21 Questions with Heather Donahue

 

Please explain what just happened.

I laughed with my roommate as we staged an ant holocaust. Then he put one on a butter knife and held it over the stove until the ant jumped off onto the range and I stopped laughing. I have a line.

 

What is your earliest memory?

Hallucinating that everything was covered in bugs after an inoculation. My mom came in and tried to console me, but I also thought she was covered in bugs. Ants, roaches, spiders.

 

If you weren’t an actress and author, what other profession would you choose?

My roommate suggests therapist. My only experience of therapy was brief and weird, but my experience of being an annoying yet enthusiastic amateur one is very nearly boundless.

 

Describe a typical work day.

Wake up, coffee, run with dogs, meditate, drive to The Grotto, work, eat lunch with my fellows, write more, drink more coffee, drive home, play with the dogs, dance and/or drink wine, call friends, laugh about stupid shit, bathe, read, sleep, repeat.

 

Is there a time you wish you’d lied?

Oh, I did. But just that one time.

 

What would you say to yourself if you could go back in time and have a conversation with yourself at age thirteen?

They’re right, you’re totally weird, but it’s better that way.

 

 

 

If you could have only one album to get you through a breakup, what would it be?

Are you really going to make me choose between the Xanadu soundtrack and Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine?

 

What are three websites—other than your email—that you check on a daily basis?

The Rumpus, The Hairpin, Facebook.

 

From what or whom do you derive your greatest inspiration?

Gentleness.

 

 

 

 

Name three books that have impacted your life.

The Little Prince, Brian Browne Walker’s translation of The I Ching, Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body.

 

If you could relive one moment over and over again, what would it be?

Any of them would do.

 

How are you six degrees from Kevin Bacon?

I was in New Suit with Paul McCrane who did the voice for Beyond All Boundaries. Further tie: Kevin Bacon, Paul McCrane and I are all from Philly. Suh-nap!

 

What makes you feel most guilty?

Moving my border collie/aussie mix from the country to the city.

 

 

 

 

How do you incorporate the work of other artists into your own?

Directly, shamelessly.

 

Please explain the motivation/inspiration behind Growgirl.

To take my story back and feed it on light.

 

What is the best advice you’ve ever given to someone else?

Sit down and shut up. But I said it in a nice way, and there were candles.

 

List your favorite in the following categories:  Comedian, Musician, Author, Actor.

I’m not a fan of hierarchies.

 

 

 

 

If you had complete creative license and an unlimited budget, what would your next project be?

A global ayahuasca ceremony. Like Hands Across America, but with more people and more vomit. Mostly I would love to see what happened next, if anything would change.

 

What do you want to know?

Where’s the Higgs Boson?

 

What would you like your last words to be?

I’m hoping, at the very end, to be all caught up in sweet gazes. No language required.

 

Please explain what will happen.

I will scrub the coffee stain out of my orange cup before running around the top of the island with Mr. Boring (his real name) and the boys.