MARS
ATTACKS
MEMOIRS

Q Any funny stories? ▲ 113

Jonathan Gems: Hm... I can only think of dark humour stuff, like: the Creative Team at Warner Bros, who were supposedly supervising me, kept telling me to cut out the first scene in the movie of the burning cows because they had a policy of "no cruelty to animals." I tried to please them but I refused to write anything I thought was bad and each draft I wrote (I did, like, 14 drafts) I could never think of a better opening for the film. After draft number 11, which still had the burning cows in it, I was told I would be fired if the burning cows were in the next draft. I wrote the 12th draft; submitted it; it still had the burning cows and, guess what? I was fired! Is that funny?

Q Was there a funniest moment behind the scenes with any of the actors? ▲ 98

Jonathan Gems: Sylvia Sidney was funny, who played Grandma Norris. She had this deep, gravelly voice and was a chain-smoker. And she was this beautiful hag who talked tough. Hard-boiled wisecracks, like from the 1940s. She'd kind of shock you by stuff she'd say — I remember us talking about cars and she sucked on her cigarette and said: "The price of gasoline is so high it's cheaper to buy cocaine and run everywhere."

Q What scene or characters were you most excited to see on film? ▲ 8

Jonathan Gems: Gosh! Hm. Well, I loved Lisa-Marie — what she did when she bites off Martin Short's finger... her spooky walk. I just thought she was delightful. I was being surprised by how good Michael J. Fox was. I thought he was amazing. You don't get all of how good he was because some of his scenes were cut. I was excited by Pierce Brosnan, who was playing the scientist exactly as I'd imagined him, and I was deeply gratified by Rod Steiger who was wonderful. What a great actor! It was exciting seeing Glenn Close effortlessly nail her character. I was astonished by Jack Black, whose work I didn't know. He was a real eye-opener. What scene was I most excited about? I think probably the "Why can't we just get along?" scene.

Q Were there any script ideas you really wanted to include, but that were shot down by either Burton or the studio?

Jonathan Gems: Yes. There were lots of script ideas shot down by the studio. It was a constant battle. They were paying me to write it but they hated it and hated me! Eventually, they fired me and passed the script to a writing team to "correct" all my mistakes. But, a month later, I was rehired. The story of that is in the book Mars Attacks Memoirs.

Q Do you think you would be able to make the film in current times — technically and socially? I can imagine a lot of pushback from studios to use CGI instead of real models, and people don't take parodies well anymore.

Jonathan Gems: I think it would be impossible to make a film like Mars Attacks! now. It was very hard back then!

Q Do you think that Elon will ever go to Mars? And if so, will they attack him when he gets there? ▲ 68

Jonathan Gems: If Elon ever goes to Mars, you can butter my butt and call me a biscuit.