Story & Lesson Highlights with James Cotten of Hollywood

We’re looking forward to introducing you to James Cotten. Check out our conversation below.

James, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: Have any recent moments made you laugh or feel proud?
Recently, I traveled to Tucson, AZ for the Wild Bunch Film Festival, the largest Western Film Festival in the world, with my wife and our 4-year-old daughter. This was our first road trip vacation, so in addition to the film festivities, we had fun with mini golf and bumper boats, and every other trashy road vacation cliche you can think of. The festival was celebrating its 10th anniversary and had nominated my film, Painted Woman, as the best of its 10-year history. Truly a very cool honor. Painted Woman was filmed in 2017-18. It won every major award at that festival. And honestly, the film has been my shiny spot, while I’ve been experiencing some personal struggles that took me down for a few years. I shouldn’t leave that open to interpretation. Let’s just say mistaken identity of a robbery suspect in LA can lead to a six year journey of back surgeries and legal BS city fighting. Not fun, but back to the good stuff… We won! It was incredibly gratifying to receive the belt buckle award, to be the best of something, and to get a final honor for what I truly believe the film is, my $1.2M little off the radar masterpiece. Celebrating this achievement with my wife, my daughter, and one of the amazing actors from the film, Robert Craighead, made it even more special. It was like the end of a chapter of something beautiful, set amidst some hard times. Now is the time to shatter the rearview, move toward the new thing. I’m ready.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is James Cotten. I’m a crazy eclectic mix of movie making, but probably a storyteller, or a filmmaker, sums it up. I’ve held so many jobs along this 30 year run. I’ve acted in a few things. I’ve shared the screen with Ashley Judd. I’ve produced 13 feature films, in every genre. I’ve written four features that were made. I’ve been a development guy at two companies. To pay the bills, I got into post production. I’ve owned two houses, and worked for a couple others. So, I’ve done post and VFX on over 50 titles, including Pitch Perfect, The Bride of Chucky, Captain Fantastic, and Extraction 2. My favorite job, and the one I feel best at, is directing. Being an indie director is one of the hardest jobs to land, getting people or money to believe in you has it’s challenges. But along the way, I’ve worked with some of my all time favorites. I got my first directing job from my hero, Roger Corman, after he spoke at my graduation from the Los Angeles Film School. I directed Andy Garcia, Esai Morales, Danny Trejo, and Ray Liotta, on a film called La Linea, which was in the top 5 most rented films in America when it was released. My last film, Painted Woman, starring Stef Dawson, Matt Dallas, David Jenkins, and Robert Craighead, won me more awards than anything I’ve done. I can’t tell you all the stories, but all the challenges of making a low budget western, I could start a film school with that knowledge alone, but it makes me so proud of that film in particular. I guess I’ve done all right for a guy who traveled to Los Angeles 30 years ago from Oklahoma, not a dime in my pocket. Last year, I was giving a membership in the Los Angeles Film School’s Spotlight Academy, which is basically their Hall of Fame. One of my favorite honors is that I’ve had a hand in starting so many careers. Seeing talent early seemed to be a knack and of course I always wanted to surround myself with people more talented than me. I’ve helped launch Oscar and Emmy winners, superstars in every field, because I believed in them. That’s a cool feeling.

Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
I think I’ve lived many lives before the path was revealed, all from small-town America. We were considered wealthy, even if we really weren’t. I was popular. I was nerdy. I loved Star Wars, so much that I won a trivia contest when I was nine. I went to Space Camp, not because I really wanted to be an astronaut, but because I loved that movie, “Max and Jinx, friends forevvvvver.” I broke a bone every year from 11 to 14. Got overweight. Less popular. Bullied by the popular kids. Started making movies with Rocky Walker in the backyard while our parents played Rummy. We loved Roger Corman’s “Battle Beyond the Stars.” My parents lost everything but a movie rental store we owned in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. We moved there in 9th grade, a town of 6000 people, but a chance to start over. Lost the weight. I was a partier—a rebel. My parents were never happy, and eventually divorced. I made movies with my friends for every paper I was supposed to write in High School. Started working out and, at 19, went to North Carolina to become a professional wrestler. Trained with Ivan Koloff, after I was sent to meet Ric Flair. I say all this to explain that, although I had no direction, I had a lot of life, and I’m a big believer in one thing leading to another, usually through awareness. So, when “Tuskeegee Airmen,” a film by HBO, came to shoot in my hometown area, I got my first glimpse of a life I really wanted. At first, I fell in love with acting because it is a form of awareness. All those life experiences meant a great deal. I began studying other people, their reactions, emotions, and rationales. Informing me even more. And when I didn’t want to follow the path of the actor, because I just found it too “out of my control,” everything clicked into the storyteller I am today. I think because movies were always there. Movies made me want to be more, to believe more was possible.

What fear has held you back the most in your life?
“Am I good enough?” It’s the basis for everything we fear. Point fingers at the others when you don’t get your way. Take criticism harder than you’re supposed to. Fall on your face harder than you need to, because you chose to without knowing it. I had a lot of that when I was younger. But through life, you learn that even that isn’t bad. I needed it to grow. I needed to feel pain to understand and desire love. I had to take the steps I did. All of those lessons were intended, And time awarded me. I was often in the right place at the right time. And all the best advances came when I left it to the creator, as long as I was constantly trying to prepare for the moments that were given. That’s not to say that it will all work out. Every up has a down. Yinning to yanging. “Am I good enough” is a cheeky little bastard. It will find it’s way back to the subconscious at any moment possible. Slow you down. Even by writing this, I’m realizing that it’s following me like a little demon. Cut it off. Don’t listen. Get up off the mat and punch harder. Fighting and forgetting it is how you succeed. We are all worthy of being the best that we can be, as long as we choose to be good, responsible for every moment, every relationship we are given. Meaning of life stuff there.

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Is the public version of you the real you?
I hope so. I’m still the kid of many lives. I’m a swirling tornado of a thousand things. Good and bad. But I sure hope I present myself to strangers as the same guy I am to the people who really know me. That I try to do right more than not. That I try to avoid hurting. I love to help. Be responsible with me. In the movie industry (I really hate that I just said that phrase), I have battled and clawed. I’ve followed mantras, like “protect the money, protects the film.” I try to be aware. I try to make decisions that are good for the whole, but that can sometimes hurt individuals, even when I really don’t want to. I’ve had so many bad things happen to me. I’m sure that informs me and my decisions, too, even when I don’t want it to. I once was left in Mississippi, after two former managers said I had my dream project funded. They took my seeded $50k, moved it to another film in NY, told me to not ask questions, and left 40 something people stranded without 4 weeks of pay and $300k of debt in hotels and office rentals. Gone in the middle of the night. Forged signatures on promissory notes. Robbery with no ramifications. That $50k was all I had worked for 5 years. Sold my portion of a post house to attain. To seed something I wanted to do. And these guys were supposed to be my friends. I carried some hate after that. “Mad” hate. “Wishing death” hate. Hadn’t ever felt that before. But I can tell you, that brighter days will come. I got offered Painted Woman within weeks of getting back to LA. I know that’s the more important truth, even if that kind of anger is sometimes hard to completely set aside. I’m a whole lot of stuff, with a whole lot of time behind me.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What do you think people will most misunderstand about your legacy?
At some point, they have to know the real movie business to get this, but I’ll say it anyway. If you don’t walk in with millions of dollars at your disposal, or the right friends or family, to make a beautiful film you want to make, you’re probably scratching and clawing to make low-budget stuff for others to get rich. That’s not bad. It teaches you to learn how to work within your means, making something better than most could achieve with the same resources. I learned a lot from Roger Corman. Do I think Demon Slayer (which I made for him) is the most amazing movie? No. It’s B movie bad with some wacky mixed in. I thought the horror fans were going to run me off forever by the reviews. Originally, I pitched a horror film, a really scary version of the story I was presented. That got me hired. Then, I was told they were dropping my budget from $300k to $80k, and the film had to be about Demon Prostitutes. Yes, Demon Prostitutes. My first thought was let’s parody this B movie, which B movies are already parody. Lampoon bad movies. It became Scooby Doo story for 20-somethings, complete with strip club dancers from Jumbo’s Clown room. That’s the truth. And because it was dumb fun, Roger sold the hell out of it. China paid $300k before I finished the cut, and it played on SyFy for 15 years. So many people who helped me make Demon Slayer are big time players in the movie business today. So proud of that. Why have I not done more directing (which is what I wanted)? Because you have to make something so spectacular to gain mainstream appeal. Make agents, managers, and the machine get behind you. Probably do it without a budget to support it. I’ve done that, too. La Linea, the Ray Liotta film, which I did not write, has made so much money for other people. It’s had a 20-year run. It had all the necessary stuff to make mainstream and become a huge success for Blockbuster, which, I was told by the person that sold the film, paid $9M for the domestic rights. I’m proud of all that. Proud that it happened. That it was my opportunity at the big time. But did it get me the necessary help to keep my career on the tracks? No, but it did get me in the rooms. Many agents told me that it just didn’t have enough action to sell me as an action director. Why was that? Well, because the producers spent all the money on the cast. And when we got to shooting all the action I had planned, I was informed that we didn’t have the money and to cut all those scenes, by the producer who wrote the script and the action I had planned. Or maybe the managers or agents didn’t like the script, I heard that too, or maybe they didn’t like me. I don’t think so. I’m a likable guy. It was still a success and I did a beautiful job with what I was given to work with. The direction is solid to great, humbly said with 30 years of knowledge. Most people don’t even know what the director really does, especially when they don’t have the power or the resources to make the vision they intended. Still, I am humbled that I had these opportunities. After that I went through three years of bad projects. Con men who took advantage of my relationship with Andy Garcia, but lying to us both about their financing. Killed that relationship. Being hired by Ice Cube on a script his company optioned, the contract being written, but being the one to find out they had optioned a plagiarized script. And then I was cold. It took years to rebuild. To produce other filmmakers, manage post houses for paying the bills, save my own funds because I don’t know enough rich people, while I tried to make my dream come true. To do one film the way I want it to be. After a few more missteps and mishaps, and successes, after being robbed, I got really close with Painted Woman. It wasn’t a story I would have chosen for myself. It was someone else’s plan I was hired to make happen. But through that process I think I made something rather special for the means we had to make it. It became a James Cotten film. It is so gratifying to make something that effects people. To sit in an audience and hear them laugh or cry, because the story you told made them. It won some stuff, Best Directors and Best Films, but it didn’t get wide spread marketability like La Linea. I’m still chasing that dragon. So, my dream is still a work in progress. But all of this makes me better. Painted Woman is good because I learned from all the lessons before. Now, it’s time for the next one. Hopefully catch my dragon with all the fire that forged me.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: the_james_cotten
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Image Credits
Jessica Sterling