EDGE Interview: Vera Drew Throws Out the Rule Book with 'The People's Joker'

EDGE: This is a trans drama coming of age drama. It's also a satire on everything from conversion therapy to how society forces us to smile along even if we don't agree. How did you manage to fit all of these things into one movie?

Vera Drew: I think I've always had that kind of drive to push myself a little too much, and, you know, I wanted this movie. This movie was coming about towards the end of a pretty successful, but long and kind of draining career working as a TV editor. I had wanted to direct, and I was a really good editor – I really do think I'm one of the best living editors, which I always go out of my way to say because nobody ever says that – but it's the hardest job in the world. I had accumulated a lot of skills over the years, and I wanted to show what I could do with very little, particularly in a low-fi space.

I was told my whole career that you couldn't be sincere and funny and scary and ironic and detached and gravely spiritual at all at the same time. I wanted to fucking throw the rulebook out and show that, no, you can have a character making the rudest joke you've ever heard one second, and then the next scene we'll find a way to make the audience cry. I've had people tell me they feel like their brain is getting reprogrammed in that first 20 minutes, and I think it makes sense, because we really overwhelm you with the images and vibes.

EDGE: What else are you hearing from the audience? Are people seeing themselves and their journeys in the movie?

Vera Drew: People seem to be responding to it in that personal, connected way, especially trans people. I feel I made this movie for like 13-year-old me; I was obsessed with comics when I was 13 and if there was some big, colorful, comic book movie with a bunch of Adult Swim-style jokes and an important queer love story and a mother-daughter story wrapped all around it, it would have maybe saved my life. So, I was really making it for her.

The fact that it's resonating with people is just really cool. It's not about making something to be understood; it's about making something to understand yourself. If you do that in a way that's pure and leaning into those best intentions of understanding yourself, I think it will hit with people because they'll feel that authenticity.

"The People's Joker" is rolling out to theaters nationally now. Find out more about the film and where it's showing by following this link.