Part I: Hayden Schlossberg and Jon Hurwitz
Hayden Schlossberg and Jon Hurwitz have carved out a successful career thanks to their Harold and Kumar franchise, but given the chance to take over the American Pie films turned out to be an irresistible offer. The pair sat down for a very R-rated conversation about prosthetic penises and many other topics.
Warning: The following contains adult language.
Q: How did you two end up writing and directing an American Pie sequel?
Hayden Schlossberg: John and I we were actually about ready to direct A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas and a couple months before pre-production we were hanging out with John Cho and he told us that he had heard from the Weitz brothers that Universal was thinking of bringing the whole cast back for a high school reunion movie -- not a straight to DVD movie, but a theatrical American Pie. As fans at the time we were just excited to hear they were thinking of doing that, but we had no clue they were going to approach us in any sort of way. We were just thinking, "Oh, that'll be huge, that'll be great, can't wait to see it." Then a couple of weeks later our agents told us the Universal was interested if we had a take, and we thought this would be a great idea for us because we're huge fans of the original movie. We go back a long way in knowing some of the actors -- John Cho, Eddie Kaye Thomas we've worked with before.
Jon Hurwitz: Yeah, every movie we've ever done has had John Cho and Eddie Kaye Thomas. And nudity.
HS: And we're used to writing sequels as well. Our last two movies that had been produced were sequels and in both of those cases they were well-received in that they were moves in and of themselves and the fans liked them, and we felt this was a great opportunity. We wanted to direct every Harold and Kumar, but it would be impossible to do both at the same time and we told the studio it was important to us to do something different because we had done three Harold and Kumars at that point.
JH: And we had a real love for this franchise. We wouldn't have left Harold and Kumar 3 as directors if it weren't for the fact that this was a unique experience on something that we actually were psyched about. We'd been approached over the years to do a variety of different projects that we'd eventually see on the big screen, but they were never things that we could get excited about and have a fun time. Just the ability to figure out what happened to Jim, what happened to Finch, what happened to Stifler, what happened to the MILF guys, what happened to the Sherminator -- it was too tempting to pass up. It's been a dream come true for us, frankly.
Q: What were your challenges in maintaining the familiar tone of the American Pie series?
JH: I think the biggest thing for us was making sure the characters felt like the characters. We fell in love with the franchise, we love the jokes, we love the raunch, we love all the craziness, but at its core, we felt like we were seeing people like us and our friends on the big screen. I think a lot of people felt that way, from the core guys to the core girls, everybody in the movie felt like people we knew and we just wanted to keep the integrity of who the characters were, but now they're in their thirties. So it's people that you know -- you don't suddenly become someone who's completely different ten years later, you just become an older version of yourself, the world around you changes. That was the biggest challenge. The fact that we wanted the whole ensemble back provides another challenge which I think for us, as the franchise moves on over the years, and the third movie happened and Oz is no longer in the movie and Kevin's in the movie but not with a whole lot to do, the challenge for us was taking all these characters that we know and give them all something to do where it's worth all the actors' time to come back.
Q: Did you take anything from your own experience with class reunions?
HS: Well John and I we went to high school together and our ten year reunion didn't come together, so that was one thing we drew upon. We, being around the same age as the characters, we were able to draw upon our life experiences and the experiences of our friends. John's married and has a kid, I'm not married, we're successful at what we do, we have friends back home who are still maybe not in the place they wanted to be, and you have all these different life experiences that you can draw upon. For us, that's what great about having an ensemble. You can say this is the guy who's married with a kid, this is the guy who's coming there completely single and needs to find love in his life, this is the guy who's coming back with a little bit of fame and success.
JH: Then this is the guy who has fallen off the map who you were close with but haven't heard from in years.
HS: Yeah, for us there's always those friends, "What happened to him?" So you start to think about your own world, because you want people to watch the movie and think, "I know a guy like Stifler, the guy who was the king of High School but peaked." And that's really what we were doing with this movie was creating archetypes for your thirties. The first movie -- that's what it was, it was high school archetypes -- it was the jock who was a dick, and the jock who had a girlfriend, and the horny teenager, and the guy with the girlfriend, the band geek -- it was a really great collection of iconic characters. We didn't want to change the personalities, we just wanted to change the way you're identifying with them.
Q: Since you got all these archetypes together now, which of these actors is most like the archetype they're playing?
JH: I'd say Eddie Kaye Thomas is a lot like Finch in terms of he has a certain way about him, a certain tone. I wouldn't say his life experiences are the same as the character Finch's life experience, but personality wise there was a sophistication. Thomas Ian Nicholas is just a super nice guy, he's just a dependable good man. It's funny because Sean William Scott is nothing like Stifler. He's like the guy who's so afraid to offend anybody. He's very polite.
HS: He's very polite, he'll apologize if he thinks he offended you, and in a lot of ways there's a shyness about him.
JH: He's very shy.
HS: He's just a good guy and when you look at Stifler all he does is offend people and he doesn't care what anybody thinks. And Jason, in these movies he's the moral center, not that he's puritanical, he's a guy who's constantly trying to do the right thing with all the immoral urges that a person has. We make sure that when we're writing that character that he's not swearing, he's not the dirty one, because there's Stifler, but off camera, Jason's really more like Stifler.
JH: He's the filthiest guy.
HS: On set he would whip his dick out and put it in your food or something.
JH: He's the biggest prankster, he's the most outrageous, but there's a lot of Jim in him also. He's a really great guy. He's constantly spilling things on people. Jim is a little clumsy at points.
HS: We were doing a photo shoot for something and we all had apple pies that we were holding, and he accidentally dropped the pie all over the jacket I was wearing for the photo shoot.
JH: And that happens all the time.
HS: He's hapless in the way that Jim is.
Q: So speaking of dicks, whose idea was the clear lid in the kitchen scene?
HS: Jason was the one who came to us after reading the script, he said he loved the script, loved the character work, loved the storylines, said it really felt like the original American Pie, he just wanted one more thing that was outrageous like the pie scene in the original movie. He threw the challenge on us to come up with something.
JH: He said, "I'll do anything. As long as it's funny, I'll do anything." So then the two of us are like, "Well, he's clearly showing his dick in this movie."
HS: So I call him up and I said, "So I think we have a scene for you, are you into showing your dick in this movie?" And he started laughing and said, "As long as it's funny."
Q: So that is not a penis double?
HS: That is him.
JH: You saw the movie, the tell-tale sign of a penis double is usually the actor's face and the penis in the same shot. Jason was very involved in the editing of that with us because he wanted everyone to know it was his. We've made four movies and we've had four penises in our movies and this is the first real penis we've ever used.
Q: What are the differences between writing comedy and directing comedy?
JH: In the writing phase we set the world of the universe. In Harold and Kumar's universe, this can happen, but in the American Pie universe Stifler can't ride a cheetah. In the American Pie universe it's grounded, it's real, everything sort of could happen in the real world. Then as directors, we're the referees of that. We're there to make sure that the tone is consistently working.
Q: You've been professional partners for a long time, when you have creative conflicts over something, how do you resolve it?
JH: Arm wrestling. (Laughter) The truth is we both want the same things. We're never really entering a situation where we want something different.
HS: Those times are few and far between. When they happen -- John and I come from a debating background, we met in debate class in high school, so we'll debate. I'll say, "It's funny, but it won't work for this." and he'll say, "But we need more comedy." We basically have to convince each other.
JH: There's never been a moment where we were like, "Fine, do it your way!" It's never like that because we both want it to be great.
HS: I'm usually concerned if there's something I think should be a certain way, and he doesn't feel that way. I'll feel like I know what I believe to be right, but clearly it's not a universal thing. You explore why there's a difference and sometimes you get to a greater truth. It's all about truth.
JH: It's all about truth; we're philosophers (laughter).
Part II: Jason Biggs and Eddie Kaye Thomas
Two of the stars of American Pie, Jason Biggs, Eddie Kaye Thomas, sat down for an appropriately R-rated discussion about showing your manhood on screen, obnoxious photographers, and much more.
Q: Let's talk about the penis in the room. How did your wife feel about that?
Jason Biggs: In general my wife is quite happy with my penis, is that what you mean? (Laughter) It's kind of a personal question, but overall she's been very happy. Sometimes I'm tired and can't deliver the goods. Sometimes it's been a long day and I just don't feel like it. But that's the beauty of marriage, you just gotta deal. She's not gonna go anywhere else that I know of, I mean I am in Dearborn (Michigan) while she's God knows where. (Laughter) No my wife she loved the idea, the scene itself was something I was fighting for, not fighting for but it was important to get the pie scene. The amazing thing with these guys (meaning the directors) is hearing their pitch. They nailed the tone and the emotional heart of the story and of course they're funny. The comedy was there, but I felt once they nailed the relationships and brought it back to the feeling and the energy of the first film I thought, "OK, how do we start pushing again?" That's the other thing people are going to expect and in particular for me I felt we were missing a pie scene. So I kept pushing and they were in agreement and I told them you have carte blanche with me, I'm a blank canvass, as long as it makes sense in the context of the film and it's funny. John wrote me one day "Would you be willing to show me your..." and I said, "Yeah!"
Eddie Kaye Thomas: Was that an email?
JB: Yeah.
EKT: That's a great email.
JB: It was a text. It was a sext. "Hey Jason you want to show your penis? From John." What if my phone was just sitting out like in a meeting?"
EKT: "Jason, show me your balls!"
JB: "Jason, show me your penis?" And I'm like "Oh excuse me I just have to get this." So we talked about the idea and tweaked it as it went along. I was psyched because I thought that makes sense, it's funny. I feel like if done correctly this will be the pie scene and it will be talked about. And my wife was with me through that period, and she was in agreement, so she was psyched. My wife is a pretty open book anyway, and kind of a whore (laughter). She's not a whore. I'm kidding. She's a whore.
Q: What's it like to be back with your old castmates?
EKT: For the first movie we were just kids, like (in a high-pitched voice), "We got a movie great!" And that movie was an homage to Porky's and Fast Times. American Pie, as much as we get credit for being trailblazers, we weren't the first people to do comedy with kids.
JB: But maybe we did it with the most heart. If there's any sort of thing I feel like that's maybe what made us stand out but I agree with Eddie that it was cyclical. More than anything what we had going for us was timing. Our generation didn't have -- it had been too long since Porky's, it had been too long since Fast Times at Ridgemont High. They were ready, we were ready, we just struck at the right time.
EKT: To answer your question, does it feel like work? Not really. It's insane that they pay us to do it. They pay us to have a good time and make fools of ourselves, so the idea is to not make it feel like work. It didn't feel like work to us, and I don't think it feels like work to watch it.
JB: Speak for yourself, I worked. (Laughter).
Q: Yeah, he's an executive producer.
JB: This guy just sat around counting his money in his fucking trailer the whole time.
EKT: That was the hardest part.
JB: I worked.
Q: You've been living with these characters for thirteen years, share with me a great story about being recognized, and a horrible story about being recognized.
JB: A great story about being recognized, about how far it extends, how far-reaching this movie has been literally in terms of geography...
EKT: South Africa?
JB: No, Uruguay you mean.
EKT: No we got off a plane in Johannesburg, South Africa, me and Jason went on vacation together, and a girl came over to us and said, "Oh my god, you're huge in Botswana!" (Laughter)
JB: Holy shit, that's right!
EKT: I don't even know what that is, is that a place, is that a restaurant? Apparently it's a country.
JB: Dude, I forgot about that! We've been to some pretty random places, Uruguay was funny too. We're huge in Uruguay. I remember going to a tiny island in Fiji where all that was there was this resort, it was like 12 cabins, and a tiny little village, tiny tiny tiny little village. The villagers went bananas over me. Once a year the owners of the resort bring a projector into the village and they bring in movies from wherever. One year it was American Pie, and then I came down randomly a couple of years later and it was like I was their king.
EKT: And a not great moment happened at the premiere on Monday night. It was amazing, we got a premiere, there were thousands of people, but Biggs and I are taking pictures on the red carpet and the photographers all want you to look into their camera. So they say your name, "Jason! Jason! Jason! Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!" There was one photographer who was louder than all of them, and trying to get us to look at his camera and he was screaming, "PIE FUCKER! PIE FUCKER! SHIT BREAK! SHIT BREAK! PIE FUCKER! PIE FUCKER!" (Laughter)
JB: It was a bit of a bummer in an otherwise really exciting night. It wasn't a fan, it was a supposedly professional photographer.
Q: Jason, was this your first time as an executive producer?
JB: First time in the movie world. I helped produce a TV show I did last year. Truthfully, it speaks to Sean and I and our involvement at the developmental stages of the process. The truth is in terms of the collaborative aspects of it, everyone does that, we come in and -- you know I'm not gonna give Eddie an executive producer credit or anything (laughter)
EKT: I was in my trailer counting money.
JB: We all come in and that's the beauty of these movies, we've been doing this for 13 years and we know these characters better than anyone except maybe John and Hayden who surprisingly enough were new to the franchise but creepily know these characters in a way that blew our minds. It's great, we're really all producing this.
EKT: But truth be told the movie wouldn't have happened without Sean and Jason's work early on. There just wouldn't be a movie if they didn't do what they did early on.
JB: Was I on set with a megaphone? And was I handling the day to day? Yes, I was on the set with the megaphone, but they kept taking it away from me. Which I thought was bullshit because I thought executive producers get megaphones (laughter) but I wasn't handling the day-to-day operations. I had more prostitutes in my trailer than I used to.
Q: So I saw the TV ad last night and they are saying that this is the last slice of America Pie. Honestly, you'd do another one in ten years wouldn't you?
JB: Shit, do I have to wait that long? (Laughter) It's so much fun, but it's also not easy to put these things together.
EKT: It's hard to put a movie together.
JB: But that said, who knows? I said no after the first one, and no after the second one and we kept doing them so I'm not gonna say no anymore.
EKT: So say "no' now, then we'll do another one.
JB: No, this is definitely the last one.