IGN Interview w/Chandrasekhar - Dukes Movie

[Brian Coltrane]

As found on filmforce.com. I did minor editing for topic relevance; you can read the whole thing at: http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/638/638928p2.html

IGN Interviews Jay Chandrasekhar

We talk one-on-one with the Broken Lizard member and director of The Dukes of Hazzard.by Steve Head

August 3, 2005 - Perhaps you know him as Ramathorn the party-loving police officer in Super Troopers, or as Putman the dreadlocked British tennis instructor in Club Dread? Jay Chandrasekhar has for the last 10 years been an integral part of the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, directing each of their films beginning with 1996's Puddle Cruiser. Now Chandrasekhar's at the helm of The Dukes of Hazzard, Warner Brother's modern re-tooling of the late-'70s, early-'80s TV show, and he brought the Broken Lizard gang along for the ride.

IGN recently spoke with Chandrasekhar in New York about making The Dukes of Hazzard. The PG-13 movie opens this Friday. And if all goes to plan, his R-rated version will be released sometime in the future on DVD.

IGN FILMFORCE: So how did a kid from the suburbs of Chicago get from there to Broken Lizard?

JAY CHANDRASEKHAR: Chicago's got that great comedy history... I took a semester off from Colgate – I went to Colgate in upstate New York. I wanted to see if I could make it in show business so I started doing stand-up. I was probably eighteen, got into a couple comedy groups. There was a group called the Improv Olympic and this guy Del Close was the founder, and it was this really pure improv – like, everything was created at that moment. Second City is a little more managed improv; they do a little bit of writing and then improv off of that. Chris Farley was in this Improv Olympic and go was Dave Koechner, who plays Cooter in the movie, he was also in that. They were all in this sort of top group and I started off below them. But, I went back to Colgate after that semester and started a comedy group. I'd been acting in plays up until then and we started writing our own stuff. We wanted to do what Monty Python did.

IGNFF: I can imagine you guys being pretty huge Monty Python fans.

CHANDRASEKHAR: Oh, yeah. I mean, they're sort of the reason we exist.

IGNFF: Are you guys still now planning to work together continuously?

CHANDRASEKHAR: Yeah, we've made three movies together. And for [Dukes] the first script I was sent was so terrible; it was just so middle-of-the-road. So, I turned the movie down twice. And then the final script I got... It was OK. There was some structure to it that was kind of pretty good. So I told Warner Brothers we needed to bring in Broken Lizard. We re-wrote virtually the entire script. We kept the structure, but we re-wrote every line of dialogue. It gave it a flavor that I was hoping for: tough, funny and a little unpredictable.

IGNFF: [Producer] Bill Gerber said that he was looking for a feel for this movie and he didn't quite know what he wanted, so he was looking for this balance he was trying to find.

CHANDRASEKHAR: It was really a matter of making it... well... it's not exactly Smokey and the Bandit in any way. But I said to Johnny and Seann, we want to make something that could be on the same shelf... you know... just from a vibe. I wanted it to feel a little bit like Smokey and the Bandit and a little bit like The Blues Brothers.

IGNFF: Could you guys have been more raunchy with the movie?

CHANDRASEKHAR: No, we were as raunchy as the ratings board would let us be.

IGNFF: You wanted a PG-13?

CHANDRASEKHAR: I've only made R-rated movies up until now. And I think that if you make a movie that's based on a TV show – I mean, I was a ten-year-old when I watched it, and granted I was swearing when I was a ten-year-old because of Smokey and the Bandit; I remember counting the swear words. (He laughs)

IGNFF: I remember being conscious of that and wondering "Am I allowed to say this word?"

CHANDRASEKHAR: I think ten-year-olds were swearing then, but then whatever. I doesn't really matter. The point of it is that this movie should be PG-13 because I think a lot families and dads and moms who were into the show will want to take their kids. So, there's that. And, we've made an R-rated version because I'm a huge fan of John Landis's movies and I feel like these comedies really, really succeed when they give you something that's forbidden. We knowingly changed language and tipped some tops off here and there for the R-rated version, which will come out later.

IGNFF: I was going to ask you if an R-rated version actually existed.

CHANDRASEKHAR: Hell yeah, I think it's great! It was a way for me to be creatively free under the rules of PG-13 – and they're fine. The rules aren't set in stone. Sexual innuendo is sometimes OK and sometimes not. And swearing, depending on what you say is sometimes OK and sometimes not.

IGNFF: Like the context of the situation.

CHANDRASEKHAR: Yeah, the context and what the word is. You can say f*** once or twice, but if you do, then you can't say s*** as much. (He laughs) You can't say, "I'm gonna f*** her," but you can say "f*** you."

IGNFF: F*** used as an exclamation opposed to as a verb.

CHANDRASEKHAR: Yeah. The middle finger counts as a f***. [The ratings board] gave us more than you're supposed to have. So it's like this balancing act. It's like there's this scene where the sorority girls are smoking grass. And then we shot a scene where Willie [Nelson] is smoking grass out of an apple.

IGNFF: That would be a whole different scene apart from the one where he was smoking grass but we don't see it?

CHANDRASEKHAR: It's a whole different scene. Like, [Daisy] comes around the corner and he's really smoking on an apple, like with a joint stuck in it. No main characters can smoke [grass]. But then they'd let us have the sorority girls smoke. So it's like you almost wonder if it's like they're saying, "Oh, I don't think it's funny, but the sorority girls..."

IGNFF: If you have Willie smoking grass then that would automatically put the movie over to an R?

CHANDRASEKHAR: Oh, yeah! Mostly, and what I've said to Warner Brothers about the Broken Lizard movies is that the Broken Lizard movies we're making are going to be R-rated movies. And that's just non-negotiable. That's the deal. It's like, the great comedies of the '70 and '80s were R-rated movies. Like, Animal House. Imagine Animal House as PG-13. It would have been a travesty. I mean, the influence Animal House had on not only the comedy scene but the college scene in the country as a whole was massive. It taught people a certain kind of rebellion almost for rebellion's sake.

IGNFF: I hear you. I worshiped that movie when it came out. It was the first R-rated movie that I saw. That may not mean much today. I guess kids might not remember the first R-rated movie because of things like The Terminator and The Matrix, but Animal House to me was defining.

CHANDRASEKHAR: Yeah, and part of it was there was swearing and drinking and it's more real to what college was like. The thing about the movie is it has to be a little bit forbidden.

IGNFF: It's like there's a shock value to the raunchy humor. It's fun. It shakes you up. In Dukes you've got those outtakes at the end that are terrific. I mean, Seann hanging upside down and Johnny trying to...

CHANDRASEKHAR: (He laughs) Yeah, yeah...

IGNFF: Did the ratings board give you any trouble about that?

CHANDRASEKHAR: Actually, no. The bottom line is they're people just like anybody else. For that I think it's because people like to see the reality behind the actors, the actors being themselves. They're in character the whole time, but here you get to see them really speak and really make jokes. I think the people watching will enjoy it.

IGNFF: Did you have to be coy in photographing Jessica in her cut-offs at all?

CHANDRASEKHAR: No, I told her these shorts are going to be really small. And this is not a part for somebody who's too shy. She was like, "I know." And she got it. I think the way she reacted was she just made sure that when she had that stuff on that she looked great. And she did a great job.

IGNFF: She said she was really nervous on her first day.

CHANDRASEKHAR: She was. She was really nervous. It's not easy to walk into a scene and work with Burt Reynolds who has 30 or 40 movies under his belt. Or Seann William Scott, who is an incredibly talented actor. It's like, you better have it together. (He laughs)

IGNFF: How about Johnny and Seann working together?

CHANDRASEKHAR: They think that each other is funny. Seann reads the script three times a week and makes endless notes and has many conversations about different ideas for different jokes, because he's got a great comic mind. And Knoxville always, just five minutes before we're shooting in the morning, starts talking about different shots and different jokes. With some stuff he'll just say, "I don't like this f****** joke." Johnny's got a certain something. He's a good actor and he's best when he plays something close to himself.

IGNFF: There are a couple of scenes in the film with [Knoxville] screaming out the window, a rebel yell kind of thing, with cars whipping by. I can see him watching that and thinking, "Damn, that's good."

CHANDRASEKHAR: (He laughs) Yeah. Nice.

IGNFF: Did you have trouble choosing which of those kind of reaction shots to use?

CHANDRASEKHAR: (He laughs) Yeah, in the Atlanta chase, yeah. You know, the beauty of those two guys is that you have very little footage that's unusable. They've both got their characters down so well. And the characters are what? They're two guys. They know how to play guys. (He laughs) So, they're both funny. And you try to balance it somewhat and you ultimately always try to use the funniest footage. Mixing that footage in the movie, it's almost like mixing an album.

IGNFF: I was surprised to see Joe Don Baker in there.

CHANDRASEKHAR: I really wanted to figure out a way to get Joe Don Baker in this movie because... I don't know... The guy just drips that classic tough, cool Southern vibe. I almost hired him to play the character Sheev. You know, that sort of backwoods country bumpkin that Kevin [Heffernan] plays.

IGNFF: Kevin does that really well, some good laughs there.

CHANDRASEKHAR: Yeah, he was great in that. But I was very happy with Joe Don Baker. He's such a cool dude. You know what? He's nocturnal in real life. He sleeps during the day. He says it's because nobody calls at night and he doesn't want to talk to anybody. He just cruises around Baton Rouge by himself. (He laughs)

IGNFF: Really?

CHANDRASEKHAR: Well, he was more on our schedule there. But in the mornings he was just an ordinary guy.

IGNFF: With all the stories and things that Burt Reynolds and Willie Nelson probably had, did it ever get to the point where you had to tell those guys to shut up?

CHANDRASEKHAR: (He laughs) You could never... I mean, Burt and Willie have known each other for such a long time. There was nothing you could do and there was no way I was going to break up that. All could do was, I'd go stand there and listen. And... you know... eventually say, "OK, we're ready." (He laughs)

IGNFF: For me getting the chance to talk with Burt about Hooper and Sharkey's Machine, that was pretty cool. I wish I could remember all of that. And he was cool discussing it. I figured that would be all old stuff to him but he digs it. Hooper to me is quintessential more so than Smokey and the Bandit.

CHANDRASEKHAR: There was no lack of storytelling. We had lost of time to hang-out, me and Burt and Joe Don and Willie. And with Knoxville, that was like a dream for him.

IGNFF: He'd said those guys are his heroes. You guys had that wrap party where Willie performed. He does do a performance as Uncle Jesse singing in the movie. Did you guys film that afterward, after the main shoot?

CHANDRASEKHAR: We shot it like... we shot it fairly early on, actually. I don't remember, but it was probably in the first couple of days. I don't remember exactly when we shot it, but we recorded the song separately. We recorded it with James Stroud, who's like a classic country producer. They recorded a couple versions of it. There's the album version, and then there's the version that's in the movie. And then they recorded another song. It's a J.J. Cale tune that we didn't end up using, "Call Me the Breeze." I figured, you know, we had Willie, why not film him singing a song as Uncle Jesse.

IGNFF: And you've got your cameo as a campus police officer, a play on Super Troopers. You drive an electric golf-cart. It looks like you guys might have considered a 10 mph chase scene through the campus with the General Lee and the go-cart. Did you consider it?

CHANDRASEKHAR: We did. We wrote an electric car chase. But I just felt that the Super Troopers stuff we had in there was enough. It was to me... it was going to feel a little bit goofy. I mean, it would have been funny I'm sure, but we had to choose ultimately what we could shoot, and we had to make a cut and I just said, "Oh, just cut that damn thing."