Susan Seidelman, 71: Ageless Never-Stopping Filmmaker

Susan Seidelman is the queen bee of quirk.

The visionary director behind cult classics like Desperately Seeking Susan and She-Devil, she’s known for her unique and vibrant narratives about women on journeys of self-discovery, and has left an indelible mark on the film industry. In this exclusive interview, she discusses her compelling new book, Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls, her cinematic path from the halls of NYU Film School to the gritty streets of Manhattan, and the nuances of getting older while staying undeniably cool. With a passion for storytelling that defies age, her vibrant narrative is iconic, and she continues to inspire with her timeless creativity and fierce independence.

How old are you?
At 71, I’ve stopped counting by years and mark my age every five years. So, I’m 70 until I’m 75.

Ha! Are you married?
I’ve lived with somebody for 37 years, and we have all the married things: a house and a 34-year-old kid who lives in Brooklyn.

Where do you live?
I lived in Soho for 43 years and had a place to escape to in Bucks County on the Jersey side.

About six and a half years ago, we significantly changed our lives. We sold our place and moved here full-time, not knowing that the pandemic was on the horizon. So I’m a Jersey girl with a 43-year Manhattan detour.

How are you finding country life?
I love it. There are things I miss about New York, such as the variety of things you can do, shows, and movies you can see. But I did find that at a certain point in my life, maybe I started noticing it about a decade ago, a lot of the reasons that I was living in New York, like going to clubs, going out, and just having that kind of social life, I wasn’t doing anymore. I found myself sitting in restaurants in my neighborhood, looking around and saying, “I could be everyone’s mother here.” And then, “I could be everyone’s grandmother.” So, I thought it was time. I loved it, but I was ready for another chapter.

“I realized that moviemaking is about design and storytelling and combined my interest in music with many other things”

How did you get started in film?
I thought I wanted to be a fashion designer. I loved fashion; not because I was interested in designer clothes or labels, but because I wanted to express myself and realized that fashion tells stories.

So, I went to Drexel University and enrolled in the fashion program, which was great the first year because it was all about the history of fashion and design, and you got to do little sketches and stuff. And then, in the second year, the program got more serious and went into tailoring, sewing, cutting patterns, and everything that fashion designers need to know. And I found myself, at 18 or 19, sitting behind a sewing machine. I was too restless for that. So I started to look for other classes I could take to get enough credits to graduate and, on a total fluke, I saw a film appreciation 101 class that filled a spot on my schedule. I took it and got hooked. I realized that moviemaking is about design and storytelling and combined my interest in music with many other things. So, I  just kept going. When it was time to graduate, I thought, what could I do with my life? Could I have a career getting paid to watch movies? 

I applied to two film schools in Philadelphia but was rejected. However, this setback didn’t deter me. I knew I had to keep pushing forward.

So then?
I ended up exactly where I should have been: at NYU in a narrative program. As a kid, I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s a million times and thought, “Wow, that’s a city where people go to reinvent, and you could be around other outsiders who moved there to become who they wanted to be.” It was the perfect place at the ideal time.

“I wanted to make movies with more complicated female characters”

You talk so much about this in your book — women becoming or desperately seeking. You watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and I watched Desperately Seeking Susan and had the same thoughts. Like, “Oh, I want to live in downtown New York, wear a pyramid jacket, and run around clubs.”
Going to film school in the 1970s, I realized European movies were financed differently. The French had unique women in their films. But in American movies, all the great characters were men — Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy or The Graduate. Look at Jack Nicholson in his early movies; he was an outsider and not your typical sympathetic good guy. I realized there were no female characters like that, and most female characters, specifically after World War II, were in the kitchen or the bedroom. I wanted to make movies with more complicated female characters. And it started with some of the films I made in film school. My first was about a woman on her 30th birthday who, through an odd series of circumstances, ends up having an extramarital affair with a hitchhiker. It’s not necessarily a good thing, but a complicated thing.

In Smithereens, the character is a manipulative narcissist, but she’s interesting because she’s so determined. She says, “Pay attention to me; I exist.” She spends a lot of the movie xeroxing photos of herself and putting them up in subways or on walls around the city; an early form of selfies.

And look at the Madonna character in Desperately Seeking Susan. She’s a more charming version of Wren in Smithereens: manipulative but fun and free-spirited. And for many women of that time, showing a woman living by her own rules was appealing.

Fast forwarding to Sex and the City; you directed the pilot and then a few episodes. 
When I read the script, it was terrific. The great thing about doing a pilot is that there’s no template to follow. You’re involved in creating the look and the tone. I was involved in things early on, like how Carrie used to talk to the camera.

She stopped after the first season. In the pilot, she lives in a funky studio atop a coffee shop with a flashing neon sign out front. She looks more like a writer, and her apartment is a little funkier. 

As the series continued, it became more about the women’s romantic relationships — because you can stretch those stories out, and I understand why things change. You can’t argue with the series’ success.

“It’s a balancing act. That’s why I didn’t make a feature film for four years after I had my son, Oscar”

In your book, you said creativity doesn’t like to play second fiddle to anyone or anything. Then you talked about Nora Ephron as an inspiration. Tell us about starting a family.
It’s a balancing act. That’s why I didn’t make a feature film for four years after I had my son, Oscar.

I didn’t know how to do it; and that’s not saying it can’t be done. But, when making a movie, especially if it’s a big feature like Cookie or She-Devil, you have no time to think about anything else. You’re working 16- to 18-hour days. And on weekends, you’re preparing for the next week. It’s hard to juggle that, especially with a young child. So, I made a few small movies during the first five years of Oscar’s life because they were shorter and less demanding.

Going back to Nora, it’s interesting because, as a writer, she could go into her kitchen and write in the middle of the night. As a director, you have to be present. She didn’t make her first feature film until about 1992/93. Her kids were probably young teenagers who were more independent, wanted to be with their friends, and didn’t need her attention so much. That’s interesting to note.

You said if you could pick one stage of your life to play on repeat, it would be your mid-30s. 
I made five movies in a row in my 30s. I was in my late 30s or early 40s when I did Sex and the City. So, that was a very productive period for me. 

Like many people of my generation, I grew up feeling young, especially coming from the pop-culture world, whether the music or the movie world, which glorifies youth to some extent. So, I’m learning to mix being old with maintaining a certain sense of coolness. I love and enjoy being my age, although I’ve never been my age.

“I’m learning to mix being old with maintaining a certain sense of coolness. I love and enjoy being my age, although I’ve never been my age”

How do you stay connected and tap into what’s happening?
By staying curious. As people get older, they often only hang out with older people because they feel comfortable and have much in common with others going through similar experiences.

But one needs to stay in the world and not lose oneself. That takes effort, like finding out what books are riveting. And when I say cool, I don’t mean cool in the sense of hip. Cool in the sense of remaining interested and open to all the world has to offer. It’s funny because, being involved in the arts, I have friends who talk about retirement, and I can’t use that word because I don’t know how. How do you retire from being interested in creativity, movies, books, and other things?

It’s funny because my partner, Jonathan, who’s 74, is a major Swiftie. It’s driving me up the wall. 

I greatly respect her because she’s brilliant and a good person. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to “Fortnight,” and I sleep with that song in my head.

“How do you retire from being interested in creativity, movies, books, and other things?”

What other kinds of music are you listening to?
Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa. Interestingly, without making it my mission statement, I always wanted to make movies that empower women, and I have. In the music world lately, all these fantastic young women are so strong and have taken control of their careers, like Miley Cyrus — who I love and think is sexy as hell. Telling female stories is very empowering. 

How do you take care of yourself? 
I wasn’t much of an exerciser, but I’ve become one, and I’m fortunate I have a pool. So, in warmer weather, I go in with a book and do leg kicks. I do fake swimming [laughter] and exercise my arms. And I could sit there forever with my book.

I’ve used the same product on my skin for 30 years: CLINIQUE moisturizer in the yellow bottle. 

You also said in your book that movies used to be a cultural touchpoint. Why do you think they’re not anymore?
Movie theaters and many big chains have closed. And now, if you wait a couple of weeks, you can rent them at home. When I was a kid in the suburbs, I went to the local mall cinema and loved getting lost in a movie, but I had yet to think about who directed it and how the script was structured. I just watched the movie and enjoyed it. When I started getting serious about film, living in New York, you could go to Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall Cinema, and for $3, you could watch two or three movies in a row, catch up on European and Japanese cinema, and see all those things I could not see as a child.

“That’s what happened: streaming replaced movies and became the water cooler conversation”

People say, “Oh, the pandemic accelerated it,” which is true, but it happened before then. While teaching at NYU, I would eavesdrop on my students’ conversations to find out what they were listening to and what movies or TV shows they discussed. And I remember when Girls was so popular, they spoke of Girls more than they talked about films they were seeing. That’s what’s happened: streaming replaced movies and became the water cooler conversation.

With more people working from home, that collective experience differs from a decade ago or before. People probably felt the same way when Vaudeville ended. 

Do you have any new projects in the pipeline?
I’m busy promoting my book, so that’s taking up much of my time. The way I work is I always start taking notes about stuff and see where that leads me. That’s how it began with Smithereens and many movies I’ve made. While writing this book, I started taking notes on the note app on my cell phone, and the notes added up. Then, I saw whether they led me to another book, a movie, or a TV series.

“It felt like the right time to reflect, tell a story, and inspire younger women; not just future filmmakers, but the next generation looking to reinvent or seeking a creative life”

Did you enjoy the book writing process as opposed to directing?
I like directing, but I liked the book-writing process, too. I didn’t set out to write a memoir. With the pandemic, suddenly, I was home; I had moved to the countryside, which was a considerable change. Then, I found myself in lockdown with the rest of the world. And that makes you think about your past because we had yet to learn the future. Sadly, during the early days of the pandemic, my old friend Mark Blum, one of the actors in Desperately Seeking Susan, who played Rosanna Arquette’s husband, passed away. He was one of the first actors to die from COVID-19, and it was big news. I started taking notes, not thinking it would be a book. Then, I organized them in a way that made me realize that this may be a memoir.

It felt like the right time to reflect, tell a story, and inspire younger women; not just future filmmakers but the next generation looking to reinvent or seeking a creative life.

What have you been reading?
Two memoirs. One by an excellent writer called Mary Karr. The Liars’ Club was a book that got a lot of recognition. I’m also reading a book called Lit about motherhood. It’s about wanting to be a poet, having a baby, and the challenges of marrying another creative individual because your careers are never at the same place at the same time, as well as wanting to be a good mom. 

“Some great older women are bad and rebellious. They’re embracing their age, but they’re also liberated by it”

I’m returning to your statement about wanting to stay cool or, as you say in your book, “a little bit bad” as you age.
What I mean is a little bit of that rebel spirit or feistiness. There are many cool Instagram accounts with older women. One of them is Dorothy, who’s 98, and I follow her.

Some great older women are bad and rebellious. They’re embracing their age, but they’re also liberated by it. That’s the cool thing about getting older. You can say stuff you didn’t say when you were younger, express yourself more freely, and get away with it.

I wish there could be more films around older women like that.

I agree. I did make two films about older people, one of which was Boynton Beach Club, a romantic comedy about people over 60 falling back in love and trying to connect.

Then, about a decade ago, I made a movie called The Hot Flashes about a bunch of middle-aged women turning 50 who decided to — they had been the female championship basketball team back in high school and reconnected at around 50 to play again.

The cast was a female ensemble, with Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, Wanda Sykes, Virginia Madsen, and Camryn Manheim.

Anything else you’re still desperately seeking?
To combine the life I’m living now with that little bit of bad, stay active, and keep working. Work is so important. It doesn’t matter what you do; just keep making stuff. That’s my motto: Keep doing it and stay curious.

You’re amazing. Thanks so much.
Thank you. This was fun.

Connect with Susan:
Instagram
Desperately Seeking Something Book
Desperately Seeking Something Book Tour