CATHERINE O’HARA NOV/DEC 1997

My first encounter with Catherine O'Hara came while punching channels one night in the late ‘70s. In what appeared to be a real NBC promo spot, a freakishly blowsy entertainer named Lola Heatherton was pushing her upcoming series of celebrity interviews. "Way To Go, Woman!" promised in-depth meet ‘n’ greets with “some of the most influential women of our time,” a list that somehow encompassed Sandra O'Connor, Margaret Trudeau and Charlene Tilton. The ad concluded with a clip of Ms. Heatherton, in situ with Mother Teresa, belting an obscenely jaunty serenade of Steve Miller’s “The Joker” (“She’s the cutest thing I ever did see...”). I mean, what the hey? It wasn’t until later that I discovered I’d had my first hit of SCTV.

Conceived as a satire of television, SCTV spent most of its five years on the air acidly trumping the real thing. Most of the time the show was a yin-yan of bristling conceptualism and way retarded slapstick, and for my money more hilarious and complex than its default rival, Saturday Night Live. For one thing, the intelligence of the cast of improv vets John Candy, Rick Moranis, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, Martin Short and Eugene Levy, was allowed remarkably free reign, unheard of on a network series. But then there was O’Hara. Whether in the guise of over-the-hill “filthy singer” Dusty Towne, grasping showbiz ditz Lola Heatherton, or her hallucinatory takes on real celebs like Meryl Streep, Brooke Shields and Linda McCartney, the show’s helium index would practically hit the ceiling whenever she was on screen. She seemed to possess in spades what Ronald Firbank called the hallmark of a great performer: she could make you feel dizzy.

Since leaving SCTV in 1983, Catherine O’Hara’s career has moved in some peculiar directions. Viewed by Hollywood as a cult comedienne, for a while she specialized in quirky characters in movies like After Hours, Heartburn, and Beetlejuice. And although she’s worked a lot since then, it’s unfortunate that most people remember her for the anomalous role of Macaulay Culkin’s mom in the Home Alone movies. Ah, the injustice.

But wait. Earlier this year saw the release of Christopher Guest’s little-indie-that-could, Waiting for Guffman, pointing to a lean return to form. Joined by Fred Willard, SCTV vet Eugene Levy, and Parker Posey, O’Hara’s turn as damaged optimist Sheila Albertson has been pulling raves from all sides, and a starring role in the upcoming comedy Home Fries should finally reestablish her position in the pantheon of the So Damned Funny.

I phoned her in Los Angeles where she lives with her husband Bo Welch, the film production designer, and two young sons.

PETER:  I know you studied in Paris at the Institute des Sciences Politiques.  What was it like when you were there?

BIANCA:  When I left Nicaragua, it was a very insular place.  I had a very conservative and Catholic upbringing.  When I arrived in Paris, I was for the first time on my own. And was one of the youngest students to get a scholarship to study political science.

BOB:  When was this?

BIANCA:  In the late ’60s.  And when I went there, of course, I was terrified of the whole idea of being on my own.  I didn’t really speak much French, but I learned really fast.  The first book I read was Albert Camus, in French.  There I was, a little Nicaraguan girl who came from a very protected society, with a very conservative background, who wanted to study political science in Paris.  For American politicians during the Cold War, the world was defined by the East/West confrontation.  In France, things were quite different.

PETER:  How did you end up in Paris rather than New York or London?

BIANCA:  Well, I wanted to study something that was going to prepare me to become a politician or a diplomat.  On my mother’s side, she had a cousin who was the cultural attaché to the Nicaraguan embassy.  And I think that influenced my decision to go to Paris.  When I was growing up, I was not dreaming of coming to the United States.  I really was dreaming of going to France, to Europe.

BOB:  It had to be an incredible place to be, especially if you were studying political science — Paris in the late ’60s.

BIANCA:  Yes, yes.

PETER:  Were you studying, or were you striking?

BIANCA:  Both.

BOB:  Well, striking was getting an education too.

BIANCA:  Yes.

PETER:  The Institute des Sciences Politiques is one of the most prestigious schools in France but also a big part of the French bureaucratic system.  What was the point of view that was presented to you there in the ’60s?  Was it Marxist?

BIANCA:  Progressive philosophies and socialism and other political ideas were taught in an entirely different way than they were taught in this country.  The vision of the world that you had in America before the end of the Cold War was not seen the way we saw the world in Europe at the time.

Things were a lot more simplistic then because politicians in the U.S. spoke of a common enemy — the Soviet Union was the common enemy.  Communism was the common enemy.  And now that the Berlin Wall has come down, you have to look at conflicts in a more profound way, and with more depth to understand their sources.

We have to really take into consideration historical factors — religious, economic, and others.  There are a lot of ethnic wars around the world today.  For example, in Bosnia, we cannot point a finger and say it’s the fault of the Soviet Union, or that it’s the fault of Communism.

Although some people will blame the war in the former Yugoslavia on Communism, we need to go all the way back to the Ottoman Empire to understand the war and the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

PETER:  That raises an interesting question.  If you look at things historically, it becomes complicated to place blame: who is the aggressor and who is the victim? 

When you were there, were you able to say that the Serbs were the aggressors and the Bosnians were the victims?  Or because of the historical complications, do you see both sides sympathetically?

BIANCA:  You know, it is very difficult when you're defining wars, to say that all the fault rests with only one side.  But at the end of the day, when you looked at Bosnia, it is evident that the genocide and the majority of atrocities were committed by the Serbs against the Bosnian Muslims.

Of course, there were a lot of atrocities committed by the Croats, and some were committed by the Bosnians, but if we looked at who suffered and who were the victims, there is no question that the Bosnians were the victims of the war.

Let’s look at Srebrenica, where the Serbs tried to annihilate the male population, boys as young as 12 and men as old as 75.  8,000 men were killed in Srebrenica.  And the U.N. and the U.S., French, British and the Dutch governments watched as they were brutally executed.  The U.N. and the international community delivered them to their executioners.

PETER:  The article you wrote last year for The European was astounding, recounting your experiences in Srebrenica.  Can you tell us what happened — and how you see it in retrospect?

BIANCA:  In 1993, the war was getting so out of hand in Bosnia, and the Security Council at the U.N. declared six safe areas.  Among them was Srebrenica.  They passed two resolutions.  The United Nations engaged itself and its soldiers to protect the people of the six safe areas, and I’m quoting — “with all necessary means.”  In exchange, they demanded that this area should be demilitarized and become a military-free zone.  So the people of Srebnice handed over their weapons and entrusted themselves to the United Nations protection forces.

But then there was a diabolical agreement made about a month before the massacre, between General Janvier, who was the Maximum Commander of the protection forces of the U.N., and General Mladic, who was the Bosnian Serb general who personally conducted the genocide in Srebrenica.

BOB:  What kind of agreement?

BIANCA:  Hundreds of U.N. soldiers had been taken hostage by the Serbs.  Among them were French soldiers.  Janvier was a French general. He made a quid pro quo agreement with Mladic — Mladic would release all the hostages and in exchange for that, Janvier would not order any air strikes against the Serbs.

That gave the green light to the Serbs.  When they decided to take Srebrenica, they knew full well that there would be no retaliation — no air strikes against them.  And in fact, in this long article I wrote for The European, I relate the minute-by-minute account, and I was able to do it because people inside the U.N. provided me with documents that exposed what happened during this darkest moment to the people of Srebrenica.

PETER:  With your research into the Srebnice massacre and your experiences trying to get those two children out of Bosnia for medical attention, the overwhelming feeling that I get is a kind of Kafkaesque helplessness in the face of these forces.  And yet that doesn't seem to defeat you.

BIANCA:  You can’t be defeated, because once you’re defeated, you’re finished.  And Bosnia was a very dangerous place; it still is.  You have to be strong and focused.  When I was trying to get the children out of Bosnia, I was dealing with the fact that these two children were dying.  And if I didn’t get them out of there, they were going to die immediately and I was going to feel responsible that I had forsaken them, that I had not done my utmost to get them out.

PETER:  I can understand that, but afterwards, I think I might have just thrown up my hands and said, “I can’t do this again.” 

BIANCA:  I felt pretty devastated when I came back to America and Sabina had died.  But I had no time to think that way because I had Mohammed, who had to undergo a very serious heart operation.  He didn’t have his mother with him.  I had to take care of Mohammed.  I became a mother again.  I had to take care of a child.  And it was a child that didn’t speak the same language.  I had to learn to communicate with him in signs and a few words of Serbo-Croatian.  Thank God, Mohammed was a child and he could learn to speak English.  But he was very emotionally disturbed by the horrors he lived through during the war, by seeing Sabina die, and being separated from his mother.

He could not understand why we couldn’t bring his parents, especially his mother.  And finally, when we could bring his parents, he was torn because he had to go to live with them.

We had developed a bond of affection in the year that we lived together.  And I couldn’t come to terms with being separated from him, nor could he.  But I knew that I had to let go, let him go back to his parents. 

Sometimes I ask myself, “What am I doing, why am I doing this work?”  There is something in me that draws me to keep doing it again and again.  I feel that I have to be engaged.

PETER:  Let’s say you’re talking to a young person with certain ideals, who is drawn to caring about things going on in the world that are often seen as being outside of our power.  What would you say?

BIANCA:  I give lectures to young people at colleges and universities, and the most important message I give them is — we live in a society that believes that individuals cannot make a difference.  And that’s wrong.

Individuals can and should make a difference.  We must be engaged.  Our future depends on our participation.  We must work with environmental organizations, we must work with civil and human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.  We must be active politically.  We must let our leaders know what we expect them to do.   Write to the President, to your Congressmen, to your Senators, to your state legislators, lett them know what you think.  We must not let the system appear as to be beyond our reach.  Our destiny is not out of our hands.  We can make a difference.  Individuals can change history.  And anybody can do it. 

BOB:  I saw a photo of you recently, and I think you were in Guatemala?

BIANCA:  Right.

BOB:  What have you been working on there?

BIANCA:  Well, I have worked for quite a few years on human rights and environmental issues in Latin America.  Those issues can never be considered understood if we don’t understand the crucial role that indigenous people play in the survival of the rain forest.

So I have worked with indigenous people in Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Brazil and Guatemala.  Governments in the Third World believe that progress, prosperity and economic development derive from their ability to grant concessions in logging and oil ...

BOB:  And mining.

BIANCA:  ... mining concessions and hotel development.  I was in Guatemala recently visiting an environmental project to save the Mayan biosphere, and also a project to save the biological corridor of Mezzo-America, which goes from the south of Mexico all the way to Colombia.  The idea is to join all these reserve areas and create sustainable economic and agricultural development that will benefit indigenous and peasant communities that live on the buffer zones neighboring the rain forest and the reserve areas.  Governments in Latin America need to understand that there are other alternatives beside selling out their natural resources to multinational companies.  In the end, it does not bring the jobs and the prosperity and the economic boom that was promised.  We have seen that over and over again.

PETER:  I understand that you have also been working on a human rights issue involving Nicaraguans in the U.S.

BIANCA:  Yes, recently thousands of Nicaraguans who lived in the United States were given legal status to stay in this country.  These Nicaraguans were brought to the U.S. by the Reagan and Bush administrations, during the Contra War in Nicaragua.  They were invited to come to this country by the U.S. Government, who financed and supported the Contras and the Contra War.  And they incited them to leave Nicaragua as part of a destabilization campaign against the Nicaraguan government.

But once they were no longer useful to the American government, they began to deport them.  So exiled Nicaraguans became organized.  They made a remarkable effort lobbying Congress.  They wanted legal status in this country.   They wanted to stop the unfair deportation process.  I worked with them to help them achieve their goal.

BOB:  And if I’m not mistaken, you’re now trying to protect the people who used to be the bad guys, from in turn being persecuted ...

BIANCA:  I opposed the Contra War.  But to me, I think the question of justice goes far beyond the question of which side I was on before.  I feel that they were a tool in a big political scheme, a geo-political scheme, if you want.

And I think it would have been totally unfair and unjust if they had been deported simply because they were now a tool that was no longer useful.  They had come to this country, they had American children, they worked, they paid taxes, they uprooted themselves from their homeland and became part of this nation.  So that is far more important, because my positions are not based on ideology.

BOB:  Everybody wouldn’t normally think that way ...

PETER:  It seems that your political position is to prevent human suffering.

BIANCA:  My positions are based on respect for human rights and what I think is fair.  It’s a question of justice.  It’s not a question of ideology.  To begin with, the whole Nicaraguan experiment was very sad.  In the beginning, the revolution presented so much hope, not only for Nicaraguans but for millions of people around the world.  For a moment we thought that this was going to be the last great revolution of this century.

But it turned out that some of the leaders of the revolution betrayed the people of Nicaragua.  In the end, it was not a successful experiment.  And Nicaraguans were used by the government of the United States.  The Reagan administration financed the Contra war which left thousands of people dead in Nicaragua on both sides.

Of course, the very wealthy members of the Contra revolution did not go and fight.  They received financial aid from the U.S. government and a lot of them pocketed that money.  The Sandinista leaders, they didn’t go and fight.  So the people who died were the very poor in Nicaragua on both sides — the peasants and the workers were the people that were left maimed and dead in the fields.

After the war, we had the demobilization of the Contras.  Tens of thousands of Contras were left without knowing how to readapt themselves to society.  And the same went for the people who were members of the Sandanista army.  When the army was reduced, they were left out in the cold as well, without any protection or social services — people who had lost arms and legs.

That’s why I oppose wars, because in the end there are no winners.  And too often, the very ideals that people are fighting for are betrayed by their leaders. 

BOB:  Do you think that your job, part of your job, is to put as much of a human face on what seems to be some remote problem that’s really someone else’s problem?  To make people see it in human terms?

BIANCA:  I want to be a voice for those who are denied access to speak out about their plight and their suffering.  I denounce the injustice I have witnessed in Guatemala and Brazil where indigenous people are being killed by big powerful ranch owners, death squads, government forces or big powerful oil companies.  I speak on behalf of the women from Srebrenica who were betrayed by the U.N. and the interational community.  They are denied access to speak about the artrocities they suffered.  I continue to ask on their behalf why after two and a half years the war criminals have not been apprehended or brought to trial?

So yes, in a way, I serve as an instrument to give a human face to some of those issues and to speak for some of those forgotten people who have no voice.

PETER:  Now, without being afraid to be a little philosophical, as you look into the next century, what are some of the changes that you see between peoples and governments, and between different governments that might lessen some of the tragedies we’re talking about today?

BIANCA:  I don’t know if the tragedies will lessen.  When I looked at the recent visit of President Jiang Zemin from China, and see the position that President Clinton took vis-à-vis China, for the President, the most important issue was economic trade, not human rights.  He viewed human rights as a commodity, and he traded it in so easily.  To answer your question, I don’t see a great commitment from the leaders of the superpowers to make the world a better place.  I only hear a lot of pretty hollow speeches.

PETER:  Well, let me ask you something specific, because every time I go and buy a pair of sneakers or anything else, it says “Made in China.”  And I know that the people who make these things are getting three dollars a week and working in terrible conditions.  I know what’s going on.  What would you say to me about something like that?

BIANCA:  A lot of people today don’t understand the consequences of free trade.  It sounds so good.  For example, “Fast Track,” which President Clinton is promoting.  Fast Track pretends to bring work and prosperity to Third World countries.  Multinationals from the United States will invest their capital and bring employment in poor countries.

But what is the real truth about Fast Track and NAFTA?  The real truth is that multinational companies will go to countries in the Third World, particularly Latin America, and they will have very cheap labor.  Often, they will subcontract companies that hire child labor, and since child labor usually pays less than what adults earn, that drives down wages, making it tougher for adults to hang on to wages, jobs and unions.

So these companies will leave the United States and the workers they employed in this country — where they have to abide by labor laws and environmental laws.  Instead, they will go and destroy the environment and abuse the workers of the Third World. That’s free trade.

I’m so happy that Fast Track did not pass and that the workers of this country really stood strong, and that their lobby was successful.  The majority of members of Congress and the Senate stood up with them, against President Clinton’s Fast Track bill. 

I am for free trade, if it is fair.  I am for free trade if they negotiate labor laws that protect the workers.  If they negotiate and enforce environmental laws.  But if multinationals just go to Mexico and Latin America and other Third World countries to exploit the people, I view that as the neo-colonialism of the twenty-first century — another form of oppression. 

PETER:  No matter what one country does, what matters with the environment is what all the countries do.  So how can our governments cooperate to actually make international agreements about the environment?

BIANCA:  Well, it’s probably through NGOs — non-governmental organizations.  They have developed in the last decade what we call “civil society” — non-governmental organizations that worked on human rights issues, environmental issues and civil rights issues.  And in the Third World, this concept is coming along.  Before, the World Bank, the Inter-America Development Bank, and other financial bodies would give loans only to governments, but now they’re beginning to understand that they need to work with civil society, with non-governmental organizations.

PETER:  And in Latin America, can you get popular support for organizations like these?

BIANCA:  It’s a new concept and they are still funded usually from outside rather than inside the country, with international money, but they are becoming more established and they have more power.  

PETER:  Now, the other argument is that those organizations could also be considered as a power coming from the developed West.

BIANCA:  Sure. And sometimes you hear the complaints of governments and people in the Third World saying that now that the industrialized countries have destroyed their forests, they want to impose environmental rules on them.

Since I was born in the Third World, and later became an adopted daughter of an industrialized country, I can say that it is for our mutual benefit that we must conserve and protect the environment in all countries.  We must not repeat the mistakes that the industrial countries made.  We must not allow multinational companies to destroy the rainforests we have left.

BOB:  In what direction do you see yourself going over the coming years?

BIANCA:  I don’t know yet.  For now, I’m going to pursue my work on human rights issues around the world.  And it might well be that one day I decide to opt for a political career, but I haven’t made up my mind.  I think that since too often politicians make unsavory compromises, I’m not sure that is what I want to do.

I just continue to work day by day.  I have to be very careful because I have overwhelming numbers of requests to get involved with issues all over the world.  So I have to choose carefully the ones for which I can be the most effective.

PETER:  Actually, one of the reasons I wanted to interview you is I think I’ve met you three times, and I don’t think you’ve ever said a word about yourself, but you always ask questions about whatever is going on around you.

BIANCA:  Well, I don’t like to talk about myself.

PETER:  But you ask a lot of questions ...

BIANCA:  I have always been an avid learner.  I am prepared to learn all the time.  And I really love to be around people who can teach me, teach me about painting, art, or how to use a computer.  Somebody who will teach me a new language.  I learned to speak five different languages.  I always had this incredible desire to learn.  I am obsessed that I don’t have enough time to learn and maybe that I’m running out of time in life.

And I’ve always thought — maybe it is an obsession — that I was going to die young.  Maybe it’s the reason why I’m often in dangerous places doing dangerous work.  I always live as if this might be my last day.  That I must do the most and take the most out of life because there might be no tomorrow.  So there is no time to lose.

PETER:  When you spend months in a war zone in Bosnia, where people are getting massacred, and then go back and spend time with friends in the art world or the cultural world, are you frustrated by their apathy or lack of political involvement?

BIANCA:  I had to learn that there is a time for everything.  For example, I rarely speak about my experience in Bosnia.  I don’t believe in having — how do you say? — Café Society conversation about something like that.  First of all, a lot of people will not be interested.  And second, it is not the right environment.  I believe in proselytizing under different circumstances.  I prefer going to a college or a university to speak about my experiences.  You don’t hear me discussing Bosnia or the work that I do in polite conversation.  I think that’s totally absurd.

Just like I don’t believe in doing interviews about my married life, or my friends.  Or doing a kiss-and-tell book because it will make me famous and rich.  I don’t do that.  I mean, I have certain rules in my life and I try to abide by those rules.  It’s always very important to find the appropriate time and the appropriate place for everything.