Imagine a college bar in a Pacific Northwest town and there’s a very outstanding chance that you’ll imagine a place almost exactly like Dantes in Seattle’s University Village section. The place has a rustic, slightly run-down, feeling countered by lots of colored lights, chalkboards full of bargains on bar food, specialty cocktails – most of which I wouldn’t let anywhere near my Drink of the Week posts – and cartoonish demon head sculptures mounted on the wall as if they’d been bagged in Nairobi by Colonel Blimp himself.
Now, imagine it’s September 2011 and you’re a broke-ass freelance entertainment writer in search of a day job, but nevertheless very happy to fly up the coast for a set visit and roundtable interview with the cast and writers/directors of “21 and Over.” So it was that I and a group of journos from online men’s magazines and humor sites had been ferried over from area hotels to watch a key bit of early action in the film being shot and, later, to meet with the talent.
One piece of additional good news was that the talent in question actually has some. The first film directed by the co-scripters of the sleeper megahit “The Hangover,” Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, “21 and Over” is hitting a theater near you March 1st after a somewhat delayed release. If you loved “The Hangover,” there’s a decent chance you’ll like “21 and Over,” even if that film was – in typical Hollywood style – somewhat heavily rewritten by a number of hands. For starters, it trades on a similar formula of bromantic mystery plus broad comedy played out by strong (but not overly expensive) comic talent. It’s a somewhat dumb, but occasionally hilarious low-brow effort anchored by a very funny and credible trio of young male actors with outstanding comic rapport, and a female lead who’s allowed to be a semi-believable human being for a change.
The plot involves a surprise out of town birthday visit which results in birthday boy Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) suffering an alcohol-induced near coma. Naturally, Jeff Chang – who’s full name is repeated with Charlie Brown-like regularity – has an important medical school interview the next day. Worse, neither wild-and-crazy instigator Miller (Miles Teller) nor literally buttoned-down Casey (Skylar Astin) can even remotely recall Jeff Chang’s Seattle address.
If you’re expecting the result to be a comic odyssey of debauchery and absurd hijinks that would almost certainly lead to a fatality in real life, you wouldn’t be wrong. If you’re looking for a gorgeous love interest in all of this, Sarah Wright does the honors as Nicole, a smart girl whose next foolish choice might be hooking up with prepster Casey.
Our set visit began with us doing what most people do, most of the time, on film sets. We waited, watching a short dialogue scene being filmed and drinking non-alcoholic beverages from craft services – or maybe it was beer from the bar, I can’t remember. (Probably not, but I can’t be sure. I would later have a brief comic odyssey of my own trying, unsuccessfully, to recover the lost voice recorder which held all of my notes from the set visit.)
If memory serves, we were told that one of the co-directors, Scott Moore, was off filming other material that day. That may have been a slightly big deal as Moore and Lucas have been working together for a long time, and “21 and Over” is their first shot at the directing big time. In fact, Lucas later expressed a bit of honest concern about the day, saying that he generally considered himself a decent “half a director.” Still, everything appeared to be going smoothly.
Eventually, things kicked up to a higher gear as we watched Justin Chon perform one of the film’s many physical comedy lowlights while being filmed by Terry Stacey, a top-drawer cinematographer who has proven that comedies needn’t be visually flat with “50/50,” “Adventureland,” and 2003’s “American Splendor,” one of the best movies of the 21st century so far.
Standing not far behind Stacey, we watched from above as Chon – best known by his own description as “the Asian kid from ‘Twilight’” – mounted a mechanical bull, rode very briefly, and then upchucked in spectacular fashion. The upchucking was thanks to a mechanical device attached to Chon but, in classic practical effects style, hidden from the camera’s view.
The delicate part was that that effects gag was to be captured in extreme slow motion. In the finished film, the individual droplets of fake throw-up dance about in the air and the audience is grateful the film is neither in 3D nor Smell-O-Vision.
Soon enough, however, Chon – who clearly knows his way around physical action – was managing some very nice recoveries after staging his fall from the bull, and director of photography Stacey had mostly finished the shot. It was time for a break and some roundtable chats at the pizza joint across the street.
First up was Skylar Astin. Born Skylar Astin Lipstein, the affable Broadway-bred actor is building up a very respectable resume. A sort of 20-something Paul Rudd-type, Astin has appeared in “Pitch Perfect” with Anna Kendrick, as well as the 2008 comedy “Hamlet 2” with Steve Coogan. His stage CV includes the Tony winning musical drama “Spring Awakening.”
So, one us asked, did making a movie about excessive drinking make the young cast feel like hitting the bars for real after a day of filming, or did it have the opposite result, and were the youthful thespians so tired of pretend-drinking that they had become a bunch of teetotalers?
“No, we’ve been going out for sure. We’re not alcoholics, so we’re not smelling the fake beer, itching ourselves saying, ‘Oh my God, when do I get off?’ But, yeah, the mood is infectious. Shooting in bars and creating scenes where we’re supposed to be having the time of our lives. We’re still working 12 hour days, but we want a release just like anyone else. And we’re actually having a really good time at work. You’re not emotionally drained at the end of the day. You’re kind of ready to hang out.”
He was also quick to praise his first-time directors. “Jon and Scott are the dreamiest people you could ever work with,” he joked on the square. “Seriously, they have inspired so much of my performance… It’s hard to talk about Jon and Scott without sounding like I’m kissing their ass…”
What scene did Astin think was going to be the most talked about moment in the film? Well, a brief moment of aggressive public urination by Jeff Chang was a definite eyebrow raiser, but he was sure it would be “the socks” – i.e., the only article of clothing Astin and Miles Teller are left to wear for a number of relatively lengthy scenes, an apparent homage to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
And what was that very nearly nude scene like to film?
“It’s like ripping a Band-Aid off. You’re worried and, all of a sudden, it’s kind of like anything else. It’s actually kind of liberating. Miles and I were doing this long shot where we have to walk across this huge quad and they have a crane shot. They’re doing it without sound, so we were able to say whatever we feel and we just saying to ourselves, ‘This is awesome, man. I know why nude beaches exist now.’ It’s for the sake of comedy. If it was some weird reason why we were doing this, I don’t know if I’d have agreed to do it.”
Did having a partner in nudity help?, I wondered.
“Me and Miles’ characters go on such a journey, we really are in it together. It’s actually made Miles and I closer…It’s less brutal [that way].”
Speaking of Miles Teller, if you’re looking for someone to bet on at Hollywood Stock Exchange, Teller might be one of the best young ponies on which to wager. Probably best known today as second banana Willard in the 2011 version of “Footloose” – a role he actually played in a high school production – Teller generated some ecstatic reviews at Sundance last month for his work in the upcoming teen romance, “The Spectacular Now.” He launched his film career very credibly portraying a self-effacing, horribly guilt ridden teen opposite no less than Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart in John Cameron Mitchell’s under-viewed “Rabbit Hole.”
In person, “self-effacing” is not the word for young Teller, who was 24 when we met. (His 26th birthday was last week.) Clearly the most energetic guy in most any room, he volunteered that he’s been compared to a young John Cusack and then honestly admitted that he’d never seen a John Cusack movie all the way through; he actually doesn’t sit down to watch movies very often. “The only films that I own are the Indiana Jones trilogy, and I just bought ‘The Bad Lieutenant’ with Nicolas Cage.”
Teller hadn’t seen the original “Footloose,” either, despite the fact that he might be the only person in show business history to play a character in a mainstream Hollywood movie after playing the role in a high school production. In fact, his entire acting career is a sort of classic style showbiz fluke.
“Honestly, I got into acting kind of accidentally. I played baseball year-round, so I really couldn’t do any plays or anything,” he said, explaining that he had gotten his feet wet several years prior playing in school productions of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat” and “Oliver” as a second and third grader. “My buddy, on the way to baseball practice, said, ‘Let’s audition for ‘Footloose.’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ [He said], ‘I’ll give you a ride home every day, Miles; if you want to get a ride home, you’ll audition for this.’” The rest was apparently history.
Getting back to “21 and Over,” however, Teller was more than happy to analyze his own character for us. Someone wondered to what degree his character could be described by a commonly used seven-letter word.
“My character is an asshole in the sense that he loves these guys and he’s realizing that the party is almost over. [His friend] is wearing a sweater and a tie. The party’s over…I guess my being an asshole is just me trying to ensure that we have the best night of our lives,” Teller said.
“[As Casey], I don’t think about repercussions and consequences…Maybe I try and cockblock a little bit, because I think the girl is fair game up until you tell me that you’re dating her.”
Teller was happy to discuss a more literal type of cockblocking, when asked if he had any “21 and Over”-style tales of drunken lunacy to share.
“Last time I went down to San Diego, I ended up drinking at a bar. Next thing I know, I wanted to go take a piss on the beach. I guess I face-planted. I just woke up with literally my dick in the sand and a pile of throw-up next to me. As I’m waking up, my buddy 20 feet away from me was waking up at the same time. We must have drank the same shit.”
The next to visit the pizzeria was Justin Chon. Chon’s claim to semi-fame at the moment is his role as Eric Yorkie in “The Twilight Saga.” It’s very possible more and better roles may be ahead for the actor, who despite his extremely youthful appearance was already pushing 30 at the time of this interview. “21 and Over” turns out to be an excellent introduction to Chon’s talents for those of us outside the Twihard community.
Though all but comatose through about 40% of the film, Chon’s Jeff Chang is arguably the protagonist of “21 and Over.” Indeed, it appears he actually will be the star of a heavily reedited – you might say wildly bowdlerized – version that will be hitting theaters throughout China. In the Chinese release, the 100% American Jeff Chang will reportedly become a recent Chinese transfer student while his lifelong pals, Casey and Miller, will become poorly chosen new acquaintances who lead Chang into ill-advised American temptations. It’s a little bit shocking, as “21 and Over” commendably exists in a post “Harold and Kumar” universe where Asian-American males in mainstream U.S. films are finally allowed to be American and male, as well as Asian. Win a few, lose a few.
After some discussion of the filming of Jeff Chang’s ill-fated bull ride, we discussed the transition from the paranormal romance genre to the world of raunchy buddy comedies. “I told [co-directors] Jon and Scott the other day, ‘It’s a bunch of dudes making a fucking movie.’ I feel like all the messing around I did as a teenager and all the partying I did in college has prepared me to do this movie.”
Chon was, if anything, even quicker than Miles Teller to share with us some brief glimpses of his own past overindulgences that involved waking up in strange parts of town and stranger beds. He actually had some words of wisdom that no right-thinking cocktail blogger could possible disagree with.
“As a teenager in college, you don’t get taught how to drink properly because you can’t [legally] drink until you’re 21. In other countries, you can start drinking at 14 and 15, so you don’t think of it as such a big deal so that, when you get a hold of alcohol, it’s not like, ‘Oh, I have to devour as much as I can’… I guess that contributed to me having these insane nights [when I was younger],” Chon said.
“I give everybody 10 years of good partying. However you space that out, that’s up to you. I feel like you have that run of 10 years. After that, you’d better slow down and relax, or you’re going to have a problem.”
Still, it sounded like not every bit of wildness had left Chon. Just as Teller and Astin found nakedness to be freeing, Chon finds the highly inappropriate behavior his character is allowed to engage in to be oddly refreshing. Liberating, in fact. “I’m getting paid to piss on all these people.”
Chon was quick to point, however, that the misbehavior is grounded in realities we all face. “There’s a reason why I’m acting out and going crazy in this movie. It’s because I’m lost. I’m trying to find my way and I don’t know what that is.”
Next up was co-writer/co-director Jon Lucas. He had found himself, for the first time ever, directing the film solo for the very brief scenes that were being shot that day, but still was able present a calm and affable demeanor. We started out discussing the choice of Seattle as a backdrop for “21 and Over.” It really came down to the very traditionally collegiate look of the University of Washington.
“I went to school back east and, a college with palm trees…I get that UCLA is a great school, but it doesn’t seem like college to me. It feels like a vacation,” he said, praising UW’s more traditional look. “Knowing that we’re first-time directors who are going to make a lot of mistakes, one thing we can at least have is a beautiful campus that we can fall back on. The movie may not make any sense, but it’s going to be a beautiful school to look at for two hours,” Lucas joked. He also noted the production’s slightly creepy good luck in shooting for three straight weeks in the nation’s rain capital with only one day of significant precipitation.
He also addressed the inevitable comparisons that will be drawn between “21 and Over” and “The Hangover.” He started by acknowledging that the 2009 comedy sensation was very much director Todd Phillips’ movie, and that he and Scott Moore were extremely pleased with the overall result, which obviously has not harmed their careers. At the same time, the writing team’s directorial debut would naturally be more personal to its writers. “I think it’s going to be more of an expression of who we are. Our comedy comes from a slightly different place than [Todd’s].”
“We might go for the emotion like ‘The Hangover’ maybe didn’t,” he said before reflexively re-praising “The Hangover and noting that some might find that a slightly absurd statement. “I say that on the day that we’re shooting the barf rig. This movie’s a really serious exploration of feelings, with barf on a buffalo.”
Finally, we were greeted by the very attractive and personable Sarah Wright, who has the tricky task of being a relatively sane female love interest amidst numerous less than stable males. Wright, who appeared in 2008’s “The House Bunny” and has a recurring guest role on “Parks and Recreation,” launched her career as a teenage model in Japan. Far from a big name but already a familiar face, she has been a busy working actress since debuting on the 2005 sitcom, “Quintuplets” with Andy Richter. In “21 and Over,” Wright convinces us that she’s pretty much seen everything when it comes to insanity, and that’s probably true for her in real life as well.
Wright, who in real-life recently married actor Eric Christian Olson (“NCIS: Los Angeles”), even confessed, somewhat sadly, that she has no crazy boozing stories to tell because she is actually cautious about excessive drinking. She was, however, willing to speak up for “21 and Over” as something beyond a slapstick male-bonding testosterone fest. She compared the film to “The House Bunny,” which had been marketed to some degree as a chick flick. As it turned out, however, males didn’t especially mind laughing while watching the adventures of often scantily clad young women.
“There’s a love story [in “21 and Over”], that’s so cute and really fun. If it’s portrayed right, women will kind of fall in love with it. There’s also a journey that the guys make – definitely [that applies to] Jeff Chang’s character and the Casey character – of self-realization. It’s something we all [experience] when we’re going through that time in our lives, which is just figuring out who we are as people. I think everybody can relate to that. It’s not just about drinking and debauchery. It’s a night where you sort of kind of figure out one more piece of who you are.”