Matt did an interview with another site, mostly rehashing the things you've already read here, but I'll post it anyway:
I had the opportunity to do a phone interview with Matt Czuchry, who is currently in Shreveport, Louisiana filming I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. They began filming the movie, based on Tucker Max's life and best-selling novel of the same name, earlier this summer and have a week left on set. Matt says he's enjoyed working on the film and a couple moments from the film have made their way into his list of the "Top 5 Weirdest Experiences" of his life.In the movie of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Matt Czuchry plays Tucker Max in an adaptation of the "Austin Road Trip" story. The film loosely follows the short story about Tucker Max's trip to a friend's bachelor party. On that trip, Tucker Max gets the groom into trouble then abandons him to pursue his own carnal pleasures. After getting banned from the wedding, Max must attempt to get back into his friend's favor.
Although both Tucker and Matt had written about how he had come to be cast in the film, many of you wanted more details. Matt says he had not read the book prior to receiving Tucker Max's screenplay, but has since gone back to read it. Matt describes the movie as following one of the short stories of the book, though structured differently with narrative written around it.
Matt described in a recent blog post that "The movies that I tend to connect with have something in common: They come from real experiences and are colored by the lives of real people." In follow up, I asked what about this story and Tucker Max attracted him to the film. Matt Czuchry says, "Tucker has this energy and a love for living in the moment. He has a rawness and authenticity about him."
Matt says it was this "energy and passion" that attracted him to the movie. Because he and Tucker Max are so different, Matt says that "just knowing what it would take to do this role" was a challenge he was eager for.
Matt says that he and Tucker share that love of the moment; that Tucker "live[s] life in a way that's honest," which is something Matt himself tries to do. Although Matt shares this characteristic with Tucker Max, the two are very different. When it comes to comparing himself to the scripted Tucker Max, the character he plays in the movie, Matt says "We're quite a bit different. How we are with friends, with women, how we treat others..."
Although Matt Czuchry initially had some reservations about the public perception of the character in the film, he had to let that go once he joined the film. Matt talked earlier about trying to make the character "redeemable and lovable", and his success in that he leaves up to the audience. "I try to make sure the character has motivations for what he does," Matt says, which he hopes will ultimately make the Tucker Max-on-film authentic and likable.
The Tucker Max character in the film draws from the real life and story of Tucker Max, but is built up with what he (Matt) brings to it as well. The Tucker-on-film does not try to emulate the real-to-life Tucker Max; the character is "a movie version of who Tucker is," says Matt.
Matt Czuchry spent the last 3 months with his acting coach and with Tucker Max trying to develop the character on film. He would spend time with Tucker asking him the "why" and the "how" questions and adding his own interpretation to that. Given that Tucker Max and Matt Czuchry differ so greatly as individuals, Matt had to put himself into a new "headspace", as he describes it. The evolution of Tucker Max-on-film came out of trying to put the character into his own life.
Matt Czuchry says that when we see the movie there will be some "wow" moments in it. Moments that made him go "wow" himself. "There will be some self-explanatory scenes where the audience goes 'wow'," Matt says, when asked about what was challenging in the film. "Scenes that are funny and scenes that are raw", Matt continues when describing these "wow" moments.
In Matt Czuchry's latest contribution to the I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell blog, he writes that "the crux of this film surrounds the friendships of three characters;" Tucker (Matt Czuchry), Drew (Jesse Bradford), and Dan (Geoff Stults). He then goes on to tell a story of a road trip the trio took to New Orleans; it's clear to me that these actors have bonded in real life. When asked how important friendship is to this movie, Matt replies "It's essential. You need to believe that 3 friends (myself, Jesse and Geoff) have been friends for a long time." Matt says that this friendship is essential to believe in their story. I believe that if any portion of the friendship evident between these three makes it on screen that I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell will be a success with the audience.
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell will be released in Spring of 2009. Meanwhile, Matt Czuchry will be heading to Germany and Belgium on September 19 for ten days for the USO Tour with the Hollywood Knights.
Comment and discuss
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Sorry I haven't posted for two days, but I am just bone tired.
We have one week of shooting left. Five days, twelve hours a day, 60 more hours of shooting, ending at 6am on Saturday morning (Friday night is an all night shoot) and this movie is wrapped, and I head back to LA.
By the end of this week, I will write a long post detailing my final thoughts in the time we've spent in Shreveport. As for now, I am going to sleep and getting ready to finish our last week strong. Lots more pics and videos coming this week, we are just way behind with blog stuff.
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The crux of this film surrounds the friendships of three characters; Tucker (Me), Drew (Jesse), and Dan (Geoff). Our work as actors is to inhabit these characters and understand the history of their friendship. In order for this movie to connect with the audience and be believable, interesting, and entertaining, the relationships between these characters must be truthful on screen.
As actors, there are many different processes, techniques, and styles of work that help in inhabiting a character and understanding the imaginary relationships created in the screenplay. Each actor has their own approach that allows them to bring the character from a two-dimensional thing on a piece of paper, to a three-dimensional living and breathing character on screen. The movies that I tend to connect with have something in common: They come from real experiences and are colored by the lives of real people. That means the best movies translate pieces of your life and imagination to the screen. In that spirit... I provide you with the following:
The Shreveport to New Orleans Road Trip
Characters: Matt Czuchry, Jesse Bradford, and Geoff Stults
Occurred ---August 2nd-3rd
Written---August 13th
10:17 a.m. A slow leak in our crap rental car's left front tire causes us to stop many times before even leaving Shreveport. We proceed to go to 5 gas stations in the city, and each air station is broken. We decide to travel precariously towards our 5-hour away destination of New Orleans, despite the danger. The tire was seriously low.... like almost on the rim.
10:45: We stop at the most podunk, ghetto-ass gas station we've ever seen, and finally come across a working air station. The tire is so low it's basically not reading anything on the gauge. The air station was at least 30 years old...... but it worked.
11:46: Geoff recounts the following story about one of his previous trips to New Orleans: "I was wasted, pissing in a beer bottle on the side of the street. The cops ran up to me. As they ran over, I made a desperate move, and put the bottle to my mouth and pretended it was a beer. As my own warm piss hit my face, the cops asked me if I was pissing on the street. I said no. They looked on the ground and saw no piss. The cops didn't look in the bottle, assumed it was beer, and I escaped certain arrest."
2:12 p.m: A private conversation with Jesse and Matt regarding a few long-time friendships we each have in our lives, and how grateful we are for each of them. Matt drives to New Orleans, Jesse is in the passenger seat, and Geoff is on his phone in the back talking to his girlfriend and telling us that we're both gay.
5:18: Arrival in the Big Easy. Matt and Jesse play guitar together (Jesse is amazing) before going out to Bourbon Street. Matt cuts his finger and bleeds all over the guitar and his white shirt. Jesse's friend "Rachel" cleans Matt's white shirt with some magic, voodoo New Orleans juice, and the shirt is as good as new.
5:56: "Rachel's" boyfriend "Tim" tells stories of when he was in the Coast Guard and how he rescued people from their homes during Katrina. Quote from "Tim," "streets became rivers, cars were underwater, and the bumps we hit on the water in our boats were the windshields of cars."
7:05: Walking the streets of New Orleans and experiencing the people, the Spanish Moss, the magic and energy of the city. I comment on this, Jesse agrees, and Geoff tells us we're gay.
9:12 p.m. Text message exchange between Matt and Tucker Max:
Tucker: What are you guys doing tonight?
Matt: We drove to New Orleans this morning (5 hours away from Shreveport).
Tucker: Bullshit.
Matt: Nope.
Tucker: You know you have rehearsal for the movie tomorrow night.
Matt: Yup.
Tucker: Hahahahahaha. Awesome!
Matt: Yeah, it's pretty great.
9:58: Matt, Jesse, Geoff, all drinking Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's. It is the worst drink ever concocted, but we finish them anyway so that no one thinks another is a pussy.
10:40: Matt, with Hurricane in hand at Pat O'Brien's, leans over to Geoff and says, "these are the kind of experiences life is all about." Geoff agrees, and then calls him gay.
11:52: Matt recounts a BRUNO television episode with Geoff, on Bourbon Street. People stare as Matt yells, as BRUNO character, "I am BRUNO and it's great to be GAY!" Geoff pretends he doesn't know us.
1:00 a.m: Matt, Jesse, and Geoff drinking Hand Grenade drinks at Tropical Isle, all of us getting plastic Hand Grenade's in the bottom of each glass.
1:45 a.m. Jesse's awesome friend "Rachel" sings on stage and the crowd goes wild at Tropical Isle.
2:17 a.m. Matt leaves a phone message for Jesse explaining why he got separated from the group, "Yo. I just spent the last fuckin five minutes on Bourbon St, trying to put a fuckin plastic hand grenade around my necklace. Hey!! Here they are! Put it on the blog....... this is Geoff."
(Note from Jesse, who saved the message and dictated it to me verbatim: "The funniest part about this, to me, is that you tried to pass it off on Geoff. Nice try.")
3:07 a.m. Random guy with this amazing Cajun accent talks to all of us. We can understand like every 3rd word, but the guy's accent is incredible, so we think the guy is the coolest ever, even though he was probably making fun of us.
3:25 a.m. As we enter strip club, Matt receives a text message from a friend in St. Louis, "Don't call the strippers whores in New Orleans or tell the bouncers to go fuck themselves, they don't like that very much there."
3:37 a.m. Matt buys drinks for two random guys at the Strip Club and instead of making a gay joke, Geoff says "if you ever do that again, I will punch you in the face." He is serious.
4:00 a.m. Eating Gyros on Bourbon Street (better than the ones I had in Greece). We all get recognized by a group of girls, they can't place us, we tell them that they must recognize us from our gay porn work. The girls stop, think for a second, then say, "No that's not it, damn it, where do I know you guys from?"
4:30 a.m. The cab ride from Bourbon Street to our hotel with Matt, Jesse, Geoff, "Rachel," "Tim," and "Amy." We all talk drunken politics and "Amy" claims that Barack Obama quote, "LOVES ABORTIONS!" Jesse tries to reason with her, but gives up and finally says sarcastically, "I LOVE ABORTIONS TOO! DOES ANYONE NEED ONE? I'LL DO IT WITH MY FUCKING THUMB RIGHT NOW!!"
5:30 p.m. SUNDAY. Arriving home from the crazy road trip, exhausted, hung over, each of us now connected more than ever, full of amazing experiences, to find out... our rehearsal in the evening for the movie has been canceled!!!
FUCK, THIS MOVIE IS GOING TO BE AWESOME!
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Being a narcissist, I usually don't think much about how I affect other peoples lives. It's not as a matter of malice, it's just that it doesn't occur to me. That's why I found this article about how our movie affected the life of someone not associated with it so interesting. A lot of this stuff, I didn't even know:
A Broadmoor resident walked into her home last Tuesday and wondered where she was.A strange, colorful couch was in her living room, decorations were missing and her walls were green. But the homeowner didn't panic. And she wasn't frightened by the dozens of strangers walking about.
It's simply all in a day's work, and Theresa Bryant's home is the location. Last week, Bryant gave up her home on Archer Avenue to crews for the filming of the upcoming movie "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell," based on the bestselling book by Tucker Max. And she's enjoyed every minute of it.
Bryant's romance with the movie industry began one day at the end of June.
"I came home and got my mail, and I saw a calling card and it said, 'I hope they serve beer in hell,'" Bryant said.
After calling the number listed, Bryant found out her home had been selected as the ideal location for the home of one of the characters, a bohemian single mom with a small boy. Russell Strickland, locations manager, told Bryant he liked the outside of her home.
"He said it just looked like a happy home and like a place with a mother and child," Bryant said.
Next came a visit from Strickland, who toured the inside of Bryant's home and told her the background of the movie.
"Then they began setting up," she said. "I never realized so much is involved. When you look at TV shows and movies, you never really think about what's in the background. They bring that stuff in."
Bryant, whose home was full of antiques, said crews arrived and cleared out all of her furniture before they began transforming her home into that of the character.
"When they came the first time, they took pictures of everything. They note everything, take pictures of everything and everything is wrapped in bubble wrap and labeled," Bryant said.
But Bryant, who's lived at her address for about half a year, said it only took eight days total to set up, including the time it took to move her things out.
"There's a ton of people," she said. "It's like, where were you five months ago? It took me three months to find (the house) and three months to unpack."
As far as the horror stories of movie crews trashing houses, Bryant said that's hardly been her experience.
"The people are wonderful. They don't use the homeowner's things. They don't use your air conditioning. They use generators. They went out of their way to make sure I wasn't inconvenienced," Bryant said. "They're just as kind as can be."
In addition to the kindness of crew members, Bryant is also getting a few bonuses out of the deal. Her hardwood floors were redone and bland walls painted.
Before filming, Bryant's walls were stark white. Now there's various hues of green throughout her home. When asked whether she wanted to keep her new wall colors or choose another, Bryant's answer was clear.
"My walls are lime green," she said. "The very last wall of the kitchen is pear green. It's just as bad. I said never again. I'll never have green again," Bryant said. "So I get a new paint job and I thought, 'Wow, this is exciting."
In the end, Bryant chose malted milk, a taupe color, for the living room and peanut shell, a light gold, to accent her kitchen.
Quiet on the setFilming at Bryant's home began at 5 a.m. Aug. 11 and was scheduled to wrap up after only a couple of days. During the week, no calls came through, as phone lines were cut. Bryant's bedroom was filled with cameras and equipment, cardboard lined her floors, her middle bedroom served as the character's bedroom and children's toys were strewn about.
Bryant was given the option to stick around during filming but opted out.
"I said, 'Honey, my life's too busy for that. I don't have kids, and it's summer. So I can stay at my parents'."
Bryant, though temporarily displaced, did not have trouble being away from her home. She was happy to spend the time with her parents. And shooting didn't conflict with Bryant's active role as grandmother, baby sitting her granddaughters, 2-year-old Emma Grace and 10-month-old Maggie Elizabeth Krefft, during the school year when their mother returns to teaching.
"I don't think I could do it for three months, but it didn't hinder anything," Bryant said. "And I'm glad it happened during the summer so it wouldn't disturb the environment the girls are used to."
Filming was scheduled to wrap up by the end of the week, just in time for Bryant to return to baby sitting without having to be away from home.
After the cameras, crewsOnce filming wrapped up, Bryant said everything was brought back in and returned to normal. And for Bryant, life too has returned to normal.
Yet, now she has her memories of meeting a movie set designer, best-selling author, director, other crew members and security guards, who Bryant happily treated to home-cooked breakfasts and dinners.
"The people are so nice. They're really professional. They're just working people like you and me. They're job is just lighting or set design for a movie," she said.
But it was more than hospitality to Bryant. To her, the industry is a great boost to the area by providing jobs and supporting the local economy.
"I don't want the industry to think we're bad people. I want them to stay."
Though happy to have her home back, Bryant enjoyed her rendezvous with the movie industry.
"It's been fun," Bryant said. "It's been an adventure."
This part stood out to me:
"Yet, now she has her memories of meeting a movie set designer, best-selling author, director, other crew members and security guards, who Bryant happily treated to home-cooked breakfasts and dinners."
Yes, the people in Shreveport are indeed so nice that they cook and bake for us.
The location this article is referring to is where we shot on Day 16 and 17. The pics are on the Flickr account.
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So, this entry was apparently very popular with people. I had more email about that than anything I have written. Fuck all of you ungrateful assholes.
Seriously though, the verbal sarcasm and bitterness battle did not stop on that last post, it carried into the comments thread, where Real SlingBlade and Fake SlingBlade squared off for round two. I am pulling it out and reprinting it here:
Real SlingBlade:
Tucker said: "Don't believe SlingBlade's bullshit about how this isn't the "real" him."I love when Tucker tries to describe how other people think or feel. Tucker is a narcissist and a sociopath. By definition he is incapable of understanding human emotion or feeling empathy. Does anyone ask John Wayne Gacy to describe how someone feels?
Therapist - "So John Wayne, what is that guy thinking"
John Wayne Gacy - "Him thinks that it would be nice to be eating a bunny and then be using feces to paint."
Ummm, no John Wayne. That, in fact, is not what he is thinking. Thank you though.
Sociopaths turn into serial killers due to childhood trauma, and luckily Tucker only had a divorce to deal with instead of a "special Uncle" so we get 'misogynist likes to bang malformed girls Tucker' instead of 'cross-country prostitute killing spree Tucker.' How lucky for our nations prostitutes.
Back to talking about me: I am only good at making sarcastic comments. If you give me something to talk about I can go on for days, but when I have to come up with a topic it takes a while. So I have to stare at a screen for a while until I come up with a theme I can use as a framework to tell jokes around and then I bang away at the keyboard like some kind of retarded stenographer before pushing the computer away. No real editing. If I were, and I hate the use this term to describe Tucker, a professional, then I would go back and edit. For example rereading the above I would add (and this is a true story):
"was going to find Tucker filming himself masturbating with an 8 mm camera in a dark apartment."
Kind of like the time he promised to show me and Hate a naked picture of a hot girl he was fucking and the picture turned out to be a picture of his penis resting near to what may or may not have been a female's thigh. And then Tucker insisted his penis was only in the shot for "perspective" and not as some trial balloon he was floating to see how interested I or Hate may have been in his penis.
Actually reading Tucker's post I think he changed the start of the last paragraph from "Actually," (real thoughts about the movie) to "For real though," (real thoughts). That's awesome work Tucker. For real though, I sound like I watch The Hills now. Why didn't you add "I liked it fo' sho" at the end of the paragraph too you douche bag.
I saw that Jesse wrote this at the end of his little screed: "By the way, it was truly a pleasure to meet you, man..."
I knew it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)
We're going to best friends, forever and ever ... bee dee beep bah dah dooooooooo, I hope you feel the same way too. Hee hee. You make me feel like singing, BFF Jesse. When you wrap I have some great ideas to run by you. I think we should have a show on the Food Network where we travel around the U.S. and stay in a hotel room with one bed and go town to town tasting new foods. We could call ourselves the Foodie Blues. Get it - like the Moody Blues (best band ever). Of course you get it. Gosh, we're so much alike. Kind of like when you were doing character research and you said "What irritates you most about women?" and I said "When they try to escape from my basement." Underneath that mask of revulsion I could tell you understood. ;/\ )
I'm tempted to get a Facebook account, or at least a legit one where I'm not posing as a 14 year old Fillipino girl, so that you can be my bestest and only friend on it.
As soon as they upload the digital stills from the set I'm going to start a scrapbook of the times we shared. I'll title it either "Me and Jesse" or "You better start returning my phone calls or your Agent is going to have real hard time locating you if you catch my drift."
Here is Fake SlingBlade's response:
OOOHHH look at me!!I'm the "real" SlingBlade!! (Insert horrifically offensive/misanthropic epithet here)
OHHH everybody loves me!!!
WAAAH I didn't think Jesse Bradford was going to pull this off, but now that I see that he, too, can be a maladjusted train-wreck I believe in him!!! WAAAAH!!!
Couple things:
1. I don't have a Facebook. Or a Myspace. The only time you'll see me on those social-retard networking sites is when some even greater social-retard (i believe Nietzsche called them the Uber-soc-tard) makes a page PRETENDING to be me. So beware: if you attempt to communicate with me through this means, it may in fact be a 14 year old Filipino girl...... cause that's how I roll. (On that note: I am now contemplating starting up a Myspace AND a Facebook as YOU. I have trouble attracting lonely, social rejects, who spend all day eating McGriddles in front of their computer, and this action on my part would surely help fill that void in my soul.)
2. Did I not offer to help you retrieve those errant basement escapees!? Not to mention; ix-nay on the asement-bay ungeon-day oject-pray!!!!! Jeeeeez...... apparently no good deed goes unpunished.....
3. The food show idea sounds good. I'm going to steal it and do it with Mario Lopez. We've been looking for a project to do together. But if he falls through, or his schedule doesn't permit, I'll come back to you. After I've already tried Verne Troyer, Kirk Cameron, The Smothers Brothers, The Miz from Real World, Shane West, Shaka Kahn, Emo Phillips, Simon Rex, Carney Wilson, the Monkey from Friends, and Jan Michael Vincent's corpse......... is he dead? Doesn't matter.....
Love, your new BFF,
Jesse
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This is not an action movie by any stretch, but we still have about 3-4 stunts, so we have a stunt coordinator and three stunt people on crew (two men and one woman). This is an interview with the stunt coordinator, Steve Ritzi:
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So my buddy SlingBlade, the guy that the Drew character is based on, came to set yesterday to check it out. Here are his thoughts:
"All in all I was fairly surprised. First of all I assumed this movie production didn't even really exist and I was going to find Tucker filming himself masturbating with an 8 mm camera in a dark apartment. Instead there is an honest to goodness movie being made. Tucker actually tricked people into ponying up cash for the sole purpose of Tucker self-aggrandizing his penis-centric lies on the big screen. Also there's some Serbian guy on set who I'm pretty sure has killed people. Its like the land of broken toys around here.
Second of all I was surprised by how incapable Jesse Bradford was of capturing all of the nuance inherent in my character. Watching this "actor" try to play me was like watching a monkey try to fuck a football. I'm sure that shit he was trying to pass off as acting was OK for Clockstoppers, but this is the big show. Here's what I failed to see: The tenderness, the vulnerability. All of the things that make me special. No offense, but this isn't Tucker's role, where you spend two minutes contemplating mommy going bye-bye and then think of clever ways to get underage girls from broken homes to consent to acts of sexual deviancy to make yourself whole again. Slingblade has rejected a society that he has measured and found wanting. No one can meet his standards, standards of perfection that only he himself is capable of reaching. Instead Jesse is wandering around yelling at people like he just got kicked in the junk. Its like amateur hour. There is a big difference between "whore" and "WHORE."
Finally I'm a little upset I wasn't invited to be here while the strip club scene was being filmed. I could have stood around and gotten ignored by a bunch of hot girls. It would have been like high school all over again.
For real though, I was on set briefly and saw one scene where Tucker/Slingblade interact and I thought the actors did a really good job of capturing the essence of the reality. Matt emulated the kind of self-congratulatory way Tucker has of telling a joke and then mentally slapping himself on the back while laughing to himself and forgetting anyone else is in the room as he floats in an internal narcissistic reverie. And Jesse was good at the kind of exasperated sarcastic way I have of dealing with the constant stream of obnoxious stupidity that comes out of Tucker's mouth. Although he's playing me as more of the message board angrier version of me which is actually probably funnier than the real me, but then again the circumstances of the plot kind of dictate him being in that place and I'm sure Tucker's seen me act that way when I've been in that place. It looks really good though, for real.
In conclusion, fuck Tucker. This movie will be a success because I am involved, even in an abstract way."
Don't believe SlingBlade's bullshit about how this isn't the "real" him. He is married now and has a job he likes. How soon he forgets what he was like at 24, when he hated law school, his life, and pretty much everything else on earth.
I sent this to Jesse Bradford to get his take, and he responded as such:
"Dear WannabeFakeSlingBlade,
How dare you...
How dare you sling venomous hate at my attempts to sling venomous hate!
How dare you belittle me in my attempts to belittle people!
How dare you call into question my ability to live up to standards that you yourself proclaim to be un-live-up-to-able!!
HOW DARE YOU!!!!
If I had my Clockstoppers watch, I would stop time long enough to seed your precious front lawn with Musk Thistle, Russian Knapweed, and Leafy Spurge, gently water these pests until they grow big and strong, place you in the middle of your driveway, shove that monkey AND that football up your ass, and re-activate time just to watch your fucking head spin around like Linda Blaire. And I'd round up a bunch of whores (pardon me, I mean "WHORES") to bear witness and ridicule your infant-like tears! Goddamn, I wish I still had that fucking watch...
And for your information, the day we met I had actually JUST been kicked in the balls several times RIGHT before. So ex-fucking-scuse me for seeming a little ball-kicked at the time.
By the way, it was truly a pleasure to meet you, man..."
Two peas in a pod, those two. As different as Matt and I are in real life, Jesse and SlingBlade are that similar in real life. If SlingBlade had friends, Jesse would probably be one. I should have taken video as SlingBlade watched the scenes--it was the closest I've ever seen him get to a positive emotion.
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We have already had a good number of cameos, and have a few more coming, but I think this'll end up as my favorite:
In case you don't know, that's Mac Danzig (winner of The Ultimate Fighter 6) and Forrest Griffin (current UFC champ at 205lbs). I can't show their scene for obvious reasons, but both Mac and Forrest did an amazing job and were awesome on set.
I know that after TUF 6 people were down on Mac because the show made him out to be a dick, but in my experience with him, he couldn't be a nicer or cooler guy. And I don't just say that because he can kick my ass. And of course Forrest is exactly like he seems on TV--just a solid guy. I would have their backs anytime, not to mention the fact they did a really good job with their roles.
The MMA blog Five Ounces of Pain has more pics here.
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Sometimes, I think Gawker is my only friend left.
They are the only ones helping me maintain my asshole image, while everyone else keeps talking bullshit about what a nice guy I am, like this reporter, this photographer, this pick-up artist, this crippled kid, and this porn star.
Fuck those people. Gawker has it right:
I'm a rapey, fratty asshole and don't let anyone--regardless of the fact that they actually spent time with me--convince you of anything different.
EDIT: Almost forgot, more pics from filming and hanging out.
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Some people have an image of me that I am a rich, trust fund kid or something like that, and it makes me laugh. I always ask them to tell me where that trust fund is so I can make a withdrawal, because I have yet to see a dime from it.
From a few weeks after my 15th birthday on, I have pretty much had a job constantly, and most of those jobs have been physically intensive. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I mucked horse stalls. I mean that literally--every day from 6am to 2pm, I shoveled piss and shit soaked hay out of the stalls of thoroughbred horses, and then laid fresh hay. I spent one summer washing dishes, and the next busing tables. I've spent countless hours working all sorts of jobs on farms--putting up fences, painting fences, worming cattle, cutting hay, gelding steers (cutting the balls off of young male bulls--not kidding at all), etc, etc.
Now that I sit down and think about it, I may have worked more blue collar than white collar jobs in my life--probably because I get fired from the white collar jobs pretty quickly (e.g., this little situation).
That's been one of the strangest things for me to deal with on this movie--I am not just one of the people in charge, but I am solidly white collar now. In fact, I couldn't even be blue collar if I tried. The below the line jobs on movies tend to be very physically intense and hard, but they are still very much skilled labor. Any idiot can paint a fence, but you need a lot of training to move a camera dolly or set up hot stinger.
I watch these dudes busting their ass moving equipment or something, and my first instinct is to go help them--after all, what kind of leader sits back and watches while his people toil? Well, I kinda have to; I can't help them because I would only get in the way. For at least 90% of the jobs on a movie set, some sort of specialized skill or local knowledge is necessary, and if I tried to do those jobs without first taking months to learn them, the result would be pretty obvious: I would fuck shit up.
Even though there is nothing I can do, even though by "helping" I'd just fuck something up and make more work for all of us, I still feel like an asshole for watching all these people bust their ass doing all this hard work for my movie, while I sit back and do nothing but eat craft service and have pansy-ass creative conversations about how far the shades should be drawn in a hotel room or what kind of phone Movie Tucker should have.
I guess that's the point though. They bust their ass in each of their respective jobs--whether it's props or sound or camera or lighting or whatever--so that Nils and Bob and I can have the time and energy to have those conversations, because it's those conversations that make the movie what it is. At the end of the day, the point of a movie is to entertain the audience. Nothing else really matters. If the movie sucks, no one will give a fuck how much the producers helped move c-stands (not that I could even do that correctly), so it's our job to make sure we do our job.
I wrote about this because I had this conversation with one of the grips last week about how I felt guilty for not doing any of the manual labor. He told me I was stupid for thinking that, and that I needed to let him focus on his job and not worry about it, that I needed to get my job right so that the movie was what it was supposed to be.
Then he told me if I wanted to do some physical labor, I could come mow his lawn on Saturday. I told him to shut his below-the-line mouth and go move something in the hot sun, I had an iced yerba mate tea to drink.
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There are plenty of people out there who think they know what's going on with the set of the movie, and I have yet to read one who isn't lying and making things up from whole cloth. But over the next few weeks I will link pieces written by people who ACTUALLY visited the set, hung out with the actors, talked to the crew, etc. Some will be friends of mine, some will be reporters (a few places are sending people, and some have already come and gone), and some will be people who were there when I wasn't even on set.
I am printing the first one below. Like the guy said, I don't know him, and I barely even know what he does for a living--I let him come onto set because we have a mutual friend who vouched for him (I don't even think Tynan knows I checked him out with this person). My buddy said he was a good guy, and that was enough for me. I do remember him coming to set but I hardly remember talking to him at all--it was this day that he showed up and like he said I was super busy--and I don't remember being as nice to the guy as he says I was, but whatever, this is his account of his visit to the set of I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL:
"I wandered onto the total chaos of the movie set. People were running around everywhere adjusting things and looking for people. Tucker walked by me without even noticing that I was there, focused on yelling at someone in front of him.
"Hey... I'm Tynan."
"Oh hey - good to meet you. Come on in."
I followed him as he breezed into the building. The inside was even more packed with people. Everyone was doing something.
For the next hour or two I watched as they filmed one of the final scenes in the movie. It was an awesome sight.
Maybe I caught him on an off day, but Tucker wasn't an asshole at all. When his attention wasn't required somewhere on set, which was about half the time, he'd stand next to me and explain what was going on. Since all of this stuff was new to him too he was able to explain it all clearly in layman terms.
Here are some of the interesting things I learned, some of which may be applicable to all movies, and some of which may be unique to Tucker's movie. I have no frame of reference, so take all that with a grain of salt.
-Very little is shot in any given day. They were shooting ONE scene all day. They just keep redoing it from different angles, focusing on different people, with slightly different timing, with an moving camera instead of the main actor, etc.
-Scenes are shot totally out of order, based on availability of actors, locations, and a number of other factors.
-I now understand why acting is hard. In the scene you are reacting to past events that you've never actually shot, AND you have to do it the same way with the right emotions fifty times in a day. It's not all glitz and glamor - these guys are working.
-There is insane attention being paid to every detail. One woman was taking pictures of everyone's hair so that if they needed to reshoot a scene later the hair would be exactly the same. Another person's job was to watch the scenes as they were filmed and watch for continuity.
-The atmosphere was way more collaborative than expected. Most decisions had several people offering input, including actors.
-There was a lot of genuine camaraderie on the set. Not the forced I'm-working-with-you-so-I'll-be-polite sort of thing, but more of a I'm-going-to-smash-this-prop-cake-in-your-face-when-we-wrap sort of vibe. In fact, Tucker seemed more concerned that the cake smash was caught on camera than many other aspects of the movie.
-This may have been influenced by what I'd read beforehand, but I definitely felt like everyone there was really thrilled to be working on the project and was proud of the job they were doing. Even a couple extras I talked to seemed to take a lot of pride in the whole thing. Maybe this happens on all movies, but I suspect it doesn't.
I had a great time visiting the set and have nothing but good things to say about Tucker, Jeff the AP, and everyone else I met.
They were filming one of the last scenes of the movie when I was there, even though it was the third day of filming. I can't talk about the content of the scene, but it leads up to what is probably the last scene of the movie. The buildup seems very typical Hollywood, but I have a hunch that it's actually going to be something totally unexpected.
I was tempted to ask, but why ruin the surprise? I'll see the movie as soon as it comes out."
Entire piece posted here, on his blog.
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This is a pretty interesting video with the locations manager, about what he does for his job and some of his experiences on other movies. But even if you don't care about the topic, forward to the 3:20 mark. I laugh out loud every time I see that scene with Russell:
I know this video is going to seem put on, but it's not. The still photographer on the movie really is just that weird.
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One of the big things everyone has bugged me about is the strip club scene, and if there is going to be nudity in the movie. I wrote about this already, and so did Nils. You can read all that or I can summarize for you this way:
This movie will have lots of hot girls and a ton of nudity.
As a prelude to this, we did an interview about casting the strip club scene and with some of the girls in the scene. Note:
-I had all of them wear a shirt or something to conceal their clothes. No outfit spoilers.
-These are just a representative sample of the strippers in the strip club. We had over 25 girls in that scene, and all were hot. Like Ryan said, they were all selected by me.
-TRUST ME--you want to watch this video until the end. The last interview is a special treat.
EDIT: Because people are asking, the two porn stars at the end are Puma Swede [NSFW] and Veronika Rayne [SFW]. Their scene is...awesome. I'll leave it at that.
I have heard all kinds of people say all kinds of things about porn stars, but this is my first time working with any, and I will just say this: Veronika and Puma could not have been any more professional or capable. They were fun to have on set, took direction perfectly, always hit their marks, and just did a fantastic job. Did I mention that they walked around topless ALL DAY? That was nice too.
I know what the first question in everyone's mind is, and no, it didn't happen. I don't know how we did it, but we found the only two porn stars who are married and don't cheat (they don't consider fucking in a porn movie cheating, but sadly we weren't making a porn).
Let me just say the supreme irony of this was not lost on anyone. Lesson learned, next time we will cast sluttier porn stars.
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This is a pretty interesting crew video about the steadicam operator and the best boy electric.
The steadicam rig is really cool. If you are like me, you probably vaguely remember seeing it somewhere else in a movie. I stared at it for a whole day until it hit me: It's the rig the Colonial Marines used in ALIENS, one of my favorite movies:
And yes, the handicapped kid in the background of the video is my buddy, HotWheelz, and he has a blog here. He'll probably write about his experiences on set at some point, I'll make sure to link it when he does.
This is another crew interview video, of the extras casting director and a Set PA:
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Sorry I haven't posted for a day or so, but this week we are shooting the strip club scene, and it is ridiculously hectic. Lots of extras, lots of moving parts, lots of scenes to cover. I am not complaining, it's just a lot of work. [On a side note--sorry, but no pics this week at all, for reasons that should be obvious. Don't worry though, what you see on film will make up for it.]
So of course, this is the week that a tempest in a tea pot scandal breaks out over the movie. Here's what happened:
Some random person who says they are a script reader got hold of a (recent) copy of the script, and posted a review. I won't link to it because it has spoilers in it (you can find the link pretty easily if you look), but, to summarize, she shit all over it. Here are some relevant excerpts that don't include spoilers:
"Tucker Max is an asshole but the kind of asshole that all of his asshole friends love because his antics distract them from the thinning hair and gentle mediocrity that characterize their post-college years.
...
Most Tucker Max stories involve him doing or saying crazy/offensive things, getting into trouble for them, and then going home with one of those girls who, when a guy says something sort of awful to her, hits him on the shoulder and says "you asshole" but also smiles and sticks to him like glue for the rest of the night.
...
Invariably in Tucker's stories, someone gets pissed off and says his jokes aren't funny, and if that someone is a woman, she's dismissed as ugly and/or fat and therefore too bitter and angry to get the joke, while if that someone is a man, he's dismissed as being a meathead and therefore not cool or smart enough to get the joke. If you are confused by this last, let me clear it up for you: Tucker Max is unaware that he is the definition of a hazey, rapey, fratty meathead."
The whole post is just that same sentiment, repeated over and over again. It's not really even a script review, it's just a piece of naked contempt and disdain, thinly veiled as a script review. When someone doesn't critique your work, but instead just hurls scattered vitriol, it always makes me wonder: What is she so angry about?
Then I looked at her bio, and it all made sense. From her own site:
"Cecelia has worked as a story analyst in the film industry since practically the day she arrived in Los Angeles almost eight years ago, and in that time has worked for a number of LA-based companies and read an estimated 4-5000 scripts, books and plays."
If you don't know anything about Hollywood, that might sound impressive, in fact, it might even make you think she's something of an expert. But that's not what it says. Let me translate that for you:
Script reader is almost the lowest level of existence in Hollywood; it might be above personal assistant, but it's not above working in the mailroom. Bragging about having read 5000 scripts is like bragging that you've been working the overnight shift at Waffle House for a decade. It means you are so bad at your job, you can't advance. To have read 5000 scripts and never become an executive, a producer, or even ANY position above script reader is an almost breathtaking failure (of course, if you want to understand why she can't get above an entry level position, just read her writing, the answer is right there).
I have always believed in getting the most honest feedback possible from people, and respecting the judgment of those who have accomplished what you are trying to do. If you are a rookie, listen to the veterans. In that vein, when I showed the first draft of the script--a draft that Nils and I were pretty proud of--to David Zuckerman, and he came back with some pretty substantial notes, at first Nils and I balked. But then we looked at them again and realized that not only was he one of the best writers in Hollywood and we were lucky that he was even talking to us, but he was right. So Nils and I swallowed our pride and took his feedback and guess what? It made the script much better. That set of notes is what made the script great, and that set of notes is what got the movie made. We learned how to win by listening to a winner.
There are two sides to that coin, though. The reverse side is that, generally speaking, you should NOT take advice or counsel from those who have FAILED in your field. If your thoughts and instincts line up with those who are winners, you are probably on the right course. If your thoughts and instincts line up with those who are losers, you might want to reevaluate your position. Losers are usually losers for a reason.
Yeah, it was great to hear big time, established artists like David Zuckerman and Richard Kelly (and tons of others, but I've name-dropped enough) lavish praise on our script. But in its own way, it's just as good that some random who can't get above an entry level position, and a website whose book couldn't even sell 1000 copies, doesn't think my script is very good. When a loser thinks you're on the right path, then it's time to worry.
[For comparison, my book just passed 400k copies sold. You can check it out on BookScan. And almost three years after its release, it's the highest it has ever been on the NY Times Best Seller List.]
Ultimately, the movie will only be judged on how well it does in the market place, and that's how it should be. But until then, here is another take on this issue by David Cohen at Variety (warning, he quotes a spoiler, but I loved his last line too much to not link this piece).
I'm back to the strip club shooting (which I will write about extensively when it's done). We have some more video interviews going up this week, but my posts will probably be sporadic until Saturdayish.
EDIT: So there has been even more press since I put this post up. If this is your first time here, welcome. There is nothing I like more than attention, so please, look around.
I have to admit, I love this scenario so much--it is 8-14 months away from the movie being released, and everyone is talking about it. This is so awesome. That's the best part of being controversial--you can spend a tenth of what something vanilla has to spend, and get the same results. God bless everyone who hates me, they draw more attention to me than I do to myself.
EDIT #2: Radar got another response from me about all of this, posted here.
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