“The Mysterious Desire to Play an Ingénue” | John Early, Maddie’s Secret
Maddie’s Secret is comedian, writer, and actor John Early’s critically acclaimed directorial debut, starring himself as Maddie, a plucky dishwasher who leaps to viral superstardom at a trendy food content creation company. While her life seems picturesque — complete with an adoring husband, ride-or-die best friend and a cupboard full of woman-owned ethically-sourced chili crisp to boot — mounting professional pressures threaten to reawaken a hidden secret from her troubled past.
A pitch-perfect blend of satire, melodrama, daring tonal shifts and intimate performances, Maddie’s Secret—screening Sunday, May 3, at 4:15 p.m., at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, as part of the Chicago Critics Film Festival—marks a bold new voice in contemporary cinema.
Ahead of the screening, Early graciously took the time to answer this year’s filmmaker questionnaire. Below, his individual responses.
How did you first become interested in filmmaking? What was your path toward directing your first film?
Polyester made me want to be a filmmaker in a more serious way. I had played a lot of women in my bathroom mirror, but that movie made me want to put those women in the more cinematic context of, you know, cinema!
Maddie’s Secret is my first film, but is also very much an extension of the things I’ve made by myself or with friends like Kate Berlant and Andy DeYoung over the years. You spend years making sketches, eventually you want to make something more fully realized.
What inspired you to make the film you're bringing to the festival?
Maddie’s Secret was born out of the desire to make a dirt-cheap, high-style melodrama with my friends. But it was also born out of the mysterious desire to play an ingénue...
Tell us about a film that you consider a guiding influence (whether it has informed your overarching vision as a filmmaker, directly informed the title you're bringing to the festival, or both).
Maddie’s Secret is in some ways a contemporary retelling of Kate’s Secret, a brilliant TV movie about a bulimic housewife, starring the great Meredith Baxter. John Waters as goofy Douglas Sirk and Divine as punk Jane Wyman in Polyester were guiding forces. The careening expressiveness of Showgirls. Elizabeth Berkley’s Nomi was very instructive to me. Kellie Martin’s performance in Death of a Cheerleader, too. Hysterical (in the old sense) psychosexual melodramas like Marnie and Suddenly Last Summer. Adrian Lyne’s popcorn erotic thrillers. And Jill Sprecher’s Clockwatchers, always and forever.
Tell us about a location that's held significance to the film you're bringing to the festival: a setting where filming took place, a geographic area that provided a source of inspiration, or another type of space that comes to mind for you in thinking about the film. What made this place so special?
Well, we shot a significant portion of the movie in my house. The production designer Gordon Landenberger turned it into a kind of fairy-tale version of itself, making Maddie—or, let’s be honest, ME—the princess of Echo Park...
The theatrical experience brings us together to celebrate artistic experience and expand our horizons as human beings. Tell us about a memorable theatrical experience from your life.
I’ll never forget my mom crying so hard at Tea with Mussolini that her contact lens fell out. We had to wait until everyone left the theater and searched for it on the floor together.