February 18, 2021

24 Years Since Gummo. Nick Sutton Interview

This interview took place in August 2020. Photos shot in November 2019.

What have you been doing since 97? In Portland right?

I currently live in Portland, yes! After Gummo I struck it out on my own, and did what any teen with thousands of dollars and no parental supervision would do, drugs, and lots of them, 24/7 until the money ran out, developed a bit of a meth problem, you know the usual. Did the homeless drifter thing for a while, eventually settled in Boise with my mom where we ran a dog rescue for a bit, rescued a lot of dogs, all of whom are dead by now, then I moved back to Portland where I’ve been since then. Did some weird jobs, spent some time in school until the money ran out, eventually found my way to my current job at a local Grocery store, ran for City Council back in 2018, it was a great experience, looking forward to doing something like it again.

Tell me about that first scene with you washing your mouth out in the car. This was your first ever scene on camera?

So my first scene ever on camera for Gummo was the “suicidal Tummler” scene, which Harmony recorded in his apartment on my first visit, it was also part of my “audition.” The first scene where I was behind the “big camera” was the scene where Tummler was making out with the girl in the car. It was actually a pretty awkward scene, so it got me past the jitters of being on camera pretty quick! I believe it was over 90 takes for that one scene, they shot it from like 4 or 5 angles.

Was Mark Gonzalez cool? Stories?

Yes. Mark was super cool, and chill, I don’t think he and I did much more than chat, in fact, I only spent portions of one day with him! The others might have better stories with him, but, I remember him being cool, but not much else.

Go in-depth, if you can, about the Sally Jesse Rafael experience? I’ve never been able to find the clip.

It was an episode titled “my child died from huffing.” Back when I was around 15 or 16, I had run away from home (it was not a healthy place for me to be), and I was into drugs at the time, but they were more of a distraction for me at that point. While visiting home one day my mother asks me “what do you want to do with your life,” and I was being a smart ass so I said “I wanna be a drug dealer!” She used that story and wrote in to Sally who brought me on as an example of the kind of terrible person your kid could be if you let them huff shit! The parents yelled at me, the crowd yelled at me, Sally lectured me, my mom lectured me, and I was pretty high at the time, so everyone yelling at me just kinda ruined my whole evening.

Nick meeting Jacob Reynolds for the first time since 1997 at Retro Invasion Weekend, November 2019.

 What is at least one of the most obvious questions you hear all the time?

“What was it like to star in Gummo?” Like. . . What do you mean? What was the general vibe like? Be specific with what you want to know, I am happy to answer questions, but something as vague as that really trips me up because I have no fucking clue where to begin with that. Do you walk up to a plumber and ask “what’s it like to plumb?” Fuck no, you ask about job specifics, about things you are curious at. I love questions, just. . . Make it about something!

What about questions you’ve expected but never been asked?

Weirdly enough, I’m almost never asked what Chloe is/was like. People want to know about Harmony all the time, and while I did spend a lot of time with Harmony, I also spent a lot of time with Chloe, and almost no one ever asks anything about her, which I have always found odd.

 Do you think the movie was exploitative? 

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: The movie is one of a very few to genuinely capture an honest, non-idealized image of extreme poverty without the narrative that directors and writers who have never experienced real poverty like to paint over it. The place you see, and many of the people you see, are the real fucking deal, and there is something beautiful about that, Harmony chose not to paint over it or dress it up too much, and I appreciate that, but at the same time the film was not created to be an objective glimpse into the suffering of the poor, but rather a parade of people’s suffering marching across the screen for the uncomfortable entertainment of the artistic elite. There’s two sides to this so it’s a lot more complex than simply saying it is entirely exploitative, but, yes, I do feel it was.

 Give me a random Harmony set quote or story?

 So one of my favorite stories to tell about Harmony was a scene when we were, as I recall, at his parents house, and Harmony has no filter, which is something I really appreciate about him, and he has this idea, they’re going to put me on my bike, and I’ll be riding up a hill in a pair of really short cutoffs, and I’ll just skid out and come to a stop with one leg up as I survey the horizon like some kind of super hero, and there will just be one lone nut hanging out of my shorts! Harmony was reminded that I was a minor at the time, which I was a little bit glad about, I wasn’t sure how I felt about letting the whole world see one of my testicles!

 Y’all found the actor you sold the cats to at the bowling alley?

Yeah, that sounds right, though I don’t remember much about finding him. I mostly just remember bowling there and playing Tekken.

Some of the dialogue is amazing (voice over and otherwise). How much of that was scripted?

Pretty much all of it was scripted by Harmony. Harmony didn’t allow much room for flexibility in regards to much of everything, almost everything we did was controlled right down to the tiniest detail. We were his clay to mold as he saw fit.

 Where and how were the voice overs recorded? They sound raw and lo-fidelity but Jacob told me they were recorded more professionally than I imagined.

 I think it was different for each of us. I only remember one session (though I know there was more than one) and it was in a older room somewhere in Manhattan, with a single table, a microphone, and Harmony and someone else (probably a sound guy), on the opposite side of the table as I read. 

 What do you think about the bootleg Gummo merchandise on eBay?

I don’t care, personally, bootleg shit happens, it’s just a fact of life, really! I hope no one is getting scammed or anything, as long as people are creating art, and being creative, and I get to be involved in some way (even if only passively), that’s great. 

Who was filming the 8mm etc clips around Nashville?

Pretty sure that was Harmony and/or Jean Yves, Harmony had a lot of fondness for 8mm

 Do you have anything to say about the state of Portland right now? 

 Yeah, Black Lives Matter, period. If people are interested in helping I will direct you to:

Don't Shoot Portland – A Community Action Plan

This is an amazing and beautiful community of people who have come out to support Portland’s black community and lend our voices to the call for justice, and any narrative to the contrary is bullshit, but I do not presume to speak for the black community of this city, and I would advise anyone who is interested, or curious, to reach out to the people who have been doing the real work since long before any of this happened. I’m just happy to be out there supporting the people of my community, as much and as often as I can.

What was school like after people figured out you were in the movie? 

I was suddenly very popular in school, people I never really had a connection with wanted to hang out with me, and it was nice, I have to admit, but there was also a bitterness there, to go from being bullied to suddenly being loved. I couldn’t deal with the hypocrisy of that for long. I will say, that to this day, I am sometimes, just a little bitter, that more of my friends have gotten laid for knowing me, than I have gotten laid for BEING me, and that’s just a cruel irony of the universe, I suppose!

How many times did that guy pull on his nipple? 

That guy was Max Perlich, who was a living legend to a nobody like me, and. . . I don’t know, a lot? It was supposed to be the character’s thing. Something he and Harmony worked out, I guess!

 Do you ever have sleep paralysis?

 I have, but it’s not a regular occurrence, it is, however, usually quite terrifying when and if it does occur!

What is your relationship with cats like?

 I love cats, all cats, and cats love me! Especially the fat ones, the fatter the kitty the better! I will spend hours petting them and listening to them purr, they’re a treasure of this world, and I am so glad they have forgiven me for the things I had to do in order to entertain the world!

Ever gotten approached for, or done other acting work?

 I’ve done a little modeling here and there, worked on a few projects that didn’t really go anywhere, but nothing too big, I’m always willing to listen if anyone has any good ideas, though!

Were you sober during Gummo? Anything else you want to say?

Harmony and Chloe were really protective of me in that regard, they never got in front of me and tried to stop me from doing what I wanted, but they always kinda nudged me away from or kept me busy so I didn’t really have much time to get into the local drug scenes in New York or Nashville in any way. I actually kinda liked that about them, I feel like they were kinda looking out for me without acting like they were.