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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