Robert Kelly is a former lawyer for working girls and screenwriter of?Pimp. Robert Kelly sat down with Blank Stage intern to begin several installations?chronicling?his life and his story.
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What is a ?pimp? by definition and how does it pertain to the screenplay?
Pimp by definition is: ?A man who solicits clients for a prostitute.??In the United States, with exceptions like the Brothels in Nevada, that term really?doesn?t apply very often. Another exception would be the street level Pimps that?work a small number of girls, but that?s bottom of the barrel, like in, ?HUSTLE?and FLOW.? Today the most successful pimps are the Madams. They own?the infamous ?Black Book? you?ve probably heard about. If they are working?with ?Call Girls,? the Madams furnish only the clients. Some Madams run a House?or Brothel and they furnish a place to work and a client for the girl, of course all?work for a percentage of the fee.?As to the screenplay, people may assume that our protagonist, Jack Kenard, is the?pimp. In reality Jack never solicited a ?Trick? in his life. There are Pimps in the?story, men and women, and I wrote about them, a very diverse group.?When I write a screenplay I write several accurate and descriptive titles. On this?project I supplied seven titles. ?PIMP? was just one of the titles and it was the?one the producer picked.
I?ve heard the tagline to the screenplay, ?It was a time before sex could kill?you.? What does that mean exactly??
Paul, you are a good example of what I meant. You?re young and you have never?lived in a time when sex couldn?t kill you. The time frame for our movie is the?seventies. The bugs, aids and the rest didn?t kick in until the eighties. So prior?to that time frame sex wouldn?t necessarily kill you.
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When did you first write PIMP and how many drafts have you been through??
I wrote PIMP in 2000 and 2001. As to drafts, I break that into two categories,?prior to Herb Ross dying, and subsequent to Herb Ross dying. Before Ross died I?wrote the original and one revision. Ross and I were on the same page, so to speak.?After he died, over the past eleven years I?ve written probably six or seven?revisions.
More about Herb Ross:?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Ross
When did you first try to produce PIMP, and who was your financial backer?
Herb Ross was the only producer that was ever attached to the project. Ross may?have been the last producer living that could fund a movie out of his own pocket.?Pryor to him, probable Joseph Levine. Ross introduced me to Levine back in the?early eighties; he produced the Graduate, cost three million, and grossed fifty?million. I guess it would be safe to call him a producer.
What obstacles have you faced in trying to get PIMP produced?
In a word, funding. But perhaps more precisely, my inability to find a bona fide?producer in Georgia. I am not a producer and I?ve never held myself out as a?producer. Ross created a list he called, ?Separating the P?s.? Phonies, Pretenders,?Parasites, there?s about eight or nine P?s on the list. That?s what I?m running into.?I?m not singling out Georgia, the P?s are all over the world. And since Ross died?eleven years ago I think I?ve talked to most of them. There just seems to be an
overabundance of P?s in Atlanta.
What are your personal feelings, in light of your career, on the subject of?prostitution and pimping?
It?s a complex problem, but get used to it, it?s here to stay. That?s why it?s the?world?s oldest profession. As to ?pimping,? I have mixed views. A Madam?performs a service for a hooker and is paid a fee. It?s a business, Quid Pro?Quo, ?Something for something.??If you go to the bus station in any major city you?ll find pimps. They are there?waiting on the girls to get off the bus. The girls that get pulled into the ?Life,? are?weak and gullible, and the pimps know this and pull them in. If you step back and?look at it, a pimp is just a con man that specializes in a specific area. I don?t want?to leave it with just men. Some of the best pimps I ever met are women; I mean?the best in the world. There?s a very good female pimp in the screenplay.
What turning points in your life led you to the creation of Pimp?
A good question but we don?t have the time for me to give you a full answer.?In short form: I live in a dark world. Some times are worse than others. I was?engaged to a singer; Cindy had been a child prodigy. I was two years older than?her father. What that woman saw in me I?ll never know. I closed my office and?was going to manage Cindy?s career. There?s an old adage, if you want to make?God laugh, tell her your plans.?A few weeks before the wedding Cindy was killed. I slipped into a deep?depression and stayed there for several years. My shrink had run out of pills.?My thinking was, maybe if I write another screenplay, I can write my way out of?the depression. I don?t know if that had anything to do with it but one morning I?walked out into the Sun and the depression was gone. So to answer your question I?guess you could say, I wrotePimp?in self-preservation.
What do you think audiences are going to enjoy most about Pimp?
It will be a mixture, and I think it will appeal to at least two generations. ?PIMP is a nonfiction film. ?It is a narrative form that employs all the techniques of fictional art but is nevertheless immaculately factual, ?e. g., 1967, In Cold Blood, 1990, GoodFellas, 2003, Monster.
The thing that all of these stories have in common is, the writer had access to the original participants. ?In PIMP, I was one of the original participants, I was there.
{Aside} Here?s a little teaser about GoodFellas. ?What part was glaringly fictional, ?and why was it necessary?
For the audience members that were adults during the era of the seventies, it will be a memory, maybe good, maybe bad. ?It has been my experience, bitter or sweet; most memories become precious as the years move on. ?For some, this film will be a memory.
For the younger audience members it will be a chance to see why this time frame is considered an era.
What is it about these characters that will draw amazing talent to the project?
In a word, complexity, it won?t be the money, that?s for damn sure!?There are forty-six speaking parts and I intend to add several more. ?The additions may not make the theatrical cut but they will definitely make the directors DVD cut.
There is a triangle of three pivotal characters. ?Jack, Alex and Niki. ?All complex in the composition of their respective personalities. ?Alex has a schizophrenia just like Jack and Niki.
{Aside} ?In actors it?s called a ?Divine schizophrenia.? ?I learned about this from Stella Adler, this might be of interest to some of the actors out there. ?{End Aside}
In laymen speak, they have multiple personalities. ?I brought this into focus with Alex. ?It?s when Alex brushes Jack?s face with her hand and tells Jack he has a nice mouth and then jerks her hand away ? - ? ?I?m sorry. ?Damn it! ?The hooker kicked in, I?m sorry.? ?Later, Niki makes the same move on Jack.
Jack, Alex and Niki are virtuosos in their world, as many of the other characters are. ?For some actors their character in Pimp will be the most complex role they?ve ever attempted to portray.
All of the characters are multidimensional and will present a challenge. ?Pimp is character driven, not cast driven. ?There are no weak characters in Pimp. ?I overheard Orson Wells say to a fellow actor, ?There are no small roles, only small actors.? ?There are no small roles in Pimp.
This is a little off point: ?Directing is 70% casting and I?ve always had a knack for putting the right talent with a given role. ??I guess because of my acting background actors are comfortable with me. ?I?ve been told I?m an actor?s director. ?My connection to the material is very strong and as such I can speak eloquently to the actors because they will know they are going to get an unfiltered, crystal clear vision to work with.
I don?t want to get all mystical on you but I wrap the talent in what I call, ?A blanket of authenticity,? and they will feel safe in the knowledge that I have in-depth knowledge of the characters and the world they live in.
The character that concerns me the most is Niki. ?We need an actor that can pass for mid to late teens with forty-five years of experience. ?We need an actor that can carry the scene, ?GRIEF.? ?This is the kind of scene Stella Adler called an, ??ACTOR KILLER.? ?Thing is, I know damn well she?s out there, as are all of the characters, and 90% of them are in Atlanta.
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