5 minutes with Ivy Wolk

Upcoming comedian, actress and cinephile Ivy Wolk seems to be everywhere these days. From Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winning ANORA to Eugene Kotlyarenko’s THE CODE Ivy is one of our favorite new voices in cinema. She also has stellar taste. We’re so excited that she is presenting an underseen work by Sandra Bernhard WITHOUT YOU I’M NOTHING. Roxy Cinema Director Illyse Singer caught up with Ivy for a few minutes to discuss film and why she chose this film.

 

What is your first transformative film experience?

 High School Musical astonished me. Saw the third iteration in a theatre with my mom and her boyfriend at the time who was a plumber and his random ass kids. Seeing how much the ante and technical quality was upped in the TV to big screen transition felt like a new way of seeing. I still remember being in the middle seat of a perfectly middled row and looking right into Efron’s baby blue eyes as he stared the camera down… It was amazing to feel swallowed by something I was so obsessed with. There’s a video on YouTube somewhere of me in 2007 singing the Troy and Gabriella inaugural duet.

Which movie have you watched more than any other?

 

Not counting the Disney DVDs I watched until they were scratched and didn’t play straight or the DVDs of my dad’s lowly character actor friends’ films that I was forced to sit through (even worse but perhaps way more inspiring ultimately was being subjected to the films their respective children were in… I’ve seen Hotel For Dogs so many times that I was convinced for most of my childhood that Josh Hutcherson would be the first to take me all the way), I’m going to go with a deliberate and fully conscious choice I made and that choice is Michael Lehmann and Daniel Waters’ 1988 film Heathers. Watched it for the first time after theatre camp on a laptop with my friend Tatum when I was 11. Took all my best friends to see it at The Hollywood Forever Cemetery on my 12th birthday and it blew the right one’s minds. I know it word perfect. Christian Slater in that movie had me chasing boys who did Christian Slater in Heathers impressions for a living for too many years and it may sadly never end. Punchy and perfect. It countered the saccharinity of John Hughes’ reign deliciously. He had it too good for too long. Without Heathers I would not exist as you see me today.

 

Do you have a favorite experience of seeing a movie in a theatre?

 

The ANORA premiere at the Regal Times Square was really special. SHOWGIRLS at Hollywood Forever with my mom two years ago. Drunk SALO with my friend Creston in high school at Brain Dead Studios. Anytime I can watch people watching me.

 

What was your favorite project to work on this last year?

 

 I’ve loved getting to run two stand up shows and really come into my own as a live performer. On screen I’ really proud of how funny I am in ENGLISH TEACHER and am really especially stoked for people to see Jonah Hill’s OUTCOME which is me and a shocking amount of celebrities being really disgusting people.

 

Why did you choose Without You I’m Nothing? 

It was way ahead of it’s time and deserves a spot in the Gen Z gay canon but nobody is tapped in like I’m tapped in, so I have to shepherd the children… Glamorously and shockingly gaged what were at the time nameless topics, like cultural appropriation and identity politics, while balancing classics like Jewish shame, female celebrity, and sexual liberation in a totally distinct and sexy way. It’s got gowns and hair and music and it’s led bravely by a presence unlike any other to ever grace the stage and screen. We should all be so lucky to see what I see and I had to bring it to my favorite repertory theatre in this city, the one I am forever loyal to, the first one I ever came to upon really being alone here for the first time.

WITHOUT YOU I’M NOTHING SCREENS FRIDAY NOVEMBER 1^st, Featuring an introduction by Ivy Wolk.