Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Audio interview: Josh Peck and Jonathan Levine, star and director of The Wackness
Josh plays against his Nickelodeon kid-actor image.
Updated 11:12 a.m., July 17, 2008
A group of media types gathered in a plush downtown Dallas hotel suite recently with Josh Peck and Jonathan Levine, star and director/writer of the forthcoming offbeat indie pic, The Wackness.
Josh and Jonathan look like they could be school chums, and they both look young enough to still actually be in school, rather than touring around the country promoting the release of their movie.
Nevertheless, here they were, doing just that.
The Wackness deals with drugs and sex, parents and kids, high school graduation, ambition - and the lack of it - and popular music. It all takes place in New York City in 1994, which doesn't sound long enough ago to make it a "period piece," but - consider - cell phones weren't around, and the hip-hop scene was in the process of entering the mainstream of popular culture.
As we join the conversation, Jonathan Levine is explaining that Dallas is the first stop on their promotional tour - and thus "you're probably catching us as coherent as we're going to get."
UPDATE: The Wackness opens locally this Friday (July 18) exclusively at the Magnolia in Dallas and the Angelika in Plano.
