Jillian Gordon, the daughter of directorStuart Gordon, recently sat down withFangoriato discuss her experience with her father’s work. The younger Gordon was three when her father’s feature film debutRe-Animatorwas released, so she didn’t get to see a lot of her father’s movies when they were in theaters. She was however, around for the filming of most of them.
“He shotRe-Animatorwhen we were still living in Chicago, so he went out to Los Angeles for that, and that’s why our family ended up moving to LA. So that’s part of our history; from there, we anticipated him making most of his movies in LA, but what ended up happening was he started shooting a lot in Italy, and so we lived there while that was all happening. I was going to preschool, and my older sister Suzanna was in elementary school there, and our mom was in these movies, so it was a whole family affair,” said Gordon.
Gordon was in a few of her father’s films, such as standing in for Carrie Lorraine inDollswhen she was four or five. Her favorite experience on set was when she got to act inRobot Jox. “That was really fun, being totally immersed in the movie making process.” Gordon, along with her older sister Suzanna, played the daughter of their mom’s character. Said matriarch was Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, who appeared in several of her husband’s works.
“I think as I got older, I became very aware of his artistry. First of all, when we watch these movies, I have to say—and this sounds kind of strange—it’s almost like watching family films. I know that sounds weird, but it’s because we were around it so much, and in some cases like I said, we lived there when they made these films, so we would be on set a lot. We would see these scenes over and over, and when we watch them now, we know all the lines because we were there those days.”
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Her Father’s First Film And Her Favorite Film
Since her father was someone very much against censorship, if Gordon had asked to watchRe-Animatorwhen she was seven or eight, she thinks he would have let her (her mother probably would have been a different story, however). In the end, Gordon first watchedRe-Animatorwhen she was thirteen or fourteen with friends. Looking back, Gordon said that doing that was “kind of hard” at that age.
“When you’re a teenager, you’re so concerned with what your friends think, and the whole time I was watching it, thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what do they think of my dad?’ you know? It took me a few years after that to really appreciate his art for what it is and his great sense of being able to balance humor with horror, that sort of special sauce he brings to all of his projects, and to love that about it. At the time, I knew that there was something cool about what my parents were involved in, but I was also a teenager going, ‘Oh my God, this film includes nudity!’ and other sexual things that are totally hard to sit through when your friends know that your dad was the one behind them.”
Gordon’s favorite film of her father’s is not one of the horror or science fiction movies that he’s most famous for. It’sThe Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, a 1998 fantasy comedy that was based on a play by Ray Bradbury, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. Jillian Gordon, who was readingFahrenheit 451at the time, was able to go to the set and see the author. Besides that, Stuart Gordon had previously directed a stage version of the play and brought back some of the same actors, likeJoe Mantegna.
“That was a very full-circle moment for him, and for us. He had started making movies in Los Angeles, then his career took him all over the place—we went to Italy, we went to Australia, to Ireland, all of these places—and then finally, after all those years,The Wonderful Ice Cream Suitwas shot in Los Angeles. And I would say there’s an element that’s sort of a love letter to that city. It’s great storytelling, has a very character-driven plotline, and is very simple in nature. It’s a fairy tale, and I think part of my father’s approach to filmmaking and storytelling was very much rooted in fairy tales.”
