The director’s current film, “Secretary,” features two people in a sadomasochistic relationship–though one played for its dark humor. The black comedy, which has been showing in limited release but which expands to 200 theaters on Oct. 4, tells the story of the self-mutilating Lee Holloway, brilliantly played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and her insecure but domineering lawyer boss, E. Edward Grey (James Spader). “Miss Holloway”–as “Mr. Grey” calls her at the office–enjoys his control, everything from how many peas she can eat to being spanked for typos in her memos. Shainberg took NEWSWEEK’s Vanessa Juarez behind the scenes.
NEWSWEEK: Talk about “Secretary’s” progress–from the Mary Gaitskill short story in “Bad Behavior” to a feature-length film.
Steven Shainberg: If you read the story, it’s all of 12 pages long so narratively speaking, there isn’t much there. One of the keys things we needed to do was expand her life, and then develop the relationship with the lawyer; the slow, sexy way in which they develop their thing is not really in the story either. I watched the movie with Mary Gaitskill, and she sat through about 30 minutes of it and said, “You know I really like this but not one thing has been from my story.”
What books and movies gave you inspiration?
I always talk about “Blue Velvet,” not necessarily in direct relation to this film but just in general. It’s a film that feels like a dream and is simultaneously wonderful and terrifying, like a dream can be. We tried to make the film both real and unreal. We used to talk about the movie as if it were Hans Christian Andersen meets Penthouse magazine. It’s kind of like a dirty fairy tale. And like fairy tales, it’s very beautiful and wonderful but it also has some really sort of gutsier, intimate scenes.
Did you research S&M relationships beforehand?
Certainly we talked to people who were involved in sadomasochistic relationships, but not much. Most of it comes from [screenwriter] Erin Cressida Wilson and me sitting around saying what would be fun in the office and what would be sexy, mysterious and unusual. That’s really the truth [laughs]. I wish I could tell you some real dirty story, but I don’t have one.
You must have had a lot of fun. The people in the movie do some crazy things–like Mr. Grey deciding what and how much Lee is going to eat.
If you start to think about, “How could he be controlling her life? And what would she get a kick out of?,” anybody can come up with a lot of different things. I think it’s incredibly funny. It’s totally understandable that she is thrilled by it because of how much attention he’s paying to her. It’s no wonder she masturbates to his words.
Do you think there’s such a thing as a healthy S&M relationship?
Of course there is, just like there is a healthy or unhealthy version of any relationship. That’s one of the interesting questions the film raises. It’s worthwhile to ask, “What are our assumptions?” Why is it that we think one thing is healthy and another isn’t. I mean people stay married, for example, for 15, 20 years but they don’t talk to each other. They may not be engaged in sadomasochistic behavior, but is that a healthy relationship?
What message are you hoping audiences walk out of the theater with?
I would hope that people not judge these two characters harshly, and that our minds can be more open than perhaps they are. I read a quote once, and I’m not going to get this exactly right. It was from David Lynch. He said something like, “If you look in the gutter, there are very beautiful textures there.” I’m not saying Lee and Mr. Grey are characters of the gutter, but certainly there is always beauty to be found in the most unexpected places.
What was the most memorable scene to shoot?
The most memorable to shoot isn’t in the movie. It was a scene where Lee comes into the bathroom and waxes herself in addition to cutting herself and doing these self-mutilation things. She put wax on her legs and arms and sort of ripped the strips of wax off, and it was an incredible scene for Maggie. She gets extremely upset and she weeps on the floor and we shot it in this hyperfast, frantic way and it just looked great.
So why didn’t it get in?
As beautiful as the scene was, it just felt we were making the same point again about her. Certainly we were all kind of reluctant and disappointed to take it out.
What about Maggie Gyllenhaal struck you during auditions?
The part requires an enormous range. She has to be funny, quirky, smart, deep and complicated, and able to evolve from a gawky nerd into a beautiful young woman. The key thing about Maggie is that she has a sense of strength in herself. It makes you feel that she’s not being taken advantage of, that this character is not being victimized by her boss but is being liberated by him. We knew we needed that; otherwise I think the movie could be ugly. She’s a total find.
You first had the idea for this film 10 years ago. Would you have been able to make the same movie back then?
It’s so complicated why this movie is playing the way it is now. We’re a bizarre country, sexually and politically. On the one hand, we are freedom-loving and on the other hand, we are incredibly conservative and fearful. There is something in us that wants to look into what’s going on through the bedroom door. We’re curious and we want to see, but at the same time there’s something in us that wants us to cover our eyes.
