Steven Hyden: One of the things Linklater does really well in Dazed is depicting how awful kids are at that age, but he’s also very warm in his depiction, because there are certain things that don’t even occur to you to call out when you’re that age, things you know are wrong, but that’s just the way life is. It’s only when you’re older that you can look back at it and see how awful it is. And I think Linklater has enough generosity to show how the kids actually experience it as it’s happening.
Jeremy Fox: You know that scene at the dance where I’m making out with a girl, and Wiley and Esteban interrupt me, and I’m like, “I was gettin’ there! I had my hand up her shirt!” Well, when the time came for that scene, Rick allowed me to pick a girl to kiss. I knew that girl in real life. Her name was Sara DeNean.
Deenie Wallace: Kids called me Deenie.
Jeremy Fox: I had a crush on her for a long time. We had been going to the same school together for a while. I had never kissed her before, so for me, that scene was fantastic. Unfortunately, I got a little too excited. I’d had a huge crush on this girl for so long! I was having a bit of an erection in my bell-bottoms. I had to take a break, because it’s not that kind of movie.
Deenie Wallace: Jeremy would start coming in for the kiss, and I’m like, “He didn’t even say action yet!” And it was weird kissing a friend! It seemed like we took an exorbitant amount of takes. I was probably really insensitive to Jeremy’s feelings because that totally blurs the friendship lines when you have to French kiss someone 25 times.
So I had an emotional cocktail of excited and also embarrassed and awkward and worried. It probably changed our friendship. I said something really, really cruel like, “I’ve never kissed someone and felt nothing before!”
Wiley Wiggins: The main thing I remember about my kissing scene was trying to get things with Catherine Morris to work. Because we actually didn’t get along that well. My mother was briefly married to a guy who kind of lived above his means, so I got to go to private school for a year. Catherine was friends with my older stepsister, so there was like a smelly kid brother kind of vibe going, which is really difficult to get over if you’re supposed to pretend to be romantically interested in someone.
Catherine Avril Morris: I was not attracted to Wiley at all. No offense to him. He was not my type. So I was not looking forward to it.
Wiley Wiggins.
Courtesy of Jason London.
Wiley Wiggins: I was excited. I don’t think I’d really kissed anybody before that.
Catherine Avril Morris: They did basically twelve takes: six of them panning in, and six of them panning back out. And each take, Wiley got progressively more comfortable, and therefore more aggressive in his kissing, which I did not like.
Wiley Wiggins: I hadn’t really kissed that many girls before, so I went overboard. She was like, “You’re kissing me too hard! This is gross! You’re actually really kissing me!” But I had been told to actually kiss!
Catherine Avril Morris: We finally finished, and craft services had made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and I’d been so excited about it, and I just couldn’t eat. I was too nauseated. The whole thing had just been too much.
Wiley Wiggins: I felt terrible that I’d made her feel bad. It wasn’t at all like I’d imagined it. Traditionally, teen movies are exploitation movies, right? People watch them because they have this fantasy of teenage sexuality. But actual teenage sexuality is an unglamorous thing, and it mostly just happens in your mind.
Chapter 20
Alright, Alright, Alright
“That’s the character we want to see—the creepy old guy!”
Matthew McConaughey.
Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC.
Even people who’ve never seen Dazed probably know its most famous line: “Alright, alright, alright.” You might assume it’s famous because it’s the first thing Matthew McConaughey (Wooderson) ever said in a movie. That’s the explanation McConaughey himself tends to give. He just happens to be wrong.
Technically, McConaughey’s first line in Dazed is “Alright, let’s rock ’n’ roll.” He does say “Alright, alright, alright” later in the movie—twice—but both times, he’s off-camera. The first time, you hear Wooderson’s voice as his car pulls into a parking lot. Later, he repeats it when he pulls into the Top Notch drive-in, right before he invites Cynthia to the moon tower party.
The real reason the phrase caught on is that McConaughey became a one-man marketing team for it. He never misses an opportunity to explain its origin, or say it in front of a crowd. When he won the Oscar for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club in 2014, he ended his speech with, “Alright, alright, alright.” He has repeated the phrase in 1995’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation and 2012’s Magic Mike. According to an amusing YouTube supercut titled “Every Matthew McConaughey ‘Alright’ in Chronological Order,” McConaughey has used the word “alright” nearly 300 times on-screen between 1993 and 2017.
At this point, you’d be forgiven for wondering if it’s just a verbal tic. “I have to believe that’s one of those things you tend to say in real life, and then it ends up in a movie,” says Adam Goldberg. “It’s like how I say ‘pal’ in everything I’m in, or how Martin Sheen says ‘good deal’ in every movie.”
But McConaughey believes it was intentional. In his mind, it will always mark the first time he ever improvised a line as an actor, and his last carefree moment on set before his whole life changed.
Matthew McConaughey: Anytime I say, “Alright, alright, alright,” I’m going to call back to a moment from this great little summer I had. We were over by the Top Notch drive-in, and Rick goes, “Hey, man, I got this idea.”
Marissa Ribisi: Rick was like, “We don’t have anywhere in the script where you guys find out where the party is. Someone needs to tell you. It’s going to be Wooderson.”
Richard Linklater: I remember my sister saying, “Marissa’s so cute with her red hair. Wouldn’t it be great if she was someone’s love interest?” So I had Matthew flirt with her.
Matthew McConaughey: Rick goes, “Wooderson’s been with the typical chicks, right? The cheerleaders. What people call the ‘typical hotties.’ Do you think you’d be interested in the redheaded intellectual?” I go, “Yeah.”
Marissa Ribisi: In the original script, my character was supposed to flirt with Anthony’s character, but Rick changed it to Matthew. And I was like, “Oh, I can see that, because Cynthia’s an intellectual, so she might be attracted to older men.” It’s so wrong that it’s kind of right!
Matthew McConaughey: I remember sayin’, “Give me 30 minutes, ’cause I need to take a walk and go through ‘Who am I?’ And I walked off, and next thing I know, I’m in the car. We’re gonna shoot this first scene with me in the movie. And I’m thinking about this Jim Morrison live record where he barked, “Alright, alright, alright, alright.” He said four of them, but very aggressively.
I grabbed that line and threw it into three affirmations via the Wooderson way. I’m saying to myself, “What’s Wooderson about?” Well, he’s about his car, his ’70 Chevelle, that’s one. And Wooderson’s about gettin’ high: Slater’s ridin’ shotgun, and Wooderson’s always got a doobie rolled up. He’s about rock ’n’ roll: he’s got Ted Nugent “Stranglehold” playin’ in the 8-track. And he’s about chicks.
Right about this time, I hear, “Action!” In my mind, I go, “Well, he’s got three out of four of those things, and there’s the fourth one that I’m pullin’ up to go get right now. Alright, alright, alright!” There’s my three affirmations for the three things that I do have, as I’m goin’ to get the fourth.
Marissa Ribisi: Rick said, “You and Matthew go figure out what you’re gonna say, and then we’ll shoot it.” So I go, “Okay, we have to figure this out. Why do you like me? Oh, I know, red hair!” When I’m walking down the street, there are men who have a penchant for redheads, and they say crazy shit like, “Is there fire in the pants?”
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I’d get those comments, and I’m not even a real redhead!
And Matthew goes, “Oh my god, that’s good!” So that’s why he said, “I love those redheads.” And I said, “You should give yourself away by saying, ‘Do you need a ride?’” Because I’m driving my own car. And it gives him away a little bit, that you’d make a stupid remark like that if you kinda liked somebody.
Tricia Linklater: That’s how boys are! They just say stupid stuff. It’s like, “I like your backpack.” They don’t know what’s coming out of their mouth half the time.
Marissa Ribisi: In the moment, I felt kind of tingly, like, “Oh my god, this guy likes me! And now these two guys in the car are giving me shit about it. And, oh my god, he’s kind of cute!”
Deb Pastor: The minute he said that “alright, alright, alright” thing, I just went, “Oh my god, for the rest of time, people are going to be saying everything this motherfucker says.” How many movies have we worked on where, the minute it comes out of their mouth, you know that you’re going to quote it the rest of your life? My god! That was not even written in the script!
Wiley Wiggins: That could’ve been bad, right? That could turn into this catchphrasey kind of thing, which it was on the edge of. But he personally saved it, because he’s interesting to see on-screen. He seems like an actual person, not just a caricature.
Greg Finton: The day Matthew said, “Alright, alright, alright”—that was the first day it clicked with the crew. Like, “Oh, this is what this film is going to be. This is the vibe it’s going to have.”
Robert Brakey: The original scripts are a lot different than the movie that came out. I mean, it’s funny, but I wouldn’t call it a comedy. It had some poignant scenes about growing up and “We’re done with high school, now what do we do?” It was existential that way.
Wooderson was a guy who’s stuck in a loop. He was a loser who refused to grow up. He was in an arrested state of picking up high school chicks and cruising the Emporium. He wasn’t anybody that you would want to hang out with.
But the first time I saw McConaughey as Wooderson, I remember everybody stopping what they were doing and going, “Oh, this is totally different than what we thought.” I don’t think we were expecting humor in that character. That weird cross-eye thing that he does? It was wacky. Credit goes to Rick for going with it, because I don’t know if that’s what Rick expected, but it worked. The movie became a lot more fun with more Wooderson.
Jason Davids Scott: Every time Matthew showed up, people were like, “That’s the character we want to see—the creepy old guy!”
Matthew McConaughey: People are like, “Don’t you get tired of alright, alright, alright?” I’m not arrogant enough to be tired of that. Those are the first words I said in a job. I didn’t know if that was going to be my last night’s work. So, here I sit, what, 27 years later? I’ve made a career out of this thing that could’ve been a whim. It’s the original lineage of the journey that has been my career to this day.
(left to right) Deena Martin, Michelle Burke, and Chrisse Harnos.
Courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing, LLC.
Chapter 21
She Called You a Bitch and You a Slut
“Oh, I guess there’s no female lead in the movie anymore?”
Hollywood loves movies about high school, probably because Hollywood is high school. There’s just as much pettiness and self-consciousness and concern over who is friends with whom, and it’s rough on nearly everyone involved. The outcasts think the popular kids are fake. The popular kids truly believe they’re outcasts. And there’s always someone who seems to join the cool crowd overnight, only to discover that everyone else resents them for it.
According to many of the guys in Dazed and Confused, the relationships between the women felt “like high school.” From the outside, that might seem like an unfair interpretation, since the guys had cliques of their own, but the women don’t really dispute it. Joey Lauren Adams says that’s the way the dynamic between them was designed. “They pitted us against one another from the very beginning,” she says. “Instead of auditioning for the role we wanted, all of the women had to audition for the same role—the one Michelle got. There was a feeling that we were working against one another, and that feeling continued on set once we got to Austin.”
Adams also points out that the stakes were higher for the women. With the exception of Chrisse Harnos and Milla Jovovich, none of them had really had a major role in a film before. That wasn’t true for most of the men. And the women had fewer scenes that allowed them to explore their characters in depth. While shooting Dazed, Adams told Kahane Corn that Dazed felt like the guys’ movie. When the male characters were in a scene together, they were discussing all kinds of things: cars, football, drugs, politics. “And then the scene with the girls, they’re in the bathroom and they’re talking about boys,” Adams said. “And that’s such a man’s idea of what we’d be talking about!”
Adams and Parker Posey were smart: since their roles were limited, they banded together and wrote their own scenes. Other women’s roles were whittled down, which added to their sense of marginalization. Most of the actresses were in their mid-20s by the time Dazed came along. They probably knew they had less time to prove themselves than the guys had, since opportunities for actresses drop off steeply once they reach their 30s. Knowing Dazed was their first big chance for a breakout role forced them to fight harder to distinguish themselves in an ensemble story that was already dominated by the men. Instead of viewing one another as allies, some ended up treating one another as competition.
Richard Linklater: High schools are testosterone fests. The young men just overpower everything. And they did that in the film, too.
Adam Goldberg: The girls really got the short shrift in Dazed. They had much larger roles in the script. When I watched the movie, I was like, “Oh, I guess there’s no female lead in the movie anymore?”
Richard Linklater: I really wanted a young woman’s perspective in the movie, and it’s just barely there now. I feel like I failed with the women. Chrisse Harnos, for instance. There was a lot more there with her in the beginning.
Jason Davids Scott: The screenplay version of the Gilligan’s Island conversation in the bathroom was much longer.
Excerpt from Dazed and Confused
Shooting Script, June 25, 1992
KAYE
You know, this is really pathetic. All you ever talk about is guys. Everything is always guys—going to watch guys do whatever it is they’re doing at the time, getting all dressed up so maybe some guy will notice you . . . Do you think guys spend one-tenth the time we do thinking and catering to us? Hell no . . . They’re too busy DOING things. What do we do besides sit around talking and plotting about them?
SHAVONNE
Yeah, but look at the shit they do: playing sports, fixing up their cars . . . it’s all bullshit anyway, who can take that serious?
JODI
We don’t have any choice BUT to take whatever they do serious. Look at what it’s like around here during football season—everything shuts down and takes a back seat to the fact that our guys are going to try to beat the crap out of some other guys.
KAYE
Exactly.
(to Shavonne)
And then you were in class with them trying to list all the Gilligan’s Island episodes without even a HINT of irony.
SHAVONNE
What the hell are you talking about, girl?
KAYE
You never thought about that show? It’s what’s called a male pornographic fantasy. Think about it: you’re basically alone on an island with two readily available women, one seductive, sex-goddess type, the other a healthy, girl-next-door type with a nice butt. So, guys have it all, the Madonna and the whore. And what do women get? Nothing. A geek, an overweight middle-age guy, a nerdy scientific type. Those are all the types that your typical male feels least threatened by. So in the male viewer’s mind, he puts himself on t
he island and he can have it all. A woman puts herself on the island and she’s bored shitless . . . Women are taught to not mind being bored as long as they are occasionally acknowledged.
Chrisse Harnos: I took it personally when my scenes were cut. I blamed myself. I thought I wasn’t good enough. You’re all performing together and there’s always that thing of, wait, how am I gonna come off, versus him or her? Am I gonna get left behind?
Joey Lauren Adams: Well, my part got bigger, so I can’t complain. Parker and I would write a scene and Rick would say, “Okay, I’ll give you one take.”
Parker Posey: Joey and I wrote a scene where we were going to the bathroom in the woods.
Joey Lauren Adams: We were like, “You’re gonna start with the camera on our faces, and it’s gonna seem like we’re having a contemplative moment, but then you’re gonna pull back and see that we’re both just wasted and pissing.” We shot that!
Parker Posey: I’d never seen women in a movie going to the bathroom in the woods before! But we ended up shooting it wrong. You could see that we had our pants on.
Joey Lauren Adams: The scene where I trip and fall in the woods came from us walking around in those platform shoes and always busting our asses.
Jason London: Joey was not supposed to fall there!
Joey Lauren Adams: No, that’s not true.
Richard Linklater: Her fall was 100 percent planned, framed and executed.
Jason London: I love the laugh that comes out of Parker, because it was absolutely real. It wasn’t Darla laughing at Simone. It was Parker laughing at Joey.
Parker Posey: I think I pushed Joey back down after she fell! There’s nothing funnier than people falling, and you’re like, “I’m gonna help you out!” and then you push them back down.
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