Jonathan Levine must have a wild imagination, that or just excellent insight. Who else could envision Ben Kingsley hooking up with an Olsen twin in a phone booth or bubble gum Nickelodeon star Josh Peck playing a high-school drug dealer in Manhattan?
Writer/director Levine does it all in his new film The Wackness about a lonely pot dealer who trades weed for therapy. At the same time, the Sundance winner (Audience Award) takes a nostalgic look back at the music, games and fashion of 1994. We talked to Kingsley, Peck, Olivia Thirlby and Levine to find out more about the dark comedy.
Ben Kingsley
Character: Dr. Squires
Occupation: Depressed therapist and stepfather to Stephanie
Hollywood.com: How much fun was it filming this movie?
Sir Ben Kingsley: Oh, anything that I’m completely un-used to and get to discover is marvelous. Yeah. Also, it’s a bonus really because I knew nothing about bongs and I find them terrifying. Therefore it allowed me to allow him to do something as if he’d never done it before even though he’s a habitual smoker…it might’ve been 10 minutes since his last joint or bong. He never quite knows what to do with it.
HW: The sex scenes in this film aren’t your average fair …
SBK: My sexual scenes are there for narrative reasons, to show his appalling loneliness, in a phone booth fumbling with a 20-year-old and in bed with somebody with whom he’s been married to watching a porno movie and having sex that’s so indifferent. Those scenes are about loneliness.
HW: How did you talk yourself through that phone booth moment with Mary-Kate Olsen?
SBK: My character was drunk. So already my character is not making rational decisions. He’s stoned and drunk. She also is. This is what I mean about loneliness. That embrace is not born of conscious affection between two people. It comes out of intoxication so I thought that Mary-Kate‘s portrayal of a drunk young woman was perfect.
Next: Josh Peck
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Josh Peck
Character: Luke Shapiro
Occupation: Graduating high-school senior, drug dealer and Stephanie’s boy toy
Hollywood.com: Method Man and hip hop music play a big role in this. Is that your style of music?
Josh Peck: I think that Method and I agree on this one, that hip hop is in your blood. It is not acquired you’ve just gotta live it. As far back as I can remember I’ve just liked that kind of music and Method is a part of a legendary family of hip hop artists in the 1994 that made it the most legendary year of hip hop ever.
HW: Is it true that Sir Ben has long been your favorite actor?
JP: Any movie experience begins and ends with the material and knowing that this script was so ridiculously dope and getting to be a part of this just for myself I knew that I had so much to live up to…it was definitely intimidating and daunting at first. Sir Ben has been my favorite actor since I can remember loving acting and appreciating the craft and I think he embodies the idea of just jumping in without any reserves. There’s no getting acclimated to the water with Sir Ben you either go in all the way or not at all.
HW: Are you as awkward with girls as your character is?
JP: I would say no, but you’d have to poll some chicks…I definitely get nervous…I hang out with my mom a lot [laughs].
Next: Olivia Thirlby
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Olivia Thirlby
Character: Stephanie
Occupation: Graduating high-school senior, Dr. Squires’ stepdaughter, and Luke Shapiro’s crush.
Hollywood.com: What was it like shooting your first sex scene?
Olivia Thirlby: Well, it was a huge deal for me to be doing a sex scene and actually to even be in a bikini. I mean I never thought that would happen. I’ve kind of been against wearing bikini’s in public for my entire life and have turned down roles because they’ve had sex scenes in them. This was awkward, but it’s so false. It’s such a weird fabrication. There’s nothing sexual about doing a sex scene. So that’s like where the real acting comes in because you have to look like your enjoying yourself while it’s all fake. It was awkward, but the kind of thing where you build it up in your mind a lot before it happens and then all of a sudden you’re naked in front of five or six people and they’re pointing the camera at you and then it’s over and I’m really happy with the way that it turned out.
HW: At least the sex scene was an important step in moving the story forward, as opposed to most movies.
OT: There’s so much sex in movies that’s gratuitous. In fact, 90 percent of sex in movies doesn’t really need to be there or at least the nudity – it’s just unnecessary.
HW: Did you create any kind of back story for your character’s relationship with her stepfather?
OT: We decided that he’d been her step dad for many years and that she’s really grown up with him around and she definitely understands why her mother is married to him. She adores him. She doesn’t really look at him as a father figure though. He’s way too much of a child and there’s actually a scene that got cut where I’m kind of getting ready in my room to go out and he comes in and asks for weed. She doesn’t look at him as a father figure, but he’s very much in her heart and her heart goes out to him when he’s hurting.
Next: Jonathan Levine
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Jonathan Levine
Writer/Director
Hollywood.com: You had to come up with pretty large quantities of marijuana for the film. What works best for bricks of fake weed?
Jonathan Levine: If you want good looking weed you get Coltsfoot. If you want schwag you get a different kind. That was really funny actually. They would come up to you right before we were going to put it there and go, “I have this, this, this and this.” You’re just like, “Wow.” We had one guy who was really good at rolling joints with the Coltsfoot and so if on one take it went down too far and we ran out of backups he’d have to do it really quickly. So a lot of people put their skills to good use here.
HW: How do you direct a stoned or high performance with an actor like Sir Ben Kingsley?
JL: Oh, God, I don’t. I just stay out of his way…I tried to teach him about bong hits. That was the extent of my direction.
HW: Who would have thought Sir Ben would ever hook up with an Olsen twin.
JL: Yeah. The movie is a lot more than that, but as a film fan I think it’s pretty cool and if that’s what gets people to go see the movie then more power to them…The thing with MK too is that she’s a really good actress and I think that she just has a lot of other kind of stuff she brings to the table…I’ve seen her on Weeds and she’s awesome and she’s got a genuine kind of sweetness to her and she’s not afraid to be goofy.
HW: This movie is surprisingly nostalgic for those of us in high school in the 90s. Were you worried it was too early for a throwback to 1994?
JL: I started writing it and I thought that maybe it was a little too early and maybe no one was going to feel it. Then I thought about how it resonated with me, thinking back to that time and I thought that this would really be something that strikes people. I think it’s very interesting. I think that a lot of people really, really respond to that nostalgia. I’m happy.
