Catching Up With . . .
Catching Up with…Victoria Foyt
By Scott Lewis

Feb 27, 2007

When I got the screener for Going Shopping Victoria Foyt was not the name that made me want to rush to the DVD Player and pop it in.  It was Bruce Davidson, Lee Grant, and for obvious reasons Rob Morrow.  I have been a huge fan of Bruce Davidson since his amazing work in Longtime Companion,   Lee Grant is just old school fabulous, and she has worked with David Lynch, and Rob Morrow, well, I could watch him eat butter.  While it was not the name Victoria Foyt that got me to put in this DVD, she is the reason that it stayed in.  She is the great thread that runs through this film, tying all of the characters together, but more importantly her performance as a mother who keeps it together while seemingly the world around her is spinning out of control, is real.

Sometimes you see a performance that you forget is a part being played by an actor, and you feel as if you are watching someone’s life unfold before you.  Victoria Foyt did this for me in Going Shopping.  It may bee the documentary style that the film presents itself in that helps that happen, but whatever it is, I enjoyed this movie.  I was offered an interview with Victoria’s husband Henry Jalong the co-writer and director of the film, but I wanted to talk to the woman who made this movie so charming for me.  I caught up with Victoria at her L.A. home to discuss Going Shopping…

Scott Lewis:  Going Shopping introduces us to Holly G (a tribute to Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s) who in one Mothers’ Day Weekend faces loosing her clothing store (Holly G’s), dealings with a loan shark, her mothers’ shocking admission, her daughter’s rebellion, and one romantic relationship falling apart, while another begins.  That’s a lot going on for one weekend.  You co-wrote this film…tell me about your inspiration for this film.

Victoria Foyt:  Well, the inspiration for me was much different than it was for Henry (Henry Jalong, Foyt’s Husband and co-writer of the film).  Henry’s was the clothes.  Henry is much more of a girl than I am.  For me it was just really about the struggle that single mom’s have in juggling so many things and trying to make them right.  Especially when you have a tricky past to overcome and that story was my way to get my heart and my passion into it.  I didn’t want to just make a movie about shopping.  I wanted to make a movie about the bravery and the courage that it takes to be a mom and fulfill your dreams because sometimes it’s a battle.

SL:  One of the things that I loved about your character in the movie was that she had so much coming at her in such a short period of time, literally about five days, but there was an underlying strength in this character.  Did this strength come from you, or is there a woman in your life that was the inspiration?

VF:  I really have a great affection and admiration for the women that I come from.  Each one made such a leap.  Despite that when I look back I see that their lives were so conservative.  When I look back and see what they did in their age and time, I see that each one made such a stride to change and be strong. 

I think that all moms, no matter what their level of comfort, no matter what their level of education, all mothers’…and this really is a story about the Mother, the Daughter and the Grandmother…have a tremendous amount of responsibility on their shoulders.  And not to discount the role of the father; it is just that it is such a juggling act…a struggle to the tenth degree, constantly.  I mean, I have two children.  Sometimes what I go through in a day feels like a week. 
I think particularly with Holly’s story the things that happen to reach the climax in this story have been trends that she has been gradually or slightly aware of.  She has been wanting to change and she’s at the point in her story that she say’s “Gee, I’ve really got to change to make things better so that my daughter doesn’t emulate these particular patterns that I inherited from my mother and I am now beginning to see my prepubescent daughter begin to emulate.”

I think that’s a real fear because our children, whether we are a gay parent, a straight parent, a kind of traditional parent, if that even exists anymore, our children don’t do what we say, they do what we do.  I remember thinking a few years ago that I was so cool, that I was living my mother’s life, I was just wearing a different set of clothes.  There are things that I really admire about my mother, but I remember thinking that it was time to make a leap here and to stretch beyond this and just try and be a little more conscious about certain things. 

You know my mom was a great mom, she really was a lot to live up to, but still it’s a different age and a different time, and I have tried to be real direct with my kids, really direct, I mean that I have tried to talk to them in a way that I could never talk to my mother.  It’s challenging! 

SL:  You get this message across very well, it is so much more than a movie about shopping.

V F: I really didn’t just want to make this shallow movie about shopping.  Come on there are all these storms going on in the world, there are real issues.  What I discovered was we feel so overwhelmed from all the things we are juggling that when we shop it is really an act of saying “Okay, I can control this moment.”  It’s an act of self expression. 

SL:   One of the things that really struck me in the movie, were the testimonials from the real women who acknowledge the huge role that shopping plays in their lives.  Living in LA must have been the perfect backdrop for this movie.

VF:  I think so, but I also think it’s a really universal theme.  Definitely in LA there is a higher consciousness of how you are presenting yourself, but I think that it is universal because of the internet, because of the mass media, because of the culture of loving celebrities, which I find very dangerous.  People are very fixated on themselves, and what I found so brave and so heartbreaking and wonderful about those women in the interviews was the honesty, because we all feel like that.
I mean my daughter, I think she is gorgeous and yet she is constantly criticizing herself, and I wonder where does she get that from, and I think “Oh, me!”

Its just that there is so much pressure on us all the time to be perfect, to be such a great mom, to have a great career.  You know what?  It is okay to just be yourself.  You don’t have to live up to someone else’s expectations.  I wish we would just all focus more on our inner qualities.

SL:  The women that made these statements, made so many great statements, but one that I remember was “You know the Prince never looked at Cinderella before she put on that dress.”  On its face that is such a ridiculous statement, but the longer I swirled that around in my brain, I started to admit that these are the messages that women young and old get every day. 

VF:  Every Disney movie ever made has that theme in it.  Rise above your circumstances and you will be whisked off.  Come on, yes you should always try to fulfill your potential, but we have to learn to love ourselves.  How can we love someone else if we don’t love ourselves?  It’s just gotten skewed and exacerbated to a point that’s ridiculous.  I think that people do believe that “If I just get that one thing, then someone will love me.”  If I just had that perfect house, that perfect job, you know it’s crazy.  It’s really sad. 

I try to give my daughter the message when she criticizes herself that yeah, you may not look like the top model of the day, but I tell her that she is really a great person, that I admire her.  I try not to talk about how she looks all the time, but she gets that message day and night.  There is something so wrong with that picture, so those women in those interviews, I thought were just so brave and amazingly honest.

SL:  Holly G’s (the name of the shop in the movie) is a women’s clothing shop with no price tags on anything.  Are there really stores like that in LA?

VF: (Laughs) There really are.  I remember going once into Maxfields and I don’t remember how I ended up there, but I remember thinking there are no price tags on anything.  I remember feeling very intimidated by it and thinking “Okay I don’t belong here.”

SL:  You worked with an incredible cast.  I am going to name off just a few, and tell me what you will remember about working with them.  Lee Grant.

VF:  What an amazingly centered, funny, stellar comedian/dramatic actress.  She can do anything; she just makes you comfortable and present.  I had so much fun when she did that scene, you know what scene, I shouldn’t say, the revelation scene.  I remember thinking she just went way past what I wrote.  She is so funny; she should have her own series.

SL:  That is a really funny scene!  Tell me about Bruce Davidson.

VF:  Again, I loved working with him.  Bruce is just right there, in your face, the intensity is very exhilarating.  What a professional, I mean he is awesome.

SL:  Rob Morrow.

VF:  Oh I remember when we cast Rob I just gave Henry a huge hug.  I said “Thank you, thank you, thank you!  I can do chemistry with Rob!” 

SL:  A lot of us could!

VF:  (Laughs) He is just so charming.  He is in that old school of actor, who is very modern and hip, but at the same time he is just so charming.  You just want to giggle and laugh and play.  He really loved improvising; he and I got to go out improvisationaly which was so amazing.

SL:  Next for Victoria Foyt is a novel!

VF:  Yes, I am so excited, it’s a teen book which is about a fourteen year old teen wizard who has to sort of find out what she thinks is real and not real in life.  It has a lot of magical realism and fantasy.  It’s also a really inspiring book for teens and adults.  It’s coming out in a few weeks with Harper Collins.  It’s called “The Virtual Life of Lexie Diamond”.

What I am completely jazzed about is this two and a half minute video that I posted last night on UTube.  It’s amazing, you hear about this stuff, but when you do it, it’s amazing.  I work in show business where things take forever to get into theaters, and here’s this thing on UTube in a few weeks from when you started shooting it.   I will always love a big screen, but how cool is that.  You have to go onto UTube and type in just Lexie Diamond, or my name.  My daughter stars in it. 

You can find out more about Going Shopping at goingshopping-themovie.com. There is more about Victoria at victoriafoyt.com.  Going Shopping is available on DVD now.  Check UTube for Victoria’s video about her forthcoming novel:  “The Virtual Reality of Lexie Diamond” from Harper Collins available March 13th, 2007.



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