The Cast of Dazed and Confused "Smoked Austin Out Of All Its Weed" And Bought Guns To Go Shooting On Magic Mushrooms While Filming An All-Time Classic
Universal. Shutterstock Images.Kind of crazy that the first thought I had when I got the Dazed and Confused Oral History I pre-ordered like 2 months ago and went to blog some of the highlights was if I could use character names in the headline, or if too many readers would have no idea what I was talking about. You know like, Alright Alright Alright…Wooderson Smoked All The Weed In Texas. I genuinely still don't know if I'm dating myself out of our current core demo by referencing an all-time classic that basically launched Matthew McConaughey's career. If this was the blogger mid-life crisis where you sit at the Rear Ad and Jerry Thornton table at lunch. Think I'm crazy? Take a trip to Tik Tok, where they don't know who Leonardo DiCaprio is and have never heard Say My Name or In Da Club.
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Maybe now you see where I'm coming from. These Gen Z fuckers literally bullied me out of my headline. To quote O'Bannion the first lick this blog I'd like to dedicate to your mother, fuck her.
But enough about those brats. "Alright, Alright, Alright" dropped two days ago and, if you don't want to commit to the whole thing because it's a book that you have to like, read, Vulture has some highlights, including my favorite: the majority of the set being drunk and/or high every day of filming, and the cast "basically smoking Austin out of all it's weed" and needing to wait for more to come in from Mexico, triggering Milla Jovovich into a "meltdown":
Jason London: We basically smoked Austin out of all of its weed, and the person who was the worst was Milla [Jovovich]. The rest of us were like, okay, we just have to wait till we can get more weed. She just went into full meltdown mode.
It might’ve been just her getting into character, but there was a certain point where people were like, “There’s no more weed! I gave you all we had! It’s not like this shit is growing in the backyard. This shit comes from Mexico.”
Pretty sure this is just confirming the obvious for everyone in writing, but it's pretty cool to hear about the cast of one of the GOAT coming-of-age movies literally coming-to-age while filming it, years before a whole bunch of them became megastars.
Jason London: The first time I smoked real pot and worked was the scene where the old man grabs my arm and says, “So you’re gonna throw for so-and-so yards this year?” I went into the scene and met this lovely old couple and I was like, Holy crap, this is surreal! So that’s when I discovered, like, wow, for certain scenes, having a little puff was not a terrible idea.
Sasha Jenson: I got high during the scene on the baseball field, with the paddles, and I hated it. I wasn’t comfortable doing that.
Joey Lauren Adams (Simone): I was high for the scene on the football field. A lot of us were.
Rory Cochrane (Slater): We were shooting one scene where we’re driving around in a Chevelle, and I took a hit off a real roach. That scene’s not in the movie, but Matthew had to hit me on the back when they were rolling so I’d wake up.
Let's check in on Ben Affleck who I'm sure was the ringleader…
Ben Affleck (O’Bannion): I had a bad experience with marijuana at 15. I had a dissociative panic attack. So I only smoked weed if everyone else was smoking, and I had to sort of “Bill Clinton” it and fake it. I didn’t really like marijuana…
…I was a little nervous, like, “Should we be drinking before we’re working tomorrow?” Some people were actually drinking and getting stoned at work.
AT WORK?!?!?!
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Lol narc. Ben "I'm Not A Cop" Affleck.
Na, don't worry, Affleck wasn't just taking names down in the little notepad his mommy gave him to report the bad boys to the adults while the rest of the cast was pretty much living the dream of every kid ever. What he lacked in the weed department he made up for with guns.
Peter Millius: Ben liked to be the alpha male. He was definitely one of the guys who was like, “Yeah, let’s go to the gun range!” Him and Cole.
Cole Hauser: We’d shoot all kinds of guns: .44s, 57s, shotguns. Man, they would give you anything. If they’d had a bazooka in there, we would’ve shot it.
Peter Millius: One time, we all went out drinking. At 9:30 in the morning, we get back to the hotel, and someone says, “Hey, let’s go to a shooting range!” I thought, “Guys! We’re all hammered as hell. There is no way anyone’s gonna give us guns.” We get to the gun range, and everyone’s so excited, they all run in ahead of me. When I walk in, half the guys already have guns in their hands, shooting! And I can’t believe they’re giving all of us guns! It’s a Texas thing. They’re like, “You want a cup of water, or you want a gun?”
I think Ben and Cole actually bought guns.
Rory Cochrane: Cole might have bought a .357. I can’t confirm whether or not he shot it out the window.
Rory Cochrane: We went shooting on magic mushrooms. Which was not a great idea. Some of the girls were just waving the guns around, and we were supposed to be in lanes.
Nicky Katt: …that probably explains why Rory discharged a firearm into the roof of the place. He was like, “Hey, how do I …” Boom! And it went off right over his head.
I know what you're thinking. All of this is great, but what about McConaughey?
Well, he came onto the scene a little later than everyone else. He didn't stay at the hotel with them. He never "felt like a part of" what they all said was basically something "like a family." They literally thought he was a bartender who knew somebody and scored a "nonsense" role.
But don't worry. Even 27 years ago, Matthew McConaughey was exactly who you think Matthew McConaughey is.
Adam Goldberg: I thought McConaughey was just a bartender who got a kitschy, nonsense role. He directed me in the last scene we shot together, like he was telling us what to do. I was just like, “Oh, I’ll let this local have his little power trip.” I mean, that’s Matthew.
Cole Hauser: Matthew was like, “C’mon guys, get out of your hotel room, let me take you down to the river.” You’d have these tubes, and you’d just throw a big cooler of beer in the middle, and you’d just float. It’s muggy and nasty in Austin during the summer, so to have a cool spring with a beer in your hand and beautiful girls cruising by? It was heaven on earth.
Floating on a raft with cold beer and beautiful women after Matthew McConaughey tells you "let me take you down to the river" while filming an all-time classic movie. What's the best story you tell at parties?
PS,
Not to kill the mood but uhhhhh did someone ever think of like, I don't know, asking Milla Jovovich "…you good?" or something?
Keith Fletcher (extras wardrobe supervisor): I was at the party, and Milla was standing next to me, and she literally just passed out.
Tracey Holman (wardrobe assistant): At one point I looked up and I think Affleck was carrying Milla outside.
Keith Fletcher: She woke up a minute or two later. We were all standing over her, trying to help her, give her air, and she comes to, like, “Oh, that was weird!” Got up, and went on with the rest of the night. The rest of us were like, “That was not healthy.”
Melanie Fletcher (extras set costumer): Everybody was getting high, and Milla wasn’t eating. She always felt like she was just about to tip over.
"ANYWAY we threw her in a cab and wait til you hear this next story about the bowling alley where we would freebase heroin"
via Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused. Excerpts via Vulture