anderswolleck

Jonathan Kesselman = Jew

Jonathan Kesselman is the hysterically funny writer/director behind one of my favorite movies of the year, The Hebrew Hammer. The Hebrew Hammer is a great movie for people of all religions. It stars Adam Goldberg as a Jewish Shaft-type who must battle the evil son of Santa Claus because he wants to destroy Hanukkah. It has just been released on DVD by Comedy Central.

Check out the official website of The Hebrew Hammer

Daniel Robert Epstein: Hey Jonathan before we get into it lets try a little Jewish geography. First, you thanked all the Long Island Kesselmans in the credits. I know some Kesselmans from Long Island.

Jonathan Kesselman: All my dads family is in West Hempstead.

DRE: The ones I know are from Hewlett Harbor.

JK: I might know them. Kesselman isnt that common of a name.

DRE: Its definitely not as common as Epstein.

JK: Are you from New York or Los Angeles?

DRE: New York.

I spoke to Adam Goldberg when The Hebrew Hammer came out in the theatre. I said I felt the movie was made specifically for me.

JK: [laughs] I think it is for the bar mitzvah set.

DRE: Do you think the airings on Comedy Central helped or hurt?

JK: It hurt my box office but it helped that it made people a lot more aware of it. Its got a following. It kind of hurt I guess but its more yes or no. I was kind of bitter about it.

DRE: I kept telling people that Comedy Central cut it apart and they should see it in the theatre.

JK: There were commercials like every three minutes and the Tony Cox scene got bleeped so much. I was told that Comedy Central wasnt going to cut it. But I cant complain because millions of people saw it. More people saw it in six airings on Comedy Central than the entire theatrical run of Far from Heaven.

Im actually really excited about the DVD because we have a real marketing machine behind it. It came out in theatres without any money for the marketing. I cant get hung up on it anymore.

DRE: Are you having any trouble getting your next movie off the ground as a result?

JK: Adam Goldberg and Christina Ricci have agreed to be in my next movie. I think were getting close to the financing, but its a bitch. Unless you make a movie that makes millions of dollars then its tough. Adam and I are excited about it.

DRE: Whats it about?

JK: Its called Its a Mans World. Adam plays a guy who feels very emasculated by the women in his life. His fianc is Christina and she henpecks him. He hooks up with a group called The National Organization for the Advancement of Men. They give him access to another dimension like an alternate universe called Mans World. He cant get out of it and wackiness ensues.

DRE: It sounds a bit like Adams life story.

JK: Adam and I have a lot of common so its actually my hypothetical and pathetic life story.

DRE: Did you have a lot of Jewish guys say you stole their idea for The Hebrew Hammer?

JK: You know many times I heard that. People were angry with me! I got that constantly.

DRE: Well you stole it from me!

JK: I didnt mean to. I checked out your laptop and it was a great script.

DRE: The movie is so obvious, were you worried that it might have already been done?

JK: I was shocked that it hadnt been done before. It was a big comedy spec and everyone was excited about it. People kept telling me it was a good writing sample but it would never sell because its too Jewish. Thats when I realized why it hadnt been done. I get that now.

DRE: I know Jon Favreau has been trying to get a Jewish cowboy movie made for a long time.

JK: If my DVD does well maybe it will help. I learned to avoid Jewish topics for your first movie if you want to get a second movie made. Ive had every Jewish group come after me even though Im the most secular Jew youll ever meet.

DRE: Did you send copies of the movie to Mel Brooks or Steven Spielberg?

JK: I actually wanted my idol, Mel Brooks, to play Peter Coyotes part but he apparently isnt interested in features unless he is directing. I think David Zucker saw it but I dont know if Spielberg did. There is this whole conspiracy against me finding out stuff like that.

DRE: The anti-Jewish conspiracy.

JK: Exactly.

DRE: Did Judy Greer audition?

JK: Yes we auditioned that part for a month. She kind of reminds me of a young Madeline Kahn.

DRE: Did you have her read the sex scene?

JK: Yeah the talk dirty to me scene with Adam.

DRE: With auditioning, were you surprised to find out who was Jewish?

JK: Yeah, Peter Coyotes manager kept calling to have Peter come in to audition. I thought he was a great actor but I never saw him play funny. He flew in on his dime and said to me My real name is actually Peter Cohen.

I remember one actress came in and told me she expected me to look like Woody Allen with glasses and neurotic.

DRE: So not only was she not Jewish but actually is a racist.

JK: [laughs] She read the script and I dont what she expected. Maybe bagels on the craft service table.

DRE: So was this your typical New York City low budget hell shoot?

JK: Yeah it was a million dollar budget, 22 days to shoot and we had nothing. It was really nuts but we pulled it off. It should have been a five million dollar movie. It was hardcore.

DRE: The set with the Jewish clock was awesome.

JK: We shot that at an dirty diesel filled armory in Brooklyn. I didnt want that location because it was too big. It was miserable shooting there. There were diesel fumes leaking into the room where actors were.

DRE: Did all the attacks you got from the Jewish groups surprise you?

JK: It was weird because the majority of the groups were excited about the film. It surprised me because in my mind its a very positive Jewish film that is a love letter to being Jewish. Its weird because Im not breaking new ground. Mel Brooks was doing jokes like this in the 70s and 80s. Before shooting I got a call from Anti-Defamation League, because they somehow got a hold of the script but they had certain problems with bizarre things like sight gags. They were giving me comments on the script. But when the film came out the ADL had a screening in Chicago and decided that it was ok.

DRE: Ive heard different things about working with Adam. What was your experience with him?

JK: Adam and I had a very love hate relationship when we were shooting. Some days we were in harmony and other days we had these huge creative battles. But thats what I want in an actor; I want someone who brings ideas in especially since I am a new director. He brings a lot to the table. After the first week I figured out that he wants to do a good job. I can see why people might find him difficult but I want that.

DRE: Were you concerned about his tattoos?

JK: There was this huge controversy on set. The makeup artist didnt feel comfortable with the amount of time she had to cover up the tattoos. We started thinking about making jokes about the tattoos. Then I realized that he was having pre-marital sex and killing elves so I dont think there are any fucking rules we had to follow. This is not a religious film.

DRE: Is Tony Cox just an undiscovered gem?

JK: I remembered him from Me, Myself and Irene. He came in, we taped the audition and it was so funny I thought I might shit. But he wanted a lot of money and the producers werent willing to pay for him but I told them that he would make this movie. We read every other black little person but I wanted him.

DRE: He wanted a lot of money?

JK: If I were a little person and could act I would do it because you can make a lot of fucking money. Tony is that good of an actor.

DRE: I read that Andy Dick came onto the movie really late.

JK: Three days before we started shooting. The idea that the production company had was that the Santa Claus role would be the big money role so we made offers to my wishlist but they all passed. I wanted Christopher Walken but he was busy with Catch Me If You Can and also John Goodman passed. Then I wrote a letter to Robin Williams which is really funny. I wrote that I saw him on Mork & Mindy and I dont usually work with TV actors but I would give him a break. We offered Andy the role of Tiny Tim but he wanted to play Santa Claus so I said fuck yeah.

DRE: Who has better drugs, Peter Coyote or Andy Dick?

JK: [laughs] According to both of them they were clean and sober though Ive heard stories that Andy might have fallen off the wagon. At one point I was sitting with Peter and Adam, Peter was telling us this story about how he was a total heroin addict in the 60s and it got so bad that he was mainlining alcohol. Adam looked at me and said I once smoked Earl Grey.

DRE: You had both Melvin and Mario Van Peebles in this film, that must have been great! Were you a fan of blacksploitation films?

JK: When I had the idea for The Hebrew Hammer I went and got my hands on every blacksploitation film I could find to make sure how the genre works. It was more me doing the research.

DRE: What did Melvin and Mario think of the movie?

JK: Well first when I heard that Mario wanted to be in it I thought it would be great because he was in Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song when he was a kid. His dad was really cool and having them there added some credibility to the movie. They said they both loved it.

DRE: Adam told me that his name is actually on some racist websites as a Jew in Hollywood that doesnt hide.

JK: Ive seen a bunch of white power websites that had some issues with the movie which is kind of scary and funny at the same time. They had issues with that it had Adam Goldstein in it and typical hateful Jewish stuff. It doesnt go much deeper than that. I think they were baffled and amused by it.

DRE: Did you get any threats?

JK: No threats but there was a guy from the Jewish Defense League who wanted to hang out after a screening. That was kind of weird and scary. He kept emailing me for a while. Ive gotten strange calls from this guy named Yeshiva in St. Louis who went on and on about the movie. I got only one email that was very hateful about one term in the glossary on the Hebrew Hammer website.

DRE: I wrote this essay a few years back for a comic book website about how Jewish comic book writers are always forced to write Christmas storylines into their comics and how Christmas is forced onto Jews just in life. Do you hate Christmas as much as I do?

JK: I kind of do. I always get very annoyed that around Christmas time all my friends arent around and all the restaurants are closed. It bothered me a lot. Christmas is just a very boring day for me. I hate having to hear Christmas music for two months in the mall. Maybe I dont hate it but it is annoying. Are you a rabid anti-Christmas guy?

DRE: I have no feelings whatsoever about Christmas. I just hate how its shoved down our throats constantly around that time.

JK: In LA there are hardly any Hanukkah decorations around. One religion in our country gets carte blanche.

DRE: There is this movie The Polar Express that I covered for another website.

JK: That movie is just going to fucking kill me.

DRE: Well at one point in the movie the kids are given these tickets to get on the Polar Express and the conductor punches a word like Believe and Learn into their tickets. At a press conference with Tom Hanks one journalist asked Tom Hanks what word he thinks would be punched into his ticket. I turned to my friend and said the conductor would punch the word JEW! into my ticket.

JK: The train wouldnt be going to the North Pole but actually to Auschwitz.

DRE: [laughs] Has anyone floated the idea of The Hebrew Hammer in other mediums besides movies?

JK: We pitched a Hebrew Hammer animated series to Comedy Central and they passed on it. They thought it was too niche. People have talked to me about comics books but I dont know how to do that stuff.

DRE: How were you raised?

JK: My mom bounced back and forth between reform and conservative. My dad was orthodox as a kid but broke away when he was 18. My whole dads side of the family in New York are all orthodox.

DRE: Were movies always a big part of your life?

JK: Movies are my life. I was an undergraduate in college and I watched a documentary on Your Show of Shows and it hit me that thats what I was supposed to do. History of the World is my favorite comedy of all time.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck