Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) Interview

Winner of the Audience Award: Dramatic at 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Jonathan Levine's The Wackness stars Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, Mary-Kate Olsen and Famke Janssen, and opens in UK cinemas on 29th August 2008.


What’s so special about 1994?

For me its the year I graduated high school. And I wanted to do a movie about that time, you know. About that time in someone’s life. And I really like high school movies that are authentic. And for me that was the best way to be authentic. Rather than trying to write a movie that takes place in present day. For me, the best high school movie is like Fast Times and what Cameron Crowe is like. And you know, now that I’m 30 I can’t fuck with what kids are doing these days so I just had to change it; go back to then. And I liked the music, you know. So its like that’s part of it today.

And the music is a strong point of the film. How did you bring together that soundtrack?

A lot of the music is written into it and we tried to start clearing it early. We have a good relationship with Sony BMG. They were able to help us out with a lot of stuff. And its you know, since no one really puts that music in film, a lot of people were excited to include it. So, it was actually a reasonably easy process. Clearing the samples is hard because a lot of those guys never clear their samples so we’re kinda clearing them for them too. But otherwise it was a really nice process. I was shocked for our budget, the amount of great music we were able to get. I was really happy.

Were there any other movies that influenced you as you were writing it?

No. Not while I was writing it. We were getting ready to make it and I started… No, maybe when I was writing it. I would meet with the producers and like, there’s a lot of high school movies and most of them kinda suck. But the really good ones are like fucking awesome, you know. And this year there have actually been a few like Superbad I really like, and Juno I really like. But before this year, not much. So we went back to like the Cameron Crowe, John Hughes days. And those were our biggest inspirations. We watched Almost Famous, we watched Say Anything. We didn’t watch any John Hughes movies, but they’re all committed to memory, you know. We watched Rushmore. A lot of movies about a guy with an older, like Wonderboys.

About the cast, which was so dynamic. How did this cast come together?

Kingsley was the first one to come on board. And then after that it was really easy. We got him the script and we had a relationship with his agent, so we were able to get him to read it. And he really responded to it. And he loves it. And then everyone else, you say to Famke Jannsen “You’re opposite Ben Kingsley”, she’s gonna read the script. And she liked it, you know. And as far as like Mary Kate and Meth go. Meth, I had always wanted to work with. I think he’s a really good actor in addition to being a legend. And Mary Kate I had seen some of her work and I was like, I know she brings a big iconic personality to the table, but I think she’s a really good actress and it would be nice to discover someone whose already one of the most famous people in the world, but discover them as an actress.

And Josh and Olivia?

As far as the kids went, since you don’t need them for financing or anything like that, we just auditioned people. And they just you know, they had it in their blood and they had it in their soul already. So I just recognized it as soon as I saw them. You know, there were other great actors we saw but for me they were it.

Was it a fun film to make?

Maybe. It was really stressful. But that’s part of it. Look, when you’re doing a movie for like $7 million bucks in New York, that’s a lot of dough, but not in New York. It doesn’t go very far. So you have to get everyone psyched about it. So yeah, all the actors were fuckin’ psyched. I think everyone was psyched except me because I was really tired and it was really hard. But you know, it was fun. There were certain days that were like amazingly fun. There were certain days where I was like man, just fuckin’ shoot me in the head. But otherwise yeah. I think it generally was fun.

While you were making it, did you ever look at the drug content and say “maybe I should pull back a little bit”?

Not really. But I think that’s maybe because that’s like, in ‘94 everyone was doing that shit. It never occured to me, and maybe thats just ‘cuz I’m retarded, I’m like its just weed man. And I think more than just the drugs is the movie’s refusal to moralize about the drugs. I think for me it was like, I never felt morally bad about it. Creatively I never felt bad about it because I thought we were just being authentic. Those are like the kids I know who smoked pot. When I was that age, I would smoke joint after joint after joint. And I’m not saying its great, I think its actually pretty fuckin’ stupid. But you know, that exists. And its not like nothing terrible is going to happen to that kid because he smokes pot.

So its a very fine line. You definitely don’t want to promote it. That’s not what we were trying to do. But you also don’t want to pretend its not happening. And plus there’s a rich illustrious history of smoking weed in high school movies that we’re proud to be a part of. That’s just always something I’ve liked to have fun with. That’s how I write, I always include stuff like that just ‘cuz I think its fun. And I think it comes out of nowhere and surprises people. And its consistent with the tone of the movie. It allows people to have fun and laugh at it. There were originally more and we cut a few out. There was originally one where he is sitting up on the water tower and everyone just starts fucking, and they’re all naked. And that I cut out ‘cuz I was like that’s a little wierd.

That’s something that I wondered. Why weren’t there more of those scenes?

Yeah you know. There weren’t more, there was just that one more in the script. And then its sort of like, as it gets into the story. I think in the beginning you want to get into the kid’s head. Then as it gets into the story we start to go a little bit more to Kingsley and so, it just never, it didn’t happen organically. Someone told me once that I should add something to the end, but I didn’t. Oh well.


Read our interview with director Jonathan Levine on All The Boys Love Mandy Lane.


Copyright Neil Miller, Executive Editor, Film School Rejects