So how did the idea for Made the film come about? ^ After working on “The Marshal of Revelation,” there was another one in there, a Paramount project called “Guam Goes to the Moon.” Every hot filmmaker has been attached to “Guam.” When Happy, Texas was acquired, they hired (its director, Mark Illsley); the Weitz brothers were attached–like a half-dozen people have been attached to this project. Inevitably, the studio and the filmmakers end up at loggerheads, and the movie never gets made. As a matter of fact, when I was shooting “Very Bad Things,” Daniel Stern was attached to direct and Bill Pullman was attached to star. That project is like the typical ridiculous Hollywood development case study. (Vince and I) had developed that for five years. Vince was starring in it; it was a green light, ready-to-go project; he brought me on to do some work on the script, and then we were unwilling to make the changes required to get the film off the ground. That one went away, and so Vince was like, “Look, you’re starring in other people’s movies, getting them greenlit, doing small movies. I’m doing the same thing; I’m doing these big studio movies. We just got to do something together, something we can made, something contemporary.” So with that in mind, I set out to write something where I could incorporate as much as I could of our experiences since “Swingers” and put it on the backdrop of a movie in the mob genre, which we both know and love. I tried to incorporate the experiences we’ve had made Hollywood: travelling first class on a plane, staying at hotels, and meeting the types of characters who are very powerful and are trying to charm you and at the same time trying to take advantage of you. We tried to include some of that and also have fun with the genre, and with buddy, fish out of water type (of films).
How long did it take you to write this? ^ About a month; very quickly. I was in Baltimore working on The Replacements, and then in the middle of writing the script I was hired by David Chase to play myself on “The Sopranos.” I was playing myself writing a script about the mob, which I really was doing, and that served to inspire me more. I was in New York shooting, and it gave me some ideas for locations and people to cast in it. That gave me a second wind on the project, so it was done pretty quickly.
How do you expect Made to be received? ^ I think it will do well in spite of what we’re up against. I think it will certainly get us all to the next step. The real challenge is to be able to make another movie, to be able to grow your career in every way, and have the opportunity to continue working. Inevitably, I think it’s really going to find its life on video.
Like “Swingers.” ^ It’s really made an impact. Most of the questions I answer on the Made site are about “Swingers.” There were so many questions about doing a special edition DVD, and I approached Miramax, and now we’re putting together a special edition DVD with some outtakes and commentaries. I know that Vince would love to be involved; I called (co-star) Ron Livingston; I’m sure Doug (Liman) would (like to do it). It’s a great way to include everybody and have a reunion several years later. I think we’ve all grown to appreciate “Swingers.” Whatever little squabbles erupted over it, much like every band after its first hit–I think that everybody is friends now and has grown to appreciate the collaboration, and I think everybody would love to give back to “Swingers” and give back to the “Swingers” fans.
Will you give back to the fans again and do another collaboration with Vince? ^ Yeah. I don’t know what yet, though. It was very difficult to figure out to do Made. You want to have something that people who like “Swingers” will like, but you want to stretch yourself as far as you can and be different without alienating your audience. So what’s the next step from here? If we’re just looking to repeat the same thing, we could go to a big studio and just give them a very safe facsimile of what we have done before. That’s not on either of our agendas. So we’re going to find something probably lighter in tone than Made, but just different from Made and “Swingers”–as different as Made was from “Swingers.”
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