The Film Forum

The 'Running' Man: Q&A With Augusten Burroughs

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There are a couple of notable differences from the book. First, your brother isn't in the movie at all.
He doesn't like that. He wasn't really in my life much. He's in the book, but he's in the book in one chapter where I sort of explain him. So I sort of say, "Oh, I did have a brother, by the way." He really wasn't part of my life much then. He would pick me up and take me for drives. He really wasn't there. It's sort of triage to know what to include in a film and what not to include. And what I was most concerned about is I didn't feel like every scene that was in the book needed to be translated to the movie. I think that would be deadly. The thing that I definitely wanted was that I wanted it to have the same soul, and, you know, it does. And that makes me so happy. I don't have to run around apologizing for it.

Also, while Agnes Finch was important in the book, the movie brought her in even more at the end as a strong mother character for you.
I love that about the movie. I love that it celebrates her. I love Jill Clayburgh. That's one thing that Ryan and I have in common and we discussed in our first meetings: We both were obsessed with Jill Clayburgh when we were teenagers. So we both would have done a movie with Jill in every single scene. We couldn't get enough of her. Because Ryan had Jill to work with, he chose to emphasize her, and I think that was very smart. She creates -- as Agnes did in real life -- real heart.

What do you hope that people take away from 'Running With Scissors,' as a book and as a film?
One thing I hope people take away from it is that it's a story about surviving, and we can get through things we don't think we can get through. I certainly hope that young people see that even if you have terrible parents, it's better to just face that reality and then take responsibility for your life and make sure that you do have a good life, though you don't have the parents to make it so. It's catastrophic when you're a kid to realize you have a horrible life and lousy, neglectful parents. It's a catastrophic feeling. And I know from experience you feel like you're going to die and you're not going to make it, but you can. So I think what I hope people take away from this movie ... I want them to experience something maybe they've never experienced before, never imagined how people live. There are a lot of people who had a childhood like mine, and I'm glad that now there's a movie that speaks to them.

Most of your writing has dealt with very personal stories. Is it sometimes hard to share those experiences?
No, it's not hard. It's more like you think it would be hard and embarrassing and humiliating, but it's not because so many people relate. Everything I have written, people have related to. If I've done it, so has someone else. I was very nervous the first time I went on a book tour. I felt like this was a horrible mistake because I'd opened myself up and was exposed. They know all this stuff about me and they're going to hate me -- but I had the opposite reaction. I got so much support that it just killed that fear. So it's much more intimidating and scary to think about revealing and exposing yourself than it is to actually do it. It's a lot like falling in love and letting yourself go and trusting. It really is. It's like being in a relationship -- but with a few million people.

Do you plan to return to writing fiction at some point soon?
Yeah, I love fiction actually because I never know what's going to happen from one page to the other. I've written three novels, but I've only published one of them. I love the process of writing fiction because it's an adventure for me. It is the thing for me that is the most fun in the world. I absolutely love it. When I'm writing about my life -- even though I love doing it and have to do it to be functional in the world -- I know the end of every story before I sit down and write the first word. I know exactly how it turns out. I know exactly what happens in the middle. But with fiction, I don't know. It's almost like I'm out of control and I have to totally trust my subconscious. And that is so scary, because what if I f!&# up? What if can't do it? What if I don't have any more ideas? You have to suspend all those anxieties and fear and totally trust yourself, and that part of it is fun. I'm writing a memoir about my relationship with my father -- it's also going to be a movie -- and after that, that's it. I'm not going to write about myself ever again. I'm going to write fiction.

What are your other two novels about?
I'll never publish them. One of them was similar to 'Sellevision.' It was about an actress, a child actor. And the other one was about the worst fictional plane crash and how it consumes the country. But really, the events of 9/11 made that novel utterly irrelevant. It was about a family obsessed with destruction and chaos and how a horrible event in the country actually unifies a family in New York that's privileged but emotionally disconnected from each other. It's about how they're brought together through something terrible that happens to other people in a different city. But then 9/11 came along and it seemed stupid.

With the whole James Frey 'A Million Little Pieces' controversy just recently past, what's your take on the responsibility of a memoirist? I notice you have a disclaimer at the beginning of most of your books.
Yeah, that's actually always been there. I'll tell you something, his mistake is that he didn't have it. He ran around saying it's all true, but it's not true. I've always had an author's note in the beginning, and it's always different. If you read them all together -- you know, like collect all six, like collectible cups from McDonald's -- they're all different. 'Sellevision' is all completely made up. 'Dry' is based on my journals, but I had to merge people because otherwise it would be just too confusing to read. Ad people are all the same. To me, it doesn't matter that I merged ad people. 'Running With Scissors' is a true story, and I didn't make anything up there. I changed people's names, but it's a true story. So it's just smart to be straightforward with people. What happened to him is just unfortunate. Most authors respect the craft and are going to take it a lot more seriously than I think he did.

What is the memoirist's ultimate goal?
Really the truth well told. The truth is different for everybody. Everyone has a different perspective. My mother could write 'Running With Scissors' and it would be a completely different book: the story of a brilliant Southern poet who finally tapped into her creative unconscious. And that would be an accurate version of what happened, but I wouldn't be included in that version at all.