We did this via email (Pussycatpreacher.com, more from JimmyD):
> * Why did you make this movie?
Oddly enough, it wasn’t a film I wanted to make at first. Heather showed at a screening of my earlier film Missionary Positions and promoted the Idea to make a doc about her ministry. I decided to shoot a day or two with her to check it out but I soon realized she was a fascinating person with a story to tell.
> * How was the process of making it different from > Missionary Positions?
It was much much harder for a variety of reasons. Missionary Positions was all guys and this one was all girls. And girls bring their own challenges. The other thing was that Heather became a very hot news item soon after my shooting began. Suddenly there were lots of people telling Heather she need not be working with me. But Heather stuck by her deal with me and even turned down an offer from HBO so as not to injure my enterprise. Then the guys from Missionary Positions let me know they didn’t appreciate me working with Heather and my relationship with them suffered because I stuck by Heather. In the end, it kinda bonded us in a way that helped us survive a number of bumps in the road.
> * Whatever happened to Missionary Positions?
Missionary Positions is doing well online. It is currently the 2nd most popular film on the emerging movie site Jaman.com for all 2007 with over 110,000 downloads. And that is amazing because if you look at the other films on this site, many with big budgets and Hollywood stars, it almost defies logic.
> * What did you love and hate about making Pussycat > Preacher?
What I really loved was the people I was working with. I really enjoyed my time with everyone connected with Sandals Church. They were just all cool… and good looking! What I hated was the many knives that got stuck in my back by supposed Christians who were always trying to hurt Heather, me and the project.
>What were your biggest obstacles in making > Pussycat Preacher?
LYING CHEATING DECEPTIVE HYPOCRITICAL CHRISTIANS like this one pastor who wrote an e-mail to the Pastor in my movie (Matt Brown). In this e-mail he listed a litany of horrible deeds done by yours truly – then used some inter-pastor pledge of silence so Matt couldn’t tell me what I was being accused of. Heather and I had a running joke about all this stuff and it goes like this: One day they find me dead in an alley. When they do the autopsy, they roll me over on the table and see all these knife marks in my back. At that point, the doctor examining me records the discovery and concludes, "Likely encounter with Christians."
> * How did you get this niche of making documentaries > about Christian > outreach to the sex industry?
The same way, I got into doing niche documentaries about environmental activists trying to save the rain forests of South America – Once you enter the niche you become a part of it and discover getting out is a lot harder than getting in.
> > * How would you compare Heather’s ministry to the > XXXChurch?
Heather and the boys from xxxchurch are, from my point of view, the same archtypical character. Joseph Campbell refers to it as "The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Their paths are beat for beat are very similar.
> > * How come Pussycat Preacher does not mention > Heather’s divorce and how it > cost her almost all of her Christian friends?
My movie ends when Heather leaves Riverside and moves to Las Vegas. Her separation from Jon happened months after they moved to Las Vegas and I was no longer shooting so it wasn’t in the scope of my story. Many people suggested I put a title card at the end of the film revealing this. I thought it over, but there was no way to do it with one or two sentences. It was far too complex and personal and would require another full chapter to present it fairly to all sides.
> > * Which characters in Pussycat Preacher were the > most different when you > turned off the camera?
Mostly the Pastors ( with the exception of Matt Brown)… everyone else was pretty solid. >
> * How long did you follow Heather? How many hours of > footage?
I followed Heather for almost two years… and it was about 200 hours of footage. >
> * Did making this documentary change your life? Did > you find Christ? Are you > saved?
Yes making the documentary did change me with regards to Christianity. I felt I entered this world unbiased and fascinated by the Christian culture. I left somewhat disillusioned by what I saw. Religion doesn’t seem to have the power to remove our human foibles from our character. In terms of coming to Christ, I will be honest. I never understood the whole Christ thing before I entered this world. It seemed pretty ridiculous to me that I was born with some kind of sin and that this dude hung up there on the cross for me… But one day I had this little interpretational epiphany. I was looking at a picture of Christ on the cross, and somehow I came to the conclusion that his death was the symbolic victory of love over hatred. So, right or wrong, that is what I made Heather’s story about… shoot me if I am wrong.
I call Heather Veitch in Vegas Sunday morning.
Heather: "I like it a lot. The storyline is about religious intolerance."
"It shows I live a crazy life with people hating me while I’m trying to love others."
Luke: "Did they get any footage from the softcore movies you made?"
Heather: "No. I can’t even find those movies online. It was eleven years ago. I searched the sites I was on and they don’t even exist anymore."
Luke: "You lost all your Christian friends when you got divorced."
Heather: "I pretty much have all my old friends back (including Pastor Matt Brown and the rest of the JCsgirls)."
"You see how I get eaten alive? People were scared to stand by me through a scary time because they knew what was going to come at me."
I talk to Heather about one of her critics — Dawn Reinas.
Heather: "The obsession level is scary. They follow everything about me online. You read about stalkers? They get started like that. I’ve had that. Remember in the movie about people breaking into my house? Those were all religious nuts. They get so crazy that they think that God told them to do something to me."
"I go to bed every night like I’m going to war. I don’t even sleep like a normal person sleeps. I sleep so light now. Any sound in my house I hear it."
"I’m so sick of people saying this is a money-making thing. I went from making $8,000 a month as a hair dresser. Now I’m down to $3,000 a month. I make nothing off the movie."
Luke: "Do you ever wonder if all the sacrifices are worth it?"
Heather: "The only time I’ve wondered that was when I was going through the divorce. If I wasn’t in this situation, I could go through a divorce and have people love me, support me…
"I had people threaten to stand up in church and talk about my divorce. Nobody else goes through that. That’s been the hardest thing — the constant criticism."
Heather says her Jewish boyfriend Ira is not looking forward to going to the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas later this week because of all the guys who will be hitting on her as she walks around the show floor.
Luke: "He can go hit on some porn stars."
Heather: "I’ll kill him."
"My boyfriend says, ‘Please, can’t you get some normal friends.’ He’s very normal. None of my friends are even close to normal."
Luke: "How’s the Jewish-Christian thing working out between you guys?"
Heather: "He goes to church with me almost every Sunday. His faith in Jesus is growing."
"When I met my boyfriend, he said he was a Christian, but you know how that in the Jewish culture you can’t say you’re Christian."
"His family aren’t Jewish people who are heavily into [Judaism]. I know more about the things he should’ve been doing than he does."
