“Disfigured” is a movie that takes on one of the most sensitive issues in our culture: weight. It tells the story of the friendship between Lydia (Deidra Edwards), a fat woman, and Darcy (Staci Lawrence), a recovering anorexic. Their relationship is tested when Lydia becomes involved with Bob, a sweet guy determined to lose his excess weight, and Lydia asks for “anorexia lessons.” Writer-director Glenn Gers, Lawrence, and Edwards took time from their screening schedule at Cinequest and sat down for a conversation.
[Note: This is an extended version of a piece which ran in The Milpitas Post and other papers]

Inspirations for making the movie:
Gers: I used to walk on the beach in Venice a lot in the very early the morning, this very empty, odd time with odd characters. I saw a very heavy couple walking in sweats, and I thought “wow, that’s a way to get into the subject of weight,” which had been on my mind because my wife has been many sizes but none of them skinny. She is beautiful and marvelous but … she is not represented in movies, she’s simply not honestly dealt with. A whole large — literally, percentage-wise — group of the population is simply not shown in movies, and that just seemed wrong. The inspiration was to find a way to deal with those issues.
I started writing the story of Bob and Lydia, who are characters in the movie, but in finding Lydia’s life I was dealing with the fat acceptance movement. The idea of an anorexic coming in there because she calls herself fat, there’s a logic there that’s bizarre but actually really sharp. From the moment I thought of that character walking into that room and thought of what it would be like for her to meet Lydia, it just totally took over the movie. … it felt scary because I’m not a woman and I don’t have weight issues, there’s no justification for me to write that, except it just felt like there’s a cool movie, I’ve never seen it before, and I can get it to be made.
Edwards: the script came to me through my agent, and I read it and I was moved by the fact that he had written a real person, real people. He used words to describe Lydia like “graceful” and “sensual” and “intelligent” and “fun,” not just someone shoveling food in their face for a joke. I hadn’t seen that before in my experiences and the opportunities that were given to me in Hollywood. I felt very moved to tell the writer, thank you for having this exist at all in Hollywood! On the front of the script was his agent’s information, so I wrote him a little thank you note saying that, and I dropped it off at his agent’s office — never expecting to hear anything ever.
Gers: I called her. It was a nice note, it was very feeling, and I thought I should answer it. I guess I’m stupid that way.
Edwards: Thank God!
Lawrence: The script came to me through one of my very best friends, who said “I’ve read this script, and you have got to get in touch with this director.” And so, I did, and was able to get an audition. I ended up going on a vacation with my fiance’s fishing partner and his girlfriend. She happens to be a producer, he starts telling her about the movie, and she says, “wait, I know Glenn, after I saw you in a play, I told him, ‘I have the actress for you.'”
Gers: People were coming at me with Staci’s name for a long time, and frankly in the stack of head shots I got for each role, the Darcy stack was about 4 or 5 times higher than the potential Lydia stack, there were a lot of people. When Staci auditioned, I felt, as I did with Deidra, right away — I feel this electric connection, something making me feel like this would be an exciting, powerful performance. But, Staci spends a lot of her time being a stand up comedian, and the audition had a lot of comedy energy, and she was really strong, but I wasn’t sure if she could do the more withdrawn side of the character.
I was running the camera myself on the auditions that day, and I got confused, and so I was pushing the button backwards, so that whenever somebody started I was turning it off, and I was turning it back on when they were done. I had covered the red light so they wouldn’t know and wouldn’t feel self-conscious. I happened to get a phone call during Staci’s audition first reading, so I left the room for 5 minutes and she was just sitting there with the camera on her, being absolutely quiet and still. When I reviewed the tape, that was it, she had the part.
Right before we started shooting, some more producers read [the script], and one said I really, really want to help you get this movie made, and I really think I could raise some serious money to really do it right, but we need to spend more time raising the money and we’d have to talk about casting. I already had [Lawrence and Edwards] at this point, and I said no, there is no one you can show me who is going to be better than them. There was simply no question in my mind, they were so exciting to watch.
On the lovemaking scene between Lydia and Bob:
Edwards: It was very challenging. it’s a very vulnerable feeling. The actor, luckily is a wonderful guy. Married, kids, understanding spouse. My spouse was understanding about it as well, which was helpful. That scene was our last scene we shot together. We had shot everything else already. We felt very comfortable together, but still, you know, I sort of feel like when the director said “action,” Lydia was vulnerable to Bob, and when the director said “cut,” Deidra was vulnerable to everybody who wold ever see this footage. … When it was over, I was a bit of a mess for a couple days, it’s a very vulnerable thing to do. This took about a year and a half to finish, so every now and again i would just be going about, my daily life and go, (gasp)! One time I was at his [Glenn’s] house and I said, “promise me you are not going to ruin my life with this footage!” And he promised. The day I actually got to see the concept come together, I cried because I thought it was so beautifully, artfully done, and he had kept his promise, and that was so important. I mean, what a thing to put in somebody else’s hands! He said there is no other scene like that in all of film and how proud he is to have thought of that, and I’m proud to be a part of it.
Gers: Also, within the context of a movie, I personally feel these two both had to be emotionally naked through most of the movie, I mean there’s some fun things, but there’s a lot where they are literally emotionally naked, and that was very hard for them to do. And then — they seem to not think it’s a big deal, but I assure you it is — there are several sequences where they wear no makeup. I know that sounds weird, but that’s something you don’t see in movie: actors allowing you to see them truthfully in all of those different ways. It was a hard three weeks, they were wiped out. it was very demanding on them emotionally. For Lawrence, the idea that she had to break down screaming and crying, and those days were all tense. I was very grateful and proud that they would be willing to risk that.
On a scene in which Darcy examines her body critically in a mirror:
Lawrence: Glenn and I had talked about it, and he said, this is your sex scene. I read the script, I thought it was a beautiful scene. I thought I knew exactly what needed to happen. I wasn’t intimidated by it. And then the day of, it wasn’t so much intimidation as it was the realization of how private it was going to be. I know that I’m lucky that I’m thin. I have no judgments on people that are bigger than me because I know I eat just like them. I’m very lucky. I don’t have discipline. Having to admit, even with my body that is perceived to be a great body, that I’m not happy all the time… I don’t admit that to people. I don’t admit that my boobs are small and it makes me feel like a 12 year old, because I’m supposed to be happy with my body because I’m thin. Something else I tried to think about and use is that it’s a little bit lonely sometimes because if I’m feeling bloated, and my jeans don’t fit, I don’t have the luxury of complaining about it. Who am I to say that I feel fat, right? If it ever comes out, the first thing I hear is, “oh, shut up.” And it’s like, oh, right, okay. But I still have those feelings, all those things that I should not, but I do.
Gers: I think this movie is about something that’s universal: we all, every single one of us, exist within a body, and that is inherently weird. What the end of the movie, hopefully, is saying is: we should all be very conscious of our own body. The line in the movie, “do you have an image of yourself as completely satisfactory” — I don’t know anybody who can say yes to that question. And yet we all have these bodies that in their own ways are really cool, and do all the stuff we need them to do. Everything that we do in our lives is through our bodies, even the mental stuff is through our body, it’s biochemically created. And yet, our culture sometimes doesn’t allow us to be in our bodies. That’s universal. that is what I was trying to get to, because I have those feelings too.
On watching their movie with the audience at festivals like Cinequest:
Edwards: One of the reasons that I’ve always wanted to do this for as far back as I can remember, is when I would watch a movie, how that would make me feel. For some reason I always knew that I wanted to share emotions with people too. This has been my first opportunity to find out that I have done that. I’m getting choked up as I talk about this because it’s so important to me. It means so much to have that opportunity.
Gers: To see it with a group of people has been really, really cool. It’s different every night.
Lawrence: Our opening night of this festival was the first time I felt like I exactly shared the sense of humor of the audience. I was saying, “I always thought that was funny too!”
Gers: And then last night it was a really quiet audience. I think they were clearly enjoying it, but they were very quiet. The weird thing is, you see your own performance and you know it’s exactly the same, it’s on tape, but at the same time it’s playing differently. If you’re a live performer you think it’s part of the interaction, but in fact each audience has a different vibe.
Lawrence: Yeah, I do a lot of theater and the second night letdown, they call it, where you’ve had opening night and then the next night you’re like, oh it’s crap, and you’re beating yourself up and why am I doing this? I can now see that my work hasn’t changed but I have this feeling like – it’s sort of taken that pressure off. I’m actually excited to go back on stage and realize, I’m just doing my thing and people react differently.
Disfigured will be out on DVD this summer. Sign up for the news list at www.disfiguredmovie.com