.

Did you write a lot before this?
No. I mean, I wrote my short, but that was really it. It was really crazy because it was a story that was close to me, so it only took about a month. But I've written screenplays since then, and that's not the case. It didn't go that fast. It was really an organic experience. It came pretty easy.

Do you have a regular writing schedule?
Oh, I'm the worst. I'm so bad at sitting down to write. I just have to feel really inspired. Maybe I write two hours or three hours a week. I'm not good at it, and it's the worst thing for me because I'm totally ADD. But I carry a little notepad with me, and when I have ideas I jot them down, then when I feel inspired I write them. It's really hard to just sit down and start writing. All the screenwriting books are like, "Start at eight in the morning and write for three hours, then take a break and take a walk and write for three more." There's no way I could ever do that. I really have to feel inspired and productive.

How did the idea for Fat Girls actually arise?
Well, I met Jonathan Caouette at a film festival, and I'd seen his movie, Tarnation, that night, which I really loved. And I had been wanting to do this movie for a while. It was in my mind, but I hadn't really started writing it. I just went up to him and said, "Hey, will you do my movie?" And after three shots of tequila, he was like, "Absolutely!" So, he was attached and I thought, I have him so I'm going to start writing. I started writing it on the plane back to California. It all happened really quickly. I started writing it in the end of October, and we were shooting by January 28. A quick turnaround on that one, and now not so much on my next movie.

The one I'm sure you've been pounded with—how much of Fat Girls is autobiographical?
I'd say about half. I grew up a gay kid in small-town Texas with an evangelical family, so all that's true. But I added a little to fill up the story, or it's quite boring otherwise (laughs).

When you decided to make your own movie, was it more a desire to direct or a desire to make sure this story got told?
I made this movie to tell the story, because I think it's an important story to tell. Growing up in Texas, I didn't have a movie like this, and it was unfortunate because I should've. It's a movie that makes you feel like you're not so alone in the world, I think. Because there are kids in the world who feel that way, and I wanted to make a movie for them. That was the most important part. And it was cool to get to direct it and be it.

Once you were on set as a writer-director-actor did you find yourself facing a new learning curve?
Y'know, that was the best part of it for me. I was just so involved because I wrote it and directed it and starred in it. I was so involved in every aspect that I never had any question of what I was doing. I felt very confident in that part of it. I think it actually helped to direct and star in it, because I knew exactly what I wanted. I was so close to the story that I never had any real question what I was going for.

Shooting on a budget, did you have to compromise a lot of your story?
Yeah, there was a day when we had three days left and we had six days worth of shooting to do. So, we went through the script and we had to do it. We had to cut a couple of scenes, but we really fought to get everything that we could. I made sure that we had everything that advanced the story shot first, and then all this stuff was stuff that would've been really funny. There was a school bus scene that's very, very awkward, but nothing I couldn't live without.

In Fat Girls and Mangus, you've cast yourself as the lead. Do you write roles you want to play, or do you come up with the character and story and then look back on it and realize "Hey, I could do that"?
No, I create them for myself right now, but I'm also writing scripts now that aren't for me. That's sort of how Woody Allen did it in the beginning of his career, and you really got to know him as a filmmaker in terms of his style and the kind of movie he makes. But I don't always want to be in my movies. I'd rather stop that. Soon. (chuckles)

You're writing scripts for other people to star in. Are you going to write scripts for other people to direct as well?
Yeah, I absolutely would. I have a couple of things I'm working on now for other directors. I really love the comedy stuff, and I'm so close to the teenage thing that I think I get the teenage comedies pretty well. I'm not too far out of high school. (laughs)

Is that harder for you sometimes, being so young in the industry?
I think it's a double-edged sword. It's a great press and marketing tool. When the movie premiered at Tribeca, I got a lot of press because I was 19 when I wrote it and 20 when I directed and starred in it. But also, people aren't as apt to give me millions of dollars to make a movie because I am 22, and they don't want me to go spend it on beer or anything. I wouldn't do that, just for reference, if any financiers are reading this. (laughs)

Would you advise other people to try getting in the same way you did?
It's a really hard road. There's a lot of ups and downs. You really have to fight and it's a battle the whole way. But I like to fight, so it works. I never expected it to be easy, but it is difficult. I raised the money on my own. Last night we had a premiere party here in LA, and the distributor was like, "Would you mind helping me hang this poster?" So, not only did I write this movie and create this movie, I'm the guy hanging posters at the after-party.

Now that you're a writer-director-producer-actor…what do you think of yourself as?
I just call myself a filmmaker, because I think that encompasses everything. I do love to do everything, and I want to continue to do everything. It's just a passion and I feel like I write what I want to write, direct what I want to direct, be in what I want to be in, and that's a filmmaker to me. You're telling stories and making movies.

Peter Clines has had a lifelong love affair with the movies. He grew up in New England, where he studied English literature and education, and now lives and writes somewhere in Southern California. If anyone knows exactly where, he would appreciate a few hints.

Ash Christian, Fat Girls courtesy Regent Releasing

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