erin_broadley

1994 was a year of peacing-out, wording-up, hip-hop mixtapes and smoking blunts. It was a year of pagers, mad hot Fly Girls and ill parties; the year Green Day had its first hit single and the year we first set eyes on My So Called Lifes Jordan Catalano. It was the year Kurt Cobain killed himself and OJ Simpson led cops on a chase in that white Bronco. And if you lived in New York City, it was the year Giuliani entered the mayor's office and began cracking down "public disturbances" like noisy boom boxes and graffiti art, signaling the end of an era for Manhattan street culture.

For Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), life in 1994 in Manhattan is looking bleak. The recent high school grad turned pot dealer is having trouble getting laid and his parents' financial problems threaten to move him to the Jersey suburbs. His best friend, Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), is a psychiatrist to whom he deals drugs in exchange for leather couch chitchat about his dilemma. He's not popular but he has excellent taste in music. Luke is at a crossroads and 1994 is the year his life changes.

In his new film, The Wackness, writer and director Jonathan Levine brings the endearing characters of Luke Shapiro and of mid-90s New York City to life in all their transitional, restless glory. It is much more than just some story about some kid wanting to get stoned or laid; it is a story about coming of age in a certain time and a specific place, and trying to find (but not define) yourself while living in a city filled with eight-million of the most intimate strangers you'll never know.

SuicideGirls caught up with Levine just before the film's Los Angeles and New York July 3rd release....
Erin Broadley: I saw the film last week and LOVED it. But I was surprised how much of what I read beforehand focused on it being a dark comedy about two horny guys who just wanted to get laid, when in reality I felt it was about much, much more.
Jonathan Levine: Yes, its a complicated movie to describe. But I think its nice. If you go in with those expectations I think youll be pleasantly surprised. Ideally its kinda like we kept trying to peel away parts of the onion, I guess, if that makes sense. [Laughs] The layers of the onion.
EB: And if it makes you cry, it makes you cry?
JL: Yeah. [Laughs] Exactly.
EB: What were you looking for in an actor when you cast the role of Luke Shapiro?
JL: Oh, you know, its obviously a lot similar to my personality and even though nothing in the movie ever really happened to me, a very large part of me is in the script. But that said, I didnt have any idea what this guy would look like; I just knew I needed somebody who felt right, who felt very authentic, which, when youre in L.A. and youre looking at kids who are doing the New York, hip hop kid thing, its hard to get that authenticity. Its actually something you cant imitate; you have to have lived it. Josh had that right off the bat. The other thing Josh had was this wonderful ability to engender empathy and a willingness to be vulnerable, to go to dark places, and to make fun of himself all that stuff was really important because you have to have that authenticity just so it doesnt feel forced.
EB: His character, if it wasnt done right, could have turned into a caricature.
JL: Oh, exactly. And thats the last thing you want. You dont want it to be a caricature. You dont want him to be a caricature of anything; hes a living, breathing person. The other thing was, with a white kid whos into hip-hop, so often in movies its such a type, you know? When I was growing up, I was into hip-hop but it never defined me in the way characters in movies get defined by it. I think that Josh manages to pull off being a kid who is into this type of music and who is living a hip-hop lifestyle without letting it define his personality. Thats just cause hes really good.
EB: I had never even heard of him as an actor before I saw this film. Im totally out of the Nickelodeon loop.
JL: [Laughs] Yeah, exactly. Me too. I had never seen Joshs show [Drake and Josh] but now I always see it when Im at the gym; hes always into some crazy hijinks. When Im on the treadmill his character is having trouble with his girlfriend or tripping over something. Theres a lot of physical comedy. Its very different.
EB: The music in this film is very important to your history and to the film, and youve said before that every memory has a soundtrack to go with it and 90s hip-hop was your coming of age soundtrack.
JL: Oh, hell yeah, of course. Hip-hop was very much the soundtrack to that year for me, and even for years after, now not so much. But yeah, the spirit of the music is very similar to I mean, what Biggie is saying when hes saying, Fuck the world, thats kind of similar to what every teenager goes through.
EB: I love the way you described Giulianis policies during his time in office as anti-fun initiatives. Was that really what you called it back then?
JL: I dont know if that was really what it was called but I think thats the description we used. He really cracked down on a lot of stuff I know you couldnt dance in clubs unless they had a burlesque license. I remember that. All the bars we used to be able to dance in, the bartenders would tell us you cant dance in here anymore.
EB: Like that Kevin Bacon movie?
JL: It was like Footloose, yeah.
EB: At least it wasnt Flashdance.
JL: No [laughs] Giuliani never turned New York into Flashdance, but into Footloose a little bit.
EB: Did you and your friends ever get busted by the anti-fun initiatives?
JL: Definitely my friends did. A lot of kids I knew spent time in the Tombs and stuff like that but I was lucky never to get caught. I was pretty paranoid. Anything illegal I may or may not have done did not take place usually outside on the street corners.
EB: All the details you wrote into the film are great. The line where Ben Kingsley says in the bar, Luke is very into rap of the soul tribe and many of their other songs I would assume stems from your own experiences at that age and the misconceptions people had of this thing that was hip-hop.
JL: [Laughs] Absolutely. 100 percent. I got to put myself back in the mindset of what it was like to be that age. And its not just the details like you mentioned, but its also about what its like not to know any better, to go in and make the mistakes that you make when youre young and nave and not know that youre going to get your heart broken, not know that its going to end up badly. Theres something really nice about that. Even though its a scary time to be in the world when youre that age, I think theres something really cool about that.
EB: Ben Kingsley said that drug use is just a device in this film, but that you use it to tell a story of a fatherless child and a childless father. And his characters navet really comes out in the details, like screaming Yo! DL! in the middle of a holding cell.
JL: [Laughs] Right.
EB: So how did that aspect of the plot, the father/child dynamic, come about for you?
JL: For me, a lot of these things were not necessarily conscious attempts on my part to add those dimensions. What I was thinking about, the theme I wanted to look at when I first started writing this was, what does it mean to grow up? Even though Im 32 now, I dont necessarily feel like when I quote unquote came of age at 17 that I learned every lesson I needed to learn. I know a lot of adults in my life that are very similar to the Kingsley character where its one step forward, two steps back, and theyre just trying to cope. I didnt want to judge that character but I also wanted to look at what it means to come of age, whether youre the age of Ben Kingsley or the age of Josh Peck. Each of these characters has lessons that they need to learn.
EB: You said really identified with Lukes bleakness. But then Josh mentioned how awesome it was that you allowed him to make that character funny. With an actor like him that comes from doing childrens comedy, how did you guys develop that bleakness?
JL: Well, it was my job to be the tone police. The subject matter can veer towards the darkness and the cynical but I think that, first and foremost, we wanted this movie to be entertaining and funny, and reward the audience for investing in the characters. It was always, from the get-go, that Joshs character be funny. Josh and I are kindred spirits in many ways and we have a very similar sense of humor so it was mostly about just giving him the freedom to turn moments. Its often just little things he does, but give him the freedom to make the moments lighter or give him an extra beat to have it connect. A lot of the humor is from when hes around Stephanie and hes feeling completely awkward the way he takes his time with that is wonderful.
EB: The dialog in the bathroom at the party is hilarious.
JL: Yeah, exactly!
EB: Not to get all arts-fartsy about it but the negative space he brings to that scene as an actor its amazing.
JL: No, its true! Its true. If theres anything in common between his Nickelodeon show and this movie--this is a very big stretch here--but I think it is his comic timing that he learned from that show. Even though this is much bigger and that show is much broader, I think he brings a lot of that timing to this. But nothing else, really, they share in common. He doesnt try too hard. It all came from the truth of the situation and all the humor comes from identifying with being in that situation.
EB: As a writer, do you think the roles you create shape the actors or do the actors shape the roles?
JL: With this movie it was more that that each informed the other. I always wanted what was written down to be the blueprint, sort of the base line, and then beyond all you can do is embellish and make it better. You give people the freedom to breathe life into it. But the page does have to be the fallback, the default, and very often in the movie it is. But I think giving these actors an opportunity and freedom even breathes life into the scenes where theyre repeating the lines verbatim. It just kind of comes across.
EB: In addition to the film being personal to you, I imagine it became personal for the actors as well or else it wouldnt have come across, like you said, authentic. All the actors manage to find this new zone that none of them have brought to screen before. At least I havent seen any of them like this on screen before.
JL: Yeah. That was really important to me too. When I sat down with Josh, he and I went through the script, through each scene, and I said, What does this remind you of in your past? When did this happen to you? And he would tell me an anecdote and I would tell him an anecdote that inspired it so you have to personalize it. You have to.
EB: To wrap things up, I think you were talking to IFC, but you said that whenever you do something new, half the people get it and half the people dont
JL: Thus far its been very positive. When you show a movie to an audience, thats the most pure thing you can do. When the audience goes in not quite knowing what to expect, thats when you can really get a genuine reaction. Everything else, sure, you hear things, but generally I feel lucky to have had this movie resonate not just with an audience, but also in forums like Sundance and the L.A. Film Festival and all that stuff. I think thus far weve been very lucky and I think that critics have been taking their cue from audiences rather than vice versa. Which is very good. [Laughs]

The Wackness came out in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on July 3 and will be released later this summer across the U.S. and UK. For more info on the film go here.