She’s a fresh new face on the filmmaking scene and already Jess Manafort is shaking things up Richard Linklater-style with her new project, Remember the Daze. The 20-something decided to write and direct a “somewhat” biographical dramedy about her last day of high school back in 1999, this time from a female perspective.
“It was based on my original experiences from high school, but that’s how I remember them and then it was me writing the script and then actors interpreting it and then playing it,” says Manafort of her story about suburban teens. “So it’s kind of like a game of telephone. It’s changed during the course of the process, but a lot of it is based on characters, based on people that I really know.”
Manafort enrolled “beautiful blonde” Amber Heard to play her part in the movie and a long list of young talent like Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester and Spy Kids’ star Alexa Vega to round out the cast. Hollywood.com met up with Manafort and her team at the red carpet premiere to find out more …
On their characters:
Amber Heard: “She’s a real high school girl. She’s very low key. She’s very chill. She’s very natural. She has her issues, her problems, some things that she has to overcome in the script and things that she has to find and discover and she’s very organic. That’s why I liked her and connected with that part of her the most. It was great. I really liked that about her the most…She’s really not in any specific group. I mean, they kind of like to smoke pot and they kind of like to take it easy–we all know those kids”.
Leighton Meester: “I play Tori…She’s the valedictorian graduating and she’s really smart and mature and responsible, but she also is questioning a lot about what’s going to be happening after high school, going to college, moving away from her family and her town. So she’s pretty much going through the same issues as everyone else except her bad influence of a friend gets her to do drugs and she sort of has an epiphany. It’s interesting and it’s a really good friendship storyline in the movie.”
Katrina Begin: “Sylvia is insane. She goes babysitting on the last day of school with her best friend Tori, she makes her go with and ends up getting a little intoxicated, too much and with the children there and she’s not really good with kids. She’s never been around them and ends up convincing her best friend to eat shrooms in the back yard, which cuts to us in the bathroom talking about life completely high out of our minds and then banging on the door the parents come in. The parents don’t know me, but I decide it is best for me to go downstairs and distract while she cleans up the mess.”
Stella Maeve: “My character is Lighty. She’s Holly’s (Alexa Vega) sidekick. They’re together a lot in the movie. Her love interest is John Robinson and everyone seems to think that she’s an air head and doesn’t have a lot going on, but she’s really smart and you see it come out in the movie. She’s got some stuff to say. She’s very cool. She’s a very internal character which is hard for me because I’m such an external person. So it was really cool to play a role that’s opposite me”.
Melonie Diaz: “My character’s name is Brianne and she’s a bit of a tomboy and she’s friends with the three other girls. Her, like every other character in the film, is going through a transformation, trying to figure out what their going to do because high school is almost ending. She’s just trying to figure it out.
Photo: Jess Manafort and Leighton Meester [PAGEBREAK]
On their favorite high school movies:
Alexa Vega: “I love Never Been Kissed. I think that’s so cool, going back and getting a second chance. Doesn’t everyone want to go back and to want relive that moment? That’s what I like about this film, when you watch it you feel like you’re going back and reliving that high school moment.”
Melonie Diaz: “I think that Dazed and Confused is obviously amazing. I think Cruel Intentions was really good…I think about how I used to love that movie and now when I watch it I think, ‘Wow, it’s really deep.'”
Lyndsy Fonseca: “I’m a big fan of Clueless and Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. I actually named my dog Romy.”
Amber Heard: “Hopefully this one.”
Marnette Patterson: “I grew up on the Goonies, which I love. It is not really the same movie, but it is one of my favorite movies. Then Clueless was popular when I was growing up. I say growing up, like when I was young, but I looked up to it. They were all older kids they seem to kind of know what’s going on.”
Jess Manafort: “Dazed and Confused was a huge influence on this film. That was my favorite movie. We used to have summer parties and watch it over and over and over.”
Photo: Leighton Meester, Amber Heard, Alexa Vega and Melonie Diaz[PAGEBREAK]
On relating to the story:
Stella Maeve: “I think it’s a great movie. I think that this movie can reach anyone from fourteen to twenty eight because they’re all going through it or have gone through it and can look back or say, ‘Wow, everyone goes through it.’ It’s a coming of age story. This is growing up.”
Leighton Meester: “[The Gossip Girl characters] would be the ones in the background that we’re not talking about because the kids in this are just so normal and down to earth and everyone is friends with everybody. There are no real clicks in high school in this movie. It’s much more of a down home, hometown type feel and obviously Gossip Girl is the exact opposite of that. This is more like my high school experience where you’re kind of friends with everybody and it’s not about the clothes that you wear or anything like that. It’s about the experiences that you have and I mean, it’s my favorite movie.”
Alexa Vega: “Holly is kind of the wild child of the bunch. She definitely creates a bunch of problems and she’s the youngest, one of the youngest ones there and yet she’s going after all the older guys. So it’s pretty funny… I think that because I do like older guys it’s so hard because we’re in a business where we were raised to be a little more mature than the regular kids and all the guys our age are stupid. It’s so funny because you think they get better and they only get worse as they get older. So I’m doomed for a while.”
Melonie Diaz: “The girls that I actually hangout with in the movie are kind of like my friends. I have a friend who’s like Leighton’s character, a real goody two shoes. I feel like I connect with all of them in some ways. It’s like high school. I feel like you can watch this movie and go, ‘Oh, I totally remember a character like that.'”
Photo: Stella Maeve
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On how they spent their last day of high school:
Katrina Begin: “The last day of high school about 20 of us jumped in cars and headed about 45 minutes north, I grew up in Minnesota, and we all went camping and it was great. We were up all night I don’t think we ever slept until 6 or 7 in the morning. In the film there is a group of us, about 10 main actors and that’s kind of how it was in my high school. We didn’t have a small click there was a large group of us and we were together every weekend.”
Wesley Jonathan: “Last day of school, you know I didn’t do anything. I sat in class, twiddled my thumbs, waited for that clock to sit, just relaxing and really slacking on the last day of school from what I remember, yeah.”
Marnette Patterson: “On the last day of school I think I was actually filming, which is so dorky. I wasn’t very cool in school I was kind of like the outcast. I was the one who was a little different. I was in school and then not in school. I just remember it was a great day. To be done with school is awesome.”
Photo: Katrina Begin [PAGEBREAK]
On what click they hung out with in high school:
Wesley Jonathan: “I was one of those kids…I was a cool nerd. I wasn’t a book worm and I wasn’t like a straight A student, I got Cs and Ds barely makin’ it, but I was like the nerdiest of the cool bunch. So the cool bunch accepted me but I was like the nerdy one out of all of them. I was well reserved but not exactly the corniest. I don’t know how to describe it, like the oddball out of the cool bunch.”
Lyndsy Fonseca: “I guess [I was part of] the arty group. Whoever was in drama club or was in dancing. I was a dancer when I was in school and I loved it.
Alexa Vega: I was always just really quiet. So I guess I would’ve related a little bit more to the character of Lighty because she’s the more quiet and shy one, but I really just kind of kept to myself in high school…I was there for freshman year and then left because it was brutal. It was really bad and if I could get out I wanted to and I did. I got out.”
Photo: Denyce Lawton and Wesley Jonathan
