As you may be aware, the media blog Gawker has, for the last three weeks, been posting about me and this movie. Gawker's schtick is to be hateful and snarky about everything other than themselves, so of course they are comically negative and attacking in their posts about me. For example:
They seem to think it's controversial that I'm an asshole, they don't like that I have hot girls in my movie, they apparently hate the FBI, they accuse me of plagiarizing myself, they think my stories are fake and in the SAME post say everyone has similar stories, they believe clearly made up emails (even when my REAL assistant writes to say it's fake), and they even criticize me for being professional to actresses and loving my dog. And of course, they think my movie sucks, even though their "source" on set tells them that it's good.
This doesn't upset me at all. It's just the current state of media, and the way the game is played, especially with Gawker. I get it, and I don't take it personally. Come on--how could I be upset when someone calls me an asshole, considering that the first line on my website is "My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole."
If anything, I like what Gawker is doing. How many movies get this kind of incessant press a year from release? And how great is it that a site I hate is constantly talking about me? It'll never aggravate me when people talk about me, even in a negative way, because like Eminem said, "I love being hated, it's great, let's me know that I made it." Every time Gawker breathlessly posts a fabricated email about what a jerk I am, it just throws another gasoline soaked log on the raging inferno that is my ego.
But there is something about this situation that does get to me. I had trouble articulating it, until a few days ago when it hit me: What really pisses me off about the collection of hipster-doofus-illumnati at Gawker is not that they don't like me--they don't like anything, why should I be different--it's that they think they know what they are talking about, when in fact, they are the most clueless. They think they are arbiters of taste, of culture, of cool, but in reality they are nothing more than armchair critics, sitting on the sidelines shitting on the efforts of those who try, while too afraid to do anything of their own. To me, that sort of hypocrisy is disgusting and unforgivable.
I could easily spend thousands of words detailing how fucked up Gawker is, but that's not what I want to do (don't get me wrong though, the pitifulness of Gawker is well-documented). I want to do what no one else in my position has ever really done--I want to hold Gawker accountable for their bullshit. It's time someone stood up to their shameless hypocrisy and pseudo-nihilist snark. It's time someone called them out. They think they know culture, they set themselves up as arbiters of success, then let's see if they will put their money where their mouth is:
Gawker, your position is that I suck and my movie sucks. Ok, that's cool, my position is that none of you know what the fuck you are talking about. So let's settle these mutually exclusive viewpoints with a very simple bet on what the box office gross of my movie will be.
My proposed rules:
-$10,000 bet
-Gawker can pick the dollar gross amount; any number they want. They take the under and I'll take the over.
-North American box office, as reported in Variety.
-Since gambling is indeed illegal, loser pays 10k to the charity of choice of the winner [for the record, my charity of choice is Hear See Hope, which battles Usher syndrome, something that afflicts the nephews of one of the producers]
However Gawker wants to structure it is fine with me, if they want to add things, whatever, I don't care, I'll probably accept.
And because I want to make sure this is fair, here is some info to help them in selecting the box office gross they want to go with:
-The budget on the movie is less than 10 million.
-With a standard distribution deal, we will go into real profit at 20 million gross, depending on various factors. [That's a conservative number--we may get into profit earlier than that, but 20 million is the number where there's no way we won't be in profit.]
-There are no big name actors in the movie (you can see the cast on IMDB).
-It will be an R rated movie
-As it stands now, I am the biggest advertising draw about the movie (my book has sold about 400k copies, and is currently #4 on the NY Times Best Seller List)
-They can just pick the gross at which the movie goes into profit, not thinking it'll even do that, or they can be a fucking jackass and pick a ridiculous number like 300 million. I don't care--I'll take the bet regardless. I just want them to pick a number they don't think my movie has ANY chance of hitting, so when they lose, they are not only embarrassed, they will have to re-check all their assumptions about life and culture.
-And remember: We don't even have a distributor yet. If we don't get theatrical release, or just a small release and then straight to DVD, Gawker wins.
My email is tuckermax@gmail.com. Whoever is the point person at Gawker, feel free to contact me if you want to sort out the details. [Note that we wrap the movie tonight and I head straight back to LA, so I might be off the computer for awhile.]
Of course, if I were you, I'd probably think twice about venturing anywhere beyond the safety of blog snark. Your record of failure outside that area is long and illustrious.
EDIT: Oh look, GAWKER ANGRY! GAWKER SMASH! TUCKER BAD, GAWKER GOOD!! Yes, yes, I know, you are a much better person than me and it must be so hard to even see me from the heights of your pedestal, but no one cares dipshit. Either take the bet or turn the bet down. The time for worthless talk is over.
EDIT 2: Gawker accepts. Just got this email:
Hi TuckerYou've thrown us a bit of a curve ball as we were winding down for the weekend when your post hit the wires. A bit of a quick discussion amongst staffers, as well as firing it to the moneymen at the top and we made a very quick decision.
I'm pleased to announce that we would be more than happy to accept your bet, and we'd like to put the magic number at $18 million.
We can work out finer details next week, such as the charity we're choosing and anything else. Please feel free to email me back if you want to clarify anything, and feel free to run this post, we'll be putting up something ourselves soon.
May the best man, or douchebag, win..
Regards,
Hamilton Nolan
Awesome. 18 million it is. Glad to see they stepped up, unlike hipster god Michael Ian Black.
EDIT 3: OK, so I got fooled. The email I thought was from Hamilton was spoofed. Check the header:
from hamilton@gawker.com
to tuckermax@gmail.com
date Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 7:10 PM
subject Film bet
mailed-by pegasus.dreamhost.com
My bad--I probably should have checked the full header to make sure the email was really from Gawker, but I didn't. This is my fault, not Gawker's. [Unless they spoofed an email from themselves, which would be pretty fucking genius, I have to say.]
This means that as of right now, Gawker has not officially responded to the bet proposal. When they do, I will post about it here.
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We wrap principal photography on my first movie in two days. As soon as we wrap, I am getting in my car and taking my beloved mutt Murphy and driving back to LA to take a two week vacation, both from this blog and from life. This has been the hardest six weeks of my life, and I need a break. This post, and one more very special post on Friday and I will be gone until September 15th, when we'll come back with a vengeance, with posts about editing, distribution, and all sorts of videos and things we just didn't have time to get to during shooting.
But before I go, while I am still immersed in the middle of the stress and grind of shooting, I want to give my assessment of what the past six weeks have been like:
First and foremost, I want to make this very clear: I think we nailed it.
I had an image in my head of what this movie should be, how it should look and feel and what it should be. After all, this entire project began as my life, was brought into existence by my writing, and was driven forward and into a movie by my will. It began as nothing more than a dream I had, and as I sit here, having just seen us film all the scenes that I lived and breathed and wrote and dreamed about, I truly believe we did it, and we did it right.
Don't get me wrong--it wasn't perfect. There were details here or there that I thought were off, maybe a scene or two that didn't quite pop the way I wanted, things like that. No filmmaker has ever finished a movie and thought they got every detail in every shot right. But not only did we get all the big things right, we got almost all of the little things right, and I am pretty confident that the things I don't like are the types of things only I would notice.
Plainly put: This is the movie I wanted it to be.
But even though the project started with me, it absolutely would not have come into existence without the help of many, many people. People that I probably don't thank or recognize enough, so I want to take the time now to publicly recognize them.
First and foremost, I have to thank Bunny. She is my best friend and someone who has stood by me and helped me through all the aggravation and trials and tribulations and bullshit that it took to get this thing turned from an obscure website to a major motion picture. Even though she contributed a lot creatively, I probably could have replaced Bunny's creative input to the project, but never her emotional support. I am a very strong person, but no one could have gone through what I've gone through the past five years alone. She was my rock. Without her, I wouldn't be writing this, because I would have given up a long time ago.
A very close second is Nils Parker. I absolutely could NOT have replaced his creative input. Once the movie is out, I will post all the versions of the script, and you can see what I wrote by myself, and you'll see the evidence of just how crucial he's been. I didn't bring Nils on to doctor the script--he has put in as much or more effort than me and is every bit responsible for making this what is it. When we were lining up financiers, a lot of people couldn't understand why I was insisting on bringing on my friend not only as a co-writer, but as a full producer in his first project in Hollywood. That is NOT done in this town. Well, no one on this movie is asking that; in fact, I would bet that if you polled the cast and crew, they would say that, during the production stage, Nils has been more important to this movie than I have. And they'd be right.
Then there's Max Wong. Max brought me into Hollywood, taught me a ton, helped Nils and I learn how to turn the script from a 250 page rambling monolith, to something we could consider shooting. She was the voice of reason and experience, and has helped us creatively and businesswise, and most importantly, she and her partner Karen were honest and had integrity. That is very rare in Hollywood.
Aaron Ray has been, more than any other person, directly responsible for this project going from script to movie, and has helped Nils and I navigate the extremely complicated world of Hollywood deal making. The two biggest cliches in Hollywood are the great script that never gets made, and the writer who gets screwed by the system. This didn't happen to us pretty much only because of Aaron Ray. I think I am one of the very smartest people I have ever met, but Aaron is one of the few people I've ever met who I will admit is smarter than me. By a large margin.
I met David Zuckerman when I was still considering doing this project as a TV show, and I was lucky enough that David and I got along and he agreed to lend some of his extremely valuable time to help Nils and I with notes on the script. If I ever wondered why writers are paid so much, one set of notes from David Zuckerman made me understand. Even though he didn't write one word of the script, just by talking us through the general concepts of story and plot and conflict, David helped improve this movie--and helped Nils and I learn about screenwriting-- more than any other person. And he did it for no other reason than he liked the project and wanted to help. David is the type of person I wish I was more like; brilliant, kind, patient and generous.
What more can I say about Bob Gosse? Other than the fact I thank God every day we were lucky enough to get him to direct the movie, I'm not sure. EVERY financier (except Darko Entertainment) questioned our selection of Bob Gosse as director on this movie, and now that we are finished shooting, I have to say it: I told you I was right about him! Not only was he the right pick to direct this movie, at this point I can't even imagine anyone else doing it, and keeping it together. Bob had the impossible job of containing and dealing with Tucker Max on his first movie, and he not only did it, he made a great movie in the process, and taught me a lesson I needed to learn. I haven't written about it because now is not the time and this isn't the place, but Bob and I had our issues during filming. That story--the one about the movie behind the movie--is very interesting and will be told in full one day, but I will say this now: Bob saved me from myself, and in the process helped me more with life than he did with the movie. And he directed the movie...which should tell you how much I have learned from Bob Gosse.
For the rest of our lives, Matt Czuchry and I are going to be inextricably linked. He'll be the guy that the world knows as Tucker Max, and I couldn't be happier about this. He'll exemplify the best parts of me, leave the worst parts back, and in the process create a character that I think people will relate to and love. It's so ironic that a character that is based on an asshole will be played by such a great guy; kind, compassionate, empathetic and giving. Pretty much the opposite of me in real life. Oh yeah, did I mention that he did a fucking great job? I think I did. He's going to be a huge fucking star. I hope he's ready.
Jesse Bradford is going to steal this movie. Matt's the star and Geoff is the glue, but Jesse is going to fucking steal it. Just watch. I would thank him for doing such an amazing job in his role, but he's going to be such a big name after this, I think he can thank me.
Geoff Stults is still better looking than me, richer than me, more successful than me, and still has a hotter girlfriend than me, but I found something else out about him on this movie: He's funnier than me too. When Nils and I wrote the Dan character, we didn't make him all that funny because we thought we'd have to put a namey actor of marginal talent in that role to get financing. Well, it turns out that we got a star, and not only that, at least 50% of the funny lines Geoff has in the movie, he improved on the spot. Which has only reinforced my initial opinion: Fuck Geoff Stults.
Poor Sean McKittrick. He's aged ten years on this movie, mostly because of me. He's had to deal with the worst parts of me, and manage the movie, and focus on all the other things his company has going. By myself, I am a full time job. Without Sean (and the rest of the guys at Darko) this movie wouldn't exist, and in the end, he probably won't get anywhere near the credit that he deserves. Well, someone always has to get fucked, right? Bend over Sean.
Jen and Mike: I won't put their last names because I don't know if they want to be mentioned at all, but these two were the initial investors in the movie and were the first people to not just say they believed in me, they put their money where their mouth was. It's going to be a proud day in my life when they get their first royalty check.
Everyone on the crew: I won't go through and say something about each person individually, but I can't stress enough how great the crew has been and how much they have added to the movie. From the 1st AD and DP all the way down to the lowest PA, these guys have made it possible for us to make the movie we wanted to make. I would work with every single one of them again, and that's the highest compliment you can give in the movie business.
So to all of you: Without you guys, I would just be another asshole with a blog, instead of an asshole with a blog and a movie. I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you.
One last thing:
This is the movie I wanted, the movie I wished for. Everyone I just thanked came into my creative universe, bought into my creative vision, and did the job I asked them to do, in a better way than I could have done it and adding a lot of value in the process. If this movie succeeds, it will be because of everyone I listed above, not me. It may have my name on it, it may be about my life, but I will only deserve a very small part of the credit for success.
But here's the irony: If it fails, it'll be my fault only. If this fails, it'll be a failure of vision. It'll mean that it was rotten from the beginning, and nothing any of these people could have done would have saved it. They all, individually and as a group, did an amazing job effectuating a vision I originated. They not only did their jobs, each of them did an amazing job--they cannot be blamed if something was wrong with that original vision.
If success comes--and I think it will, in large doses--it will be because of all of us. But failure will be mine alone.
EDIT: Come back tomorrow, I have a very special post coming. You don't want to miss it.
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Matt did an interview with another site, mostly rehashing the things you've already read here, but I'll post it anyway:
I had the opportunity to do a phone interview with Matt Czuchry, who is currently in Shreveport, Louisiana filming I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. They began filming the movie, based on Tucker Max's life and best-selling novel of the same name, earlier this summer and have a week left on set. Matt says he's enjoyed working on the film and a couple moments from the film have made their way into his list of the "Top 5 Weirdest Experiences" of his life.In the movie of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Matt Czuchry plays Tucker Max in an adaptation of the "Austin Road Trip" story. The film loosely follows the short story about Tucker Max's trip to a friend's bachelor party. On that trip, Tucker Max gets the groom into trouble then abandons him to pursue his own carnal pleasures. After getting banned from the wedding, Max must attempt to get back into his friend's favor.
Although both Tucker and Matt had written about how he had come to be cast in the film, many of you wanted more details. Matt says he had not read the book prior to receiving Tucker Max's screenplay, but has since gone back to read it. Matt describes the movie as following one of the short stories of the book, though structured differently with narrative written around it.
Matt described in a recent blog post that "The movies that I tend to connect with have something in common: They come from real experiences and are colored by the lives of real people." In follow up, I asked what about this story and Tucker Max attracted him to the film. Matt Czuchry says, "Tucker has this energy and a love for living in the moment. He has a rawness and authenticity about him."
Matt says it was this "energy and passion" that attracted him to the movie. Because he and Tucker Max are so different, Matt says that "just knowing what it would take to do this role" was a challenge he was eager for.
Matt says that he and Tucker share that love of the moment; that Tucker "live[s] life in a way that's honest," which is something Matt himself tries to do. Although Matt shares this characteristic with Tucker Max, the two are very different. When it comes to comparing himself to the scripted Tucker Max, the character he plays in the movie, Matt says "We're quite a bit different. How we are with friends, with women, how we treat others..."
Although Matt Czuchry initially had some reservations about the public perception of the character in the film, he had to let that go once he joined the film. Matt talked earlier about trying to make the character "redeemable and lovable", and his success in that he leaves up to the audience. "I try to make sure the character has motivations for what he does," Matt says, which he hopes will ultimately make the Tucker Max-on-film authentic and likable.
The Tucker Max character in the film draws from the real life and story of Tucker Max, but is built up with what he (Matt) brings to it as well. The Tucker-on-film does not try to emulate the real-to-life Tucker Max; the character is "a movie version of who Tucker is," says Matt.
Matt Czuchry spent the last 3 months with his acting coach and with Tucker Max trying to develop the character on film. He would spend time with Tucker asking him the "why" and the "how" questions and adding his own interpretation to that. Given that Tucker Max and Matt Czuchry differ so greatly as individuals, Matt had to put himself into a new "headspace", as he describes it. The evolution of Tucker Max-on-film came out of trying to put the character into his own life.
Matt Czuchry says that when we see the movie there will be some "wow" moments in it. Moments that made him go "wow" himself. "There will be some self-explanatory scenes where the audience goes 'wow'," Matt says, when asked about what was challenging in the film. "Scenes that are funny and scenes that are raw", Matt continues when describing these "wow" moments.
In Matt Czuchry's latest contribution to the I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell blog, he writes that "the crux of this film surrounds the friendships of three characters;" Tucker (Matt Czuchry), Drew (Jesse Bradford), and Dan (Geoff Stults). He then goes on to tell a story of a road trip the trio took to New Orleans; it's clear to me that these actors have bonded in real life. When asked how important friendship is to this movie, Matt replies "It's essential. You need to believe that 3 friends (myself, Jesse and Geoff) have been friends for a long time." Matt says that this friendship is essential to believe in their story. I believe that if any portion of the friendship evident between these three makes it on screen that I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell will be a success with the audience.
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell will be released in Spring of 2009. Meanwhile, Matt Czuchry will be heading to Germany and Belgium on September 19 for ten days for the USO Tour with the Hollywood Knights.
Comment and discuss
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Sorry I haven't posted for two days, but I am just bone tired.
We have one week of shooting left. Five days, twelve hours a day, 60 more hours of shooting, ending at 6am on Saturday morning (Friday night is an all night shoot) and this movie is wrapped, and I head back to LA.
By the end of this week, I will write a long post detailing my final thoughts in the time we've spent in Shreveport. As for now, I am going to sleep and getting ready to finish our last week strong. Lots more pics and videos coming this week, we are just way behind with blog stuff.
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The crux of this film surrounds the friendships of three characters; Tucker (Me), Drew (Jesse), and Dan (Geoff). Our work as actors is to inhabit these characters and understand the history of their friendship. In order for this movie to connect with the audience and be believable, interesting, and entertaining, the relationships between these characters must be truthful on screen.
As actors, there are many different processes, techniques, and styles of work that help in inhabiting a character and understanding the imaginary relationships created in the screenplay. Each actor has their own approach that allows them to bring the character from a two-dimensional thing on a piece of paper, to a three-dimensional living and breathing character on screen. The movies that I tend to connect with have something in common: They come from real experiences and are colored by the lives of real people. That means the best movies translate pieces of your life and imagination to the screen. In that spirit... I provide you with the following:
The Shreveport to New Orleans Road Trip
Characters: Matt Czuchry, Jesse Bradford, and Geoff Stults
Occurred ---August 2nd-3rd
Written---August 13th
10:17 a.m. A slow leak in our crap rental car's left front tire causes us to stop many times before even leaving Shreveport. We proceed to go to 5 gas stations in the city, and each air station is broken. We decide to travel precariously towards our 5-hour away destination of New Orleans, despite the danger. The tire was seriously low.... like almost on the rim.
10:45: We stop at the most podunk, ghetto-ass gas station we've ever seen, and finally come across a working air station. The tire is so low it's basically not reading anything on the gauge. The air station was at least 30 years old...... but it worked.
11:46: Geoff recounts the following story about one of his previous trips to New Orleans: "I was wasted, pissing in a beer bottle on the side of the street. The cops ran up to me. As they ran over, I made a desperate move, and put the bottle to my mouth and pretended it was a beer. As my own warm piss hit my face, the cops asked me if I was pissing on the street. I said no. They looked on the ground and saw no piss. The cops didn't look in the bottle, assumed it was beer, and I escaped certain arrest."
2:12 p.m: A private conversation with Jesse and Matt regarding a few long-time friendships we each have in our lives, and how grateful we are for each of them. Matt drives to New Orleans, Jesse is in the passenger seat, and Geoff is on his phone in the back talking to his girlfriend and telling us that we're both gay.
5:18: Arrival in the Big Easy. Matt and Jesse play guitar together (Jesse is amazing) before going out to Bourbon Street. Matt cuts his finger and bleeds all over the guitar and his white shirt. Jesse's friend "Rachel" cleans Matt's white shirt with some magic, voodoo New Orleans juice, and the shirt is as good as new.
5:56: "Rachel's" boyfriend "Tim" tells stories of when he was in the Coast Guard and how he rescued people from their homes during Katrina. Quote from "Tim," "streets became rivers, cars were underwater, and the bumps we hit on the water in our boats were the windshields of cars."
7:05: Walking the streets of New Orleans and experiencing the people, the Spanish Moss, the magic and energy of the city. I comment on this, Jesse agrees, and Geoff tells us we're gay.
9:12 p.m. Text message exchange between Matt and Tucker Max:
Tucker: What are you guys doing tonight?
Matt: We drove to New Orleans this morning (5 hours away from Shreveport).
Tucker: Bullshit.
Matt: Nope.
Tucker: You know you have rehearsal for the movie tomorrow night.
Matt: Yup.
Tucker: Hahahahahaha. Awesome!
Matt: Yeah, it's pretty great.
9:58: Matt, Jesse, Geoff, all drinking Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's. It is the worst drink ever concocted, but we finish them anyway so that no one thinks another is a pussy.
10:40: Matt, with Hurricane in hand at Pat O'Brien's, leans over to Geoff and says, "these are the kind of experiences life is all about." Geoff agrees, and then calls him gay.
11:52: Matt recounts a BRUNO television episode with Geoff, on Bourbon Street. People stare as Matt yells, as BRUNO character, "I am BRUNO and it's great to be GAY!" Geoff pretends he doesn't know us.
1:00 a.m: Matt, Jesse, and Geoff drinking Hand Grenade drinks at Tropical Isle, all of us getting plastic Hand Grenade's in the bottom of each glass.
1:45 a.m. Jesse's awesome friend "Rachel" sings on stage and the crowd goes wild at Tropical Isle.
2:17 a.m. Matt leaves a phone message for Jesse explaining why he got separated from the group, "Yo. I just spent the last fuckin five minutes on Bourbon St, trying to put a fuckin plastic hand grenade around my necklace. Hey!! Here they are! Put it on the blog....... this is Geoff."
(Note from Jesse, who saved the message and dictated it to me verbatim: "The funniest part about this, to me, is that you tried to pass it off on Geoff. Nice try.")
3:07 a.m. Random guy with this amazing Cajun accent talks to all of us. We can understand like every 3rd word, but the guy's accent is incredible, so we think the guy is the coolest ever, even though he was probably making fun of us.
3:25 a.m. As we enter strip club, Matt receives a text message from a friend in St. Louis, "Don't call the strippers whores in New Orleans or tell the bouncers to go fuck themselves, they don't like that very much there."
3:37 a.m. Matt buys drinks for two random guys at the Strip Club and instead of making a gay joke, Geoff says "if you ever do that again, I will punch you in the face." He is serious.
4:00 a.m. Eating Gyros on Bourbon Street (better than the ones I had in Greece). We all get recognized by a group of girls, they can't place us, we tell them that they must recognize us from our gay porn work. The girls stop, think for a second, then say, "No that's not it, damn it, where do I know you guys from?"
4:30 a.m. The cab ride from Bourbon Street to our hotel with Matt, Jesse, Geoff, "Rachel," "Tim," and "Amy." We all talk drunken politics and "Amy" claims that Barack Obama quote, "LOVES ABORTIONS!" Jesse tries to reason with her, but gives up and finally says sarcastically, "I LOVE ABORTIONS TOO! DOES ANYONE NEED ONE? I'LL DO IT WITH MY FUCKING THUMB RIGHT NOW!!"
5:30 p.m. SUNDAY. Arriving home from the crazy road trip, exhausted, hung over, each of us now connected more than ever, full of amazing experiences, to find out... our rehearsal in the evening for the movie has been canceled!!!
FUCK, THIS MOVIE IS GOING TO BE AWESOME!
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Being a narcissist, I usually don't think much about how I affect other peoples lives. It's not as a matter of malice, it's just that it doesn't occur to me. That's why I found this article about how our movie affected the life of someone not associated with it so interesting. A lot of this stuff, I didn't even know:
A Broadmoor resident walked into her home last Tuesday and wondered where she was.A strange, colorful couch was in her living room, decorations were missing and her walls were green. But the homeowner didn't panic. And she wasn't frightened by the dozens of strangers walking about.
It's simply all in a day's work, and Theresa Bryant's home is the location. Last week, Bryant gave up her home on Archer Avenue to crews for the filming of the upcoming movie "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell," based on the bestselling book by Tucker Max. And she's enjoyed every minute of it.
Bryant's romance with the movie industry began one day at the end of June.
"I came home and got my mail, and I saw a calling card and it said, 'I hope they serve beer in hell,'" Bryant said.
After calling the number listed, Bryant found out her home had been selected as the ideal location for the home of one of the characters, a bohemian single mom with a small boy. Russell Strickland, locations manager, told Bryant he liked the outside of her home.
"He said it just looked like a happy home and like a place with a mother and child," Bryant said.
Next came a visit from Strickland, who toured the inside of Bryant's home and told her the background of the movie.
"Then they began setting up," she said. "I never realized so much is involved. When you look at TV shows and movies, you never really think about what's in the background. They bring that stuff in."
Bryant, whose home was full of antiques, said crews arrived and cleared out all of her furniture before they began transforming her home into that of the character.
"When they came the first time, they took pictures of everything. They note everything, take pictures of everything and everything is wrapped in bubble wrap and labeled," Bryant said.
But Bryant, who's lived at her address for about half a year, said it only took eight days total to set up, including the time it took to move her things out.
"There's a ton of people," she said. "It's like, where were you five months ago? It took me three months to find (the house) and three months to unpack."
As far as the horror stories of movie crews trashing houses, Bryant said that's hardly been her experience.
"The people are wonderful. They don't use the homeowner's things. They don't use your air conditioning. They use generators. They went out of their way to make sure I wasn't inconvenienced," Bryant said. "They're just as kind as can be."
In addition to the kindness of crew members, Bryant is also getting a few bonuses out of the deal. Her hardwood floors were redone and bland walls painted.
Before filming, Bryant's walls were stark white. Now there's various hues of green throughout her home. When asked whether she wanted to keep her new wall colors or choose another, Bryant's answer was clear.
"My walls are lime green," she said. "The very last wall of the kitchen is pear green. It's just as bad. I said never again. I'll never have green again," Bryant said. "So I get a new paint job and I thought, 'Wow, this is exciting."
In the end, Bryant chose malted milk, a taupe color, for the living room and peanut shell, a light gold, to accent her kitchen.
Quiet on the setFilming at Bryant's home began at 5 a.m. Aug. 11 and was scheduled to wrap up after only a couple of days. During the week, no calls came through, as phone lines were cut. Bryant's bedroom was filled with cameras and equipment, cardboard lined her floors, her middle bedroom served as the character's bedroom and children's toys were strewn about.
Bryant was given the option to stick around during filming but opted out.
"I said, 'Honey, my life's too busy for that. I don't have kids, and it's summer. So I can stay at my parents'."
Bryant, though temporarily displaced, did not have trouble being away from her home. She was happy to spend the time with her parents. And shooting didn't conflict with Bryant's active role as grandmother, baby sitting her granddaughters, 2-year-old Emma Grace and 10-month-old Maggie Elizabeth Krefft, during the school year when their mother returns to teaching.
"I don't think I could do it for three months, but it didn't hinder anything," Bryant said. "And I'm glad it happened during the summer so it wouldn't disturb the environment the girls are used to."
Filming was scheduled to wrap up by the end of the week, just in time for Bryant to return to baby sitting without having to be away from home.
After the cameras, crewsOnce filming wrapped up, Bryant said everything was brought back in and returned to normal. And for Bryant, life too has returned to normal.
Yet, now she has her memories of meeting a movie set designer, best-selling author, director, other crew members and security guards, who Bryant happily treated to home-cooked breakfasts and dinners.
"The people are so nice. They're really professional. They're just working people like you and me. They're job is just lighting or set design for a movie," she said.
But it was more than hospitality to Bryant. To her, the industry is a great boost to the area by providing jobs and supporting the local economy.
"I don't want the industry to think we're bad people. I want them to stay."
Though happy to have her home back, Bryant enjoyed her rendezvous with the movie industry.
"It's been fun," Bryant said. "It's been an adventure."
This part stood out to me:
"Yet, now she has her memories of meeting a movie set designer, best-selling author, director, other crew members and security guards, who Bryant happily treated to home-cooked breakfasts and dinners."
Yes, the people in Shreveport are indeed so nice that they cook and bake for us.
The location this article is referring to is where we shot on Day 16 and 17. The pics are on the Flickr account.
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So, this entry was apparently very popular with people. I had more email about that than anything I have written. Fuck all of you ungrateful assholes.
Seriously though, the verbal sarcasm and bitterness battle did not stop on that last post, it carried into the comments thread, where Real SlingBlade and Fake SlingBlade squared off for round two. I am pulling it out and reprinting it here:
Real SlingBlade:
Tucker said: "Don't believe SlingBlade's bullshit about how this isn't the "real" him."I love when Tucker tries to describe how other people think or feel. Tucker is a narcissist and a sociopath. By definition he is incapable of understanding human emotion or feeling empathy. Does anyone ask John Wayne Gacy to describe how someone feels?
Therapist - "So John Wayne, what is that guy thinking"
John Wayne Gacy - "Him thinks that it would be nice to be eating a bunny and then be using feces to paint."
Ummm, no John Wayne. That, in fact, is not what he is thinking. Thank you though.
Sociopaths turn into serial killers due to childhood trauma, and luckily Tucker only had a divorce to deal with instead of a "special Uncle" so we get 'misogynist likes to bang malformed girls Tucker' instead of 'cross-country prostitute killing spree Tucker.' How lucky for our nations prostitutes.
Back to talking about me: I am only good at making sarcastic comments. If you give me something to talk about I can go on for days, but when I have to come up with a topic it takes a while. So I have to stare at a screen for a while until I come up with a theme I can use as a framework to tell jokes around and then I bang away at the keyboard like some kind of retarded stenographer before pushing the computer away. No real editing. If I were, and I hate the use this term to describe Tucker, a professional, then I would go back and edit. For example rereading the above I would add (and this is a true story):
"was going to find Tucker filming himself masturbating with an 8 mm camera in a dark apartment."
Kind of like the time he promised to show me and Hate a naked picture of a hot girl he was fucking and the picture turned out to be a picture of his penis resting near to what may or may not have been a female's thigh. And then Tucker insisted his penis was only in the shot for "perspective" and not as some trial balloon he was floating to see how interested I or Hate may have been in his penis.
Actually reading Tucker's post I think he changed the start of the last paragraph from "Actually," (real thoughts about the movie) to "For real though," (real thoughts). That's awesome work Tucker. For real though, I sound like I watch The Hills now. Why didn't you add "I liked it fo' sho" at the end of the paragraph too you douche bag.
I saw that Jesse wrote this at the end of his little screed: "By the way, it was truly a pleasure to meet you, man..."
I knew it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)
We're going to best friends, forever and ever ... bee dee beep bah dah dooooooooo, I hope you feel the same way too. Hee hee. You make me feel like singing, BFF Jesse. When you wrap I have some great ideas to run by you. I think we should have a show on the Food Network where we travel around the U.S. and stay in a hotel room with one bed and go town to town tasting new foods. We could call ourselves the Foodie Blues. Get it - like the Moody Blues (best band ever). Of course you get it. Gosh, we're so much alike. Kind of like when you were doing character research and you said "What irritates you most about women?" and I said "When they try to escape from my basement." Underneath that mask of revulsion I could tell you understood. ;/\ )
I'm tempted to get a Facebook account, or at least a legit one where I'm not posing as a 14 year old Fillipino girl, so that you can be my bestest and only friend on it.
As soon as they upload the digital stills from the set I'm going to start a scrapbook of the times we shared. I'll title it either "Me and Jesse" or "You better start returning my phone calls or your Agent is going to have real hard time locating you if you catch my drift."
Here is Fake SlingBlade's response:
OOOHHH look at me!!I'm the "real" SlingBlade!! (Insert horrifically offensive/misanthropic epithet here)
OHHH everybody loves me!!!
WAAAH I didn't think Jesse Bradford was going to pull this off, but now that I see that he, too, can be a maladjusted train-wreck I believe in him!!! WAAAAH!!!
Couple things:
1. I don't have a Facebook. Or a Myspace. The only time you'll see me on those social-retard networking sites is when some even greater social-retard (i believe Nietzsche called them the Uber-soc-tard) makes a page PRETENDING to be me. So beware: if you attempt to communicate with me through this means, it may in fact be a 14 year old Filipino girl...... cause that's how I roll. (On that note: I am now contemplating starting up a Myspace AND a Facebook as YOU. I have trouble attracting lonely, social rejects, who spend all day eating McGriddles in front of their computer, and this action on my part would surely help fill that void in my soul.)
2. Did I not offer to help you retrieve those errant basement escapees!? Not to mention; ix-nay on the asement-bay ungeon-day oject-pray!!!!! Jeeeeez...... apparently no good deed goes unpunished.....
3. The food show idea sounds good. I'm going to steal it and do it with Mario Lopez. We've been looking for a project to do together. But if he falls through, or his schedule doesn't permit, I'll come back to you. After I've already tried Verne Troyer, Kirk Cameron, The Smothers Brothers, The Miz from Real World, Shane West, Shaka Kahn, Emo Phillips, Simon Rex, Carney Wilson, the Monkey from Friends, and Jan Michael Vincent's corpse......... is he dead? Doesn't matter.....
Love, your new BFF,
Jesse
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This is not an action movie by any stretch, but we still have about 3-4 stunts, so we have a stunt coordinator and three stunt people on crew (two men and one woman). This is an interview with the stunt coordinator, Steve Ritzi:
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So my buddy SlingBlade, the guy that the Drew character is based on, came to set yesterday to check it out. Here are his thoughts:
"All in all I was fairly surprised. First of all I assumed this movie production didn't even really exist and I was going to find Tucker filming himself masturbating with an 8 mm camera in a dark apartment. Instead there is an honest to goodness movie being made. Tucker actually tricked people into ponying up cash for the sole purpose of Tucker self-aggrandizing his penis-centric lies on the big screen. Also there's some Serbian guy on set who I'm pretty sure has killed people. Its like the land of broken toys around here.
Second of all I was surprised by how incapable Jesse Bradford was of capturing all of the nuance inherent in my character. Watching this "actor" try to play me was like watching a monkey try to fuck a football. I'm sure that shit he was trying to pass off as acting was OK for Clockstoppers, but this is the big show. Here's what I failed to see: The tenderness, the vulnerability. All of the things that make me special. No offense, but this isn't Tucker's role, where you spend two minutes contemplating mommy going bye-bye and then think of clever ways to get underage girls from broken homes to consent to acts of sexual deviancy to make yourself whole again. Slingblade has rejected a society that he has measured and found wanting. No one can meet his standards, standards of perfection that only he himself is capable of reaching. Instead Jesse is wandering around yelling at people like he just got kicked in the junk. Its like amateur hour. There is a big difference between "whore" and "WHORE."
Finally I'm a little upset I wasn't invited to be here while the strip club scene was being filmed. I could have stood around and gotten ignored by a bunch of hot girls. It would have been like high school all over again.
For real though, I was on set briefly and saw one scene where Tucker/Slingblade interact and I thought the actors did a really good job of capturing the essence of the reality. Matt emulated the kind of self-congratulatory way Tucker has of telling a joke and then mentally slapping himself on the back while laughing to himself and forgetting anyone else is in the room as he floats in an internal narcissistic reverie. And Jesse was good at the kind of exasperated sarcastic way I have of dealing with the constant stream of obnoxious stupidity that comes out of Tucker's mouth. Although he's playing me as more of the message board angrier version of me which is actually probably funnier than the real me, but then again the circumstances of the plot kind of dictate him being in that place and I'm sure Tucker's seen me act that way when I've been in that place. It looks really good though, for real.
In conclusion, fuck Tucker. This movie will be a success because I am involved, even in an abstract way."
Don't believe SlingBlade's bullshit about how this isn't the "real" him. He is married now and has a job he likes. How soon he forgets what he was like at 24, when he hated law school, his life, and pretty much everything else on earth.
I sent this to Jesse Bradford to get his take, and he responded as such:
"Dear WannabeFakeSlingBlade,
How dare you...
How dare you sling venomous hate at my attempts to sling venomous hate!
How dare you belittle me in my attempts to belittle people!
How dare you call into question my ability to live up to standards that you yourself proclaim to be un-live-up-to-able!!
HOW DARE YOU!!!!
If I had my Clockstoppers watch, I would stop time long enough to seed your precious front lawn with Musk Thistle, Russian Knapweed, and Leafy Spurge, gently water these pests until they grow big and strong, place you in the middle of your driveway, shove that monkey AND that football up your ass, and re-activate time just to watch your fucking head spin around like Linda Blaire. And I'd round up a bunch of whores (pardon me, I mean "WHORES") to bear witness and ridicule your infant-like tears! Goddamn, I wish I still had that fucking watch...
And for your information, the day we met I had actually JUST been kicked in the balls several times RIGHT before. So ex-fucking-scuse me for seeming a little ball-kicked at the time.
By the way, it was truly a pleasure to meet you, man..."
Two peas in a pod, those two. As different as Matt and I are in real life, Jesse and SlingBlade are that similar in real life. If SlingBlade had friends, Jesse would probably be one. I should have taken video as SlingBlade watched the scenes--it was the closest I've ever seen him get to a positive emotion.
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We have already had a good number of cameos, and have a few more coming, but I think this'll end up as my favorite:
In case you don't know, that's Mac Danzig (winner of The Ultimate Fighter 6) and Forrest Griffin (current UFC champ at 205lbs). I can't show their scene for obvious reasons, but both Mac and Forrest did an amazing job and were awesome on set.
I know that after TUF 6 people were down on Mac because the show made him out to be a dick, but in my experience with him, he couldn't be a nicer or cooler guy. And I don't just say that because he can kick my ass. And of course Forrest is exactly like he seems on TV--just a solid guy. I would have their backs anytime, not to mention the fact they did a really good job with their roles.
The MMA blog Five Ounces of Pain has more pics here.
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Sometimes, I think Gawker is my only friend left.
They are the only ones helping me maintain my asshole image, while everyone else keeps talking bullshit about what a nice guy I am, like this reporter, this photographer, this pick-up artist, this crippled kid, and this porn star.
Fuck those people. Gawker has it right:
I'm a rapey, fratty asshole and don't let anyone--regardless of the fact that they actually spent time with me--convince you of anything different.
EDIT: Almost forgot, more pics from filming and hanging out.
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Some people have an image of me that I am a rich, trust fund kid or something like that, and it makes me laugh. I always ask them to tell me where that trust fund is so I can make a withdrawal, because I have yet to see a dime from it.
From a few weeks after my 15th birthday on, I have pretty much had a job constantly, and most of those jobs have been physically intensive. The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I mucked horse stalls. I mean that literally--every day from 6am to 2pm, I shoveled piss and shit soaked hay out of the stalls of thoroughbred horses, and then laid fresh hay. I spent one summer washing dishes, and the next busing tables. I've spent countless hours working all sorts of jobs on farms--putting up fences, painting fences, worming cattle, cutting hay, gelding steers (cutting the balls off of young male bulls--not kidding at all), etc, etc.
Now that I sit down and think about it, I may have worked more blue collar than white collar jobs in my life--probably because I get fired from the white collar jobs pretty quickly (e.g., this little situation).
That's been one of the strangest things for me to deal with on this movie--I am not just one of the people in charge, but I am solidly white collar now. In fact, I couldn't even be blue collar if I tried. The below the line jobs on movies tend to be very physically intense and hard, but they are still very much skilled labor. Any idiot can paint a fence, but you need a lot of training to move a camera dolly or set up hot stinger.
I watch these dudes busting their ass moving equipment or something, and my first instinct is to go help them--after all, what kind of leader sits back and watches while his people toil? Well, I kinda have to; I can't help them because I would only get in the way. For at least 90% of the jobs on a movie set, some sort of specialized skill or local knowledge is necessary, and if I tried to do those jobs without first taking months to learn them, the result would be pretty obvious: I would fuck shit up.
Even though there is nothing I can do, even though by "helping" I'd just fuck something up and make more work for all of us, I still feel like an asshole for watching all these people bust their ass doing all this hard work for my movie, while I sit back and do nothing but eat craft service and have pansy-ass creative conversations about how far the shades should be drawn in a hotel room or what kind of phone Movie Tucker should have.
I guess that's the point though. They bust their ass in each of their respective jobs--whether it's props or sound or camera or lighting or whatever--so that Nils and Bob and I can have the time and energy to have those conversations, because it's those conversations that make the movie what it is. At the end of the day, the point of a movie is to entertain the audience. Nothing else really matters. If the movie sucks, no one will give a fuck how much the producers helped move c-stands (not that I could even do that correctly), so it's our job to make sure we do our job.
I wrote about this because I had this conversation with one of the grips last week about how I felt guilty for not doing any of the manual labor. He told me I was stupid for thinking that, and that I needed to let him focus on his job and not worry about it, that I needed to get my job right so that the movie was what it was supposed to be.
Then he told me if I wanted to do some physical labor, I could come mow his lawn on Saturday. I told him to shut his below-the-line mouth and go move something in the hot sun, I had an iced yerba mate tea to drink.
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There are plenty of people out there who think they know what's going on with the set of the movie, and I have yet to read one who isn't lying and making things up from whole cloth. But over the next few weeks I will link pieces written by people who ACTUALLY visited the set, hung out with the actors, talked to the crew, etc. Some will be friends of mine, some will be reporters (a few places are sending people, and some have already come and gone), and some will be people who were there when I wasn't even on set.
I am printing the first one below. Like the guy said, I don't know him, and I barely even know what he does for a living--I let him come onto set because we have a mutual friend who vouched for him (I don't even think Tynan knows I checked him out with this person). My buddy said he was a good guy, and that was enough for me. I do remember him coming to set but I hardly remember talking to him at all--it was this day that he showed up and like he said I was super busy--and I don't remember being as nice to the guy as he says I was, but whatever, this is his account of his visit to the set of I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL:
"I wandered onto the total chaos of the movie set. People were running around everywhere adjusting things and looking for people. Tucker walked by me without even noticing that I was there, focused on yelling at someone in front of him.
"Hey... I'm Tynan."
"Oh hey - good to meet you. Come on in."
I followed him as he breezed into the building. The inside was even more packed with people. Everyone was doing something.
For the next hour or two I watched as they filmed one of the final scenes in the movie. It was an awesome sight.
Maybe I caught him on an off day, but Tucker wasn't an asshole at all. When his attention wasn't required somewhere on set, which was about half the time, he'd stand next to me and explain what was going on. Since all of this stuff was new to him too he was able to explain it all clearly in layman terms.
Here are some of the interesting things I learned, some of which may be applicable to all movies, and some of which may be unique to Tucker's movie. I have no frame of reference, so take all that with a grain of salt.
-Very little is shot in any given day. They were shooting ONE scene all day. They just keep redoing it from different angles, focusing on different people, with slightly different timing, with an moving camera instead of the main actor, etc.
-Scenes are shot totally out of order, based on availability of actors, locations, and a number of other factors.
-I now understand why acting is hard. In the scene you are reacting to past events that you've never actually shot, AND you have to do it the same way with the right emotions fifty times in a day. It's not all glitz and glamor - these guys are working.
-There is insane attention being paid to every detail. One woman was taking pictures of everyone's hair so that if they needed to reshoot a scene later the hair would be exactly the same. Another person's job was to watch the scenes as they were filmed and watch for continuity.
-The atmosphere was way more collaborative than expected. Most decisions had several people offering input, including actors.
-There was a lot of genuine camaraderie on the set. Not the forced I'm-working-with-you-so-I'll-be-polite sort of thing, but more of a I'm-going-to-smash-this-prop-cake-in-your-face-when-we-wrap sort of vibe. In fact, Tucker seemed more concerned that the cake smash was caught on camera than many other aspects of the movie.
-This may have been influenced by what I'd read beforehand, but I definitely felt like everyone there was really thrilled to be working on the project and was proud of the job they were doing. Even a couple extras I talked to seemed to take a lot of pride in the whole thing. Maybe this happens on all movies, but I suspect it doesn't.
I had a great time visiting the set and have nothing but good things to say about Tucker, Jeff the AP, and everyone else I met.
They were filming one of the last scenes of the movie when I was there, even though it was the third day of filming. I can't talk about the content of the scene, but it leads up to what is probably the last scene of the movie. The buildup seems very typical Hollywood, but I have a hunch that it's actually going to be something totally unexpected.
I was tempted to ask, but why ruin the surprise? I'll see the movie as soon as it comes out."
Entire piece posted here, on his blog.
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This is a pretty interesting video with the locations manager, about what he does for his job and some of his experiences on other movies. But even if you don't care about the topic, forward to the 3:20 mark. I laugh out loud every time I see that scene with Russell:
I know this video is going to seem put on, but it's not. The still photographer on the movie really is just that weird.
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One of the big things everyone has bugged me about is the strip club scene, and if there is going to be nudity in the movie. I wrote about this already, and so did Nils. You can read all that or I can summarize for you this way:
This movie will have lots of hot girls and a ton of nudity.
As a prelude to this, we did an interview about casting the strip club scene and with some of the girls in the scene. Note:
-I had all of them wear a shirt or something to conceal their clothes. No outfit spoilers.
-These are just a representative sample of the strippers in the strip club. We had over 25 girls in that scene, and all were hot. Like Ryan said, they were all selected by me.
-TRUST ME--you want to watch this video until the end. The last interview is a special treat.
EDIT: Because people are asking, the two porn stars at the end are Puma Swede [NSFW] and Veronika Rayne [SFW]. Their scene is...awesome. I'll leave it at that.
I have heard all kinds of people say all kinds of things about porn stars, but this is my first time working with any, and I will just say this: Veronika and Puma could not have been any more professional or capable. They were fun to have on set, took direction perfectly, always hit their marks, and just did a fantastic job. Did I mention that they walked around topless ALL DAY? That was nice too.
I know what the first question in everyone's mind is, and no, it didn't happen. I don't know how we did it, but we found the only two porn stars who are married and don't cheat (they don't consider fucking in a porn movie cheating, but sadly we weren't making a porn).
Let me just say the supreme irony of this was not lost on anyone. Lesson learned, next time we will cast sluttier porn stars.
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