The Westside’s Starring Role in ‘Role Models’
As a prequel based on the director’s ‘Wet Hot American
Summer’ hits Netflix tomorrow, David Wain recalls the West Los Angeles shoot
of his 2008 Paul Rudd-starring hit comedy
By MICHAEL AUSHENKER
Thanks to the giant success of Marvel’s “Ant-Man,” Paul Rudd
has suddenly shot into the superstardom stratosphere. But roll back eight years
ago, and the wiry, Chardonnay dry-witted actor—best known for comedies such as
“I Love You, Man” and the “Anchorman” movies—was just a hop, skip and a
meltdown away from Pacific Palisades, filming a little comedy called “Role
Models,” co-starring Seann William Scott and Louie C.K., on the streets of Santa
Monica and Venice.
David Wain, the movie’s director, has a long-running personal
and professional history with Rudd and fellow actor/writer Ken Marino, both of
whom co-wrote the “Role Models” screenplay with him. Wain produced (and almost
directed) Marino’s festival-circuit indie drama, “Diggers,” which co-starred
Rudd; and he directed Rudd in the 2001 coming-of-age feature film spoof “Wet
Hot American Summer.” Tooday, a long-in-gestation prequel, “Wet Hot
American
Summer: First Day of Camp,” debuts on Netflix.
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| Director David Wain “Game Face, Bro!” |
Bred on the comedy of Woody Allen, Harold Ramis, Cameron
Crowe and Blake Edwards, Wain, a recently transplanted New Yorker, was hired by
Universal Studios seven years ago to lens something called “Little Big Men” only six weeks before
production began. This had Wain, Rudd and Marino furiously re-working the
screenplay —previously converted from a drama to a broad comedy by Timothy
Dowling—as shooting was about to begin.
“This was my first big budget studio film. So it was kind of
intimidating,” Wain told the Palisadian-Post. “But when we started the shoot itself,
we really got into it.”
The feature film was originally written to take place everywhere
but “I thought, ‘Let’s not go generic, let’s get some real quality,’” Wain
continued. “The Westside is a cool, interesting, photogenic place.”
Re-titled “Role Models,” the comedy starred Rudd and Scott as
Danny and Wheeler, respectively; ne’er-do-wells stuck in brain-dead jobs as energy
drink pitch men (Wheeler’s mantra to Danny before embarking on their soul-crushing
work: “Game face!”) who, after Danny’s public meltdown at an elementary school,
get sentenced to the community service punishment of participating in the Big
Brother-esque mentorship program Sturdy Wings, run by reformed coke addict
Sweeny (Jane Lynch). Matched with their “Littles” — medieval live-action,
role-playing freak Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and foul-mouthed
African-American kid Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson) —“Bigs” Danny and Wheeler embark
on what at first appears to be the mentoring journey from hell.
But the cynical duo and their Littles eventually warm up to
each other: Wheeler and Ronnie bond over big breasts and the rock band KISS
while Danny realizes how important the “Lord of the Rings”-style re-enactment
game LAIRE is to Augie. The Bigs wind up learning life lessons from their
ostensibly unsalvageable Littles.
Rounding out the proceedings: excellent performances by Elizabeth
Banks as Danny’s attorney girlfriend Beth, Ken Jeong as LARP ruler King
Argotron and Marino as Augie’s step-father; plus a who’s who of Wain’s comedic comrades
from the 1993 MTV satirical show “The State.”
Despite shooting vituperative scenes with underage kids
(including a running off-color joke featuring Palisadian Ben Affleck as a punchline), Wain said there was no resistance from
studio executives regarding the movie’s raw humor.
“Judd Apatow’s
stuff was very popular at the time,” Wain said of the former Palisadian.
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| Louie C.K., director David Wain, Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott shooting a scene outside Walter Reed in Studio City. |
Shot Just
Down the Hill
Aside from a third act shot at the Disney Ranch in Santa
Clarita and South Pasadena’s Kaldi Coffee and Tea (“We took a private shop that
was a little more hipster and turned it into a Starbucks,” Wain said, chuckling),
the first two-thirds of “Role Models” were almost entirely shot just down Pacific
Coast Highway in Venice and Santa Monica.
The Venice Canals’ 2419 Strongess Avenue doubled as Wheeler’s
bachelor pad. Meanwhile, two Venice addresses served as the Littles’ family
homes: 822 Valetia (Augie’s house) and 3111 Stanford (Ronnie’s).
Then there’s the shindig where Wheeler, distracted by a
sex-crazed schoolteacher, loses Ronnie.
“The party scene was filmed on Venice Beach,” Wain said.
“That was a really fun night on the beach.”
Amazingly, the Venice Canals were new to Wain: “I had never
seen these Canals before. I remember walking those canals and the location
people were ‘Uy-yoy-yoy! So expensive…’”
Permits cost more to shoot there and it was not as filming
friendly or even hospitable as other neighborhoods. However, “you can get something
a little different,” he said.
Besides, the Canals fit Wheeler’s oft-vapid personality.
“He has a slightly surfer mentality,” Wain said of Scott’s
character.
Sure, Scott had cut his teeth doing comedy (“American Pie,”
“Dude, Where’s My Car?”) but “it was a different style. Paul likes to
improvise. Paul and Seann are very different. That was built into the
characters’ [dynamics].”
The high school appearing at the start of “Role Models” is El
Segundo High School, the same school used two years previously for the hit Apatow
comedy “Superbad” (the very film that made Mintz-Plasse—as McLovin—a breakout
star), which was used for the auditorium and hallway scenes. The more audacious
exterior stuff with the Minotaur truck, the towing guy and the security guard
(played by Louis C.K.) was shot in Studio City at Walter Reed Middle School.
“He was not a star at the time,” Wain noted of C.K. “He was
mostly known as a TV actor. His stand-up was just starting to get notoriety.
This was long before his FX show.”
On Sept. 21, 2007, Wain shot the scene in which Sweeny shows
up just as Ronnie commandeers the SUV, locking out Wheeler and driving in
circles at Eddie Junior’s Market and Liquor at 825 Pico Boulevard. That part
might as well have been an action movie shoot, said the director.
“For me it was! We had cameras up in the air,” Wain recalled.
“They altered the sign. These days, they would never change a sign.”
The Sturdy Wings scenes were filmed at Venice Boys and Girls
Club on Lincoln and Venice Boulevards.
“When we saw it, I knew it was perfect,” Wain said. “There
are a lot of boys and girls activities happening during the shoot.”
The Club’s activities continued unabated as certain areas
were blocked off for the production, which demanded several classrooms just for
the movie people to keep their gear.
“We had a huge crew of 200 people: lights, catering, extras,”
recalled Wain, for whom this was the biggest-budgeted, most mainstream film he
had ever undertaken.
As for the running motif stemming from Wheeler’s KISS
infatuation, “that was primarily my push. Craig Wedren [the “Role Models” score’s
composer] and I in college had our walls plastered in KISS posters,” Wain said of
their New York University days.
“Role Models” (its third title) was originally developed as a
drama.
“[Screenwriter] Tim Dowling came in before I was even involved,”
Wain said. “I wasn’t hired to direct it until six weeks before the shoot.”
It was Dowling who had re-written it as a comedy.
“He created the broad strokes. He turned the story from one
parent with a kid to two guys and two kids,” Wain said. “Ken and I worked as a
team. We basically sit at the computer and type it up.”
The script overhaul by Wain’s team was extensive enough to
land Wain, Marino and Rudd writing credits. “Then came [the Writers Guild of
America strike running from November 5, 2007 to February 12, 2008] and we had
to stop writing,” he said. From that point on, they were forced to shoot the
script they had, which luckily was evolved to Wain’s satisfaction. Post-strike,
Wain shot a few pick-up shots.
Ultimately, the Universal comedy turned a tidy profit
following its November 2008 release. For a film based on a $28-million budget,
grossing $92 million in theaters worldwide plus an additional $40 million in
DVD revenue achieved the goal of making at least triple the budget to qualify
as successful.
Wain’s
World
Today, “Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp”
reunites Wain with co-writer Michael
Showalter and a formidable cast who were barely rising stars when the 2001
original was released, including Rudd, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper and Banks.
Things have certainly changed career-wise for everyone since that first trek to
Camp Firewood circa 1981: the location of the new movie says it all. While the
original was done on a shoestring in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, this prequel
was shot, as Wain put it, “in the wilds of Malibu.”
“There’s definitely a big reunion flavor. It was a total
blast. In some ways, it felt similar,” said Wain, who added that this project has
long been in everyone’s thoughts. “We’ve been thinking about it for years and
years, regarding reuniting the actors, many of whom [Cooper, Poehler] have
since shot to superstardom.” This prequel included everyone’s participation by
no less than “a sheer force of will. We wanted to do it. The cast wanted to do
it. Finally, the stars aligned our scheduling.”
It’s easy to see why a “Wet Hot” follow-up took so long. Not
only did the original’s actors go on to star in projects such as “American
Sniper,” “Parks and Recreation” and “Ant-Man,” Wain’s “Children’s Hospital” series
(featuring Marino) just completed its sixth season on Cartoon Network’s Adult
Swim. On June 23, Wain debuted a new Comedy Central series, "Another
Period,” a jokey historical satire starring Wain, Michael Ian Black, Christina
Hendricks and Jason Ritter which follows the lives of the obscenely rich Bellacourt
family and their many servants in turn-of-the-century Rhode Island.
And now comes “First Day of Camp.”
Yet after all that water has passed under the Canals’ bridges,
Wain admits he’s very interested in revisiting “Role Models” in a sequel; maybe
even a spin-off involving LAIRE.
“Sure. I loved ‘Role Models,’” Wain said. “We have talked
about it. We just haven’t gotten around to it.”
Given the 14-year wait between “Wet Hot American Summer”
movies, we should be officially halfway to watching
“Role Models 2” in 2022.
Game face, Westside!
