Interviews

2015 Sundance Trading Card Series: #17. Gregg Turkington (Entertainment)

Published on January 25, 2015

Eric Lavallee: Name me three of your favorite “2014 discoveries”…
Gregg Turkington: 1. The Skies Belong To Us, Brendan Koerner’s book on the “golden age” of skyjacking. 2. Small Town Ecstasy – Bob Odenkirk turned me on to this sinister documentary about a loathsome dad who becomes addicted to rave culture. 3. Egyptian band Invisible Hands’ new album Teslam.

Lavallee: Stinky hotel rooms, horrible food, barren asphalt landscapes, what are some strongest symbolic elements that were embedded within the writing process?
Turkington: California City, which was planned to be the “next Los Angeles”, but ended up a developer’s unfinished failure in the middle of the desert, was a touchstone for us. It’s a seemingly endless “ghost-grid” of unpaved roads, all neatly planned out and marked with street signs, but mostly uninhabited and leading nowhere.

Lavallee: Was wondering if you could describe The Comedian’s attire and what it says about his personality, and/or his psyche.
Turkington: Like the Comedian himself, it’s either “seasoned”, or worn-out, depending on your perspective.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).