10 TRAVEL QUESTIONS WITH JUSTINE BATEMAN

 

 

Justine is the acclaimed director of avant garde movies Violet in 2021, Look and Feel, both in 2025, and the founder of the incredibly cool, spitting-in-AI’s-milk Credo23 film festival. She’s also a best selling author of two books, Fame: The  Hijacking of Reality, and Face: One Square Foot of Skin. And she’s the Movies Editor at SPIN magazine, where she has, you know, opinions.

 

Gen Xers know and love her from the 1980s as the teenage actress playing Mallory Keaton on Family Ties (which also starred Michael J. Fox). She had roles in several other TV shows too, but her greater passion lies in making films.

 

In the best possible sense, Justine has been around. She’s seen the world. So let’s ask her some questions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you’re making a movie, how important is the location to you? 

 

Oh, I think it’s really important, because it’s not only the look, it’s the feel of the place. As a viewer, it’s really important to me. For example, I can tell in an instant if it was shot in Canada. Even if it’s doubling as New York or some other place, there’s a feel to it. 

 

Montreal is a unique location because there’s so much stonework and pavers, and you can really shoot historical period pieces there.

 

Violet, with Olivia Munn, had to be in LA. We shot in a Lloyd Wright house, the Black Dahlia House. It has all this architectural brick in this inner courtyard. Then there was another house that was a Neutra. You just don’t get, in a concentrated area, that kind of architecture. If I was doing something that took place in Morocco, I’d hate to not have that feeling pulled into the film. 

 

 

 

Where have you gone that meaningfully inspired you ?

 

I really enjoyed Japan. One of the things I like about Japan, or Hong Kong, is not understanding the characters of their language. Because all the signs just look like abstract art.  

 

I went up to Washington State once because they have a rainforest up there. I must have been in my late twenties. I was like, really? I never imagined that. I stayed in a fair-sized hotel, all log cabin style, right next to a rainforest path. Everybody stays on this raised walkway through this entire section of this rainforest. That was really fantastic. 

 

Another was Hawaii. There was a hike that went through a guava or passion fruit orchard. The smell of what had been stepped on was amazing. Then right after that was a bamboo forest. When I see these things in a tourist pamphlet, I go, okay, you probably have five stalks of bamboo and you’re calling it a forest, but this really was. It was timber bamboo, so really good-sized bamboo. The wind was blowing gently, and it was knocking all these bamboo against each other and made the most incredible sound. 

 

In Aspen, they have this museum that used to be an old silver mine. The machine that smashes the ore is still intact there. They turned it on for me, and the sound of this thing is just stunning. Of course, I recorded it. I’m going to use it in a film somewhere.

 

 

 

Where have you been that has most surprised you?

 

Croatia. I thought, I’m not going to read anything about it. I don’t want to know anything. I thought, it’s going to be a little bit Iron Curtain. It’s that part of the world.

 

This is long after the Iron Curtain fell. I just knew the architecture and the people. That’s the DNA. I don’t know how it could not linger. We went, and yes, it was that, the people and the buildings and stuff. Oh my God, the islands. I had no idea. There were all these tiny islands all over the place. Of course, it was a blast because you were there with locals. 

 

 

 

What’s your favorite hotel in the world?

 

Oh, I almost don’t want to say because I don’t want people to go there! It’s a hotel in Paris. Just adorable. I love it so much. If all of Paris fell down except that hotel, I would go back to Paris because I would want to stay in that again.

 

I will say this one, though. On the Big Island of Hawaii, the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel. I just love this building, built by the Rockefellers, true mid-century style. Vertically poured concrete. There’s koi ponds inside. On an island that has an awful lot of what I call Golf hotels, just white and utilitarian.

 

 

 

 

This has wood, little stones embedded in cement. All the things you expect from mid-century architecture and finishing details. Lots of plants. It’s all very organic. One of the few places that side of the island that has a nice sand beach. 

 

 

 

When you travel, and your past the hassle of it, what do you get from being somewhere else?

 

I have to tell you, I really like traveling. It’s a bummer if your flight is canceled or delayed, and all of those things, but I like it. I like being in a plane. I like being at the airport. I like my flight, walking to the gate. I like the whole experience. Maybe because my mom was a flight attendant and I was in utero before she got fired for being pregnant. 

 

That was back then. You had to be single and obviously not pregnant. Then they changed the rules to like, okay, you can be married, but you certainly can’t be pregnant. They would fire people immediately if they were pregnant. [That was] Pan Am. 1966. Then they had to hire them all back years later.

 

When I was younger, it really felt like something different. Now, maybe because I’m far more myself than I was in my twenties or whatever. I just feel now like, oh, it’s just me in a different setting. I feel like I need to go someplace much more unfamiliar to not feel that.

 

 

 

 

 

If Heaven is on Earth after all, where is it?

 

I really think it’s in nature. It’s so many things all at once. If you look at a tree, it’s totally still. Its only perspective is from that spot its entire life. Yet, it’s seen everything that has passed by. It is still, and yet growing all the time. Nature, to me, is the most magical.

 

Yes, it’s in nature. It can’t be controlled. It doesn’t take offence. I don’t think it’s possible for evil to operate through it at all. You can chop a tree down, and something will grow in its place. It just doesn’t stop. We can all blow ourselves up, and yet nature will continue.

 

This is also reflective of God, too, as far as how I see. I think God gives 100% of Himself to each person according to what’s right for them. I feel like nature is heaven on earth because you are getting different sections of heaven or of God’s presence or of spiritual life in all these different parts of the world. Just looking at nature is, at least metaphorically, heaven on earth. 

 

 

 

Who are the people you’ve met on your travels who most confirmed your faith in mankind?

 

I’ve got an answer for this that everybody can share in. I’m not going to talk about my travels. I’m going to say a television show called Somebody Feed Phil.

 

He’s such a nice, genuine guy — Phil Rosenthal. He goes to these places, and just gets people to bring him into their home or the restaurant and cook him something. This is one of the reasons we haven’t been wiped out. Because it’s so genuine and everybody’s so wonderful to each other. 

 

If you’re ever feeling down, just go watch a couple episodes of that show.

 

 

 

What culture have you come across that we can best learn from and should apply in this country?

 

 

 

 

I’m trying to think. I’ve seen positives and negatives from all these different places, and not in a judgmental way. There’s one culture that’s so polite and so deferential, and everything — Tokyo. If you’re on the subway during rush hour, fucking forget it. It’s the total opposite.

 

You know what I would say, actually? It’s going to be a funny answer. The Jesuits. They were at a school my son went to. I’m just like, oh my God, I wish these guys would run more things. It’s such a throwback to how things were run when I was a kid, which is just like, don’t sweat the — my words, not theirs — small shit. Everything’s going to be fine. Yes, there’s going to be repercussions for your behavior, but it’s this, this, and this. We get done with that, and we move on. There’s no resentment held.

 

As far as they were running the school or dealing with the kids, there’s no agenda except, be of service, be a good person, and be yourself. We’re not going to tolerate any [bad behaviour] — these are the rules. 

 

It’s relaxed. It’s calm.  

 

That’s what I feel like we need more of in this world right now, regardless of the country or culture, a maturity. Maturity means you don’t take offense quickly, you acknowledge the immaturity of others, and try and help them. You have rules of your establishment or school, or of engagement with other people.

 

If you are in a position where people are looking to you for guidance, that’s a gift. Not everybody is granted that. It’s not like you have to suddenly become some Yoda or something, but there is a responsibility to it. 

 

 

 

Where in the world do you most like to eat?

 

I’ve got to say, California has got a lot of great chefs, fresh ingredients here, but I’ll add this: Malta has some of the best cooks.

 

Everywhere we ate in Malta, the food was so much better than it had to be, which is shocking to me because of the English influence on Malta. I can say that because my mom is English and Maltese. Why do you think there’s no English restaurants? 

 

Malta, some of the best meals I’ve ever had. It’s just some random restaurant. Then I’ll say Positano. Holy cow. Everything is so fresh. Just fantastic. Then you’ve got limoncello on top of that. That’s really heartbreaking, to eat there for a week and then get on a plane and fly away from there and wonder, what am I going to eat now?

 

 

 

What place do you hope you never have to go to again?

 

I’m sorry to the people that live there, but I don’t know why you live there. It’s Winnipeg, Canada.

 

I had to work there once, and I’m like, what is this place? It was the summer or spring, wasn’t even the dead of winter. The place is like they built it in anticipation of twice as many people than actually live there. It was as if a virus had wiped out half the population, and the rest were just living out their days. It was the most mind-numbing place I’d ever been to.

 

People are going to hate that. I’m sure maybe if I’d seen it with a local, it would have been a different experience. They’ve got all these underground areas. I’m sure it’s fantastic for the winter. I’m sure there’s a lot of great things about it, but I just never, ever want to go again. It was a little soul-sucking.

 

Really, it was like The Walking Dead without the zombies. I don’t understand why. I don’t know.