Richard Linklater is an incredibly smart guy -- and one really needs no more evidence of that than the films he's made. From Dazed and Confused to Before Sunrise to Boyhood, he's produced some of the best auteur work of the last 25 years. In addition to being a genius screenwriter and director, however, it turns out that he also has an astonishingly specific memory, which he utilized in a significant way in the making of his recent movie, defending the 1980-set Everybody Wants Some!! from any and all anachronisms.
Timed with the release of Everybody Wants Some!! on Blu-ray and DVD, I recently had the pleasure of hopping on the phone with Tyler Hoechlin (who plays the hyper competitive McReynolds in the movie), and while discussing his work on the film, one thing he noted was the stunning memory possessed by the writer/director calling the shots. I was curious if the fact that the film is semi-autobiographical for Richard Linklater worked in Hoechlin's favor as he was getting into character and embracing the period atmosphere, and the actor responded noting that the filmmaker is gifted when it comes to time and dates. Said Hoechlin,
I've honestly never met somebody who can recall events or trends, or just like the most minor details as well as Rick can. There were things that would come up and someone would say, 'Oh, what about this song,' and he'd be like, 'That was late January of '81, so we missed the cut on that. It's a little bit too early.' The amount of information that he can recall is really incredible. It was fun for me to just kind of pop in a group and just kind of sit back and listen to other people ask questions and hear what he say about it. It's pretty incredible.
Tyler Hoechlin noted that this was a big part of the rehearsal process for Everybody Wants Some!! - when they really found the atmosphere for the movie and figured out how it would come together. That being said, Richard Linklater was a constant resource for the actors as they were moving through production and putting together scenes, which was apparently a perfectly relaxed process for Hoechlin and his co-stars. Said the actor,
We'd run through a scene, then we'd talk about the scene and some tangent, we'd go off on some tangent and then eventually we'd get some piece of information that we could start talking about. It was just really kind of natural to just kind of discover these things as a group as we went.
It all comes together in what is one of the best movies to come out so far in 2016. And if you missed Everybody Wants Some!! when it was in theaters, the good news is that the film is now available for your viewing pleasure. Look for it on Blu-ray and DVD today!
