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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