When I put my hand into that of frat-boy messiah Tucker Max, he crushed my phalanges with a firm shake that can only performed by legendary mitts. Those hands have handled more alcoholic beverages and women than my mind can even begin to imagine. And while I do hope he washes his hands regularly, at least I can say I’ve grabbed the paws of a man who has f**ked a little person stripper. That and other stories are shared in Tucker Max’s first co-written movie, I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, a film adaptation of his New York Times Bestseller with the same title. In the movie, law student/college-party-icon is played by Matt Czuchry (you may recognize him from “Gilmore Girls.”)
But as much as Tucker Max may seem to be invincible to his many vices, he still had a lot of learning to do when it came to cinema. So I sat down with Tucker Max (and his co-writer/producer Nils Parker, who makes a guest appearance in the interview), and talked about the process of bringing his own life to the silver screen. Read on if you want to hear about Tucker trying to act, write, and tackle a whole new medium of art. [Technically, I shot the breeze with Tucker Max for about ten minutes more, but this is all the “business” stuff right here. If you’re interested in hearing Tucker talk more about Max than the movie, leave me a comment below. Otherwise, you’ll have to stay tuned for part two of this interview when I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray.] How much would you say the film Tucker Max acts like you?
I think in a lot of ways [Matt] Czuchry is a better me than me. He’s definitely more like-able, and more redeemable. He’s got a killer smile.
He’s got a killer grin.
There’s a reason he’s an actor. He f**king kills at that. Believe me, if I could’ve played that role, I would have.
Really?
F**k yeah. No question. If I can play myself, I’m going to play myself. Early on in the process [of making the movie], I set up a camera in my apartment and filmed myself reading it. And it was … so embarrassing. It was so bad. I was like, “I will RUIN this movie!” That would’ve been very interesting, if you had ruined your own movie.
First off, I’m not sure we would’ve gotten financed if I had played myself.
To Nils: Did you see this stuff?
Tucker: I didn’t show anybody!
Nils: It’s like the holy grail.
Tucker: I’m not kidding, I would rather show a video to you guys of me masturbating in front of my computer. It was so embarrassing.
Was it humbling?
Oh yes. Ashton Kutcher is an actor. So I thought, “Everyone can do it if that moron can do it, right?” Totally wrong. Pre movie – no respect for actors. Post movie – a lot of respect. It is a difficult and very serious craft, you gotta practice at it, and it is not something you can just walk into.
Did you have any acting experience before?
Tucker: [Looking at me disapprovingly, shocked] Come on, dude.
You don’t know. There are chicks in drama.
I didn’t need to go to drama to get ass. [But] musical theatre chicks? F**king everybody, dude. [But] I went to law school, I was one of those pr*cks who was like “F**k writers, oh yeah, Hollywood, you fairy actors?” I was one of those guys.
So film and art were not your top thing?
Any sort of art, I was definitely one of those dudes that looked down on that stuff when I was that age. I never took a creative writing class, acting class, nothing like that. I would’ve sh*t and gone blind before I had gone out for a play.
Were there any other actors you considered to play [you]?
Nils and I decided early on that we did not want a name actor. Anyone who came in with a name was going to bring baggage to the role- Ryan Reynolds, maybe five years ago. He totally could’ve done the role, and he would’ve had to tone down the snarkiness a little bit, but he’s Ryan Reynolds. Everyone was gonna be like “Van Wilder grew up and now he’s in law school.” I wanted someone to come in who was a great actor, who could nail the role but came in with no baggage.
So you wanted it so it could still be a Tucker Max movie. If Ryan Reynolds was in it, he would take away from it. (Tucker then touches his nose, which he tells me means I was “right on the nose.”)
Justin Timberlake’s manager is good friends with Bob Gosse, [the director of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell]. He read the script and begged us to meet with Timberlake. Forget whether he’s a good actor or not, but he’s never going to be Tucker Max because he’s always going to be the biggest pop star in the world. And so it would be like “Justin Timberlake playing an asshole.” Honestly, I wanted a guy who, if he nailed the role right, and the movie became what I thought it would become, everyone would call him Tucker Max for this rest of his life. I wanted a guy who came in as a nobody, an he nails the role, I feel that it’s an iconic enough role that if someone nails it, it’s who they become.
What was the goal in bringing your life to another medium?
Our goal was to make the best movie possible, which would appeal ot the most people possible. It was nto to make a shrine to my ego, or make me look as cool as possible. A lot of people read my book and think “I bet he thinks he’s the coolest f**king person on Earth” and I’m like “did you read the same book I wrote?” Because I’ve taken as much or more than … I give it out, in the book. I wrote a story about how I may have slept with a post-OP transsexual and you think I’m trying to write a book about how cool I am. Get the f**k outta here. We wanted to write, whether we did it or not, a great movie. You don’t make a great movie by filling up your ego with bullshit. You make it by being honest and raw and authentic. That means, for a movie, that Tucker is not the only thing going on in the movie. There are other stories. [Tucker] may be the protagonist, but he’s not the only thing. In fact, I think Drew [Jesse Bradford’s character] actually has the best plot, and maybe kind of steals the movie. I mean, Bradford f**king nailed that role. He had a lot of the best lines.
Did you guys write those lines for him?
There’s not a word in that f**king movie that we didn’t write. Actually, that’s not true. [Geoff] Stults improvised some of his lines. Czuchry? Once you put it on the page, it’s imprinted in his brain. You can’t change it. When you give him the lines, it better be the last thing you want him to say.
Did Bob Gosse want to stick to your writing as much as possible?
He had no choice. Nils and I, we picked the director. Before we financed the movie, we picked Bob Gosse. Bob not only got this material in a way that no one else in Hollywood did, and he kind of lived this life, but he also agreed with us. We said, “Listen. We’re going to offer you this movie, but we have to tell you this first. We are the creative engines behind the film. This is our vision, not yours. If you accept this role, you’re gonna help us effectuate our vision. We know you bring a lot to the table, but if you’re under the auteur theory of movies, we are the authors. Just for this movie, because it is my life, [Nils and I] wrote this script together, and of course. He was on board. [Nils and I] weren’t just producers in name, we ran rehearsal. Who the f**k is going to tell Czuchry to act more like Tucker Max? It was kind of cool, because it was almost like having a translator. I don’t know how to talk to an actor. I knew exactly what [I wanted out of the character] – facial movements, everything. Bob would take that, and explain it to Matti n actor speak. But [Gosse] knew that was his role going in. But he brought a lot to the film. The dramatic scenes, very much have his imprimatur. What the f**k do I know about deep emotional sh*t?
Did you write the scenes towards the end?
Tucker: Nils wrote a lot of it, but the wedding speech is ripped very much from real speeches I gave at weddings.
Nils: Two of those speeches he has given at weddings, we took this intact and glued them together to fit the story. And the girl dialogue, I wrote [that].
Tucker: Pretty much all of the female dialogue. I wrote the stripper dialogue and he wrote Laura and Christie – the two female leads. Because the Dan character is kind of based on Nils, and the relationship is kind of like [Nils’] relationship with Jen [Nils’ wife]. It started off at a different place, and when we were finished it kind of became them.
[Going back to the question about the goal of the film]
This is not just filming the stories. This is, “We need to learn this medium, and all of the rules to it. What works and what doesn’t.” Then we bring our material to that, which doesn’t mean copying the old medium [book], it means learning the new medium.
How long has this movie been in the works?
We’ve been working on this script for about three of four years. I tried the first draft of the script myself, and it was terrible.
Where did you learn to write scripts?
I didn’t learn anything. I just took Final Draft, and I took the Austin Road Trip story and put it in Final Draft format. It was a disaster. It was 240 pages, it went nowhere a sh*tstorm. So Nils was the best writer I knew, and I asked him to help me [a film minor at Berkeley]. He knows film, but never tried to write a screenplay. So he went out and bought Syd Field’s book and basically read the chapter headings. All the holes I had [with the story] he filled them, and brought a ton of more sh*t. And we got a really good script. Very funny. We’re gonna put it on the website after the movie comes out, the original first draft. It was very funny scenes, very funny characters, but it felt like a “Family Guy” episode. It was tenuous at best. It was like, “let’s string some scenes together so we can get some funny out of there.” We know David Zuckerman, because we were going to do TV first, but that didn’t work out. So I asked David to check out the script and tell me what he thought. I’m arrogant Tucker, so I was like, “He’s gonna tell me I’m a genius, I’m gonna win an Oscar, blah blah.” And he’s like “Funny dialogue, great characters – script sucks. Not a movie. There’s no story, the plot is crappy.” I don’t listen to anyone, but when David Zuckerman, who created “Family Guy” with Seth McFarlane, tells you something, you f**king listen. He was like, “You can go out with this. It will probably sell. It can do well. But this is Super Troopers. But this is funny scenes with a bullsh*t story.” We decided to swallow our pride, and he kind of gave us a mini master class in scriptwriting and story construction and plot construction. And we literally were back to the drawing board. We didn’t throw the script away, but we pushed it aside. “What’s the story? How do we make it work with a plot?” He didn’t really write any of it, he just kind of helped us through the process. Once he got us to there, it was like, “What scenes do we have that fit?” The way he said was, “Either you can do ‘Family Guy’ where you have a bunch of great jokes that have no story, or you can do ‘The Simpsons’ where you got a great story and weave the humor in seamlessly.” And he was like, “I helped create ‘Family Guy.’ I love it. But there’s a reason ‘The Simpsons’ will always hold a higher place in American cultural consciousness than ‘Family Guy,’ because story is the most important thing. Now the script went from I think a “B, B+” script to “A, A+” script.”
Quick Questions with Tucker Max: Last CD you bought? Eminem’s “Relapse”
If you could be anyone for 24 hours? Hannibal Barca Age of First Kiss? 10
Favorite movie you've seen recently? Slumdog Millionaire. Transcendentally good
What did you have for breakfast this morning? Banana. Some fish oil. The caplets? I had like fifteen of those. We’re on tour, so I don’t ever eat right. I take multivitamins. Those Emergen-C packets, two of those, fifteen fish oil caplets and two bananas
Favorite Fruit? Is p***y a fruit?