“My favourite actress in the world”: the star John Waters wanted to be his muse
From his early days as a DIY filmmaker, assembling friends to make shocking movies, to his turn as a more commercially successful figure, John Waters has never failed to maintain his unique sense of artistry. His career has spanned several decades, and in those years, he has made many cult classics, all of which have explored transgressive themes and stirred up considerable controversy.
But isn’t that the sign of a great artist? To be a polarising figure – responsible for films that have both won awards and been banned in various countries – is to be an authentic filmmaker. Waters had to make a move to more commercially-friendly and bigger-budget movies in the 1980s in order to sustain himself, but he still chose unusual themes and created outlandish characters, like the murderous housewife Beverley in Serial Mom or the group of cinema-loving anarchists in Cecil B. Demented.
Waters ended up working with many iconic stars that he perhaps never could’ve imagined casting in his films when he started out in the late ‘60s as a perpetually high aspiring filmmaker with limited resources. Back then, he would write and direct movies that he would then film, edit, produce, and create music for, using his Dreamlanders as his cast.
The Dreamlanders were a group of Waters’ friends from Baltimore who became his muses, the most notable of them all being Divine. Born Harris Glenn Milstead, it was Waters who suggested the name Divine for his drag persona, taking inspiration from a character in Jean Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers.
They were not only best friends but close collaborators, with Divine first appearing in Waters’ second short film, Roman Candles. He was down for anything, like playing Jacqueline Kennedy in Eat Your Makeup, in which they reenacted JFK’s assassination just a few years after it had happened.
Divine took the lead in most of Waters’ films during the 1970s, with the most unforgettable being Pink Flamingos. He played Babs Johnson, a criminal who becomes the target of a bizarre couple who want to overthrow Johnson to become known as the filthiest people alive. An exercise in pure shock, Waters aimed to make viewers deliberately uncomfortable and challenge their points of view. Divine was truly Waters’ muse – there was no one else who could’ve played the roles of Babs Johnson, Dawn Davenport, or Francine Fishpaw.
Divine passed away in 1988, bringing a sad end to the pair’s collaborative friendship. While no one will ever come close to replicating what Waters and Divine had, he still finds new sources of inspiration and is desperate to work with certain stars. One of these is Isabelle Huppert, an iconic French actor who has appeared in many subversive films herself, like The Piano Teacher. Talking to IndieWire, Waters explained, “Who’s a muse? Isabelle Huppert is my favourite actress in the world.”
Waters added, revealing why they have never worked together, “I just could never figure out a way that she would live in Baltimore. Plotwise, it’s a stretch.” The city is a central location in many of Waters’ films, and certainly, it is hard to imagine the Parisian actor playing someone from Baltimore.
Yet, she is such a versatile star, and her penchant for playing terrifying and amoral women could certainly work fantastically in Waters’ cinematic world. What’s more, Huppert once wore a dress to the Met Gala that was directly inspired by the one Divine wears in Pink Flamingos.
