Lily Lady is an artist from New York City. Lily’s journalism can be found in Office and Dirty Magazine. Their latest poetry collection is NDA (Far West Press, 2024) and their feature film, Sam’s World, is available digitally on Tubi, Amazon Prime and more platforms via Factory 25. (Photo by Max Lakner.)
I don’t set an alarm before noon for just anyone. But Dennis Cooper is different.
I met Dennis for the first time in Paris in 2022, when I invited him to my hotel to have tea. I’d read most of his novels — I Wished and Closer being particular favorites — and I’d heard he was in the process of completing his third film, Room Temperature, with collaborator Zac Farley.
At the time, I was about to start a festival year with Sam’s World, my debut feature, and Far West Press had just released NDA, my latest poetry collection. When we met in Paris, we talked haunted houses and speculated about a cute guy I was cruising. Dennis was warm, charming, and shyer than I’d anticipated. Since then, we’ve hung out in Los Angeles and kept in touch over Zoom.
Despite a nine-hour time difference, we recently found an hour to chat about Room Temperature, which will have its world premiere at an as-yet-undisclosed U.S. film festival this spring.
“When people hear that I’ve done something, [they assume] it’s going to have all kinds of violence and sex in it, and this one really doesn’t,” Dennis said.
I’m one of the lucky few that has gotten to see Room Temperature before its premiere, and I can attest to that. The film centers around a family building a haunted attraction in their house. It’s a dreamy, sincere, dark comedy.
With a bigger budget and longer shooting schedule than their previous film, Permanent Green Light (2018), Room Temperature was still very low budget (under $500,000). Still, Dennis seemed uncertain he’d have that much money to make a film again.
“Because we’re never going to make a commercial film. Or even a snazzy indie film,” he says. “We’re going to make these strange films, and it’s amazing we had that much money to make an art film.”
I thought about the old Hollywood trope of directors shooting “one for them, one for me,” i.e. making a “sell-out” movie in order to fund a passion project with less commercial potential.
I asked Dennis if he would direct a big budget action movie if he were given a blank check. He looked at me like he’d just smelled something bad.
“I’m totally incapable of it.” he said, wincing.
I pushed back, trying to sweeten the deal. What if it were shot in Paris? If he only had to be on set for a few weeks?
“[Zac and I would] have no interest in doing it. We have no skills to do it. We could write a script, but they would reject it in five seconds.”
He went on, “Even a somewhat indie film, like The Brutalist or Anora or something … we couldn’t do that. We have no interest in doing that. We don’t want to be the new indie film darling. We don’t want to be like the Safdie brothers … I want to make something really strange and really original, and it’s not sexy or flashy. A lot of people aren’t going to get it.”
Fair enough. But what about Dennis’s reputation for making media that is sexy, and that is, if not flashy, eye-catching in its extremity?
I think about the Dennis Cooper fanzine a friend of mine showed me recently. I ask Dennis if he’s seen it.
“These guys made a bunch of them. It’s not just me,” he said with a typical self-effacing modesty.
At the beginning of his literary career, people often assumed that Dennis must be like the adult characters in his books.
“I don’t know why they didn’t assume that I could be like the boy characters. Because I actually am more like them, in some way. Although I’m not, you know, sexually sought after …”
I objected, citing the zine, among other bodies of evidence.
“I mean, I’m not a sadist … people used to think I was. They used to come up to me and ask if they could get snuff films from me,” he clarifies.
“But now, because I’ve been doing it for so long, and also because I do this blog, [many people realize], Oh, this is actually just this nerdy guy who likes all kinds of stupid things.”
About people’s perceptions in general, he never was too invested.
“I wasn’t interested in creating a persona. I never wanted to be like Kathy Acker or William Burroughs. Or be a ‘brand.’ I just wanted to write my books. People still marginalize what I do, but I don’t think they think I’m a monster anymore. I meet a lot of younger people; they wanna meet me or have a coffee when they come to Paris. And I don’t think they think I’m gonna rape them or anything.”
I think back to our tea in Paris. I definitely never thought rape was on the table, but it would have been quite a thrill if it had been.
Despite being the object of so many people’s fantasies, Dennis seems to have no interest in making sexually explicit films. Whether from a desire to defy expectations or from a genuine disinterest in the topic, Room Temperature is an “in-between” film: it’s about a haunted house, but it’s not a horror film. It’s got a queer love plotline, but it’s not a queer film.
With all of the multidisciplinary notches in Dennis’s belt, I wondered if he was open to being on the other side of the camera again.
Dennis has a small role in Christophe Honoré’s Man at Bath, playing someone who hires a hustler for sex, but finds a cuter boy instead. In an improvised scene, Dennis dumps the hustler, played by the well-known French porn star François Sagat.
“Since it was improvised, [Christophe] didn’t want François to know what I was going to do. So I did this little monologue where I’m like, You’re a cheap piece of bad art, all this stuff. François was so fucking upset. He tried to hide it, but apparently he’s extremely thin-skinned and insecure. You don’t really see it in the scene so much, but he was furious.”
Even if Dennis won’t appear on screen anytime soon, he’s motivated to make more films.
“I don’t even know why I like doing it. Part of me feels like I should just go, Fuck this. It’s way too hard. It took six years for us to make this film and I’m not young! I can’t spend six years making films. I’m going to be in a wheelchair or something the next time we do a film.”
Still.
“I want to make cheaper films because I don’t want to wait six years to make a film. I want to make a film in a year.”
If it feels like each year things only get worse, an annual film from Dennis and Zac would be a gift to cherish.
With that in mind, I sign off and fall back asleep until noon.
Featured image shows Dennis Cooper (left) with his creative collaborator Zac Farley. 
