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Compiled by: Jack Foley
Q. Was this a difficult project to get off the ground,
given that in the home of the land of the free there are sometimes
certain religious obstacles to the freedom of speech to make a
movie like this?
Sandy: Well let's start with the first part of the question
- was this movie difficult to get made? The answer was 'it was
impossibe!' Everybody passed on this movie; nobody wanted to make
this movie. And everybody says, 'well why was this movie so difficult
to get made?' It's really a combination of several factors.
One is that it's very, very hard right now to get an independent
movie made with a first-time director, it's a movie that dealt
with religion, that dealt with comedy and religion, that dealt
with a gay storyline, and that was basically, it was all a kind
of ensemble cast that did not have a Julia Roberts starring in
the movie. So you put all of those things together and everybody
says 'thank you, pass, we'll see you when you find the financing'.
So the interesting back story of the movie was that it almost
got made, after every door in Hollywood was shut on us, we found
an equity investor down in Florida who said 'here's $5 million,
we're going to make your movie.' The production went down to Florida,
we spent five weeks in pre-production and had every location locked,
and we had all the sets built and all the costumes ready to go,
but four days before the actors were going to show up, the money
never showed up. So here was our one chance to make the movie
and it fell apart.
We came back to Los Angeles, had another go at it up in Vancouver,
and then one of our actors, who was to play the role of Hilary
Faye, fell out of the movie, so that was the second time the movie
fell apart. And then Mandy Moore came on board which, I have to
say, was the easiest part of this movie, because it was literally
(and this does not happen) you give an actor a script and within
a week they say 'I want to make this movie, I'm so in love with
this script, when do we start?' And then probably two months later
we were making the movie in Vancouver.
It wasn't that we were going to have Jerry Fallwell's picketing
us on the first day of production. It was more like this group
of obstacles that were really difficult to get by to get the movie
made.
Q. The film does tread a very fine line, but it doesn't
so much mock christianity, but hypocrisy. Was it difficult to
maintain that balance, so you don't go for cheap laughs that undermine
it?
Sandy: Well I think that's why it was so hard to get
this movie made, because if I were to pass out 19 copies of the
script, you would all walk away with a different feeling of what
the movie was going to be. It was so sort of tone-dependent and
execution-dependent, that it was very hard to say well 'why are
we going to entrust it to a first-time director, when we have
no idea what he's going to go for in it?' It was very much Brian's
vision of how he was going to take that from the page to the screen.
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Q. Have there been any subsequent
screenings of the film where people who might have had misgivings
about the script have come away impressed by the final film and
said it's not so bad?
Sandy: One of the great moments, for me, in this was
after we screened the movie at Sundance last January and there
was a lot of stuff on the internet before this movie came out;
and it was a lot of negative, kind of religious buzz on the internet
about it.
Mandy: What people thought it was going to be
about, having not seen it.
Sandy: Right. And this guy followed me after
the screening and said, 'excuse me, I just have to say to you,
I came in wanting to hate your movie, I've heard all this negative
stuff about your movie, I've people that have heard different
parts of the script of your movie, and I write for the largest
Youth Ministry magazine in the United States and I have to say,
I love your movie'. And he ultimately did a cover story on our
movie - it's a magazine called Relevant that you could get online
- and he was very, very helpful in championing this movie to youth
ministers across the United States.
Q. Do they actually have these kind of hallelujah camps
in America?
Sandy: Well, when we were again trying to get the movie
made, one of the articles that we would bring into the studio
offices, was this Newsweek cover story called 'Jesus Rocks!' It
was basically saying that it's a $45 billion a year industry right
now and one of the things that Brian and our cast have all done
is gone to all of these sort of Christian rock concerts... these
Christian rock sort of religious gatherings that happen all around
LA, that happen outside of Vancouver, and it is very much part
of this culture right now, where it is very seductive and cool
and hip to be a Christian.
Q. Macaulay Culkin is terrific in the part, especially
since it's such a difficult one to play, because he's so restricted,
but at the time was it considered something as a gamble taking
him on board, as he had ceased being cool when you signed him
up?
Sandy: I knew Macaulay for about five years prior to
the movie, and I there was another movie that I was trying to
do with him, and in the course of the five years, I've gotten
to know him quite well and I thought he was really smart, and
really interesting, and I just thought such a unique kind of being,
that when Brian and I were figuring out who we were going to cast
for this movie, I said to Brian, 'what do you think about Macaulay
Culkin for this role?' And, you know, it's one of those things,
again, I don't really think what you're saying - that he hasn't
made a movie or what not - I just thought that could be really
interesting, you know, and having Macaulay Culkin interpret this
role, and see him... What I also love about it is that I've always
said this movie was a John Hughes-like kind of teen movie with
a contemporary twist to it, and I thought Macaulay brought his
John Hughes baggage to the movie in kind of a beautiful way as
well.
Q. You also produced Pump Up The Volume as well, why
do you think cool teen movies are so few and far between?
Sandy: I don't know the answer to that, all I know is
the kind of material that I respond to, and the kind of teen movies
that I looked for. There was a sweetness that when we screened
the movie in Edinburgh, Christian Slater was there, premiering
Cuckoo's
Nest, and he came with me to the screening that night, and
I remember somebody asked me a question about teen movies and
I said, 'well, in 1990, I made my first teen movie, and it took
me 14 years to find the next one'. So, you know, it's not... I'll
look for another one and maybe be a senior citizen by then, but
we'll see.
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