How initially were you cast in “Dazed and Confused”?
Anne Walker McBay (co-producer) was trolling ‘the drag’ in Austin for extras. I went in for an extra role and ended up auditioning to be in the film. Anne and Rick and I became friends pretty quickly.
What’s it like being the little cute kid from “Dazed”? Has it been a benefit or a burden since that movie has now become a cult classic?
Nobody knew who I was or cared while I was in LA, so I don’t think it has made much of a difference. Pretty much every film I have worked on has been independent and I still have to have dayjobs, so I don’t really know. It’s helped me meet a lot of really cool and talented people.
When you worked on “Dazed” with Richard, there must have been a lot of craziness with all those young actors around. What was it like when you were NOT shooting the movie? Constant parties? What?
Uh, the other actors were smoking a lot of pot but I abstained due to the sheer terror of f*****g something up. “Dazed” was very stressful for me, in a positive way, but still very stressful. I didn’t want to let Rick down in any way.
So, you’re a bigshot actor, getting chicks must be pretty easy for you. Tell us what that glamorous life is like?
Ha. Homelessness. Weird random work to stay alive. I had a year where I slept with a lot of girls because it was really novel and girls had never paid any attention to me before. Then I got sick of hanging out with a bunch of people I didn’t really like.
I like writing comparative film stuff, but you guys probably just want reviews, which is fine. However I will compulsorily dip any yuk-yuk sneering pop-culture reference kevin smithy drek in monkey excrement, hose it down with aqua-net… stand back… ignite. There’s almost as much dumb indie film now as there is studio poo. Here are my favorite movies in no particular order:
2001
Dr. Strangelove
Solaris
Sans Soleil
Slacker
Naked
Parents
The Thing (Carpenter Version)
Let Sleeping Corpses Lie
Alien
Aliens
The Stalker
Repo Man
The Forbidden Zone
The Tenant
Rope
Gummo
The Unknown
Metropolis
Aguirre, The Wrath of God
Night of the Hunter
Here are some movies that I passionately HATE:
Swingers
Mallrats
Alien Resurrection
Christ those first three made my eyes start to bleed as I remembered watching them and now I can’t even get into all the other movies I hate. A bad movie is like a filthy, screeching, excrement-throwing baboon who takes up residence in your subconsious. I hate wannabe hipster movies the worst. The cloying ones that call me dude and jut their herpid genitals in my face. The ones devoid of people and full of ‘characters’. Fart Jokes. Bad pop music. Every f*****g American movie being made right now that assumes that everyone has the brain of a twelve year old. Teenage sex comedies.
How did you get involved in Waking Life?
I knew Bob Sabiston independently of Rick and had played with his software in its very early stages. Rick called me one day and told me he had me in mind for a project and it all sort of fell together from there.
Get the rest of the interview in part three of WILD WILEY WIGGINS>>>
