When I was first told that I would be seeing Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and then would be interviewing director Danny Leiner I honestly have to say that I wasnt too excited. Leiner had previously directed a lot of TV and Dude, Where's My Car? Now, I saw Dude, Where's My Car? and I enjoyed it, I thought it was funny at times, but I saw no reason to keep with this director who, it seemed to me, remade Dude but this time with an R-rating.
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is absolutely hysterical. I was laughing nonstop throughout the entire picture. I could honestly see John Cho [Harold] and Kal Penn [Kumar] becoming the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope of stoner movies.
Harold is an investment banker who gets work dumped on him by his superiors while he ogles his sexy neighbor but is too embarrassed to even talk to her. Kumar is a trust fund baby whose father supports him only while he applies to medical school. But Kumar and Harolds favorite activity is getting stoned on really good weed. One night after trying some preemo bud, Harold and Kumar get high and the idea of eating White Castle burgers gets them out on the road. They meet a drug crazed Neil Patrick Harris, a truck driver with oozing boils all over himself and his hot wife while along the way the two discover that they arent going to take peoples shit anymore.
Daniel Robert Epstein: I remember reading after Dude, Where's My Car? came out you mentioned that you wished the R-rated version had been released. Would it have been more like Harold and Kumar?
Danny Leiner: It was closer to Harold and Kumar. The original script had a lot more of that edgier comedy. Dude definitely took a hit by eliminating a lot of the drug and language references. It kind of got neutered. It definitely would have been more in the spirit of Harold and Kumar.
DRE: Was it nice to put ethnic characters in the movie without that being the main focus?
DL: Totally. I wasnt that interested in doing another broad comedy that was so similar to Dude, in terms of two guys on a road trip. But when I read the script I just laughed at loud at almost every page. The other thing that attracted me was that it wasnt two white guys. It was guys we had never seen before. It felt like uncharted territory and it felt fresh.
DRE: How did you find Kal Penn? Because he was just hysterical.
DL: We did a huge audition and he was one of the ones we thought about it because he had been in a few movies like Malibu's Most Wanted [released in 2003]. He was on our radar but I wanted to search the whole country to find our perfect Kumar. Then when he came in we knew he was the guy.
DRE: How close are the characters to the people who played them?
DL: The whole movie has to do with the chemistry because John and Kal. We were shooting in Canada and we brought them up a couple of weeks early so they could hang out and get to know each other. They became really good friends. But they are kind of the opposite of their characters. John Cho is much more like Kumar and Kal Penn is more like Harold. Its funny when you hang out with them off set. We would want to go partying and Kal would want to stay home to work on his lines. John would be like, Cmon Kal get your ass out. Then by the end of the movie Kal actually started becoming like Kumar and partying.
DRE: Maybe he just figured out that the movie wasnt going to suck.
DL: [laughs] Maybe. Kal did tell me he was very conscientious and nervous in the beginning. I think he just started to have a good time.
DRE: Im one of the few people who watched Off Centre, the sitcom John Cho was on. He was very funny in that but what made you decide to cast him in this?
DL: The writers actually wrote the movie thinking of John in mind. He was amazing. He came into the audition and was just great. He is kind of the unsung hero of the movie because he plays the straight man.
DRE: Ive seen Clockstoppers so many times and I just think that Paula Garcs is one of the most gorgeous women.
DL: We all do. Even just looking at the dailies was unbelievable. She is the perfect romantic lead for Harold to fall in love with.
DRE: Did she originally have a bigger part?
DL: Actually she had a smaller part. She used to be just in the beginning of the movie and a fantasy sequence in Harolds dream. But at the end of the movie Harold comes back and gets Maria. Originally they came back and knock on Marias door but instead of her being there its Luis Guzmn. They find out Maria went to Amsterdam so they go there to find her.
DRE: Would it be wrong to describe this movie as being in the stupid movie genre?
DL: I wouldnt be upset about that. I think Dude, Where's My Car? is a stupid movie but in a good way. I think this movie is an interesting mix of stupid and smart. Stupid in that its goofy and has broad comedy. But whats interesting about it is that in the broad comedy arena you are dealing with two real characters, one who is an investment banker and another who should be going to medical school. They come upon all these crazy characters, which are heightened, but their reactions are so grounded.
DRE: Is it difficult to inject something that might be deeper into a fluff movie instead of the usual character arcs that these characters might go through?
DL: It aint easy. But this movie is probably the easiest to do that with because it naturally has the racial and stereotype elements. The fun thing about this movie is that it deals with all those things head-on in a subversive way. It plays on a lot of levels because it plays on a lot of ideas of different ethnicities and how they get co-opted into American culture and how people view them in a very positive way. It does all that but in a funny and stupid, as you call it, way. Its not preachy.
DRE: Was Neil Patrick Harris originally in the script?
DL: Yes, he was in the original script. We were so excited that he came onboard. I went to New York to see him on Broadway in Cabaret. I really wanted him so I went down to plead my case to him. He ended up blowing all of us away because he was just so funny.
DRE: A friend of mine smoked pot with him years ago. Ive heard that hes a big party animal.
DL: We all went out in Toronto and had a great time. One of the fun things about the movie is that we had all these great actors come up. Another one was Chris Meloni who played Freakshow. He scared the crap out of Kal because he was in character the whole time.
DRE: Was it Chris Melonis role in Wet Hot American Summer that made you think of him for this role?
DL: Yes it was. My friend David Wain directed that movie. I love it and one of my favorite parts is Chris Meloni as the cook. He is just so funny. I was like, Thats the guy from Oz?
DRE: Would you say that Harold and Kumar is in the grand tradition of License to Drive [released in 1988]?
DL: Sure. I look at it as a fun road trip. It could go from that movie to After Hours to Road Trip to American Pie. It has a lot of elements of the fun coming of age road trip movies.
DRE: I heard that Kal Penn is a vegetarian. Did you make him eat burgers?
DL: We had the food stylist make up these veggie patties for him.
DRE: I read you got inducted into the highly coveted White Castle Craver's Hall of Fame.
DL: We all got in a couple of weeks ago. We went down to Columbus Ohio and there was a big induction ceremony. Then we did a premiere of the movie there.
DRE: It seems like New Line is being kind of cagey with the marketing because they know the movie is funny and they want to make sure it finds an audience. What kind of expectations are there for it?
DL: It was a nine million dollar movie that I wanted to feel like a bigger movie. I really wanted when people looked at the movie to see it like a broad comedy that would just as much star Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler. Im really glad that New Line is putting it out in the summer to give it a chance. I dont like to put number values on whats good and whats bad. For me the fact that people laugh at it makes me happy. Whatever else happens is gravy.
DRE: How was your experience directing Freaks and Geeks?
DL: It was great. Mike White wrote my episode [We've Got Spirit]. It was a great ensemble cast with great writing. It was a fun ride.
DRE: How did something like The Great New Wonderful come to you?
DL: Ever since I did Dude, Where's My Car? I get a lot of broad comedies sent my way. I happen to come from a New York indie background. I made a short film with Edie Falco that was connected with the Shooting Gallery years ago. I like the comedies but there arent that many great scripts. I wanted to create opportunities for myself so I started a production company with my producing partner Matt Tauber. The mandate is to develop quality material. We started developing a few scripts and this was one of them. Its written by Sam Catlin who did some brilliant plays I had seen. We came up with this idea of five dark comic stories against the backdrop of an anxious and uncertain post-9-11 New York City. We shot it on Hi-def video for $500,000.
DRE: What do you eat when youre hungry?
DL: I definitely go for burgers. When Im in LA, since they dont have White Castle, I go to In-N-Out burger. But if Im on the east coast I will go for a late night trip to White Castle.
See the R-rated trailer for Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle in Quicktime or Windows Media
Check out the Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle website
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle opens July 30, 2004.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle is absolutely hysterical. I was laughing nonstop throughout the entire picture. I could honestly see John Cho [Harold] and Kal Penn [Kumar] becoming the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope of stoner movies.
Harold is an investment banker who gets work dumped on him by his superiors while he ogles his sexy neighbor but is too embarrassed to even talk to her. Kumar is a trust fund baby whose father supports him only while he applies to medical school. But Kumar and Harolds favorite activity is getting stoned on really good weed. One night after trying some preemo bud, Harold and Kumar get high and the idea of eating White Castle burgers gets them out on the road. They meet a drug crazed Neil Patrick Harris, a truck driver with oozing boils all over himself and his hot wife while along the way the two discover that they arent going to take peoples shit anymore.
Daniel Robert Epstein: I remember reading after Dude, Where's My Car? came out you mentioned that you wished the R-rated version had been released. Would it have been more like Harold and Kumar?
Danny Leiner: It was closer to Harold and Kumar. The original script had a lot more of that edgier comedy. Dude definitely took a hit by eliminating a lot of the drug and language references. It kind of got neutered. It definitely would have been more in the spirit of Harold and Kumar.
DRE: Was it nice to put ethnic characters in the movie without that being the main focus?
DL: Totally. I wasnt that interested in doing another broad comedy that was so similar to Dude, in terms of two guys on a road trip. But when I read the script I just laughed at loud at almost every page. The other thing that attracted me was that it wasnt two white guys. It was guys we had never seen before. It felt like uncharted territory and it felt fresh.
DRE: How did you find Kal Penn? Because he was just hysterical.
DL: We did a huge audition and he was one of the ones we thought about it because he had been in a few movies like Malibu's Most Wanted [released in 2003]. He was on our radar but I wanted to search the whole country to find our perfect Kumar. Then when he came in we knew he was the guy.
DRE: How close are the characters to the people who played them?
DL: The whole movie has to do with the chemistry because John and Kal. We were shooting in Canada and we brought them up a couple of weeks early so they could hang out and get to know each other. They became really good friends. But they are kind of the opposite of their characters. John Cho is much more like Kumar and Kal Penn is more like Harold. Its funny when you hang out with them off set. We would want to go partying and Kal would want to stay home to work on his lines. John would be like, Cmon Kal get your ass out. Then by the end of the movie Kal actually started becoming like Kumar and partying.
DRE: Maybe he just figured out that the movie wasnt going to suck.
DL: [laughs] Maybe. Kal did tell me he was very conscientious and nervous in the beginning. I think he just started to have a good time.
DRE: Im one of the few people who watched Off Centre, the sitcom John Cho was on. He was very funny in that but what made you decide to cast him in this?
DL: The writers actually wrote the movie thinking of John in mind. He was amazing. He came into the audition and was just great. He is kind of the unsung hero of the movie because he plays the straight man.
DRE: Ive seen Clockstoppers so many times and I just think that Paula Garcs is one of the most gorgeous women.
DL: We all do. Even just looking at the dailies was unbelievable. She is the perfect romantic lead for Harold to fall in love with.
DRE: Did she originally have a bigger part?
DL: Actually she had a smaller part. She used to be just in the beginning of the movie and a fantasy sequence in Harolds dream. But at the end of the movie Harold comes back and gets Maria. Originally they came back and knock on Marias door but instead of her being there its Luis Guzmn. They find out Maria went to Amsterdam so they go there to find her.
DRE: Would it be wrong to describe this movie as being in the stupid movie genre?
DL: I wouldnt be upset about that. I think Dude, Where's My Car? is a stupid movie but in a good way. I think this movie is an interesting mix of stupid and smart. Stupid in that its goofy and has broad comedy. But whats interesting about it is that in the broad comedy arena you are dealing with two real characters, one who is an investment banker and another who should be going to medical school. They come upon all these crazy characters, which are heightened, but their reactions are so grounded.
DRE: Is it difficult to inject something that might be deeper into a fluff movie instead of the usual character arcs that these characters might go through?
DL: It aint easy. But this movie is probably the easiest to do that with because it naturally has the racial and stereotype elements. The fun thing about this movie is that it deals with all those things head-on in a subversive way. It plays on a lot of levels because it plays on a lot of ideas of different ethnicities and how they get co-opted into American culture and how people view them in a very positive way. It does all that but in a funny and stupid, as you call it, way. Its not preachy.
DRE: Was Neil Patrick Harris originally in the script?
DL: Yes, he was in the original script. We were so excited that he came onboard. I went to New York to see him on Broadway in Cabaret. I really wanted him so I went down to plead my case to him. He ended up blowing all of us away because he was just so funny.
DRE: A friend of mine smoked pot with him years ago. Ive heard that hes a big party animal.
DL: We all went out in Toronto and had a great time. One of the fun things about the movie is that we had all these great actors come up. Another one was Chris Meloni who played Freakshow. He scared the crap out of Kal because he was in character the whole time.
DRE: Was it Chris Melonis role in Wet Hot American Summer that made you think of him for this role?
DL: Yes it was. My friend David Wain directed that movie. I love it and one of my favorite parts is Chris Meloni as the cook. He is just so funny. I was like, Thats the guy from Oz?
DRE: Would you say that Harold and Kumar is in the grand tradition of License to Drive [released in 1988]?
DL: Sure. I look at it as a fun road trip. It could go from that movie to After Hours to Road Trip to American Pie. It has a lot of elements of the fun coming of age road trip movies.
DRE: I heard that Kal Penn is a vegetarian. Did you make him eat burgers?
DL: We had the food stylist make up these veggie patties for him.
DRE: I read you got inducted into the highly coveted White Castle Craver's Hall of Fame.
DL: We all got in a couple of weeks ago. We went down to Columbus Ohio and there was a big induction ceremony. Then we did a premiere of the movie there.
DRE: It seems like New Line is being kind of cagey with the marketing because they know the movie is funny and they want to make sure it finds an audience. What kind of expectations are there for it?
DL: It was a nine million dollar movie that I wanted to feel like a bigger movie. I really wanted when people looked at the movie to see it like a broad comedy that would just as much star Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler. Im really glad that New Line is putting it out in the summer to give it a chance. I dont like to put number values on whats good and whats bad. For me the fact that people laugh at it makes me happy. Whatever else happens is gravy.
DRE: How was your experience directing Freaks and Geeks?
DL: It was great. Mike White wrote my episode [We've Got Spirit]. It was a great ensemble cast with great writing. It was a fun ride.
DRE: How did something like The Great New Wonderful come to you?
DL: Ever since I did Dude, Where's My Car? I get a lot of broad comedies sent my way. I happen to come from a New York indie background. I made a short film with Edie Falco that was connected with the Shooting Gallery years ago. I like the comedies but there arent that many great scripts. I wanted to create opportunities for myself so I started a production company with my producing partner Matt Tauber. The mandate is to develop quality material. We started developing a few scripts and this was one of them. Its written by Sam Catlin who did some brilliant plays I had seen. We came up with this idea of five dark comic stories against the backdrop of an anxious and uncertain post-9-11 New York City. We shot it on Hi-def video for $500,000.
DRE: What do you eat when youre hungry?
DL: I definitely go for burgers. When Im in LA, since they dont have White Castle, I go to In-N-Out burger. But if Im on the east coast I will go for a late night trip to White Castle.
See the R-rated trailer for Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle in Quicktime or Windows Media
Check out the Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle website
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle opens July 30, 2004.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
missy:
ed...
rexphantom:
You know, I'm not a big fan of stoner comedies--but that preview was really, really funny.