Jack Black and Richard Linklater talk about the making of “School of Rock” and how they approached studio comedy in a new way.
Slacker. Indie filmmaker. Oscar nominee. Writer, director, producer, actor Richard Linklater is all these things and more, a poster boy for the fiercely independent style of filmmaking that emerged out of Austin, Texas in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Funding for Richard Linklater – dream is destiny is provided in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
You're nuts. You're all nuts. You've been focused so hard on making it you forgot about one little thing: it's called the music! And I don't even care. You know what? So what. I don't want to hang out with a bunch of wannabe corporate sellouts.
I'm going to form my own band, and we are going to start a revolution, okay? And you're going to be a funny little footnote on my epic ass.
We didn't have Richard in mind it was Scott Rudin who said, 'I really think you guys should consider Richard Linklater.' And at first we were like, 'That doesn't make sense because this is like a feel-good hit-of-the summer type of thing.' And we both thought of Richard Linklater as more of an arthouse type of guy, you know. You think Slacker, you don't think - I don't know - whatever you think of when you think of big commercial comedies.
Here's a script. Jack Black's attached. What do you think? And I was like, you know - I don't know how to do this. I pass. I get a call saying, 'well Scott Rudin - the producer - isn't accepting your pass.' Like, what does that mean? He wants to talk. I'm like, 'Okay.' And he was just sure I was the right guy to pull this off. And I'm like, 'Oh that's interesting - you're not just going through the Rolodex.' So it was a huge different thing to me, to come aboard. I was a color on his palette. Someone else had cast me as the right person to perhaps realize this thing that he thought had potential. I was always a little frustrated with a lot of studio comedies. I just think they're not working hard enough, or they could be better. So it's like, 'Okay big mouth. This is your chance to actually make a studio comedy that maybe works at that level.' And I said, 'Can I bring my methodology? Can I bring the way I make films to a new environment and make my film within that?' And the answer was yes. Yeah. Yes. [SINGING: Come on, come on, touch me babe...] [SINGING: that I am not afraid. Lawrence is good at piano] [SINGING: He shall be rocking in my soul.] Stop. That's perfect.
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