Sherrybaby
Written & Directed by Laurie Collyer
Sherry (Maggie Gyllanhaal) has just been released from a three-year drug-related incarceration in Sherrybaby. Now clean and sober, she wants to reclaim responsibility for her young daughter, who’s been cared for by relatives who adore and hope to adopt the child. Writer/director Laurie Collyer based her first fiction feature on a true story modeled after Collyer’s childhood friend.
An NYU Tisch School of the Arts grad, Collyer began filmmaking after pursuing a career in social services. After Nuyorican Dream, her award-winning feature-length documentary, premiered at Sundance in 2000, she later developed Sherrybaby.
“Filmmaking requires telling the truth, even in fiction,” says Collyer. “That commitment comes from my social and political convictions, and from my NYU training, which emphasized truth-telling as the basis for all filmmaking—doc and fiction. Our first year film assignment was an eight-minute observational doc without interviews. We were taught to use true-life stories as the basis for all our scripts—in order to focus us away from making purely invented stories about things we really know nothing about—that ultimately don’t make sense and are, therefore, neither believable nor engaging.”
“I researched Sherrybaby as thoroughly as if I’d been preparing to make a doc—speaking with ex-cons, visiting halfway houses, attending 12-step meetings. Maggie did the same.”
MERIN: Nuyorican Dream and Sherrybaby are prison-related. What’s your fascination with incarceration?
COLLYER: I don’t know—I’ve actually asked myself that question. On a personal level, things in my life make me feel trapped—never having enough money, for example. I grew up middle class but sort of made this unspoken vow of poverty when I left college—going into social services, then becoming an artist. Minimal income made me feel trapped. I identify with people who’re physically trapped.
Also, it’s something cultural—as Americans, we’re fascinated by crime. Look at television, so many shows are about law enforcement and crime. Film noir’s an American genre about crime and criminals. It’s a national obsession, and I have my own take on it. I think criminals interest me because, in the common perception, they’re doing life on their own terms. That’s attractive—because freedom’s our national pursuit. It’s implanted in us from a young age that we should strive for freedom in our personal lives, so it’s an icon.
I’ve come to realize that crime’s something totally different than our national perception, glamorization and understanding of it. I perceived it as a choice people make, then realized that’s not always the case. And it’s not about being free. It’s about being human, but it’s less about taking life on your own terms than about following a different set of rules.
How does this pertain to Sherrybaby? Did your childhood friend have a choice?
Yes. We all have choices—certainly when we’re adults. But you see common threads in the lives of people who become criminals. A family history of addiction and abuse, for example, which pushes a person in a certain direction.
Of course, when you’re 18, what you do is what you do. I’m excusing certain behaviors up to a point, but I believe we make the decision to rob someone or not. And that, to a certain extent, is what Sherrybaby’s about.
However, personality factors—perhaps even genes—combine with environmental factors. Nuyorican Dreams is about a family where three of five children were criminals. I became friendly with the youngest—and he became part of Sherry. I visited him in prison, first for the doc—then because I wanted to save him. He always told me, “I’m a criminal. I know you want me to read books and change my life. I’ll read and enjoy them, but I’m still a criminal.” I didn’t believe that until he showed it to me in other ways—by conning me.
I think you can only be conned by someone if you want something from them. What did you want?
Well, after I finished the doc, I kept visiting him because I thought he could help me with my script for Sherrybaby because one of my mentors—someone who’d done time himself—told me I had the mother/daughter thing down but didn’t know shit about being an ex-con. I thought this kid could help me get it.
What was the difference between working with professionals on Sherrybaby and non-actors on Nuyorican Dreams?
You’re paying professional actors and have more control over them. And, in a way, the relationship is more honest. You’re all there for the same reason—to make the film. Professional actors have instincts and opinions and are strong-willed, but you can be direct in telling them what you want from them, and they’re usually very willing to do it.
With docs, the actors—and, yes, I do consider them actors—aren’t getting paid. They’re there because they want to tell their personal stories, which they may see differently from the way you ultimately do. It’s certainly more challenging to get elements you need to tell the story, and their expectations may be extraordinary—even in matters not relating directly to the film. In general, I’d say I prefer working with professional actors...I actually have three [projects] in process. I’m not sure which will come through first—but I think it might be the one that’s not about crime, criminals, prison or drugs.
