Well, after a long and arduous search, we found the guy who is going to play me: Matt Czuchry.
Quite frankly, I could not be more happy with Matt Czuchry; as an actor to play me, as an employee to work for me, as an artist to collaborate with, and just as a person to be around. I am not sure I could have devised a better person to fit all those roles than the actual person that Matt Czuchry is.
I can talk all day about how good of an actor Matt is, but you can just read what Bunny and Corman said about him playing me, or check out the clips for yourself and see (pay special attention to his range, it gives you a good indication of his amazing ability):
Gilmore Girls
The Practice
Veronica Mars
Slap Her She's French
[I would put up a clip of him on Friday Night Lights, but NBC are fucking idiots and send takedown notices to everywhere that hosts them]
You can his see his previous acting for yourself--and trust me, he NAILED playing me--so I am going to tell you a little bit about Matt as a person, stuff beyond what you can see on YouTube or read about in THR.
The night before auditions began, I was over at some girls place and we were watching Gilmore Girls reruns between fuck sessions. She kept pointing out this blond haired guy, telling me I should cast him as me. He looked vaguely familiar to me, but I didn't really pay attention; I just rolled over and put it in her again.
Well, irony of ironies, I get to Joseph Middleton's office the next day and who do I see on the schedule? The same blond guy I was watching last night, Matt Czuchry. I still have the casting sheet. Why?
Because the motherfucker didn't show up.
I literally kept the sheet because I wanted to remember this actor that thought he could just blow me off. I calmed down eventually, especially after Joseph said that things like that always happen, and it was no big deal, but deep down, I didn't forget.
Then after months of trying and failing to find Tucker, Joseph personally called Matt and asked him to come in and read. Matt wouldn't do it, but agreed to take a meeting with me and feel the situation out. This dude wasn't doing shit since his show got canceled, who the fuck was he to tell me I had do a meeting?
Whatever, I swallowed my pride and remembered the policy Aaron Ray and Max Wong have always hammered into me: Take every meeting, because you never know what's going to happen.
I drove down to Hermosa Beach with Bunny, and literally the first thing I said to him was:
"So, you're too good to read for me?"
I was kidding with him (sort of), and Matt profusely apologized, and explained what happened. Basically, even though he really liked the script, he said the Tucker character could be done two ways; one where Tucker is Tucker, but still ultimately redeemable and you love him (the way we are doing it), or another way where Tucker is just a fucking asshole and a douche. He was worried that we were going to do the script the second way, and he didn't want to be in a movie like that. Pretty reasonable position, actually.
I spent the next hour talking about my vision for the movie and the character, until he finally stopped me:
"I knew as soon as I met you that you had the right energy and you'd do the movie the right way. Of course I'll come read for it. I just wasn't sure before."
Like I wrote before, he came in and nailed it. Blew everyone else out of the water.
Two nights later I went over to the girls house who originally suggested Matt and told her that he got the part. Like all women seem to be, she is a huge Logan Huntsberger fan and freaked the fuck out. That's all she would talk about, Matt Czuchry, how good he would be as me, how amazing he was, what a great actor he was, how he shits diamonds and pisses gold. To the point where I couldn't take it anymore:
Tucker "Who do you want to fuck, me or him?"
Girl "Well...do you have his number?"
She said it half-jokingly, but I got up and left. FUCK HER!!!
This is going to be a problem for me, I can already feel it. Matt is going to do such a good job, he'll probably end up being a "better" Tucker Max in this movie than I am in real life. People are going to either know Tucker Max as him, or they will meet me and be upset that I'm not as "Tucker" in real life as Czuchry is in the movie.
And I can't even hate him. He's almost a painfully good human being. In real life, the dude is the complete opposite of me: Humble, empathetic, conscientious, compassionate. If I had a sister, I would set him up with her--he's that good of a person. The fact he can not only play me, but be a better me than me is just another testament to how good of an actor he is.
He's not just a good person. I genuinely like him. We've become pretty good friends already. You can see it in the video we took when we picked him up at the airport last night:
(BTW--the sign says left to right, [Tennessee State Champ, "Mens" Tennis, 1995][Fake Tucker Max]
[Mr College of Charleston, Pageant Winner, 1998], It's all on his Wikipedia page.)
He's smart as fuck, engaging, fun, has great energy, and is a true artist. Of course, that's all important, but I think I know why I like him so much: He constantly asks me questions about myself, always wants to know more details about my life and my motivations, finds me endlessly fascinating, and never bores me with any discussion about anything that isn't directly related to me--he's the perfect friend for a narcissist.
I'll tell you what though, there is one measure of Matt that, to me, transcends everything else. If you have been checking the movie Flickr account, you have probably figured out how much I love my dog, Murph. She is the light of my life, and even though she's the sweetest dog ever to me, she is naturally very suspicious of other people. If she does warm up to them, it usually takes her a long time.
Well, within an hour of him being at my house, Matt had a new friend. I am big believer in rigorous analysis, but sometimes an image or symbol is much more telling:
This post kinda rambled, and was more about me than about Matt. You're just going to have to excuse me, I am producing a movie...that I wrote...based on a book I wrote...about my life...where I am played by an actor...who's name in the movie is mine...but he's not me...even though everyone in the world will know him as Tucker Max.
Whatever. I'm still taller than him.
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