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John Waters on Turning 80, Dirty Jokes, Hosting Mosswood Meltdown

Published

3 days ago

August 7, 2026

John Waters turns 80 this year. Mosswood Meltdown, the gloriously disreputable Oakland punk festival he has hosted since its inception, turned 12.

Somehow, neither shows much interest in acting its age.

Every July, a few thousand devotees descend on Mosswood Park for a weekend that feels equal parts punk festival, comedy show and a John Waters cabaret extravaganza. Waters emcees every act on both stages (this year’s lineup included Iggy Pop, Bikini Kill, Pavement and Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s Ramones tribute band, The Return of Jackie and Judy), introducing them with the sort of filthy one-liners that have become as much a part of the weekend as the music itself. This year, for example, he anointed Pavement “the cock and balls of indie rock.”

Waters has become the festival’s unofficial patron saint. Standing behind increasingly absurd podiums — a fake game-show lectern one minute, an elegant dinner table with a dead rat as the centerpiece the next — he writes every introduction himself, testing material that often finds its way into his touring stage shows months later.

Between introductions, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with the Pope of Trash backstage to talk about turning 80, writing jokes every morning and why he’d still rather spend an evening in a dive bar than at the Folsom Street Fair.

Attendees at last month’s Mosswood Meltdown.

Julian Le Ballister, for The Hollywood Reporter

What’s the intersection between your shock factor and punk?

I think we were always punk, all my work from the very beginning. Even when hippies were peace and love, I made Multiple Maniacs, a film that glorified insane violence. I always made fun of whatever the liberal values were, because I’m a liberal, my audience is liberal, so we made fun of that. Those films were punk always, before there was such a thing. In Pink Flamingos, when they had that dyed blue and red hair, we had to bleach their hair out to white and then dye it with magic marker and India ink. Today your mother buys that color dye at the Rite Aid. And the only person who is the correct heir to the throne is Johnny Knoxville. The Jackass movies are the closest to Pink Flamingos, and the new one is worse. He’s now the filthiest person.

How do you continually evolve while keeping that signature shock?

That’s my job. Every day I think it up. I write every day in the morning, and I have to think up things, that’s my job. I have pads, I have notes, little joke files, like Bob Hope did. But I don’t have any writers; they all had twenty writers. I’ve never made a movie I didn’t write. I never would. So every day I just have to think of something. To do that, you have to read a lot. You want to be a director, go see every movie. You want to be a writer, read every newspaper, read.

You’re turning 80 this year. What accomplishment are you most proud of?

That I’ve been able to have this career, doing what I want, for sixty years. Hollywood’s been fair to me. I was always understood, I always had an audience. The critics who hated me, we used that, they helped me. Censors helped me. Everybody who tried to stop me was better than a press agent. Now the Academy gave me a museum show, that’s amazing to me. The National Registry picked Pink Flamingos. I always say, what was that screening, what did they say? They said, “the singing asshole.” Well, this would be perfect, we should give this the registry award. I don’t feel any kind of revenge, I’m just honored by it. I’m eighty years old, I’m still older than Iggy. And when William Burroughs died, that was the last person who used to always be older than me in the room.

John Waters hosting for his 12th year.

Julian Le Ballister, for The Hollywood Reporter

What do you think about the young generation of creators and risk-taking?

Well, they’re taking more risk. The new sexual revolution makes mine look tame. I keep telling them, we don’t know how to masturbate to them; you have to teach us. That’s a real thing we need to learn. Everything else is new that people have to accept. So I learn new things all the time. I talk punk dirty in my show today; later I give a whole spiel about new punk rock sex you should have. We’ll see if any of it catches on.

Does it encourage you when you see microbudget filmmakers suddenly breaking through?

I think it’s absolutely great. Before that I always said, what movie ever got a start on the internet? None, until a month ago, where two of them did and became the biggest hits, grossing $180 million. Now every Hollywood studio says, “Why can’t you make a movie for $30,000?” I’m mad at those directors, but I give them great credit. Be careful though, because the studio will hire them away and give them a hundred-million-dollar budget to make a comic book movie. It’ll fail, and their career will be over. It happens constantly.

How do you know when a joke works?

That’s my job, to make people laugh. If they don’t, it’s a terrible feeling. I haven’t had that happen in a long time. A lot of the stuff I say here will end up in my next show. I rewrite it once a year, part of this will become the Christmas show. So every joke I said here today, I’ve never said before. It’s a test.

Are you working on any film or series projects?

I had Liarmouth, my novel, it was optioned. I wrote the script, they loved it, Aubrey Plaza was going to star, but the budget was too expensive, so it didn’t happen. I have another movie, a children’s Christmas animation called Fruitcake, who knows, that’s fallen through a couple of times too. I have lots of books coming. I have more jobs than I’ve ever had in my life, so I’m not looking for a new one.

The Return of Jackie and Judy — a Ramones tribute band — before their set. From left: Toko Yasuda, Corin Tucker, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein.

Julian Le Ballister, for The Hollywood Reporter

Are we living in a more John Waters world than we used to?

Reality TV is the one thing I never watch, I have no interest, because they’re all hairhoppers, people I don’t want to ever know, much less care what their lives are like. I pitched one here, we could have one, “Housewives of Squatters,” or “Pickpockets at Burning Man.” That, I would watch. I don’t care how those people live, so I don’t watch it. Gore Vidal said the best thing about TV, he said, “I hate watching it, but I love being on it.” I don’t even know how to turn on my TV, I have three assistants, it’s so hard, I start crying. I miss tinfoil and rabbit ears. So to me, I like to read at night. You can’t watch much television and also read a good book. You can’t do both. I much prefer writing, I can memorize lines that I wrote way better than lines other people wrote.

Gay bar or punk bar?

Oh, punk bar. I’m much more at home there than at the Folsom Street Fair. I don’t have the outfits for the Folsom Street Fair, and leather looks stupid on young people, I think. The gay people I like would be here, they think gay culture is a little square, which it is. They have terrible music.

So I like gay people who can’t get along with other gay people. I like punks who can’t even get along with other punks. I love each minority that can’t fit in with their own minority, and then they hang out with all the other people who can’t fit in their minority, and those are my people. Those are the people who have given me this career for sixty years, and I thank them for it. They get younger and younger, I do recruit. It’s true, what they say.

Crowdsurfing at the Mosswood Meltdown

Julian Le Ballister, for The Hollywood Reporter

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‘Power Book III: Raising Kanan’s Sascha Penn Breaks Down Series Finale

Published

3 minutes ago

August 10, 2026

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SPOILER ALERT: The following reveals major plot points from the series finale of the Starz crime drama Power Book III: Raising Kanan.

Although it has come time to say goodbye to Power Book III: Raising Kanan, things are only beginning to shape up for the titular character, who is coming back with a vengeance in the upcoming follow-up series Power: Origins. Sascha Penn, the creator of both Raising Kanan and Origins, is taking a moment to take it all in.

It’s a difficult task to conclude a series and hit all the right notes, but Penn wrapped up Raising Kanan with a lot of love and care. And while many may not understand the reasons why we had to have our hearts broken with the loss of Lou (Malcolm Mays), Marvin (London Brown), and then Raq (Patina Miller), we should trust the process and watch how the rest of the story unfolds on Power: Origins.

Penn spoke to Deadline about the events of the finale, that epic post-credits scene, and what’s coming soon from his new prequel series that will finally bring together the powerful trio of Ghost (Spence Moore), Tommy (Charlie Mann), and Kanan Stark (Mekai Curtis).

Tony Danza, Mekai Curtis, Patina Miller, Sascha Penn

DEADLINE: So many fans are sad because we said goodbye to our favorites. But, as Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson says in the final beats of the finale, this is not an ending, but a beginning for Kanan. What say you?

SASCHA PENN: The show was always called Raising Kanan, and it has always been that. We are a product of our families and our environment and our experiences. By the end of this series, you do have a good sense of how Kanan became Kanan. You may not love that journey, and you may be really upset about that journey, but it is a journey that I do believe explains how he became the character that we get to know in Power. We’ll know even better in Origins. I feel good about the story we told, and I do feel like it has a real ending.

DEADLINE: You surprised viewers with the young Tommy and Ghost, who are so young that Kanan won’t even mess with them. [Laughs] Why was it important to include them?

PENN: The one question I’ve been asked the most of any question over the past six years: when are we going to see Ghost and Tommy? In our timeline, they’re way too young to be super involved. But I always knew, even from the pitch, that at one point we would glimpse at them just enough for people to feel like, ‘Oh wow, there they are.’ And by the way, we put them into the show before we even knew Origins was happening.

DEADLINE: We need to discuss the post-credits scene. It’s Kanan’s birthday and the family, almost all of whom are now gone, are there for new mom Raquel. There’s an episode of Good Times on [Season 2, Episode 24 titled “The Lunch Money Ripoff.“]. Why did you pick that show?

PENN: In terms of going with Good Times, that show is on my Mount Rushmore of television series as a kid. I’ve watched every single episode of Good Times, and, like everybody else, I wish I was part of the Evans family. That family felt like this idealized family to me, right? So it was really important to include it. And this notion of this idealized family juxtaposed with this other family [on Raising Kanan]… I can’t unpack all of what it meant to me, but there was something about it that felt really appropriate.

DEADLINE: It fully makes sense, for anyone that knows that episode. Here’s a “bad” kid with an absent father bullying other kids in school, including the Evans family’s youngest Michael (Ralph Carter). He wasn’t a “bad” anything, more so a victim of his circumstances, like Kanan. What say you?

PENN: There was another episode which we considered. In the episode [Season 2, Episodes 9 & 10, The Gang, Parts 1 and 2], JJ (Jimmie Walker) was shot by a gang member [named Mad Dog].

DEADLINE: That would’ve worked out well as well, but I think you picked the right episode.

PENN: Yeah. I felt like we have this moment, we have Good Times, then we see Raq as a new mother, and what that responsibility feels like. Raq didn’t set out to raise this kid who ultimately wants to kill her. No, she’s like every other parent. She has this tiny baby that’s defenseless in her arms, and she’s like, ‘I’m gonna protect you. It’s you and me. I got you,’ which is heartbreaking in a completely different way. I think most parents really set out to do the right thing by their kids, but it’s hard. Life intervenes in all sorts of unexpected ways. But I felt like it was meaningful to have the last image of this series be a mother loving her son.

DEADLINE: What can you tease about Origins?

PENN: It takes place in like 2002, 2003. Tonally, it is different than Raising Kanan and Ghost; there’s a little more levity. It’s a little bit more like 48 Hours or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That’s sort of what we were aiming for. So it’s fun. Not to say that there isn’t dark stuff in it, and Kanan is there and it’s a pretty grim version of him. It’s super fast-paced. The actors that are playing Tommy and Ghost are amazing. They’ve done the right thing, which is that they give you enough of the original Tommy and Ghost while at the same time making the characters entirely their own. We just wrapped last week on 18 episodes. I think people are gonna love it.

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

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Best Friend Forever Boards TIFF Midnight Madness Indian Title ‘Half’

Published

35 minutes ago

August 10, 2026

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EXCLUSIVE: Best Friend Forever has boarded international sales rights to Malayalam-language vampire revenge action-thriller Half ahead of its world premiere in Toronto’s Midnight Madness section.

The acquisition marks a rare crossover play for an Indian genre cinema to land a European sales agent and a Midnight Madness slot months ahead of its home-market release, rather than after building a domestic track record first.

Produced by Kerala-based Fragrant Nature Film Creations, Half is directed and co-written by Samjad with Praveen Viswanath, who previously made waves together with 2024 Malayalam psychological mystery-thriller Golam (Amazon Prime). It stars Ranjith Sajeev, Aiswarya Raj, Abbas and Amala Paul, alongside Srikanth Muruli.

Half follows twin half-blooded vampires (Ranjith Sajeev and Aiswarya Raj) as they wage war with desert highway hijackers in a gory martial arts Indian western from

Choreographer Very Tri Yulisman (The Raid 2, The Night Comes for Us) spent months training the cast to perform their own stunts and built custom camera rigs to shoot the fight sequences in-camera. Members of Yulisman’s team were also involved in the recent hit The Furious.

“Half is a fresh take on two genre classics, seamlessly blending the revenge thriller and vampire film with expertly choreographed fight sequences and top-tier production value. The Midnight Madness crowd is in for a brutally fun ride. We can’t wait to unleash it!,” said Best Friend Forever co-founders Martin Gondre and Charles Bin.

The film is produced by Anne Sajeev and Sajeev P.K. for Fragrant Nature Film Creations, the Kerala-based banner behind the hit Mohanlal-starrer, Pranayam (2011), and the Sufi-themed romantic drama Qalb (2024).

Excel Entertainment, in association with AA Films, will present and distribute Half across North India, marking Excel’s first collaboration with the Malayalam film industry.

Best Friend Forever’s TIFF slate also features Cannes Un Certain Regard prize winner Elephants in the Fog, which plays in the Centrepiece sidebar, with other current sales titles including Annecy Grand Prix Contrechamp and Fantasia winner Blaise; Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Screenplay winner Nina Roza; and the animated titles Chimney Town: Frozen in Time and Papaya.

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DreamLab Films Boards Satirical Iranian TIFF Title ‘Head to Head’

Published

54 minutes ago

August 10, 2026

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EXCLUSIVE: DreamLab Films has boarded sales on satirical Iranian picture Head to Head (Sar beh Sar) about a film production in which the male cast members are subjected to the strict dress rules applied to women in Iran, ahead of its world premiere at TIFF.

Blending dark comedy with sharp social observation, the Iran-Germany co-production marks Ghasideh Golmakani’s first feature after a string of internationally screened short films exploring gender, power and social taboos in Iran.

Set in contemporary Iran, Head to Head follows an acclaimed female writer-director who makes the radical choice to require men to wear skirts and headscarves for her latest film. As the men struggle with heat, restrictions, and wounded pride, tension swells and Bahar’s hopes for success are met with growing resistance.

The film stars Mehrnoosh Satari, Saeed Naderi, Ebrahim Azizi (It Was Just an Accident), Amir Hajimohammadi, Elaheh Farazmand and Lili Farhadpour (My Favorite Cake).

Golmakani also wrote and produced the feature, with David M. Lorenz serving as associate producer and Saba M. Rezaei as executive producer. Cinematography is by Amin Jafari, sound design by Alireza Alavian, production design by Melody Esmaeili and original music by Yoones Eskandari.

The director, who holds a PhD from the Sorbonne on Iranian women filmmakers before and after the Revolution, said the film grew out of years of reflecting on the place of women in Iranian cinema.

“Head to Head is rooted in years of observing the challenges women face in Iranian cinema. It is not only a reflection on the situation experienced by women, but also an invitation to male colleagues to reflect on what women have had and still have to endure in order to continue existing on the cinema screen,” she said

Paris-based DreamLab Films is handling worldwide sales and festival strategy.