I feel like a PORN DIRECTOR
Writer/director/star Julia Davis tells Boyd Hilton about sex scenes, T’pau and Lena Dunham
We’re chatting away on the phone to writer/director/star Julia Davis about lesbian sex montages, how to direct a scene in which a man masturbates in his bathroom, and sundry other crucial issues that arise from her new Sky series Sally 4 ever, when we suddenly realise we’re having this discussion while she’s walking through central London to get to the editing suite where she’s putting the finishing touches to the show. So maybe we won’t ask her about the tampon scene (don’t ask) right now. But there’s no getting away from such subject matter, because the hilarious realities of human sexual behaviour, relationships and bodily fluids have been Davis’ raw material since her all-time cult classic sitcom Nighty Night back in 2004.
heat visited the set of this new seven-parter in the spring, but Davis was a tad busy directing and acting in it, so we’ve waited until now for a full catch-up, after we’ve also had the chance to watch first few jaw-droppingly great – and rude – episodes. Davis plays Emma, a predatory actress/singer/artist who inveigles her way into the life of Sally (Catherine Shepherd) just when she’s about to be get married to her thoroughly irritating and small-penised boyfriend of ten years, played by Davis regular Alex Macqueen. The opening episode features one of the most vivid and brilliantly funny sex scenes we’ve ever seen, a raunchy slo-mo lesbian montage, featuring Davis’ character seducing Shepherd’s repressed Emma, and let’s just say it all floods out. It’s also when the tampon moment occurs, which we won’t spoil.
Along with this incredible series, we get to ask Davis about her genius podcast Dear Joan And Jericha – perhaps the most outrageous thing she’s ever done – and working with Sean Bean and Lena Headey from Game Of Thrones, but obviously we have to start by getting the lowdown on Sally4 Ever and its extraordinary sex sequence, backed by the T’pau classic China In Your Hands…
There are some pretty radical sex scenes in Sally 4 ever, even by your standards. How were they to film?
[Laughs.] You mean the lesbian montage?
Yes!
Well, it was very funny on the day we filmed it. We had body doubles for me and Catherine, and it was a bit weird directing them. I did feel like a porn director. I think one of the actresses was more into it than the other. A lot of it was scripted carefully. I looked at lots of montages of things in preparation…
Like what?
Well [three-hour lesbian art film] Blue Is The Warmest Colour was a definite overall inspiration. It’s a great film, but I also thought it had a lot of potential for comedy.
And did you always know you’d use China In Your Hand to soundtrack it?
No, that took ages to decide. We tried lots of different songs and, to be honest, that song wasn’t my idea – it was the editor’s. It does seem to work, but I was a bit nervous initially that such an ’80s track was a bit too much Nighty Night territory, but everything else I tried just didn’t seem quite right.
Oh, T’pau is perfect…
Oh good!
It’s also good to see your regular actor Alex Macqueen masturbating in the opening episode…
I agree, I found that hilarious, but I know some people will be like, “No, no, no, no!” When it comes to those scenes, I sometimes worry that people who don’t like what I do will go, “Oh God, it’s so gross and she’s always got to go too far.” I’m just trying to blend in a mixture of serious and funny and silly and hope it’ll somehow gel.
It’s hilarious, but you do seem to enjoy putting Alex through a lot of extreme stuff…
You know what, though, it’s only if I know that person is comfortable and actually enjoys that. You really know if someone’s not enjoying it. There’s something about Alex – he’s such a complex, interesting person. He’s a really sweet guy, but he obviously has this incredibly eccentric side that needs to be released. And he does enjoy doing those bizarre, grotesque things.
What sparked the initial idea for the series?
I was working on another show called Morning Has Broken [a spoof of breakfast TV], which was a pilot for Channel 4, and it didn’t work out for various reasons. And Catherine Shepherd was in that, and we just got on really well and she’s really funny, so I just said, “We should do something together.” So we started improvising – me, her and Julian [Barratt, Julia’s partner] with a camera about three years ago. At some point we tried the idea that my character would be a lesbian who comes onto Catherine’s character, and it took off from there.
Did you always have in mind to make it about fluid sexuality and Sally exploring her repressed desires?
It was more about her having an affair; it didn’t really matter so much about the gender. But, obviously, in her world she is quite repressed, which we see when we meet her parents. But having said that, maybe I have been more affected by the climate around sexuality on an unconscious level than I realised. But, as with all my stuff, it’s got that silly element to it. I know Channel 4 has its show The
Bisexual, which I’m sure is a more serious study of it. I like to think there’s something serious under what I do, but I do have that silliness, which means it’s not necessarily meant to be a dramatic study of a particular theme.
You’ve also got Sean Bean and Lena Headey as guest stars. Are you a big Game Of thrones fan?
I do love it, but it just happened that I knew Lena and she was willing to do an episode. My character is an extra in a film she’s starring in and I keep ruining the
‘i do worry people will think,“she’s gone too far”’
take by walking around with a big baguette. And with Sean, we were just incredibly lucky to get him, and he was totally up for it.
when we watched you working on-set, you seem to have a mix of using the script and letting people improvise. is that how it works?
Yes, very much so. And in a way I may have let that go too far with this. I mean, we came up with some pretty good stuff, but I ended up with a nightmare situation in the edit, because I had about 300 hours of footage, which I had to try to get to the right length. It’s such a shame, because there’s so much waste. I wish we still did DVDS, so that could go on the extras. Me and Vicki Pepperdine did a day of therapy scenes and there was some really funny stuff that she came up with that we can’t use. I definitely like that way of working, but I think I’ve learned you need to know how you’re going to deal with that in an edit.
Did the Dear Joan And Jericha podcast that you do with vicki arise from that?
That was from before we worked on Sally 4 ever. It goes back to the Morning Has Broken project. I came up with this Scottish presenter character for that show, and then we couldn’t think where to do it, and Vicki was also going to be involved with that series as this character called Jericha, so we decided to do something a bit like those characters, but in a new environment. Then, we decided to improvise it, because we didn’t have time to sit down and write it. And we didn’t want to take it to anyone who would tell us what we could and couldn’t say, so it ended up as a podcast, which was basically us mucking around in a kitchen, saying weird stuff…
it’s incredible to hear vicki, in particular – who played such an uptight character in your series Camping – being so extraordinarily rude on that podcast…
Oh, I know. You can hear me cracking up a lot at everything she says. She is absolutely brilliant. It was the same when we filmed Sally 4 ever, I had to try very hard not to ruin every take by laughing.
Have you seen any of Lena Dunham’s American version of your series Camping?
No, not yet. I did have a week over there, where I visited the writers’ room and helped out on what they call “breaking the story” on a couple of episodes. But I didn’t have that much involvement. I did see Lena Dunham a few days ago, here in London, and she said she’s really pleased with it.
How did she end up remaking your show?
Well, the story I’ve heard is that it all started when Steve Coogan gave a copy of it to [author] Zadie Smith, and she liked it. She’s friends with Lena and sent it to her. And she and [Lena’s production partner] Jenni Konner said, “Oh, this should be our next thing.” But whether that’s all true or not, I don’t know. And when I saw her, I didn’t know how to ask her why she decided to do it. It’s intriguing that this is her first project after Girls, though.
were you a fan of Girls?
Oh my God, yeah. Absolutely loved it. It was an incredible show, and for her to create that at the age she was, and how original it was… it was amazing.
And, of course, it had some incredible sex scenes…
Oh yes – the original sex scene with her and Adam Driver in the first episode was brilliant.
And can we look forward to more extraordinary scenes of adult activity in Sally4ever?
Oh yes. Wait till you see episode four! I won’t spoil it, but there’s something in that, which I’m told has never been shown on TV before…
Sally4ever is on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV, from Thursday 25 October, 10pm