Pitchfork: Let’s get onto Decline III. How were the gutter punks perceived by people in the scene who weren’t homeless?

PS : They were given a certain kind of respect because of their situation. What I found interesting is that it’s human nature to have a family, so they formed new families. They were very protective of each other and still, to this day, so many of them are just as close.

Pitchfork: By the time you made Decline III, the world wasn’t as up in arms about punk corrupting kids—but the film makes the point that they were actually corrupted by forces much closer to home.

PS: In 2013, I got my license to be a foster parent, just as a way to try and help these kids. I feel like you have to do something. My cross to bear at this point is how the mentally ill are treated in the United States. It is horrible. I’d love to do a movie on it, but you can’t because of privacy issues.

I was going to try and direct a film about mental illness once. I remember standing in Patton State Hospital for the Criminally Insane doing research and then getting on a phone there and calling my agent and saying, “Where does that movie at Paramount stand?” He said that I got the job. That was Wayne’s World. So I was either going to do a movie on the criminally insane or Wayne’s World. It was a critical turning point in my life.

Pitchfork: Do you think you might revisit that project?

PS: If I could do that documentary, I really would. The reason I’ve become so interested in it is because when I did Decline III, I met my boyfriend of 18 years. He is a wonderful person and extremely brilliant. He was homeless for 10 years before I met him and unfortunately he’s affected with schizophrenia. As brilliant as he is, he’s been in a mental hospital for a year. I have learned the ins and outs of that system and how those people are treated, and it is horrible. I’ve been struggling for about 10 days now to get him a blanket.

Pitchfork: Was that a strange dynamic to start a relationship from?

PS: There’s a 20-year difference in our age—he’s 50 now. It was pretty incredible, I guess, for him to go from totally homeless to living in a $2 million home on three acres in glamour city. But he’s truly a punk at heart and he doesn’t give a shit about all that stuff. There’s plenty of star-studded dinners that I’ve invited him to go with me to and he just won’t. He’s like, “Why would I wanna go to a fucking Bradley Cooper party?” [laughs]

Pitchfork: How did you fall for each other?

PS: While I was cutting the movie, I was driving down the street and I saw him sitting on a bus bench. I pulled up and asked if he remembered me. Turned out he had been looking for me. We had dinner one night, and he was fucking filthy, man. I thought I was just being nice and buying the guy dinner, and then when he got out of the car he kissed me! [laughs] He said, “If you ever want to see me, I hang out at Borders and I’m usually in the physics or philosophy aisle.” I was scared of him at first, but then I kept going back every day to take him to lunch. I was with him for 19 years. If you know that movie A Beautiful Mind—that’s him. He’s a genius. Unfortunately, now he’s in a mental hospital, but we’re trying to get him out.