Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg
Tags: Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, American Pie, American Reunion, Stiflers Mom
I go back a long way with the writer/directors of the fourth American Pie movie. I saw their first film Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle months before it was out and interviewed them for a screenwriting magazine that is long defunct. In fact, we met at the Newsroom Café outside of New Line Cinema, which is also now defunct, absorbed by Warner Brothers.
Fresh out of college, the writing duo was ambitious and enthusiastic about entering the comedy landscape. Back in 2004, the R-rated comedy was just making a comeback with Old School, and Wedding Crashers and The Hangover were years away. As ‘80s children and comedy junkies, they wanted to givethis generation the comedies that would play every night in dorm rooms across the nation.
We got to catch up every time they wrote a new Harold and Kumar movie, one of which they directed. Now they’ve been handed the reigns of American Reunion. They decided to bring back every single actor from the first American Pie, including those who were not included in American Wedding. They also ignored the four straight to video movies under the American Pie brand.
In Reunion, Jim (Jason Biggs) go back to their high school reunion and see what’s become of their classmates, and clash with the current high school seniors. A virginal 18-year-old is throwing herself at the happily married Jim, and he still ends up caught naked in the kitchen, and later practicing dominatrix role play with Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). These days, the guys have grown up themselves, with marriages and children of their own. They still like to tell dirty jokes though about penises and MILFs.
SuicideGirls: When you started writing an American Pie reunion movie, was your first thought: How are we going to top pie fucking?
Jon Hurwitz: In the case of Jason’s full frontal moment, that was one of those things that we wrote the script and we were really happy with it, the studio was happy and then Jason read the script and he was really happy. But I think we all felt we’re missing one big kind of crazy moment. For Jason it’s like an added humiliation that he can have in the movie so he just said to us, “I’ll do anything. Whatever you need of me, I’m there. We just need one more outrageous thing.” The two of us looked at each other and went, “Okay, I think we can do that.” We came up with his penis smashed against the pot lid, called him up an he was on board right away.
SG:
And that is really him?
JH:
That is really him. That is him. It’s funny because it’s the fourth penis we’ve had in one of our movies and it’s the first real actual penis.
SG:
Is it just natural that Michelle becomes a full on dominatrix?
JH:
Yes, exactly.
Hayden Schlossberg : She’s obviously the character that’s the kinkiest of all the female characters. Part of it was figuring out where she is today and we thought okay, she’s in the boring mom role. But deep within her she has this dirty naughty side, and it was fun to be able to let that out.
JH:
It was fun because one of her famous lines is, “Say my name, bitch.” So she was already kind of dominating there so we’re like you know what, it’d be fun for her to sort of expand upon that. They’re going back to in a sense the scene of the crime. It’s a Stifler party so she’s ready to take it up a notch.
SG:
I always wondered when she stuck her flute in her pussy, which end of the flute did she use. I’ve never had the balls to ask her.
JH:
You know what, we haven’t asked her either.
HS:
Probably the one that has the most little things coming out of it, the valves. She likes her flutes ribbed.
SG:
Was it important to answer all the questions about the past, like Oz missed the wedding, and throw in a “one time at band camp,” and a “Stifler’s Mom?”
HS:
Jon and I are franchise guys. We like being nerds about movies and obsess over each one so it’s our job as taking over this franchise to be able to know all the ins and outs that an American Pie nerd would. We know hardcore fans are going to be like, “Well, Oz wasn’t in the third one.”
JH:
The thing is it was easy for us because we are hardcore fans. We are hardcore nerds about it so when we went to see American Wedding we were pissed off that Oz wasn’t there. Those are things that we kind of naturally put in there but when tackling the movie or any sequel in our opinion, you try to make it its own movie. You try to make it where if people haven’t seen the prior movies that they’ll watch it and hopefully they’ll really enjoy it and they’ll get it as its own movie, but if you are a fan of the franchise there’s a whole other layer of comedy, either nostalgia or just references that you’re able to pick up on.
SG:
Why has reference become a dirty word in comedy these days?
HS:
I think people are afraid that if you haven’t seen the prior movies that you won’t understand this movie. For us, that’s absolutely an important thing. Every movie needs to stand alone. I don't think that you need to have seen Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle to like Guantanamo Bay or the Christmas movie. That being said, we think it’s important that you’re rewarded for your viewership of these movies. That’s an important thing for us to have things for the fans, but at the same time it needs to be its own movie.
SG:
You didn’t mention Sherman became principal of the school though.
HS:
Because once we acknowledge the world of the DVDs, then we probably have to acknowledge some other things. There’s some information about Stifler, Jim and Michelle in those movies that ran counter to what we wanted to do with the characters.
JH:
There’s a little bit. There are a few things here and there but for us, those stories weren’t about our characters, the original cast members. Those were stories about other characters so those references came out.
HS:
It’s an alternate universe. There’s some shift in the space time continuum where that happened and then all of a sudden things got right.
SG:
Dealing with the theme of changing of the old guard in high school, what does it mean for comedy when that generation experiences the new high school kids?
HS:
We like the generational conflicts. There’s just something about “these darn kids today.” For us, because we were kids when we were writing Harold and Kumar, we were just out of college and our whole thing was writing for a young audience. Now you’re getting older and there’s this new crop of kids, it’s like who the fuck are you? We have in Harold and Kumar Christmas this confrontation with Kumar and this 13-year-old kid over Karate Kid and which is the true Karate Kid, the one with Ralph Macchio or the one with Jackie Chan. For us there’s not even a contest but every generation has their differences and we like the idea of all of a sudden these guys who are in their 30s back in their hometown in American Reunion get into a fight with these younger kids.
SG:
But even in this movie, the characters look back lovingly at high school. I imagine guys like you and me are doing way better as grown ups than we did in high school.
JH:
You know, it’s funny though. There’s a certain fondness, at least for me, like a fondness for high school. Even people who are like the bully or somebody who was a dick to you in high school. They’re now to me with distance, they become like a character from the past. You get some perspective.
HS:
You’re able to get on with your life in enough of a way, unlike Patton Oswalt’s character in Young Adult.
When he thinks about the past, he hates the bully. Luckily we didn’t have such a horrific time at high school that we’re not afraid to revisit, but I know what Jon’s talking about. Just thinking about these characters who you hated, with time and distance there’s actually something warm and fuzzy when you think about them because now that bully or that asshole is sort of a nostalgic [character.]
When he thinks about the past, he hates the bully. Luckily we didn’t have such a horrific time at high school that we’re not afraid to revisit, but I know what Jon’s talking about. Just thinking about these characters who you hated, with time and distance there’s actually something warm and fuzzy when you think about them because now that bully or that asshole is sort of a nostalgic [character.]
JH:
I just remember I went to a wedding, and there was a guy who was known as one of the main dicks in our high school. First of all, outside of my interaction with him, I heard that he realized that he was a dick in high school. He grew up to recognize that he was there and when I came to the wedding, he asked my friend, the groom, “Was I a dick to Hurwitz?” Because he knew. I think as people get older, most people, not all people, but most people probably have regrets if you were a jerk in high school, and have moments that really made you upset but now it’s like I was a kid. Everyone’s just trying to find themselves and find out who they are, but when a group gets together at a reunion, usually all the drama of the past sort of disappears and it’s like oh my God, I remember that time. Because the truth is it was a time when you weren’t worried about paying the rent and you weren’t worried about your mortgage or where your kid’s going to go to school. You were worried about trying to lose your virginity or do okay on a test. It was a whole different kind of time of life.
SG:
It’s certainly fun to reconnect but there’s no part of me that wishes I were still in high school.
JH:
Oh no, I would agree with that. I definitely feel that way.
SG:
21 Jump Street also commented on how different high school is now than even 2005. Is this a time when we’re seeing everyone look back?
JH:
You get a sense of the way certain things have changed but I think at the core, the thing that’s interesting is I think that teenagers today are probably not that much different at their core than teenagers when we were in high school, but the world around them is different in a certain way and it shapes them and shifts in different directions. Nowadays people may be thinking that it’s cool to dress like Snooki but before our time even, Madonna was really sexy and doing crazy things.
HS:
Are you saying Snooki’s sexy?
JH:
I’m saying Snooki is damn sexy.
HS:
That’ll be the headline. We’re on Suicide Girls, so.
SG:
Yes, that will be the pull quote.
HS:
Girls today are committing suicide a little bit more frequently.
SG:
Social suicide.
JH:
Exactly.
SG:
What do movies like Project X do for comedy?
JH:
I saw Project X.
HS:
I didn’t see it.
JH:
I personally really enjoyed Project X. I don't think it’s a perfect movie but to me it’s classic in a lot of ways. It just has the attitude and the energy of today’s youth. To me it’s like three guys who feel a little bit invisible in their high school and they just want to be cooler. You look at whether it’s some element of the characters in American Pie, look at Finch who’s wanting to be out there or the characters in Risky Business or Revenge of the Nerds. There’s something classic about the core guys in there, but there’s a certain style that I think Project X has that’s really fun, from the music to the way it was shot. I don't think all of a sudden it’s all going to be found footage comedy and it doesn’t really feel like a found footage movie to me when you watch Project X in a lot of ways. They hired a guy to document their night and it was fun to see the different things that they did there, but I think it’s just this generation’s version of an underdog story in high school and it spiraling out of control.
SG:
In your movie Stifler’s party isn’t cool anymore. Is this the end of the Project X/Hangover era of outrageous party comedies?
HS:
I don't think so because everybody likes to party and everybody likes outrageous comedy. I think the art that we have, the world that we’re in is all about finding the new outrageous joke. There’s always going to be something that shocks an audience and it’s our job to figure out what that is.
JH:
What was fun to do with the Stifler thing is when you are in your 30s and you go to a party, it looks kind of like the party Stifler is throwing there. He didn’t expect it. He’s like okay, I’m going to get all this stuff, I’m going to get all this booze, everybody’s going to be back and he just assumed it’s going to be raucous like back in the day. He looks around and everyone’s drinking wine and I’m actually at the party with my wife and my baby. I don't know if you caught me there but basically that’s what happens when you’re in your 30s. The parties are less raucous but if you track Stifler’s party, it just kind of devolves as more time goes on. Stifler throws his energy into it and he brings Jim’s dad into the fold and it gets out of control again.
SG:
Do you have a whole backstory for the rift that broke up the MILF guys?
HS:
There’s different interpretations. A lot of people assume that the John Cho character is gay because of his mustache and the way he gets excited about Oz’s body so that maybe there’s another guy that got in between them.
JH:
Or MILF Guy #1 maybe went off with a woman or something.
HS:
We do have a deleted scene with the two of them that doesn’t really explain much more.
JH:
The deleted scene was just when the guys enter, John Cho is greeting people at the reunion. We had MILF Guy #1 walks in there and John looks kind of stunned to see him. He’s like, “I thought you weren’t coming.” And MILF Guy #1 goes, “Maybe I changed my mind.” And he bumps his shoulder.
HS:
It’s beyond you see that not only they aren’t talking but there’s something really tense there.
JH:
There’s a real antagonism. I don't think it’s necessarily the gay thing. To me these are two guys who just happen to love watching MILFs together. Something happened over the years where one of them lost their way or disappointed the other one, as MILF Guy #2 says, “Friendship is a two way street.”
HS:
If you think about that, clearly he feels that MILF Guy #1 wasn’t there for him in some sort of way.
JH:
Maybe one day there will be the MILF Guy spinoff movie.
SG:
What are you doing next?
JH:
We’re not sure yet. It really depends. We have a lot of original ideas. Obviously the last two years we’ve been really spending on American Reunion and A Harold and Kumar Christmas. So we would come up with lots of ideas during that time, we opened up all these new documents. Now we’ve been looking at all these ideas. You never know if we’ll revisit one of these franchises, whether it’s another one of these, another Harold and Kumar.
HS:
We just have a great time working on them. It’s great to work on a franchise because you have this fan base that gets excited for the movies and you get to explore the characters. It’d be great to start a new franchise. I think that’s our ultimate goal but we still love Harold and Kumar and now American Pie. Anything’s possible.
SG:
What are some things you still want to do as comedy buffs?
JH:
We feel like we have a really incredible action comedy in us that we’ve been developing for a while and haven’t had the time to really focus on, so that’s one thing that I think you’ll be seeing from us. We have an idea that we know we love and we think that audiences are going to love too.
SG:
Is there something you’re missing in the current crop of action comedies?
HS:
The truth is I think the problem is that they’re all derivative of the movies from the ‘80s or they’re homages to the ‘80s action comedies or they’re satires of the ‘80s action comedies. We want an action comedy for today, 2012, 2013, something that is different and new. I think that’s ultimately the thing because a lot of the “action comedies” out there, like is 21 Jump Street an action comedy? I just think of that as a TV show remake sort of thing. We’re thinking something more in the Bad Boys or Die Hard kind of like an action movie that has a fun comedy character in it too.
American Reunion opens April 6.
American Reunion opens April 6.
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