Critics and casual readers have long suspected Steve Martin was waxing autobiographical when he wrote Shopgirl<\/em>, his bittersweet novella about the short-lived romance between Ray Porter, a fiftysomething dot-com millionaire, and Mirabelle, a twentysomething department store clerk. And those suspicions may turn into certainties now that Martin can be seen as the male lead in the movie version of his book (based on his own adapted screenplay).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Even now, though, Martin insists that his art shouldn\u2019t be read as autobiography. And he gracefully evades most skeptical questions on the subject. Never mind that 36-year-old artist Allyson Hollingsworth recently admitted to the New York Times that Shopgirl<\/em> was \u201cinspired\u201d by her relationship with Martin. (The novella, it should be noted, is dedicated \u201cFor Allyson.\u201d) The 60-year-old Martin will never be pinned down so easily.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Q: Weren\u2019t you just a little worried that if you played Ray Porter yourself, that would only intensify the perception that Shopgirl<\/em> is autobiographical?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A: Not really. I always think of it like Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter. I don\u2019t look at him and think, \u201cHmmm. He\u2019s probably a serial killer.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Q: Maybe so. Still, you must know many people assume Shopgirl<\/em> is at least partially drawn from your own experiences.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A: But who really knows what of this is me, or them, or the others? Or where this or that from the book came from? I mean, I don\u2019t know. To me, it\u2019s all an artistic process of interpreting one\u2019s own life \u2013 and other people\u2019s lives that you\u2019ve encountered, experiences you\u2019ve had and experiences you\u2019ve heard about. So there\u2019s no way to answer the question of how much is autobiographical. I mean, who knows? Maybe a little bit of it is me. But there\u2019s a little bit of me in Father of the Bride<\/em>, too.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Q: Have you ever worried that, like Ray Porter, you have kept people at arm\u2019s length?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A: In a personal way?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Q: Yes.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A: Um, no. I have a lot of good friends, I\u2019ve been married, I\u2019m in a relationship. I have my transition periods \u2013 but only like anyone else, I think.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Q: Like the book, the movie is mostly nonjudgmental about Ray\u2019s relationship with Mirabelle. What\u2019s you\u2019re personal take on it?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A: In a way, for Ray, it\u2019s like a teen-age affair that takes place later in life. With a teen-age affair, it\u2019s all going on, going on \u2013 but at the same time, you know it\u2019s finite somehow. Or maybe you don\u2019t, but everybody else knows it\u2019s going to be finite. And I think Ray Porter was still doing a teen-age affair \u2013 almost like a business deal, finite \u2013 and assumed that everybody involved understood finite. I think one of the lessons \u2013 well, if not a lesson, one of the comments in the book is, nobody understands finite. You can say it a million times, but people still believe they\u2019re in a relationship. At some point, it\u2019s always going to be painful. Except maybe for the proverbial one-night stand, you know? Because that<\/em> is a real mutual agreement. In my old days \u2013 in my really old days, I would say \u2013 that would happen completely like a handshake. And nobody really cared. That was in the late \u201860s, by the way.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Q: In Shopgirl<\/em> \u2013 the book and the movie \u2013 Los Angeles is so vividly defined that it almost becomes a major supporting character. Is there any other place on earth that could inspire you as writer in the same way?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A: A good question. I wrote a lot of Shopgirl<\/em> while traveling around, but L.A. certainly was on my mind. You see, L.A. is where I grew up. I first thought of writing Shopgirl <\/em>set in New York. But this voice in my head kept saying: \u201cYou know L.A.\u201d And I knew what was going to be important in the book was incredible detail. Very specific detail. And I just didn\u2019t have that for New York, that kind of insight. I mean, I haven\u2019t been on a subway since I was 20, you know what I mean? But in L.A., I know the routine.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Q: The book and the movie appear to suggest that Los Angeles can be a sad and lonely place.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A: I don\u2019t know about that. I\u2019ve written a lot about L.A., and I always describe it as beautiful. To me, human relationships can be sad, can be exhilarating \u2013 but it\u2019s not a product of the city. And it takes different forms. Like, in New York, you\u2019re always with people. You can\u2019t go outdoors, you can\u2019t go into the subway, you can\u2019t go anywhere without running into people you don\u2019t know. But in L.A., you really have to work a bit to be exposed. You have to be standing in a shop, you have to join a club, or join a community service thing, or go to a nightclub in order to meet people. Because there\u2019s not the same transitory proximity to other people.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Q: Shopgirl<\/em> reads like a deeply personal story. Maybe that\u2019s why people assume it is your <\/em>story.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n A: But remember, I\u2019ve written two<\/em> novels. Both are very personal in the sense that you really get into them — you get into the sentences and you get into the characters \u2013 but certainly my second book, The Pleasure of My Company<\/em>, has no autobiography in it at all. So that intimacy comes whether the book is autobiographical or not.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/body><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Critics and casual readers have long suspected Steve Martin was waxing autobiographical when he wrote Shopgirl, his bittersweet novella about the short-lived romance between Ray Porter, a fiftysomething dot-com millionaire,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,1],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews","category-uncategorized","tag-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.movingpictureshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}