Morgan Spurlock’s hit FX series 30 Days starts with a simple concept; send a willing volunteer to explore an idea or way of life for one month. What’s not so straight-forward are the results that follow.
Now, Spurlock is back with a third season returning on June 3, ready to educate audiences about topics like coal mining, same-sex parenting and life on a reservation. We caught up with the documentary-filmmaker to find out more.
Hollywood.com: What do you consider to be a successful 30 Days?
Morgan Spurlock: I think a successful 30 Days is one where you don’t really know what’s going to happen. I think there are two. There’s a successful 30 Days as a participant where I go in and I’m surprised and my eyes are opened and I learn things and experience things that 99 percent of us will never get to. And I think that’s really what I love as a participant that I get out of the show. For me as a person who watches the show, I love that every episode isn’t tied up into a nice little bow, that at the end of every episode people don’t always get along…And for me that’s what makes the show real.
HW: Has anyone ever backed out of a 30 Days episode?
MS: Like in season one there was, our participant was doing steroids and human growth hormones for a month, and around Day 20 he went to get his sperm checked, and basically when he started he had a sperm count of like 80 million and on Day 20 he had zero. Basically he killed all the sperm in his body. And his wife was like, “You have to stop right now.” He was like, “You’re right; I’m done. I’m walking away.” So he was finished after three weeks. And once he got off the HGH and the steroids all of his semen count came back and it was back to normal…I don’t blame him. If suddenly after three weeks I went from 80 million to zero I’d have probably been really seriously thinking about dropping out, too.
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HW: You chose to do two episodes this season. Why the change?
MS: Seasons one and two I only did one episode and then this season, season three, I decided to do two. It’s just I want to try and keep my marriage somewhat intact. When we originally pitched the idea to FX four years ago, when we got the idea for 30 Days, the original concept behind the whole show is I would go off and do every single episode, which essentially means I would be gone and in some sort of a different environment, a different experience every month for six months straight, essentially. And my wife said, “You’re not going to have a wife very long if you do that.”
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HW: In the first episode one of the miners mentions McDonalds. Do you find that your fame colors the way that these folks look at you when you sort of try to blend in to the 30 Days experience?
MS: I think in the beginning they don’t kind of know what to expect. They think I’m just going to show up and do a 9 to 5 gig or just come in and do a couple shots and then leave. But I think once I come in and they see that I’m there working every day, what you don’t see is when the cameras aren’t there I’m still working in the coal mine. The days when the crew has off I’m still a coal miner; I’m still going to work. I’m still mining every single day. It doesn’t stop for me. This is their life. If it’s their life, it’s my life over the course of doing this show. And I think that when the miners and the guys that we were with saw that and they saw that I was just as invested in trying to really understand and comprehend and become a part of this then I think that they were much more open to me.
HW: With the mining accidents that have occured within the last year, was that a topic of conversation while you were there?
MS: I think everybody recognizes things could always be better, things can always be safer…Those things are moving forward every day. I think that when we were shooting our episode, when we were in the mine we were actually pillaring the mine at the exact same time, and that’s when you basically pull out the big chunks of the mine and it basically collapses behind you. When we were pillaring is when the exact same mining collapse happened in Utah…And it just wasn’t discussed; it wasn’t talked about. It was one of those things where the men go into the mine and you could feel it. It was palpable the very first day that we were in to work when these miners were trapped. Usually the miners are chatty; they’re talking, you’re in the bunkhouse getting ready to go in and then when you go in, it was silence. There was no talking on the man trip on the way in. It was very telling, I think, in a lot of ways.
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HW: What was it like living on the reservation for 30 days and what did you learn?
MS: I think, consistent contact with nature and being in the woods and just being outside of like the concrete jungle where I live in New York City, I just feel like I want to find a balance in my own life…I think that when you see these people who culturally, generationally live next door to one another and are in each other’s lives every single day, as Americans we don’t have that. If somebody gets old we put them in an old folk’s home and that’s it; that’s the end. These are people who live with one another throughout their whole lives and I think that there’s a lot I took away from that that I really want to try and just put into my daily life as I go on.
HW: What part of the daily routine while you were there was so much different fro day-to-day life in your regular life?
MS: I would get up every morning and go for a run on the reservation before sunrise, trying to beat the sun was the whole idea that the Navajo warriors used to have. And so while I don’t beat the sun every day now I still try and get up every morning and do that at least right around sunrise because it helps me focus. It helps me gain focus for the day.
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HW: Of the four episodes that you were not in this season, which one of those spoke the strongest to you emotionally?
MS: I think that there are powerful moments in all of those shows. I think the gun control – “Gun Nation” – episode is really fantastic. And I think you see Pia really go through just a real emotional journey and she’s touched by so many things. And to see her, she’s someone who’s so against firearms and against guns and fire a gun for the first time and how emotional that is for her and how overcome she is, and I think there’s a lot of power in that episode. I grew up in West Virginia and I grew up hunting as a kid, I grew up around rifles and guns my whole life. For me, I think it’s something that will speak to a lot of Americans.
HW: How do you personally feel about guns?
MS: I don’t have a problem with guns. Back in West Virginia I still own guns, back in my house there. I don’t think guns are necessarily the problem. I think that there are certain guns that, of course, I don’t know who needs a machine gun, personally. But I think rifles and things like that are fine. I think that in the wrong hand is when a gun becomes a problem.
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HW: Is there a topic that you know you will never cover?
MS: I don’t know; we’ll see. Alex says, my wife already told me that I’m not allowed to do any episodes about pornography, so she’s drawn the line in the sand.
HW: Do you plan to continue to chronicle your life with your wife Alex through the episodes if you are picked up for another season.
MS: Yes. Alex would like to say no, probably. After we did the “Minimum Wage” episode where in season one she and I learn to live on minimum wage together, she was like, “You know what? This is your deal; this isn’t mine”…And so I think that you still see how the things that I do affect her and how it affects our relationship or what we’re going through. So I don’t think she will immerse herself in one the way that she did in season one, but when we got married she knew what she was getting herself into so it’s no big surprise.
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HW: When it comes to your film projects like Super Size Me do you have a hypothesis of what’s going to happen?
MS: Some of the best advice I ever got was from a friend of mine right before we made Super Size Me. I called a filmmaker friend of mine; I’d never made a movie, never made a feature and I said, “Could you just give me some advice?” And he said, “If the movie you end up with at the end is the exact same movie you envisioned at the beginning, then you didn’t listen to anybody along the way.” That’s such good advice. And we take that advice with 30 Days and I take that advice every day with the films we make.
