SameOldShawn Downtown 81. Michael Holman So Downtown 81 was being shot at the height of Gray performing all over the downtown scene. We were already by this point at CBGBs and the Mudd Club and really great, name places Pier 3, Hurrahs. Glenn OBrien and Mary Paul and Edo, who were all downtown royalty on the scene Glenn OBrien had already been working with Warhol and Edo was a SwissItalian photographer and Mary Paul was a downtown scenester who Id even met years before. I tried to pick her up when she was a customer of mine when I was working at the bank The three of them got together to make this film. Danny Rosen was going to be the star of the film, and he didnt want to be the star. The story was about a downtown artist who was on the verge of blowing up and making it into the gallery scene. They first wanted Danny Rosen, and for whatever reason, Danny refused to do it, it didnt work out on some level, and the next choice was Basquiat So Jean was cool about it. You have to understand, Jean and I was F.O.B., friends of Basquiat, we always called him Jean Jeans singular focus, because he always had the chops to be a great painter, and he always was a great artist. So his next singular focus was to become a famous artist. Anything he could do that would facilitate that, he did. And so being the star of a downtown film sounded like a pretty good idea But he was almost impossible. Jean was impossible to work with at times. Theyd show up at wherever he was staying, and hed be asleep. Five in the morning, and theyd start shooting early on, and theyd have to wake him up. He was hard to work with on that shoot But the amazing thing about Jean, it just showed what a genius he was, what a realized being he was. He was just great at anything and everything he did. He was a great actor in that film! I mean, imagine if the film had a stronger storyline. With Jean, his acting, it could have been even a greater film. But it is a great document of that time, and Im really proud to have been part of it
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