Chapter 24
Shawn and Milla Self-Destruct
“Well, I quit the film!”
Milla Jovovich.
Photography by Anthony Rapp.
It’s hard to remember that Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and Renée Zellweger weren’t always, well, Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and Renée Zellweger. But back in 1992, Milla Jovovich was the biggest star in Dazed.
Born in Kiev with striking, cobalt-blue eyes, Jovovich emigrated with her family to London when she was five, and eventually settled in Los Angeles. By 11, she was modeling for the legendary photographer Richard Avedon, who would feature her in Revlon’s “Most Unforgettable Women in the World” campaign. By 16, she had starred in the desert-island film Return to the Blue Lagoon, danced in her underwear with Christian Slater in Kuffs, and played the child bride of Robert Downey Jr.’s Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin. She was also starting to write the songs that would end up on her 1994 pop album, The Divine Comedy, which earned praise from Rolling Stone and fandom from Mick Jagger. “Milla was a superstar,” Jason London recalls.
She was 16 when she got cast in Dazed and Confused. Her part, the stoner girl Michelle, was described in the script as “Pickford’s girlfriend, doesn’t talk much but is perhaps the coolest girl around.” You might think that role sounds too small for the biggest star in the film. You wouldn’t necessarily be wrong.
Jovovich told Linklater she wasn’t interested in doing Dazed unless she got a bigger part, and she has said Linklater agreed that she could make the part bigger. She believed she only needed one scene to make her character memorable. She never got that chance. Her volatile boyfriend, Shawn Andrews (Pickford), was already creating drama with the cast, and she was pulled into it.
By the end, you saw more of her on the poster than you did in the movie. “It sucks—they’re totally exploiting my image,” she said in 1994. “They screwed me.” Maybe. Or maybe Jovovich and Andrews screwed themselves.
Richard Linklater: Milla came in wanting to play Jodi. She didn’t get that part. She reluctantly agreed to play a much smaller part. I talked to her in preproduction about how I wanted her character to expand. But having her play a smaller part was ultimately a mistake, because she wasn’t happy.
Jason London: Before Dazed, I’d done a movie called December with Brian Krause, who did Return to the Blue Lagoon with Milla. We lived in a crappy apartment in North Hollywood, and a limo pulled up to pick up Brian for the publicity tour. Milla came in to get him, and she was like, “Wow. How do you live in this shithole?”
She was used to a very different life.
Justin O’Baugh: The pomp and circumstance surrounding Milla was the only black spot on the entire experience, all the baggage that came along with her. People were like, “Oh, fucking Milla!”
Kim France: She was also trying to have a music career. I remember, because I was writing about Dazed and Confused for Sassy, and Christina Kelly had written something mean about her incipient music career in Sassy, and when I came to the set, they were like, “Yeah, Milla doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Jason Davids Scott: I played guitar, and Milla said, “I play guitar, too! Come to my room and I’ll play you this demo tape that I made.” And I was like, Oh, great, because she was a model, not a musician, and I didn’t think she’d be any good. So I went up to her room, and she played me the demo tape for what eventually became her first album. And it was like, Oh my god, this is really good!
I always feel bad that Milla got stuck with Shawn, because if anyone was the big star, she was.
Richard Linklater: Milla gave over her power to Shawn. I would talk to her about her character, but she would just look over at Shawn: “What do you say?” She was 16. He was 21 or something. I’m like, “Milla, don’t! Forget him! This is your character.”
Rory Cochrane: It was almost cultish. Shawn was like, “It’s just you and me, and that’s it.” I don’t remember her having her own free will.
Jason Davids Scott: In the script, they were supposed to play “After the Gold Rush” in the scene where they’re in the woods, talking about aliens. But “After the Gold Rush” was apparently the most expensive line item on the soundtrack. At the very last minute, Milla said, “I’ll play this song I wrote!” It sounds like it’s about aliens. She’s singing “Watch them fly.” Nobody realized that it was a real song on her album [“The Alien Song”]. We all thought it was just Milla improvising.
Richard Linklater: Milla did finally write a little monologue where she was playing pinball and talking to someone. I thought, “I don’t know if it’ll make the final movie, but I want her to do the scene.” But we were behind schedule. Anne [Walker-McBay] said, “Rick, we don’t have time.” And I was like, “Aw shit, Milla’s going to be pissed.”
Chrisse Harnos: I was supposed to be in that scene with Milla, at the pinball machine. And I remember her being like, “Nobody’s valuing what I have to offer!”
Jonathan Burkhart: We had broken for lunch, and Shawn had gone to Rick, like, “Milla and I have rewritten a scene that we want to shoot in a particular way.” I was sitting with Rick and Lee [Daniel] at lunch, and we say, “Okay, cool, we’ll check it out!” And they’re like, “No, we really want you to read these pages. We spent a long time doing this.”
That’s inappropriate. You, the cast, don’t rewrite your lines on the spot and say, “I want to shoot it this way!” We got back from lunch and found out Milla and Shawn had locked themselves in somewhere, in protest, saying that unless Rick read their new version of the script, they weren’t going to come out.
The ADs were like, “Fine! You don’t want to come out? We’re not going to shoot with you.” I remember it being like, who the fuck do you think you are?
Richard Linklater: Milla wouldn’t come out. And then she said, “Well, I quit the film.”
Jason Davids Scott: Rick ended up basically cutting both Milla and Shawn almost entirely out of the movie.
Adam Goldberg: Shawn left before we wrapped. It was my understanding that he got fired before they shot the scene on the football field.
Richard Linklater: No, I didn’t fire him. You don’t fire actors late in the game like that. I just waited until all his stuff was done, and then called him up and we talked for a while. I told him that his character wasn’t going to be driving to get the Aerosmith tickets—Wooderson was. He wasn’t pissed off or anything, and he actually agreed that his character probably wouldn’t be doing that.
Bill Wise: Shawn Andrews didn’t even get a work finish. Do you know what it means? It’s kind of ritual that’s gone down from back in the day, and every one of the leads at some point gets a work finish: “That’s a wrap for Bill Wise,” and everyone applauds. Shawn never got one. In fact, the last week, he was still in his honey wagon and no one had even taken the time to say, “Man, if you want to go, that’s cool. We’re done here.”
Matthew McConaughey: Without even knowing it, Shawn was writing himself out of the film. I started getting invited in places that maybe Shawn was going to be in. Other actors started lobbing me lines. And all of a sudden, I’m gettin’ written into the movie.
Richard Linklater: Note to actors: Get along with people you’re in an ensemble with. Especially with the director. Don’t forget who edits and controls all this.
Chapter 25
Just Keep Livin’
“I was like, This is the climax? Really?”
Richard Linklater and Matthew McConaughey.
Courtesy of Richard Linklater.
On the final night of shooting, Linklater still wasn’t totally sure how to end the movie. He knew he had to wrap up the film’s central problem—whether or not Pink (Jason London) would sign a clean-living pledge given to him by his coach—but beyond that, he was open to suggestions from the cast about what, exactly, Pink and his friends would say to one another when they gathered on the football field after the party.
The cast understood one thing about the scene they wer
e about to shoot: It had to matter. It had to reflect who their characters were and what this film was supposed to say. But in a plotless movie like Dazed, such conclusions were difficult to reach. Should they talk about everything or should they talk about nothing? Should the conversation be funny or poignant? Should they be smoking joints or should they be rolling joints? How do you find meaning within a story that habitually rejects the obvious?
Like so many things in Dazed, the problem was solved by Matthew McConaughey. Linklater included him, so that he could deliver a little speech. When other cast members improvised, they usually brought comedy to the movie, but McConaughey was a cosmic cowboy, prone to stoner-friendly discussions about the nature of life, man. He brought a bit of poetry to the scene.
Richard Linklater: I wanted to have a scene where they hang out on the football field. That’s what teenagers do! On a Saturday night, they go hang out in the school parking lot, but they’re drinking beer and fucking around. They’re doing something they can’t do during school. There’s a certain rebellion in that. It seems conformist to go back to that location—like, we hate school, why would we go back there? Well, because it’s different now. We own that football field. No one’s telling us what to do.
John Cameron: An empty stadium late at night was kind of a special, secret place to be. It’s one of those film things where you have access to places that, normally, you wouldn’t. I remember that scene as a bittersweet thing in the film. Filming it felt bittersweet as well. It was the last night of shooting.
Nicky Katt: I was already wrapped, but I stayed just to watch them shoot that scene. It was like I couldn’t let go.
Jason Davids Scott: There was only a skeleton crew of people left.
Peter Millius: It was intense, because everyone knew, this is it. This was the last night of shooting, the grand finale. It was a really big deal. Everybody cared about it. They were all so excited and so nervous. Sasha was betting guys on the crew about how fast he could run around the track, and they were timing him. The other kids were on the field, talking about their lives, and talking about how they wanted to do that scene.
Jason Davids Scott: That was the one time I got to see them work really closely with Rick.
Peter Millius: They would present an idea to Rick, and Rick would say, “Yeah, use part of that” or “Use all of it.” They all wanted to make a statement about their character, and sign off in the right way.
Jason London: Sasha and I were supposed to pretend to be the coaches, like, “Break down, boy!” Well, my real high school football coach was a cool Vietnam vet who would tell us stories about Vietnam that always ended with “OTSS! Only the strong survive!” So I asked Rick, “Can I say that here?” And he was like, “You just gave me gold. Yes, please.”
Deena Martin-DeLucia: Sasha had been coming on to me so strong throughout the whole movie. So after his character says that he “dogged as many chicks as he could while he was stuck in this place,” my boyfriend Peter suggested that I say, “Yeah right, Mr. Premature Ejaculation.” Peter had run the line through Rick, and he said, “You’re gonna get it on the master shot, and we’re not gonna tell Sasha.” So Sasha wasn’t expecting it at all.
Sasha Jenson: That was Peter’s idea? Well, he got such a great reaction out of me, I should thank him!
I don’t think we’d ever rehearsed that football field scene during the rehearsal process. We came up with most of it on the spot. I think Rick was like, okay, I gotta bring this movie home, because the whole movie’s about Pink and this football letter, and we don’t really know what happens with that, but that was really just an excuse to let McConaughey do that little speech.
Nicky Katt: Early on, it was Pickford who was supposed to be there with Pink. But they all wanted McConaughey there instead.
Excerpt from Dazed and Confused
Shooting Script, June 25, 1992
PICKFORD
I like the “I voluntarily sign this” part.
PINK
Yeah the best kind of extortion and behavior control is the kind you volunteer for.
He wads [the agreement] up again and tosses it out in front of them.
PICKFORD
That means a no signature from you?
PINK
I dunno. I’ll probably eventually sign it and end up playing—I just want to do it on my terms somehow.
PICKFORD
When you do, just sign that wadded up piece of paper—that’ll tell them something.
Richard Linklater: We were working on the final scene, just trying to get what Wooderson would say to Pink at that point. And I’ll never forget Matthew looking over at me and saying, “It’s about livin’, ain’t it?” It was just obvious that it was about his dad.
Matthew McConaughey: Rick and I probably started our bond when my father passed on. I remember when I first got back after the funeral, I took a good long walk with Rick, who’s a wonderful listener. We were talking about what’s the best way to get through it, still appreciating a mourning process but not being subdued by a mourning process, and how you keep someone’s spirit alive even though, physically, they’re no longer here. That was the night that “Just keep livin’” came out of my mouth. A light went off for me about how to navigate losing my father, just keeping his spirit alive.
Don Howard: Rick said, let’s just get Matthew McConaughey in here and let him carry that last scene.
Sasha Jenson: We were shooting, and I was like, This is the climax? Really? Pink throws the letter on the ground, and that’s the end of the movie? And McConaughey’s going, “J.K. Livin’”? Honestly, at that point, it didn’t make any sense!
Don Howard: Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense that Wooderson would be there with them. He’s an older guy! What’s he doing on a high school football field? But it doesn’t matter. McConaughey’s so good, you don’t even think about, “What is that older dude doing here?”
Jason Davids Scott: McConaughey so understood the value of that moment. He’d been the creepy older guy, but then he gets some wisdom. That would’ve been harder to pull off with Pickford. Pickford was just the rich kid. There was no way that character could’ve come up with that.
Bill Wise: When you’re at the end of the party, and the sun’s rays are coming up, that’s when you don’t overthink. You’re stoned and tired. You just say, “Oh, man, you just got to keep living is what you do! You got one day, and then you got tomorrow! You’ve got to keep moving forward!” You know Wooderson is going to espouse some kind of empty sloganeering, and that’s the beauty of it. When you’re young and stoned, somebody will say something like that, and it’s like, “Man, that guy is deep!”
Jason London: You know when McConaughey goes into these inspirational speeches? He’s always been that way. Even before he was famous.
Matthew McConaughey: Look, “just keep living,” the origin is my father moving on, but I love a good truism that you can apply to an infinite amount of situations, as a decision-making paradigm. There’s a “just keep living” decision with every single thing that I do. I could also argue that every character I play is a “just keep living” character. It’s a life affirmant. I’ve not found any place where it’s not applicable.
Sasha Jenson: The J.K. Livin’ thing? McConaughey carved it into his car with a knife! That was his thing.
Jason Davids Scott: He had “J.K. Livin’” on his answering machine message after that. It was like, “Alright, this is Matthew and I can’t get to the phone, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you. J.K. Livin’.” And this was before the film had come out! But I think he brought that attitude with him back to L.A.
Richard Linklater: The last week of production on Dazed, we were sitting at dinner, and Matthew was like, “You know, I think I’m going to move to L.A.” And I was just like, “Really?” I was kinda surprised! I mean, he was great, but I’ve always been like, don’t act unless you can’t live your life not doing it, because it’s a shitty business. It’s a great calling,
but it can be a tough life.
Justin O’Baugh: He wasn’t “Matthew McConaughey” until then. He could’ve just been an extra. It was like, “Oh. You got a part, dude? Good for you, man. Congratulations.” And then you see him in the movie, going “Just keep livin’” and you’re like, “Oh! That was that dude, man! He had the best part of the whole movie! Aw, man!” And then you know what happens from there.
Nicky Katt: Matthew became a pit bull for success.
Chapter 26
You Can’t Go Home Again
“I don’t think any of us wanted it to end.”
(left to right) Joey Lauren Adams, Rory Cochrane, Matthew McConaughey, and Jason London.
Photography by Anthony Rapp.
Unlike most high school movies, no lessons are learned in Dazed, and no lives are changed. For most of the movie, the characters aren’t thinking about much beyond whatever’s going to happen that night. The idea that this moment is somehow meaningful is never considered. But when they drive off to get Aerosmith tickets in the final scene, it still feels poignant—maybe not to Pink (Jason London) and his friends, but to the viewers, because we know what the characters don’t: These kids can never go back. A party that seems forgettable when you’re 17 eventually becomes a night you can only hope to remember.
“Linklater perfectly walks this tightrope between a very avantgarde movie in which nothing really happens and an extraordinarily entertaining movie where the stakes couldn’t be higher,” says filmmaker Jason Reitman, a fan of the film who staged a live reading of Dazed in 2015. “Obviously, for those characters at the time, the stakes are: Will I ever fit in? Will I get the guy? Will I get the girl? Will I get the beer? But then you watch it as you get older, and you realize the stakes are so much grander. It’s like: Will life ever get as good as this? Will I ever know people as well as I knew the people I knew in high school? Will I ever think about the coming summer with a sense of hope again?”
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