Director Gregg Araki on his unrated cut of ‘Nowhere,’ aging gays, & why Gen Z needs more sex

Long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there was the Araki-verse. 

New Queer Filmmaker Gregg Araki’s “Teen Apocalypse Trilogy,” comprising 1993’s Totally F***ed Up, 1995’s The Doom Generation, and 1997’s Nowhere, brimmed with an outrageous, queer punk attitude, youthful vigor, sex, all-over-the-map sexuality and identities, HIV, spasms of violence, and f*cking amazing music (albeit no cell phones).

Now, Nowhere—which was never released on digital home entertainment platforms or streaming—has been restored and recut to include scenes the uptight ratings board deemed too offensive at the time, in full 2023 technological splendor.

Kicking off a theatrical run at LA’s Academy Museum during the same week John Waters’ exhibition opened, Nowhere is set in a colorful, alternate Los Angeles (described by Variety as “Beverly Hills 90210 fast-forwarded and on acid”) where Araki-verse regular James Duvall, Ryan Philippe, Mena Suvari, out actor Guillermo Diaz, Heather Graham, Scott Caan, Debi Mazar and a host of other familiar faces grapple with what may be the end of the world, alien abductions, and sexual anarchy. The entire Teen Apocalypse Trilogy will play select engagements as well.

To discuss bringing Nowhere back from the brink, whether his 2019 Starz series Now Apocalypse will ever see a second season (it was actually greenlit and written!), and if the now 64-year-old will ever shift gears from youth-centric works (like Kaboom, Splendor, Mysterious Skin, and This Is How The World Ends) to make a movie about gay “olds,” Araki sat down for a Zoom with Queerty.

QUEERTY: I understand that this “Teen Apocalypse Trilogy” restoration and release happened because all the studio rights finally reverted back to you. True?

GREGG ARAKI: Yeah, and also Nowhere was never released on DVD in the US. Just VHS and Laserdisc! Through the years both Nowhere and Doom Generation have gained a cult following on the basis of sh*tty, inferior copies. Thankfully, with [longtime collaborator and distributor] Strand Releasing, I had the opportunity to go back and remaster and color time from the original negative, remix the sound, and boost up the awesome music to technical stuff for 2023. And both The Doom Generation and Nowhere are getting the whole Blu-ray treatment for the collectors out there.

The filmmaker in me is really excited because Nowhere, it’s such a visually over-the-top movie to have a good copy with the colors and design and costumes, and everyone is so gorgeous, I want fans to have the best possible copy.

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What was added back during the restoration process?

For Doom there was just a little bit in the last reel, but for Nowhere there were about 8-10 scenes throughout. Doom was so intense and like an X-rated movie, subversive and out there, and after making it I wanted to do a version that spoke to the same outsider, punk rock weirdos but was more accessible. A PG-13 version, basically, of that sensibility, a Dawson’s Creek or 90210 with a subversive David Lynch side accessible to younger kids, like 14 and 15 year olds, and if you study it, the characters never say “f*ck” or “sh*t.”

But after it got picked up the MPAA was like, “this is NC-17!” I’m all, what? There’s no real nudity, sex is filmed very discreetly, but all these scenes came back and it was stuff like dialogue that was over the top. I begrudgingly did [the cutting] because I wanted the movie to get released, but for this remaster we were able to go in and restore all of that. For people who know the film really well, there’s new stuff for them to see.

Can you give a specific example of a scene that really killed you inside to trim back in the day?

A lot was related to the Shad and Lilith relationship, played by Ryan Phillippe and Heather Graham, basically the hot teenage couple that’s constantly f*cking. They had such fantastic chemistry, too. We didn’t show any real nudity, but the scenes were quite intense. One, where they’re in the car, it’s one of my favorites and got cut back in a really lame way. Now it’s back to its full state as it should be.

So is this also a sort of long simmering f*ck you to the MPAA?

For me it’s more for the fans. I want them to see the unadulterated version of the movie as it should have been.

Like your first major splash in cinema, 1992’s The Living End, the trilogy is also quite a time capsule, representing the era when PrEP was’t around, no U=U, and HIV basically meant the end of your life, and characters held attitudes and made statements that can be deemed cringe today. Your thoughts?

In terms of PC-ness, we’re more sensitive now. Both Doom and Nowhere have rape scenes that are kind of shocking, because in the 1980s and ’90s those scenes were more prevalent. Now they’re super triggering, so stuff like that makes me wince a bit. 

But these movies are from the ’90s and that’s one of the coolest things about them. They’re so unadulterated, uncensored, such an artifact of that period and also my life, sensibility, and where my head was at. Very much a snapshot of the inside of my head then.

To be a young person in 2023 is a little crazy. The trilogy in particular is very of the ’90s, but the themes are so universal, the search for love and identity and self, so everything is so not changed. Technology has changed. When you do anything contemporary in film or TV, half your movie or show is f*cking characters texting and on phones! In Nowhere they’re at a phone booth! That aspect has changed, but so much of growing up and problems and confusions are just more relevant than ever I think.

You’ve directed episodes of series including Riverdale, American Crime, 13 Reasons Why, and Dahmer, the latter focused on Dahmer’s father, played by Richard Jenkins, titled “Lionel.” What was that like, and how did you feel about the outrage at the time for the series supposedly glamorizing Dahmer and exploiting the victims?

That was a fantastic experience. I was happy I didn’t have to kill or get anyone eaten in my episode, so I didn’t have to go to that super intense, dark place! I know for a fact from the creative standpoint, cast, crew and producers, it was coming from a sincere and earnest place. Not exploitation at all. It was very much about the victims and throwing light on the racist aspect of his crimes and the cover up. So many victims were black or brown. It was super disturbing but also important. I knew vaguely what the story was, that Dahmer ate people, but the racist aspect was intense.

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Have you ever gone home with someone you feared at the time or later could be a serial killer?

I’ve gone home with my share of crazy. Not a serial killer, I don’t think, but I’ve definitely dated crazy. I’m working on a thing right now that has a young protagonis, and that kind of craziness and those adventures are so important in your life. 

Those mistakes, “oh that was crazy,” are what shape you as a person, and it’s unfortunate that so much of Gen Z doesn’t have sex. They’re asexual and weirdly don’t have relationships, boyfriends or girlfriends. It’s very unsettling to me, this sexless generation, because I do think sex is such an important part of growing up and experience in terms of what makes you the person you’re going to be. I hope Nowhere coming out will help alleviate that.

Your filmography has been centered almost exclusively around youth and youth culture. Do you ever want to make a movie about older gays though, like Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange and Ray Yeung’s Twilight’s Kiss?

It’s funny. I’m in my 60s now, but as a filmmaker I’m really attracted to the searching and confusion of young people. In Now Apocalypse they’re all in their 20s. I’m not saying I’ll never do anything about older queer people, but during your 20s and 30s you’re so f*cked up and don’t know who you are and search for things and have the wrong boyfriend or girlfriend and are kind of a mess. 

Each decade, you’re more and more comfortable in your own skin, you figure sh*t out. My life has gotten less dramatic and more boring and it’s exactly what I want. I’m as happy as I’ve ever been, so for my personal life I don’t want drama or confusion, I want calm, but for cinema my life would make the most boring movie in the world and that doesn’t spark me as an artist! What sparks me is that searching and struggling. 

So it’s interesting, because from this place I have a different perspective on the drama and angst of youth. Look at 2010’s Kaboom and Now Apocalypse, which I did later, versus Doom Generation when I was really in the middle of all that angst and insecurity and doubt. It’s like seeing the forest for the trees.

There’s a belief in some circles that as soon as the WGA and SAG strikes are resolved studios will be so starved for new content they’ll greenlight almost anything that moves. Since the iron will be hot AF, will you try to get Now Apocalypse season two going again at Starz? 

Yep. From your mouth to God’s ears. It’s already written and so frustrating, but funny. In season two, the lead female character writes a show pilot, scratching and clawing and trying to get it made, and it gets greenlight and in the next episode her executive [at the studio] gets fired and she gets put into turnaround. That’s exactly what happened to us! They greenlit season two, we wrote it, and then there was some political studio sh*t and our executive got fired and it was so prophetic. I hope we get to make it because it’s so much better than season one. The cast of that show was one of the best I worked with, next to Nowhere of course.

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I read that you would love to work with Zendaya. Why her? 

I love Zendaya. I think she’s super cool but I’m not a big fan of Eurphoria. She’s always so fabulous on a red carpet, cool fashion, her hair, she always looks f*cking amazing, and in Euphoria she’s always wearing a sweatshirt and no makeup. Stop it! I want her to be like a spy, wear cool outfits and do kung fu and sh*t in an action movie. That would be f*cking amazing. There are so many really cool young actors. Timothée Chalamet is so androgynous and gay and wears dresses on red carpets and sh*t. Harry Styles! Some progress has been made from the old days.

How about Simu Liu? He’s so funny and cute in Barbie!

I love him. He also seems very gay. It’s interesting because back to Nowhere, the level of sort of racial and sexual diversity and this big melting pot, it seems to have manifested itself in the culture and that’s really exciting.

In another interview you said that you had never watched a movie and thought to yourself that you wished you had made it. 

Except for Barbie! I loved Barbie. I was so shocked, because I was not expecting to but it was such a radically feminist movie, talking about toppling the patriarchy in such an overt way, how did that movie make over a billion dollars? It’s baffling. I’ve always been such a feminist and women have it so much harder in this f*cking world, so I found it very cool to see on a screen.

If they do a cinematic “Mattel-verse” as rumored, would you like to pitch yourself as a director? Manifest!

No. Just because I like the message of Barbie I don’t necessarily want to do Hot Wheels! Maybe a queer Slowdive version of it, but I don’t think it will make a billion dollars.

Nowhere theatrical engagements can be found here.

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