I'm kicking myself for not asking Jake Kasdan anything about what his dad's been up to lately -- his dad being Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back, among other movies. Oh well. There were more important things to talk about when we spoke recently, like Jake's latest film, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, a Judd Apatow-produced comedy opening in theaters across America this week. If you've somehow avoided the Dewey Cox ad blitzkrieg thus far and don't have a clue what the movie is about, then shame on you, you Cox-sucker!
Walk Hard is in the joke-a-minute style of the Airplane! films, with a very specific focus -- musical biopics. Charting the rise and fall and redemption of fictional rockabilly icon Dewey Cox, the main plot of the movie sticks close to the Johnny Cash story as told in Walk the Line, but there are plenty of bullets aimed at other targets, like the tragic overtones of La Bamba and Kevin Spacey's infamous decision to play a 20-something Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story hits theaters this Friday, December 21.
Ryan Stewart: I think pretty much everyone agrees that 2007 has been one of the best years for comedy in a long, long time. Who would have thought "Freaks and Geeks"-style humor would spawn a line of hit movies?
Jake Kasdan: It's been a great year, there's no question about it. Judd has had this incredible year, you know? Working with all of our friends from those shows, like you said. It's been a total thrill and I think the movies are hilarious. I think the other movies he's made this year are so funny. It's great that people are having a good time at them and showing up and all that -- it means we can make more of them!
RS: Were you in the midst of filming Walk Hard when Knocked Up and Superbad sort of exploded onto the cultural landscape?
JK: We were filming from end of February until the beginning of May, or maybe the end of May. I think we were done shooting when Knocked Up came out.
RS: Did you have an inkling of great things on the horizon, and feel that extra pressure to knock this one completely out of the park?
JK: Well, I think you're going in every time with big, big aspirations. You wanna knock it out of the park and I knew this was an ambitious movie, for such a ridiculous comedy and that it had some challenges. I was gonna be doing things I'd never done before and I wanted to do them well. I would have days where I was kind of nervous, which I'd never really had before. There were more days on this movie where I'd be doing something that was completely new to me than I had ever done before.
RS: Like what, for example?
JK: I said to my girlfriend, like, there were a couple of them. You know, for some reason that sequence in the club where he's discovered, the song "Gotta Love Your Negro Man", I remember with those songs just thinking ... it's musical performance with dancing, choreographed dancing and the jokes are in the choreography, he's playing to a track but he's also singing, so how are we gonna cover it? If he's in the background ...
RS: It requires real directing skills, not just comedy instincts.
JK: Just pragmatic stuff. Putting the sequence together. There's 100 extras or 150 -- what do we do first? You know, it's just sort of ... yeah, that's right -- just actual directing issues. How to achieve it and make sure that you get the jokes.
RS: I know John C. Reilly was tasked with actually writing a lot of Dewey's songs, but those songs are really important comedy pieces in the movie, so did you have professional comedy writers sitting down with him to write?
JK: We had professional songwriters, who were funny. People we had selected partly on the basis of knowing they were really funny songwriters. And they were writing the songs and we were, for the most part, kind of guiding them, you know? Then we started to quickly see that we had this little core group of people, finally. To start, we cast a wide net and found the five or six guys who were most kind of nailing it, you know? We kind of realized who those people were and then started realizing what people's strengths were and who was best suited to what kind of material. It was great -- I mean, it was really fun.
RS: Are you involved in the real-life tour that's actually going on -- sending John out on the road to do shows as Dewey Cox?
JK: Oh yeah, yeah.
RS: That's a pretty big thing to ask an actor to do, or for him to agree to do. Is the idea for it to go on and on, after the movie has come and gone?
JK: [Laughs] I don't know! At the moment there's no plans beyond this week, but anything's possible. Who knows? I think John will probably sing these songs again one day. It's hard for me to imagine he just never does after the movie comes out, you know?
RS: Jenna [Fischer, who plays the female lead] supposedly had a very intimate audition scene, where she had to come in and be Darlene and seduce Dewey?
JK: Well, half of that character's scenes are sort of that. What did she say about it?
RS: During the roundtables, she mentioned having to jump in with both feet and do those intimate moments right off the bat.
JK: That's funny -- there's one thing I remember thinking that we dropped that was kind of a gross joke that we eventually cut from the movie. But you know, you kind of have to do the hardest stuff in the movie in the audition. That's the reality. You try not to do sex scenes and whatever, but in terms of, like, the acting you sort of need to see people take a run at the toughest stuff. So it ends up being like ... that's why you're doing it, kind of, to see what the connection is like between people and stuff like that. So sometimes it can be almost weirdly intimate in those kinds of readings and we don't do with everybody what we did with her, but part of it is that when you're really gearing up to give someone the part, you're kind of working out together, her and John, and letting them really do the scenes and act it together.
RS: So many of the scenes depend on visual gags and things that wouldn't necessarily be apparent in the cold read of a script -- is that nerve-wracking for you, to sit the actors down in a completely bland and quiet conference room like this one and count on them to imagine it all?
JK: Yeah, table reads can be nerve-wracking in general and sometimes they're just fun. This movie was hard to table a little bit because there's so much of it that's dependant on the music that if you're not listening to the music ... also there are so many montages that are sort of part of a joke in the movie. There's like twenty montages. So part of it is it's difficult to kind of convey everything at a table read, for this particular movie, because it has that music video element, even to the comedy. But with this particular movie it wasn't like it really lent itself to it, but we'd rehearse the scenes and run the scenes in auditions and that can sometimes reveal stuff, you know?
RS: I think the Tim Meadows stuff was my favorite stuff in the movie and the audience I saw it with seemed to agree. Did you shoot a bunch of different versions of his running joke about drugs?
JK: Yes. We shot tons of extra jokes and lines in every scene like that.
RS: The first time you see him, the joke is about how there's no downside to smoking marijuana, and the natural progression of that joke is for him to do the same bit when we see him with cocaine next, but it seems like you sort of have to back off that. Is that what happened?
JK: Yeah, partly because you don't want to be doing the same thing over and over again, and partly because you're going, 'What is the joke we're making here, that we think it's cool to do cocaine?' Is that what we're saying? Cause we don't! [Laughs] So it's sort of like ... that was always kind of a challenge. The first scene is so strong, how do we follow it? Then we shot several versions of [Tim] as an old man. So yeah, there's tons of alternate material on that stuff, you know?
RS: The Beatles -- I bet that was a crazy day on the set.
JK: That was a crazy day. It was a tremendous amount of comic firepower, between the four guys doing The Beatles [Jack Black, Justin Long, Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman], who were there for a day, and our guys who are already so funny, you know? And the band and Gerry Bednob who is doing the Maharishi. It was just a lot of funny people in the room.
RS: I can imagine a situation where you bring in guys like that and they just sort of jam and riff without really paying attention to the particular needs of the story -- did you have to keep them grounded?
JK: I would say that it's more just a matter of you having to acquaint them with the movie that they're stepping into for one day and that you know really well. You know what the rules are, you know what the jokes are, you know what the sort of ideas are, how they can say stuff that will feel like it's related to the rest of the movie. That they keep identifying each other by their full names -- you sort of give them a little primer. But that's pretty ... you know that you're gonna get some funny stuff when you have those guys come out. They're just really funny.
RS: I'm sure it's a blast to do joke-a-minute comedy -- do you have that kind of natural acting skill where you're able to stop the actors mid-scene and tell them, "Wait, try this..."?
JK: I don't have the kind of acting skill, but I'm able to contribute in those ways. I can pitch lines. And if you get people who are used to working that way ... and they really are.
RS: Can you see yourself doing another comedy that's as broad as this one is? Would you like to reign it in and do something a little more subtle?
JK: I really don't know yet. I haven't figured it out. I don't have a fully formed plan, but I loved doing this, you know? It's really different than some of the other stuff I've done, but it's fun to do. It's challenging but really fun to do.
RS: By the way, you spoof so many great biopic moments here, but I was waiting for something on my favorite biopic character ever -- La Bamba's tragic brother, who only wants to be able to draw his Woody Woodpecker cartoons, poor guy.
JK: Yeah, yeah!
For more info on the film, go to www.walkhard-movie.com
Walk Hard is in the joke-a-minute style of the Airplane! films, with a very specific focus -- musical biopics. Charting the rise and fall and redemption of fictional rockabilly icon Dewey Cox, the main plot of the movie sticks close to the Johnny Cash story as told in Walk the Line, but there are plenty of bullets aimed at other targets, like the tragic overtones of La Bamba and Kevin Spacey's infamous decision to play a 20-something Bobby Darin in Beyond the Sea.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story hits theaters this Friday, December 21.
Ryan Stewart: I think pretty much everyone agrees that 2007 has been one of the best years for comedy in a long, long time. Who would have thought "Freaks and Geeks"-style humor would spawn a line of hit movies?
Jake Kasdan: It's been a great year, there's no question about it. Judd has had this incredible year, you know? Working with all of our friends from those shows, like you said. It's been a total thrill and I think the movies are hilarious. I think the other movies he's made this year are so funny. It's great that people are having a good time at them and showing up and all that -- it means we can make more of them!
RS: Were you in the midst of filming Walk Hard when Knocked Up and Superbad sort of exploded onto the cultural landscape?
JK: We were filming from end of February until the beginning of May, or maybe the end of May. I think we were done shooting when Knocked Up came out.
RS: Did you have an inkling of great things on the horizon, and feel that extra pressure to knock this one completely out of the park?
JK: Well, I think you're going in every time with big, big aspirations. You wanna knock it out of the park and I knew this was an ambitious movie, for such a ridiculous comedy and that it had some challenges. I was gonna be doing things I'd never done before and I wanted to do them well. I would have days where I was kind of nervous, which I'd never really had before. There were more days on this movie where I'd be doing something that was completely new to me than I had ever done before.
RS: Like what, for example?
JK: I said to my girlfriend, like, there were a couple of them. You know, for some reason that sequence in the club where he's discovered, the song "Gotta Love Your Negro Man", I remember with those songs just thinking ... it's musical performance with dancing, choreographed dancing and the jokes are in the choreography, he's playing to a track but he's also singing, so how are we gonna cover it? If he's in the background ...
RS: It requires real directing skills, not just comedy instincts.
JK: Just pragmatic stuff. Putting the sequence together. There's 100 extras or 150 -- what do we do first? You know, it's just sort of ... yeah, that's right -- just actual directing issues. How to achieve it and make sure that you get the jokes.
RS: I know John C. Reilly was tasked with actually writing a lot of Dewey's songs, but those songs are really important comedy pieces in the movie, so did you have professional comedy writers sitting down with him to write?
JK: We had professional songwriters, who were funny. People we had selected partly on the basis of knowing they were really funny songwriters. And they were writing the songs and we were, for the most part, kind of guiding them, you know? Then we started to quickly see that we had this little core group of people, finally. To start, we cast a wide net and found the five or six guys who were most kind of nailing it, you know? We kind of realized who those people were and then started realizing what people's strengths were and who was best suited to what kind of material. It was great -- I mean, it was really fun.
RS: Are you involved in the real-life tour that's actually going on -- sending John out on the road to do shows as Dewey Cox?
JK: Oh yeah, yeah.
RS: That's a pretty big thing to ask an actor to do, or for him to agree to do. Is the idea for it to go on and on, after the movie has come and gone?
JK: [Laughs] I don't know! At the moment there's no plans beyond this week, but anything's possible. Who knows? I think John will probably sing these songs again one day. It's hard for me to imagine he just never does after the movie comes out, you know?
RS: Jenna [Fischer, who plays the female lead] supposedly had a very intimate audition scene, where she had to come in and be Darlene and seduce Dewey?
JK: Well, half of that character's scenes are sort of that. What did she say about it?
RS: During the roundtables, she mentioned having to jump in with both feet and do those intimate moments right off the bat.
JK: That's funny -- there's one thing I remember thinking that we dropped that was kind of a gross joke that we eventually cut from the movie. But you know, you kind of have to do the hardest stuff in the movie in the audition. That's the reality. You try not to do sex scenes and whatever, but in terms of, like, the acting you sort of need to see people take a run at the toughest stuff. So it ends up being like ... that's why you're doing it, kind of, to see what the connection is like between people and stuff like that. So sometimes it can be almost weirdly intimate in those kinds of readings and we don't do with everybody what we did with her, but part of it is that when you're really gearing up to give someone the part, you're kind of working out together, her and John, and letting them really do the scenes and act it together.
RS: So many of the scenes depend on visual gags and things that wouldn't necessarily be apparent in the cold read of a script -- is that nerve-wracking for you, to sit the actors down in a completely bland and quiet conference room like this one and count on them to imagine it all?
JK: Yeah, table reads can be nerve-wracking in general and sometimes they're just fun. This movie was hard to table a little bit because there's so much of it that's dependant on the music that if you're not listening to the music ... also there are so many montages that are sort of part of a joke in the movie. There's like twenty montages. So part of it is it's difficult to kind of convey everything at a table read, for this particular movie, because it has that music video element, even to the comedy. But with this particular movie it wasn't like it really lent itself to it, but we'd rehearse the scenes and run the scenes in auditions and that can sometimes reveal stuff, you know?
RS: I think the Tim Meadows stuff was my favorite stuff in the movie and the audience I saw it with seemed to agree. Did you shoot a bunch of different versions of his running joke about drugs?
JK: Yes. We shot tons of extra jokes and lines in every scene like that.
RS: The first time you see him, the joke is about how there's no downside to smoking marijuana, and the natural progression of that joke is for him to do the same bit when we see him with cocaine next, but it seems like you sort of have to back off that. Is that what happened?
JK: Yeah, partly because you don't want to be doing the same thing over and over again, and partly because you're going, 'What is the joke we're making here, that we think it's cool to do cocaine?' Is that what we're saying? Cause we don't! [Laughs] So it's sort of like ... that was always kind of a challenge. The first scene is so strong, how do we follow it? Then we shot several versions of [Tim] as an old man. So yeah, there's tons of alternate material on that stuff, you know?
RS: The Beatles -- I bet that was a crazy day on the set.
JK: That was a crazy day. It was a tremendous amount of comic firepower, between the four guys doing The Beatles [Jack Black, Justin Long, Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman], who were there for a day, and our guys who are already so funny, you know? And the band and Gerry Bednob who is doing the Maharishi. It was just a lot of funny people in the room.
RS: I can imagine a situation where you bring in guys like that and they just sort of jam and riff without really paying attention to the particular needs of the story -- did you have to keep them grounded?
JK: I would say that it's more just a matter of you having to acquaint them with the movie that they're stepping into for one day and that you know really well. You know what the rules are, you know what the jokes are, you know what the sort of ideas are, how they can say stuff that will feel like it's related to the rest of the movie. That they keep identifying each other by their full names -- you sort of give them a little primer. But that's pretty ... you know that you're gonna get some funny stuff when you have those guys come out. They're just really funny.
RS: I'm sure it's a blast to do joke-a-minute comedy -- do you have that kind of natural acting skill where you're able to stop the actors mid-scene and tell them, "Wait, try this..."?
JK: I don't have the kind of acting skill, but I'm able to contribute in those ways. I can pitch lines. And if you get people who are used to working that way ... and they really are.
RS: Can you see yourself doing another comedy that's as broad as this one is? Would you like to reign it in and do something a little more subtle?
JK: I really don't know yet. I haven't figured it out. I don't have a fully formed plan, but I loved doing this, you know? It's really different than some of the other stuff I've done, but it's fun to do. It's challenging but really fun to do.
RS: By the way, you spoof so many great biopic moments here, but I was waiting for something on my favorite biopic character ever -- La Bamba's tragic brother, who only wants to be able to draw his Woody Woodpecker cartoons, poor guy.
JK: Yeah, yeah!
For more info on the film, go to www.walkhard-movie.com
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Looking forward to seeing this one, Jack White as Elvis-Judd Apatow producing, sounds good to me.