It was a wet and miserable day. Tuesday, June 6th, to be exact. But, in my mind it was the sunniest, coolest, spring day I'd seen yet this year. Why? I was scheduled to interview Lloyd Kaufman, President of Troma Films and creator of The Toxic Avenger. I have been a big fan of Troma since the early 80"s, and meeting the man behind all the sex, body mutilations, and the land of green fluids, was more than an honor for me. I parked the car three blocks away and made my way to Troma headquarters. I rang the bell at the front door and proceeded to go up the stairs. It was everything I pictured it to be, about a dozen employees hard at work, costumes, masks, and even actresses from Terror firmer (the latest Troma installment) filling up this slightly cluttered room. I felt like a little kid in a candy store. But, where was Lloyd? I was told he was across the street in Troma's editing putting the final touches on Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part 4, due to be released at the end of the summer. So, back in the rain I go to meet one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. I was asked to wait outside for a while, until the moment of truth arrived. As the door slowly swayed open, there, a few feet in front of me, stood the man who really puts the word independent in independent films: the one and only Lloyd Kaufman. Right away he made me feel like I was part of the family with his warm and gentle ways. That was until he asked one of his editors what he thought about the lesbian scene in Citizen Toxie. The poor fellow tried to be honest and said that he didn't think the film needed it, and that lesbians were cliche. Well, at that point Uncle Lloyd graciously asked me to step outside for a moment. As soon as the door slammed behind me, all hell broke loose. "You motherfuckers, why are you making me look bad in front of that piece of shit magazine Guerrilla Filmmaker, I'm the director, it's all about me. Me, me, me!!!" That was followed by a lot of banging and slapping noises. After about two minutes, Lloyd calmly invited me back in. Again he asked the poor editor, " So, what do you think about the lesbian scene in our newest film Citizen Toxie?" The editor, with his head hung low in shame answered, "I think it's the best lesbian scene I've ever seen in any movie. I think we should leave it in, it's so classy. You were right boss, it only makes the movie that much better." Lloyd smiled and said, "These guys are the best aren't they?," What followed was a great conversation with a filmmaker who has been m this business for the last thirty years and has every intention to keep doing it for the next thirty. Mr. Kaufman summed it up best in a quote from his book, All I Need To Know About Filmmaking I Learned From The Toxic Avenger. "When watching a Troma movie, you must not only suspend your disbelief, you must lock it up in a small crate and torture it." On that note, I invite you to spend some time with me and Uncle Lloyd.

Charlie: Prior to Troma, what inspired you to be a filmmaker? What or who were you a fan of, growing up?

Lloyd: I made the mistake of going to Yale University. Otherwise I would have done something useful with my life. It was the sixties. I was planning to be something like a social worker and teach people with hooks for hands how to finger paint or teach hobos to paint happy faces and string beads together. My freshman y at Yale, I was roomed with a movie nut. His bed and my bed were head to foot and I inhaled his stinking feet while I was asleep and the Aroma du Troma was born, so to speak. I grew up in the world of theater. My mother was a theatre person and had a lot of theater people around the house and was into musicals. 1 saw every Broadway musical; good or bad, I'm one of the three people that was Wild Cat with Lucille Ball, Do Re Mi with Phil Silvers, Let it Ride with Sam Levine.

Charlie: How did you manage to translate your love of theater to exploitation films? Lloyd: It was more the love of certain movies. My roommate at Yale was from New York, and another guy from California (who lived next door) were both movie nuts. The guy from New York was named Robert Edelstein; the guy next door, Eric Sherman. His dad was Vincent Sherman, a major, blacklisted Hollywood director. They started showing these great movies. They'd take me over to the Film Society, and we started watching films by Renoir, John Ford, and Charlie Chaplin. To me, Charlie Chaplin was just a goofy actor. I didn't know him as a great filmmaker. I didn't even know what a film director was. I didn't realize that the director was the 'auteur' (pronounced in his finest French accent). I didn't know anything about the auteur theory. I started learning about the Nouvelle Vague, the Auteur Theory of Filmmaking, and Andrew Sarris' essays. And then one day, I was in a movie theater in the Yale Film Society, and they showed Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be with Jack Benny and Carole Lombard and Robert Stack. It was during a screening of that movie, that it hit me that I would make movies. So if you want to blame someone for Troma, Jack Benny is dead, Carole Lombard is dead, but you could go after Robert Stack.

Charlie: Do you see yourself more as an artist, a producer, a director, or the executive officer of your company?

Lloyd: That's a good question. I think I see myself as all of those. I'm driven by the genuine love of making movies. I love the movie making process. In order to make movies, we've had to distribute, we've had to create. We own this building, and have a library of 850 movies so that we can have some kind of revenue.

Charlie: I grew up on early Troma work like The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke 'Em High, and have been a fan since. What's with the Jersey humor?

Lloyd: We are a big supporter of all the underdogs; no matter who they are, we usually support them without even logic sometimes. So as a result, we financed Vegas in Space which was the first musical comedy in outer space with an all trans-vestite cast. This was before Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. We did it because transvestites are underdogs. We did Def by Temptation, which is an all black movie. We were the only white people associated with it. We financed it. We did that before it became fashionable to do movies like Boyz N the Hood. We did it partly because we believe that America was built by underdogs. The problem with today's elitist society is that the underdogs are getting totally destroyed. What was your question again?

Charlie: Why Jersey?

Lloyd: Jersey is an underdog. Everybody pees on Jersey. Jersey is a great place. I'm a New York boy. I grew up in Manhattan, but I always loved Jersey. It's the Underdog State. It's an amazing place; it's got everything: Asbury Park, when it was really Asbury Park, Great Adventure! (Laughing)

Charlie: Were you ever offered a Hollywood project?

Lloyd: I have been offered stuff, but nothing that was either paying well enough or interesting enough or something that would give me total freedom like I have at Troma. After 30 years of making movies, I have come to the conclusion that there are only two ways of dealing with Hollywood. One, is that you have total control over what you do, or two, you just take a shit pot of money and you let them do it. There is no middle ground. Contracts mean nothing. You cannot say that I'm going to work for Hollywood and I'm going to direct a film for them, but I'm going to answer to that committee. I'm going to direct a film and deliver it with an R rating. It's bullshit. I'm one of the few directors in the world that has total power over what he does. I have total control. Sam Grogh who is the Dean of the American Film Institute, was quoted in Creative Screenwriter Magazine saying that I'm one of the few genuine auteur directors. I don't have swimming pools in my backyard like I'm sure most of these so-called directors in Hollywood have. They also have these constant development deals, and house cleaning deals, and God knows what else, BUT, I've got total freedom.

Charlie: Aside from you not being blind in real life, how much of Terror Firmer was autobiographical?

Lloyd: I think it's the most personal film that I've done. There are a lot of anecdotes that occur on the movie set of Terror Firmer, such as the theme of the deprivation of the senses. Certainly the spirit of the film is very personal.

Charlie: We hear that you've picked up Dario Argento's latest masterpiece, The Stendahl Syndrome for U.S. distribution. What is it like working with him?

Lloyd: He's the best! That's great for me. I'm honored that Troma is distributing Dario's film. He and I have been friends for many years and I worship him. I think he should be distributed much bigger. The Film Forum in New York City, that fuckin' theater... can you imagine they turned down Dario Argento's Stendahl Syndrome! It is a major masterpiece. I don't care. If that movie had the Miramax or Disney label on it, you could be goddamn sure that the Film Forum, in my humble opinion, would have been playing it so fast that it would have made your ass split or whatever the expression is. For Dario Argento to have his movie distributed by Troma is a disgrace in a certain way. It's great for us, what an honor it is, but then his movies are world-class movies. Why isn't 20th Century Fox distributing that movie? Why? Because he committed the crime of making it in an independent fashion. That'd be my guess. So if it's on the outside, just ignore it. Has Ebert reviewed it? No. Why hasn't the Film Forum played it? Basically it's called economic blacklisting. That's what it's all about.

Charlie: Your daughter appears in Terror Firmer. How much of the mayhem did you allow her to watch?

Lloyd: My daughter, Charlotte.

Charlie: How old is she, by the way?

Lloyd: Now she's in the sixth grade. When we shot the film she was ten. She saw none of it. If you look at how the movie is shot, you will notice that she saw no nudity or violence. She has seen portions of her scenes. But you can see when she dispatches the evil guy at the end that it's intercut. She has never seen anything approaching R rated material or worse. My wife would have killed me. We are very serious about Charlotte not seeing anything like that.

Charlie: Will Keenan, a great performance in Terror Firmer, and apparently someone who is very content to work with Troma; however, many actors and some unnamed union folks, shiver at the notion of becoming affiliated in any fashion with your company. Why do you think that is?

Lloyd: He's an amazing actor. You can talk about a tour de force. Our budgets are very small and our movies are extremely ambitious. There are thousands of people in them. We cannot possibly afford to pay union rates on projects of this scope. If we were doing Merchant and Ivory movies with six people and lots of costumes, I suppose we could pay SAG mini-mums. It gives a lot of talented people an opportunity to really expand their horizons and take some risks. I don't think Will Keenan will have the opportunity for a tour de force again like the one he had in Terror Firmer.

Charlie: Some people have stated that you have outdone John Waters in dealing with very controversial subject matter and images. Where do you draw the line, if any?

Lloyd: We do things we believe in. As long as we believe in what we're doing, we go with it. We don't believe that we should do a movie saying that Hitler was a good guy. I think we would draw the line at that. I think that we would draw the line at suggesting that Hillary Clinton is a good person. There are all sorts of things. Kenny G's music sucks, I'm sorry. I would not do something that says that Kenny G's music is good. There are lines, yeah, but they may be different for me than for other people.

Charlie: Is your partner Michael Herz shy? Why isn't he as active as you are in Troma projects?

Lloyd: Michael Herz loves movies. He just does not like the public side of this business. He prefers to produce and has devoted himself to building the company. He and I co-directed about fifteen movies. But at one point, he decided that he was going to build the business. He has never liked being interviewed or being in front of the media. He did it when we were building the company. He did it out of necessity and out of loyalty. When we got a little bit more secure, he asked me to be the front person. Charlie: What the hell is Samuel Weil all about?

Lloyd: Samuel Weil was my great grandfather. I was in the Director's Guild when we were organizing the company, and we needed money to pay the rent, to make movies. So I got jobs as a production manager and associate producer on movies. I worked on Saturday Night Fever, Rocky, Slow Dancing in the Big City. According to the Director's Guild, it is a crime to direct movies, unless they are Director's Guild movies, which means you have to hire Director's Guild staff. Again, our budgets did not allow us to do that. We cannot make the kind of movies we make and have the hours that are mandated by the union. Filmmaking is not about food. Filmmaking is about filmmaking. So I would go up on charges every so often. That's why I used the name Samuel Weil. The idea was that I didn't use my name, so I wasn't the director. I was just a very strong producer.

Charlie: What is the status of Citizen Toxie? And is this Troma's Citizen Kane?

Lloyd: Citizen Toxie is a very interesting reunion movie. We made it during our 25th year. It was inspired by our fans who demanded that the Toxic Avenger come back after ten years. Also, when I was signing my book (All I Need To Know About Filmmaking I Learned From The Toxic Avenger) at book stores and universities, there was always someone in the audience who would say: "Why don't you have a movie where the Toxic Avenger fights Sergeant Kabuki Man NYPD?" Toxie and Kabuki Man are both good guys. So they can't fight each other. They're good guys. The only way to solve that was to create parallel universes. There's Tromaville, the good place, and there's Amortville, which is the alternate universe. The Toxic Avenger goes into Amortville and the Evil Toxie, called Noxie, goes into Tromaville. So then you could have Evil Toxic Avenger fighting Good Kabuki Man and that solves the problem. What's great about Citizen Toxie is that it is the Troma Universe. You've got Toxie in it, Kabuki Man is in it, Dolphin Man is in it. We have the actor who played the original Toxic Avenger, Mitch Cohen, come back to play a cameo. Mark Torgal, who is little Melvin in the original Toxic Avenger, flew in from L.A. James Gunn, who wrote Tromeo and Juliet with me. Rick Collins who was the devil in Toxic Avenger Part 3. All this was like a major Troma reunion. And of course, Lemmy from Motorhead, and Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf. Countless people from the history of Troma all came back to do this movie.

Charlie: What's next on Troma's hit list?

Lloyd: We're going to do a little TV series. Like many artists, we tend to get appreciated more outside of America than we do here. We're doing a half-hour television series: a Troma humor TV series on England's Channel 4, their largest private broadcasting network. We are also developing a zombie movie. We've never done one that we've had the privilege of directing. That's going to be a major project. And also, The Toxic Avenger is being developed as an off Broadway musical. Kevin Hayes, a very good musician and composer, has written the score and a book for it, based on the movie, of course. We think we have a producer.

Charlie: Where do you see yourself and Troma in the next 2.5 years?

Lloyd: I think more of the same, hopefully, with our fans continuing to support us. As long as our fans support us, we will continue to do what we have been doing. Hopefully, I will have the privledge of directing a movie once a year, or every other year. In the past five years or so, we have been empowering more independent directors, writers and actors. Hopefully, we will continue to do more of what we have been doing and get better at it.