Deez Interviews: Jessica Pressler on how it feels to see “Hustlers” become a movie — and how she accidentally wound up telling the best and scammiest stories in town
Happy Friday, Deezers! Ya girl is on vacation (prob. face deep in pesto in Monterosso rn, god willing) but you KNOW we could not let an epic cultural/media-related moment such as the debut of Hustlers just pass us by………….so of course, we interviewed the one and only **Jessica Pressler,** whose 2015 New York mag feature, The Hustlers At Scores, inspired it all.
Enjoyyyyy.
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The interviewee: Jessica Pressler (follow her @jpressler!)
The gig: Contributing editor @ New York magazine
First, the obvious question: how does it feel to see The Hustlers At Scores get turned into a movie??
It's so amazing and wonderful and fun. Jessica Elbaum at Gloria Sanchez started developing it back in 2015, so the possibility of it becoming a movie has been sort of alive in my mind for a while, although obviously a lot of stars needed to align — literally — for that to actually happen. And there were definitely moments when it seemed like it might not — a movie about a group of rogue strip club employees strippers who drug and rob their clients is not a super-easy sell!
But I feel like it’s safe to say now — though I wouldn’t have said it a year ago, because I would have sounded totally delusional — I was always weirdly confident it would work out. The exact right people were involved from the beginning. Both Jessica and Lorene (Scarfaria) really understood the story and had a vision for it and were totally committed and passionate and they really just made it happen. And then when Jennifer Lopez signed on — who Lorene had had in her vision since the beginning —I think that gave the whole thing this kind of unstoppable momentum. I mean, JLo is a force, I am newly in awe of her after watching this process.
Which, to be clear was from a distance. Even though my name is really huge in the credits, that’s a reflection of Jessica and Lorene’s generosity, because I was not involved in the day-to-day. Lorene and I talked a lot when she was writing/rewriting, because even though it is a fictionalization, she wanted there to be an inherent truth to the story (and a lot of the dialogue from the original story survived, which is really cool to see). They were very considerate and inclusive of me throughout the process and keeping me abreast of what was going on (and very gracious about gently deflecting notes they didn’t ask for, such as 3 a.m. emails that said things like “You must use the song Hit “Em Up Style.” ) But overall, my role in this has pretty much been that of spectator/cheerleader.
Which by the way, is a pretty great vantage point to have, because you don't have to deal with any of the issues that arise in dealing with a production of this size, with this many people and schedules, and ugh, the mind just boggles. When they started filming in New York, that was when things started getting really real. Or surreal.
It’s so weird to be standing at a supermarket in Queens and get a Google Alert about Jennifer Lopez’s pole dancing lessons and know you had something to do with that. Not that I’m trying to extrapolate credit for JLo’s abs. (Or maybe I am?)
What’s been especially fun for me is seeing the reactions of the quote-unquote “real people” who helped inspire the characters. Particularly Roselyn Keo, who I found to have such a compelling voice and way of looking at things that she became a main character in my story. She now has a memoir coming out, The Sophisticated Hustler, so people can experience that voice firsthand, and it's a really fun read and gratifying because I think she has really learned and grown a lot from these events.
The movie was inspired by a super tough time in these women's lives, and there were and are some mixed feelings about it being blown up in this huge way. In the end my hope is that it ends up being kind of a cathartic experience, and that they feel understood, in a way through the experiences of these fictional characters.
Between Spotlight, Dirty John, and even Argo, it seems like, more than ever, Hollywood is getting inspiration from journalism for their next big projects. What do you make of that?
It definitely feels like interest has increased recently, for a whole bunch of reasons, including but not limited to: Journalism is imperiled so journalism is a bit sexier.
All of the new streaming services wanting to create their own content. And I’m not really a person who throws around terms like “viewer engagement,” but my gut is nonfiction stories generate a lot of that, because when you are watching something based on a true story, you’re also looking up the real people on Wikipedia and talking about who the killer was on social media, etc., and that’s valuable in a crowded marketplace.
But also I think it’s also that real life has gotten so crazy, fiction can’t really compete. Like, Donald Trump becoming president was basically Peak You Can’t Make This Shit Up, and we’re still in that period of every day having multiple twists and WTF moments, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing up. So it makes sense that people would want to make narratives that just kind of deal with reality and process it and try to make sense of it.
Besides The Hustlers, which was nominated for a National Magazine Award in 2016, you've also written about mistress whisperers, socialites, scammer teens, and of course THE queen of grift, Anna Delvey. What fascinates you most about covering this scammy/scandal-y side of society?
Its funny; thinking about it now, I don’t know that it actually is the scam or the scandal that’s the main draw for me. I think the stories I find reliably interesting are the ones in which people who are basically ordinary relatable people stumble into a world where the atmosphere has been made toxic by larger cultural forces — strip clubs, Wall Street, Rich New Yorkers, Pre-Election Facebook, Preschool — and they like, breathe too much of that poisonous air (I am going with this metaphor, hang on), and it like, goes to their head, and they end up making bad decisions and ultimately find themselves in a bad situation.
Which probably has a lot to do with my own anxieties about living in New York, or in a capitalist —or as the kids would say, late-capitalist — society that is basically immoral? Like Hustler Roslyn Keo said: “American culture is a little fucked up, you know?”
You must work some serious magic when it comes to sourcing. How do you get discretion-obsessed people — who usually have everything to lose — to open up to you?
Well, first you add a sprinkle of ketamine and molly to their drinks.... JOKE.
I don’t have any tricks. I wish I did! Like any reporter, I just write a lot of emails and make a ton of phone calls and have a lot of embarrassing awkward conversations. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Finally, what are you working on next? Any interest in getting further involved in show biz?
I have a whole bunch of stories I want to do! A couple of them feel like they may need to take the form of something other than a magazine piece...so we shall see.
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Don’t forget to follow @jpressler on Twitter, read the whole story here, and go make plans to see this movie ASAP!!! We’ll hit ya back in a couple of weeks. There will be a quiz.