Let's cover the requisite acting career stuff. What was your involvement with Napoleon Dynamite about?
I had a friend in college [at BYU] who was working on the script and asked if I would play this character for him. I wasn't taking acting classes or pursuing or auditioning for short films. I'd never really acted before except for my own films when I had to. I, of course, helped him out.
Afterward, did you ever consider pursuing acting seriously?
Right after the film came out I linked up with managers and agents and lawyers to represent me on the acting side. I didn't really go out to find it. I was told, "This is what you need now." The scripts that were coming in were just the same kind of character. It wasn't at all interesting enough to spend my time on. I continued to turn down scripts, and the final straw was when an agent sent me a script to costar in an Eddie Murphy film. I was like, "Dude, this is not going to go anywhere." So I dropped my agents. I don't even think about it.
I was in one other small film at Sundance called On the Road With Judas. It was based off a novel and the author was going to make it into a film. He approached me and I really liked the idea, but it was really more like an art project than a feature film. The entire first half was completely improvised and he was going to write the second half of the film based off what was improvised, and then we would go back two months later and shoot the scripted part. There was something about that that was appealing to me, but my foray into film and acting was just those two films and that was it.
Now you're a director. What are you working on?
My day job is as a commercial director. So I direct spots for everyone from Coke to Target. I'm directing a campaign on Target spots right now and I've been doing that for six years [based in Los Angeles].
You're doing a photography show in New Orleans. What do you think of the city?
I've never been here before, but it's been great. The drinking culture is crazier than I've seen. We've had some great great food. I love my food and I've only been to one restaurant that's been mediocre and everything else [have] been pure standouts. We went to this place called Lilette where I had an amazing seafood bouillabaisse. Yesterday we were at Jazz Fest and the food was awesome. Everyone said it was awesome and I was a little bit leery about believing it. Everything from white chocolate bread pudding to shrimp toast to crawfish pasta. It was just so good, so good. We also saw Arcade Fire sing a duet with Cindy Lauper. They sang "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." So yeah, it's all been really really good.
You've been a photographer for a while, but are just doing your first solo show in the US. How did it come about?
I had a show at the end of last year at Colette in Paris, and I got back and Martine the gallery owner reached out to me. I've shipped pieces for group shows, but with my schedule -- this sounds so petty -- but I haven't pursed gallery shows for myself the way that I probably should have. So I said "Yeah, I'd love to do a stateside show." I checked out her space and loved it and wanted the chance to check out New Orleans and to see how people in this region would respond to my work.
Your work seems to be highly produced, and reminds me a little bit of a Cindy Sherman-Kehinde Wiley love child. Who, if anyone, has influenced you?
I wish I was more knowledgeable about other photographers and what they've done. To be honest, my knowledge of photography is really limited. I started shooting when I was in high school and was pretty much self-taught. I would just go to libraries and look for any type of photography books, and they really only had technical books. I remember there was a seven-part series by Life Books that I was always drawn to, and then when I became a professional photographer, my schooling came from people saying, "Oh, your work reminds me of so and so," and I would have no clue who they were talking about, so I would Google or look into who the photographer was, and that's how I got to know other photographers.
To go back to your question, the only books I could get a hold of as a kid and influenced
my style, were on David Hockney. That was kind of it, and what shaped where I am now
in some weird way. If you asked me to articulate it, I'm not quite sure if I could. I'm not
sure where I see Hockney elements in my work, but I do know that that he was the only
photographer that I was aware of early on.
That's interesting. Do you think not being exposed to a lot of other photographers' work was actually helpful in your work?
It's hard to say, because I don't know what the other way would be. Maybe my work would be better if I'd been exposed to other photographers. That's not to say I live in a cave now and I'm not aware of who's shooting what and how. I am interested in that. Who's to say? My gut probably would tell me that there's probably something better for me personally not to be overexposed to other people's work because it did help me find my style and voice in the particular way it is today.
Tell me about the process of how you shoot. Are your scenes produced or natural?
It's a combination. Some are built from the ground-up, from sets that I imagine. Some are just found objects or items. I try to stay really authentic to either form. I think you would be hard-pressed to figure out which is which, aside from my portrait work. I think my portrait work is overly propped and telling that it is somewhat artificial. Even then I try to make it feel as if it's a space that could actually be lived in or that someone could actually be a part of. When I do the portrait stuff I typically use my subjects as an additional prop. I don't overly focus on my models. I'm always leery of people feeling too posed. There's something that just doesn't resonate with me when you, the viewer, are aware that the model is aware of the camera.
Some of your commercial work has included the hilarious and bizarre Old Spice pieces and LG beard characters, which have a specific and goofy sort of humor. Is this something you've helped to shape or that you've chosen when taking on the projects?
Those were projects I did over the span of three or so years. The way the ad world works is they send you boards with the general concept already in place, and then how it's captured is completely up to me. Take the LG campaign with the models and beards and the painted backdrop. That idea came to me as, "We want teenagers holding phones with a beard on that look like they're thinking." It was up to me to style them. I liked the idea of painting these backdrops that allude to a certain place, and just the lowest part of the frame hints at what that geography is. My production designer who helps me build sets is a painter by trade and painted each of those canvases by hand.
I feel like I've been pretty successful with the agencies and the clients I've chosen to work with. They know what to expect when they come to me. I'm not going to tweak my style to much to appease a brand or an identity. I prefer to make it my own rather than tweak my creativity to suit them. Also, the humor has to be worth while. There's a lot of crap humor out there that's not funny that's trying to be funny. Comedy is a really delicate thing and it's hard to do right, but when it is I think it's worthwhile.
What are you working on next?
I have a couple of open series that I'm trying to work on -- The Madonna Series, the Teacup Series, a couple of which I'm showing here. I've got this other project I want to start, which is to go to Japan and photograph information booths in all the department stores. In Tokyo, there are these square little information booths with really big text that says "information" written above on the wall. And there are always these two beautiful female attendants at the information booth. But what's so great is their costumes, their uniforms. Every department store has a specific color and cut, and lot of them are total nods back to the '60s style. So you've got really cute colors and there's something about the symmetry and straight lines of these information booths coupled with this great styling of their uniforms. I think it would make a really engaging body of work.
Out of curiosity, what are you reading right now?
There's this Oliver Sacks book called Musicophilia. It's about Sacks' patients that have been affected by some sort of physical encounter that has left them with the abnormal ability to create music or harmony in ways that prior to the accident they didn't have. It's pretty fascinating.
So you're interested in music too?
I'm a huge music snob and, actually, that factors into my imagery a lot. It's while I'm listening to music that a lot of ideas come to me. The Teacup Series came from Pulp. On the plane ride over here I was listening to a lot of New Order. I grew up listening to New Order. I was getting a lot of ideas on the way. There's a really good band that's real moody and good for getting imagery. Oh...what's it called? Peaking Lights. Yeah, they're good.
Aaron Ruell's self-titled photography show is on display at New Orleans' Martine Chaisson Gallery now through June 1st.
