After scripting the notoriously controversial teen sex and Aids drama Kids, Harmony Korine was earmarked for grander things. What he did, was move to Gummo and the Dogme certified Julien Donkey Boy, before withdrawing from feature films for seven years.

He’s finally back with Mister Lonely, the story of a group of impersonators -- Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Michael Jackson and The Pope -- living in a commune in the remote Scottish Highlands. Twinned with this is a group of nuns in Panama who discover they can fly.

What is particularly noticeable is the unusual talent attached to the film -- director Werner Herzog, magician David Blaine, and English actors James Fox and Samantha Morton.
Harmony spoke to Box Office, about what makes him tick.

How did you get to know Werner Herzog?

He saw an early screening of Gummo and called me when I was in my early twenties and he’d go, “Hey, come over to San Francisco and let’s hang out,” so I got on an airplane and we became friends. Growing up he was a big influence on me and his movies I really loved. We’ve always talked about working together

How did you get David Blaine in the film?

What happened was his part was much bigger and I just cut it down, because I thought that would just be a great trick. (He laughs) Get it, trick, because it’s David Blaine. He came down there but I had to cut some minutes out of the movie, and his was one of the early parts.

People get the sense that he’s quite a strange person. Is that really him?

Yeah, yeah, no it’s him, the guy loves his magic and his poontang. That’s what sustains him, card tricks and the vagina.

Can you go into the latter? Does he shake it about a lot?

I don’t know, I’ll have to let you do that. Use your imagination.

I read that immediately after meeting you, he sat in an oven for half an hour.

Yeah, in a pizza oven in Little Italy. He was working on getting his body adjusted to extreme heat. The weird thing was he put these pepperonis between his toes, that I saw melt. That was just so crazy, the rest of his skin was pretty much alright, but the pepperoni on his toes was…. So that impressed me. We were having a conversation while he was in the oven. It was one of things in your life that you always remember.

How did you come up with the skydiving?

Maybe a decade ago I just started imaging nuns falling out of airplanes without parachutes. Nuns on bicycles in the sky. I didn’t really know what the story was but then I started to think they could be testing their faith, it could speak to this idea faith, and hope and survival.

Why did you film in Scotland?

Originally it was written for Iceland, but we went to Iceland but the places I wanted to shoot were too remote and it was too expensive to film there, so I was trying to find a place that had an other-worldly quality to it. Someone suggested Scotland and I finally found this one place that was great, this castle. It was great except for those midges. The bugs were the worst, I’ve never experienced anything like it.

Did it affect the filming?

Yeah it was hard to be outside for too long, because you’re getting eaten alive, it’s really brutal.

The most recent icon in the film is Madonna. Do you think that icons like that are not being made anymore?

I think it also takes a while for an icon to become an icon- Michael Jackson is still going. I think nowadays, it’s so fast there’s so much information and there’s not much mystique left. Originally the Red Riding Hood character was going to be Britney Spears, and we dressed her up and she just looked like a slutty teenager, there’s nothing interesting about her. It’s a different time, there needs to be years for a mystique to develop and for a myth to insinuate itself. I didn’t think there was anyone really young who had that.

Could you tell me about Fight Harm.

It was a movie I was making about ten years ago, where I would go onto the streets, I would usually take a lot of Quaeludes, a lot of medication, different drugs, make me loosey-goosey then I’d walk out and I wanted to fight every demographic, so Monday I would fight a lesbo, Tuesday I’d fight a Greek person, Thursday I would fight a black man and then always get beat up. I saw myself as a distant cousin to Buster Keaton, that I was sacrificing for the good of mankind, ultimately just trying to make the Great American comedy. So after my ninth fight, arrest, and broken bones and hospitalisation I abandoned the project. It was one extreme assault after another.

What kind of plans did you have for release?

It speaks to my delusions, I thought this could be on a double bill with some Adam Sandler movie. Something like that, but then when we watched the footage, and you see my rib cage popping out, and my ankle broken off, maybe it’s something that will have to play in a different type of venue.

I understand that you lived for Paris for a while. Are you like the main character?

Yeah, definitely in some ways, we’ve walked down similar paths. I know what it’s like to be lonely and be in a beautiful place and hate every minute of it. I identify with him when he says goodbye to his room and talks to his furniture. I understand that sense of longing. At the same time there’s parts of me in Chaplin and things he did as well.

Have you been getting a good reception?

So far so good, it’s like all my movies. Yeah. So far I can’t complain. But I think I need to get off, because I’ve got this premiere at Lie - Sest- er Square.

That’s Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square! OK thanks a lot!