"Gentlemen Broncos"
BEHIND THE SCENES
by Tim Nasson
October 23, 2009
Watch "Gentlemen Broncos" Trailer
Writing and producing team Jared and Jerusha Hess return to the screen with GENTLEMEN BRONCOS three years after their foray into the world of Mexican wrestling, NACHO LIBRE, and five years after their high school slacker magnum opus,
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. The Hesses are a Hollywood anomaly, creating their iconoclastic visions of misunderstood underdogs while living and working in Salt Lake City.
“Every film we’ve done, we’ve written together,” says Jared. “The process gets better as we go along. We spend a lot of time incubating our ideas. Usually we talk through it while driving around or doing everyday things. By the time we finally sit down and write it, we have a pretty good idea of where it’s going. Then we go to the office and write for four or five hours a day.”
“The process is very organic,” he adds. “I don’t think either of us could say who is responsible for what, because it’s such a collaboration.” According to Jerusha, “It’s all advantageous. When we finally nail a scene, we make out. That in itself is enough fire to keep Jared working. Though our writing process is quite different, we share a common sense of humor.” As in NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, the Hesses have mined their own youth for an offbeat look at an endearing underdog. “I was a kid who was really into science fiction and writing stories,” says Jared. “And Benjamin’s mother, Judith, is patterned after my own mom, with a little bit of Jerusha’s mother thrown in. My mom had an entrepreneurial spirit, making popcorn balls and selling them, like Judith, and she worked for a company that specialized in modest nightgowns.”
“My poor mom is mortified that we used anything from her,” says Jerusha. “But she is a funny lady, so it’s impossible not to. Just like Judith, she has a keen sense of propriety and modesty. Growing up, we were not allowed to say ‘nipple’ in the home. Instead we had to says ‘chest ends,’ like Judith does in the movie. Between my seven brothers and Jared, that poor woman has had to put up with more body humor than one woman deserves.”
People on set commented that Jemaine Clement and Hess bore a striking resemblance, which Clement explains by saying, “I’ve found directors often hire people who look like them. I think Jared and Jerusha identify with the character of Benjamin.”
The idea for GENTLEMEN BRONCOS had been percolating for a while, Jared says, even before the pair sat down at the computer. But once they submitted the spec script to Fox Searchlight, things moved quickly. “From the time we finished the second draft to when we started shooting was six or eight months,” he recalls.
The initial inspiration for the story came from another relative, says Jerusha. “I have a cousin that lives in Alaska who is quite the little writer. A few years back he went to a writers camp during the summer and apparently his stories were pretty gruesome. Jared and I thought it would be funny to put a character in a film who writes explicit stories while his mother is designing modest lingerie in the other room.” Jared was also able to draw on his own high school experiences. “I never went to a writers camp like Benjamin does,” he says. “But I did go to a student thespian retreat when I lived in Kansas as a freshman in high school. I think a lot of those programs for high school students are similar.”
As one of the film’s executive producers, Jerusha was on set every day, an experience she describes in her characteristic self-effacing manner. “I was there to give my supposed blessing on various elements of the film,” she says. “Jared claims that people were nervous around me because they know I call the shots in this relationship. That’s doubtful though—I’m sure I just got in the way.”
For GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, the Hesses have teamed up once again with Mike White, who also produced their last film, NACHO LIBRE. “We’ve been fortunate to collaborate with Mike,” says Jared. “He’s an amazing human being and such a talented writer. His comedic sensibility is so spot-on. We share similar taste and he’s such a great friend. When we were done writing the film we sent it over to him and asked if he’d be a producer on it and he kindly offered his talents.”
In addition to producing, White agreed to take on a crucial role in the film—that of Benjamin’s “guardian angel,” Dusty, a scraggly-haired member of the Purvis’ church who takes his giant albino snake everywhere. “I knew all along I wanted Mike to play the role of Dusty,” Jared says. “We’ve been friends for a long while now, and I knew he could nail it. Mike is such a weird dude himself that it wasn’t much of a stretch for him to be Dusty. He was a sport, too, for wearing that hideous wig for most of the film.”
Michael Angarano, who plays Benjamin, says he’s been a fan of the Hesses for years. “Anyone who is a fan of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE or NACHO LIBRE will love this movie,” says Angarano. “What I really liked about GENTLEMEN BRONCOS was
that while all the characters are quite vivid, they’re still grounded in some way. It’s a very well-written, well-structured script, but in this crazy, chaotic way. So many different things are happening and there are so many wacky characters.” Only a filmmaker as exacting as Hess could make it all work, says the young actor. “I’ve never come across a more precise director than Jared. He knows exactly what he wants, but he was really eager to listen to what other people had to say. I think everyone would agree that it was probably the most fun they’ve ever had on any movie.”
GENTLEMEN BRONCOS has the same spirit that made NAPOLEON DYNAMITE such a breakout hit, according to actress Halley Feiffer, who plays Tabatha in the film. “It appeals to anyone of any age group,” she says. “I watched NAPOLEON DYNAMITE with my mom, who’s in her early fifties, my dad who’s in his late seventies, and my little sister who’s thirteen. And all of us loved it and cracked up. How many movies are there like that?”
Actor Sam Rockwell commends what he calls the Hesses’ “unique comic aesthetic.” “Jared colors outside the lines and I think he’s got a special intuitive quality as a director,” Rockwell says. “He has a very specific vision of what he wants and he gives you strong guidelines. I would throw out ad libs whenever I could, but his stuff’s so good I don’t really mess with it. He knows what’s funny.
“He can do everybody’s voice, everyone’s accent,” Rockwell continues. “So he knows exactly how he wants it, all the inflections, and he’s just got a great ear. If something’s not right, he knows exactly what it is. That attention to detail is very cool. He’s very inspiring and he’s amazingly talented.”
As they have done in the past, the Hesses continue to deliver the unexpected in their films. According to Jerusha, their next venture may take its inspiration from a moment in GENTLEMEN BRONCOS. “There is a scene in the film where Benjamin is
sitting in the premiere of his own movie. There’s a trailer before the movie that kills me every time. Michael Angarano is axing a tumbleweed and there is an illicit hot tub scene, but the greatest thing is that the name of Benjamin’s character’s wife is ‘Ol’ Big Sis.’ I want to make it feature length.”
ABOUT THE CASTING
As production designer Richard A. Wright points out, the structure of GENTLEMEN BRONCOS is uniquely complex. “It’s actually several different stories shot on completely different landscapes,” he says. “We’ve got the twin sci-fi worlds of Bronco and Brutus and all these other wacky sci-fi characters. And then you’ve got Benjamin’s world, which is also a little bit off-kilter.” That meant assembling multiple acting ensembles, as well. “It was a fun film to cast,” says writer-director Jared Hess. “I had a lot of help from our casting director, Meredith Tucker. She presented a lot of people I never would have thought of. We were very fortunate in that people were really excited about the script, I think because there were a lot of fun characters for people to run wild with.”
Benjamin Purvis, the budding writer at the center of the action in the real world of the film is played by Michael Angarano, who says his character is, in part, a stand-in for the director. “Jared has the same kind of twisted mind as Benjamin,” says Angarano.
“I always kept that in mind. In his own way, Benjamin is the most grounded person in the story. And then when you start to see his book come to life, you realize how warped his mind really is.
“It was interesting to try and figure out how much of Benjamin and the story were based on the truth,” adds Angarano. “Honestly, the fact that anything in the story is even loosely based on anything real is remarkable, but I don’t know how anybody could make up that stuff. It’s smart, but it’s funny and it’s not cheap humor.”
It was Tucker who recommended Angarano to the director. “I wasn’t familiar with his work,” says Hess. “Then I saw SNOW ANGELS and was blown away by his performance. He’s just a super talented young actor. He embodied what the character needs to be on every level. He’s the most normal character in the film by far, but we learn a lot about the wacky side of his character through what he’s created on paper.”
Benjamin has spent his life in a bubble. Home-schooled, fatherless, and extremely close to his slightly loony mother, Judith, Benjamin has no point of reference for being a teenaged boy. “He is kind of like a cranky old man,” says Angarano of his
character. “I think he likes to wear his dad’s old clothes—maybe even his grandpa’s old clothes. That’s really the kind of person he is at heart, an old soul and an old-fashioned gentleman. He’s very sensitive and he’s very smart. He sees the reality in all the situations, and he escapes by writing science fiction.”
One of the actor’s favorite parts of the production was working with Jennifer Coolidge, who plays his mother. “She is one of the great comic actresses,” he says. “I shot my scenes with her first. We hadn’t rehearsed and I just didn’t know what to expect. The first take, the first thing that came out of her mouth was, ‘I’m just so proud of you.’ It put me right in the middle of the movie. “With Jennifer, we could do the scenes exactly the way they were scripted and she nailed it perfectly every time,” continues Angarano. “Her comedic timing is really spot-on for the character. But then we’d do the other takes where she wouldn’t say anything in the script and just came up with stuff on her own. And it was equally hilarious.”
Of her young co-star Angarano, Coolidge says, “Michael does your job for you. When I was in a scene with him, I never really had to think about feeling a certain way because he just made me feel that way. He’s such a talented kid.” Working with Jemaine Clement, who plays literary has-been Dr. Ronald Chevalier, was also a highlight for Angarano. “He has such a fruitful mind, and he’s so smart,” the actor says. “One of the coolest things about the movie was that everybody was on the same page, but everybody was really different in the way they worked.”
Jennifer
Coolidge says she considers the part of Judith, Benjamin’s sweet but clueless mom, a gift. “Jared offered the part to me on Christmas Eve,” she says. “All I could think was that it would be a very tragic story if he offered me the part on Christmas Eve and then he changed his mind!”
Knowing the character was partially based on Hess’s own mother intrigued Coolidge enough for her to go to the source for inspiration. “Jennifer actually went to lunch with my mom to see if there were any nuances she could pick up,” says Hess.
“My mom was so nervous about meeting one of her favorite actresses, she got her hair done and got all dressed up. She did a big song and dance for her. When I saw Jennifer afterward, she said, ‘Your mom is nothing like the character in the script. She’s gorgeous and totally normal!’”
In fact, Hess’s affection for his mother comes through in the screenplay, says Coolidge. “Jared’s one of those people that seems to remember little details of his life. It all goes in his little computer and later he’s just able to make it a part of his movie. That brings a real sweetness in the script. I teared up when I read certain parts of it. And then other times I just thought it was hilariously funny.”
Jennifer Coolidge, a prolific actress who is probably best known for her outrageous and uninhibited comic characterizations in films such as AMERICAN PIE and BEST IN SHOW, impressed Hess as “a real sport” who really knows how to find a laugh. “We put her in a lot of lame outfits and she went right along with us,” he says. “She did so many funny things just off the cuff that had the crew and everyone else in stitches. Jennifer is amazing and just a doll to work with.”
The actress was equally impressed by Hess. “I’ve been around a while,” she says. “And I’ve been in a lot of different movies, but it’s unusual to meet someone so young and so bright with his kind of vision. He has already made some great films, and has great films to come. It’s very strange when you meet someone who’s figured it all out so early in life.”
For his part, Clement was asked to audition for two parts in GENTLEMEN BRONCOS: sci-fi legend Dr. Ronald Chevalier and the smaller role of a workshop instructor with a particular expertise in character names. “I was worried Chevalier would be too much to take on,” Clement admits. “But I said to Jared, ‘I’ll do whatever you ask me to do.’ He ended up combining those characters, so I played both.”
The character is a real departure from Clement’s best-known role, the hapless New Zealander (also named Jemaine) trying to make it in the music world on the HBO comedy “Flight of the Conchords.” “I like that this character is so pompous,” he says.
“Usually I play nerds, but he’s quite high status. He’s like an idol to the nerds. I put on a voice, I wore ridiculous pants, and I did a lot of character work on it.” Clement admits to being a former sci-fi geek himself. “When I was a kid, I loved science fiction films,” he says. “It didn’t matter what happened in the story as long as it had a spaceship or a robot, a time vortex or a Cyclops, or anything like that.” Clement and Hess prepared for the shoot by e-mailing pictures of haircuts to each other. “I would just look for photos of sci-fi writers,” the actor says. “We found some really amazing ones. Isaac Asimov had a fairly impressive pair of sideburns that elevated from his face not unlike mountain ranges. I considered that for a while. I kept a picture of Dean Koontz around, as well. He has a fairly interesting bowl-inspired hair design that we tried out. It looks good on Dean Koontz but it didn’t really work for me.”
Jared
Hess comments that Clement’s copious hair gave them plenty to work with in finding a suitable hairstyle for Chevalier. “We originally talked about him wearing a wig, but he said he had enough hair for whatever we needed. We looked at some different hairstyles and did a wardrobe test. We tried one where his hair was all matted down flat on his head, but then we thought, his hair should be as big as his ego.”
The director and the actor also worked together to find just the right voice for the character. “Jemaine can do a great American accent, and initially we thought about having Chevalier be an American,” says Hess. “But I decided to have him try and do Michael York’s voice from LOGAN’S RUN. Jemaine’s is a lot lower and a totally different monster. He said he practiced it on his wife a lot and she got kind of weirded out.”
To further get under the skin of the writer, Clement recorded an audio book in character, which can be heard on Chevalier’s hilariously deadpan official website, ronaldchevalier.com. “It’s only about three minutes actually,” says Clement. “But that was quite fun. It was all about the Cyborg Harpies. ‘Gorgana inspected the damage to her mammary cannons. It was injured in the melee that afternoon.’ That sort of thing.”
In the film, the socially inexperienced Benjamin meets up with a pair of far more sophisticated aspiring talents. Tabatha, played by Halley Feiffer, takes him under her wing with devastating results. “Tabatha has too much self-confidence, which I loved so much,” says Feiffer. “I actually have deep affection for her. She’s not terribly nice to Benjamin, but she does have a good heart.”
Feiffer comes from a family of writers herself, but she decided to become an actor while still in grade school. “My background is in theater in New York, where I grew up,” says the young performer. “I did a comedy Off Broadway last summer which I was very nervous about, because I had never done comedy. I have always been cast as the awkward, sad, self-mutilating, depressed, pill-popping, tattooed teenager. I’m really enjoying doing comedy.”
The script’s unconventional humor and three-dimensional characters won Feiffer’s attention. “I just couldn’t believe how hysterically funny the script was,” she says. “I would be reading it in public places and I’d be cracking up. Every time I read it, I found new, hilarious things. But it’s also very sweet and moving and has a really beautiful soul.”
She enjoyed the collaborative atmosphere the Hesses created on the set. “Jared and Jerusha wrote it, but they made it very clear that if we had ideas, we should definitely bring them to the table,” she says. “It felt like all of us were working together toward one common goal. I didn’t think that happened in films. I thought it was really up to the director, and the editor and actors have no control over it.”
An actor who made a splashy American film debut in NACHO LIBRE, Hector Jimenez plays Lonnie Donoho, a flamboyant young film director who is attached at the hip to Tabatha. A Mexico City native, Jimenez was thrilled to be working with Hess
again. “I will do whatever he wants in front of the camera,” says the actor. “In NACHO LIBRE, he captured the folklore of the Mexican wrestlers better than any Mexican director. I think he’s a genius.”
The bowl cut that Clement rejected found a home with Jimenez. It may be the least flattering hairstyle in films since that of Javier Bardem’s psychotic killer in the Coen Brothers’ NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. “At the beginning, I was a little bit scared about this haircut,” Jimenez admits. “But then I started to actually love what it says about the character.”
A prolific, if not particularly skilled, filmmaker, Lonnie options Benjamin’s manuscript and makes it into a feature length film. Brimming with unwarranted confidence, Lonnie directs, produces and writes the screenplay, as well as casting himself in the female lead, Vanaya, Bronco’s exotically beautiful, shaved-headed childhood friend. “I was wearing costumes that were a little bit uncomfortable,” Jimenez says.
“Some of the dresses were pretty revealing and I was freezing in them. And I also wore a bald cap for that role, which took two hours to get on, but it looked great.” Actor Sam Rockwell tackles two very different roles in GENTLEMEN BRONCOS. One is Bronco, the hero of Benjamin’s Yeast Lords novella; the other is Brutus, the titular protagonist of Chevalier’s Brutus and Balzaak.
“Sam is one of my favorite actors of all time,” says Hess. “He was my first choice for Bronco all along. I wasn’t sure he would also want to do the part of Brutus in Chevalier’s plagiarized version as well, but he was into it.
“He did such a funny job doing both roles,” the director continues. “There was so much stuff he did off the cuff. The guy’s brilliant. He had just finished shooting MOON, a serious film in which he also plays multiple roles. Then he came to do the opposite, to be a goofball, in our film. When he was on the set in the gonad lab in the first scene he said ‘I’m having flashbacks to MOON.’”
“Jared wrote two amazing roles,” says Rockwell. “In fact, he wrote a lot of great roles for everybody involved—very lush, fully developed, comedic characters. And it doesn’t get much better than Brutus and Bronco. It’s a kind of a DR. STRANGELOVE opportunity. You don’t often get to play two characters in one movie. This is a real departure from anything I’ve done in a long time, and it was fun and a little crazy.”
Sam Rockwell says he drew his inspiration for Bronco from both the Old West and a little further east. “I was thinking about Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones in ‘Lonesome Dove,’ with a little bit of Sam Elliott thrown in,” says the actor. “I also asked Jared if there was anything he wanted me to see before we started shooting. He sent me something called TURKISH STAR WARS. It’s a movie someone in Turkey made when they couldn’t get a hold of the real STAR WARS, and it’s something to behold.
“A lot of Bronco came out of that, as well. There’s a little Han Solo, a little Indiana Jones, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. There’s a little Captain Kirk and the lead singer from Kansas.” Hess had a very specific suggestion for Brutus, the protagonist of Chevalier’s barely disguised version of Benjamin’s tale. “Brutus is really more Jared’s creation,” says Rockwell. “I tried a few voices for Brutus. And then Jared said, ‘No, we’re just going do it like this.’ And he did the voice for me. And I just mimicked it. He’s a wink-wink, nudge-nudge almost borderline Benny Hill-WAITING FOR GUFFMAN kind of guy.”
Suzanne May joins Rockwell in both sci-fi storylines, playing Vanaya and Venonka, the childhood friend who joins Bronco/Brutus in his quest to regain control of the yeast factory. “Sam created two great, unique characters, the cowboy and the queen,”
May says. “I think of Bronco as the tough-guy cowboy. He’s got a lot on his shoulders. He’s a yeast lord. They’ve stolen his ’nads and he’s got to get those back. Brutus, he’s a little bit effeminate, and not as interested in Vanaya. He’s a little bit more interested in himself.”
As a reference for May’s character, Jared Hess told her to think of the girl from THE NEVERENDING STORY. “She’s an ethereal, otherworldly creature,” explains the young English actress. “But she’s a tough girl, as well. She’s savvy enough to find
Bronco and join forces with him. So, you know, there’s more to her than meets the eye.”
The director also had a specific look in mind for the character, an idea May embraced. “The obvious transformation is my hair,” she says. “I will never, ever forget, that day we shaved my head. I definitely felt like a sci-fi character looking like that. It’s something I would never have done otherwise, but it was really great for my character and when I looked in the mirror, I was completely somebody else. Plus, it saved a lot of time in the morning!”
IN THE LAND OF THE YEAST LORDS
GENTLEMEN BRONCOS is packed with off-the-wall imagery inspired by director Jared Hess’s childhood love of science fiction and fantasy. The film’s geek-tastic world of heavily armed robotic deer, cyclopean military brigades, and gonad-filled jelly
jars was shot in and around Salt Lake City, Utah, familiar stomping grounds for the Hesses. Salt Lake City has several production facilities, but there was a shortage of studio space at the time.
“The city doesn’t have a lot of studios where you can build sets,” says Hess. “There are a few, but there were also quite a few things being shot there at the time, including HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3. Richard Wright, our production designer found an old furniture warehouse that had just closed. We shot a ton of stuff there including Benjamin’s dome home and the big gonad lab—even the green screen stuff. Richard designed all of it and he was just amazing.”
For his part, Wright says he jumped at the chance to bring the various worlds of GENTLEMEN BRONCOS to the screen.
“When I first read this script, I just busted out laughing,” he recalls. “It’s the product of a unique set of minds. Jared and Jerusha have created something I don’t think anyone else could’ve imagined. And it’s just gotten wackier as we’ve gone along. Jared is not afraid to take chances and not afraid to go a little over the top. That makes my job a lot of fun.”
Wright was tasked with creating two elaborate science fiction scenarios on a shoestring budget, a challenge he reveled in. “Since we didn’t have a bottomless purse, we had to get very creative,” he says. “We spent a lot of time at the thrift stores, garage sales, and junkyards collecting anything that looked interesting.
“We took it all apart to see what we could make out of it. It’s led to some pretty original and wacky-looking things in the movie. We built a futuristic lab and a turret and other elements of the sci-fi world,” Wright says. The medical pod, site of a crucial scene in which Bronco awakens to find his 'nads have been stolen, was fashioned from a disused back-stretching machine from the local thrift store. “We painted it and altered it a little bit, added some weird pieces of metal from the military surplus store and a few car parts,” Wright explains. “We were going for kind of a throwback to some of the great ’60s and ’70s sci-fi films, the pre-CGI, pre-STAR WARS days.”
Jared Hess’s deep well of offbeat references helped Wright find the right mood for the film. “Some of movies that inspired Jared were from YouTube,” says the designer. “Or things he bought off the Internet from filmmakers you’ve never heard of. Jared even finds inspiration in public access television. That’s not to say he doesn’t watch the classics and the greats. But he takes a lot of inspiration from amateur video, as well.” Hess’s eclectic influences even extend his own early attempts at moviemaking.
“Some of the battle sequences are drawn from earlier ideas I had when I was trying to make lame science fiction films as a kid. I was always trying to pull stuff off that I’d read about, but with very few resources.”
To get into the mood for the films within the film, Hess and Wright screened some old sci-fi TV series that used miniatures to create stunningly unconvincing special effects. “There were model spaceships coming out of the moon and then all of a sudden there were these guys in space outfits driving a moon buggy,” says Wright. “We thought, ‘That’s kind of sweet.’” It was actually just a six-wheeler ATV from back in the ’70s and ’80s. We looked it up and found out there were eight wheelers available, so why settle for six? We painted them and threw some people in funny outfits on them. I think it’s hilarious that you can take something that is just everyday and all of a sudden, boom, you’re on the moon.”
But despite all the space fantasy sets in the film, Wright’s favorite is located in the real world. “I really like Chevalier’s studio,” he says. “It’s full of stuff that comes from his bizarre imagination, like all his sculptures and paintings of Cyborg Harpies. These masculine-appearing harpies shooting lasers from their bosoms look vaguely like Chevalier himself, which is pretty funny.”
The sand-swept, futuristic landscapes of GENTLEMEN BRONCOS were all shot on Stansbury Island, actually a peninsula at the west end of Utah’s Great Salt Lake.
“The Great Salt Lake is a geographically unique area,” says Hess. “It’s not too far from the Bonneville Salt Flats. It’s a dead lake with nothing living in it besides sea monkeys. It has these rock formations that look like they could be on a different planet and the sky is deep blue. The look was perfect for what we wanted, plus it’s wide open, and we were able to blow stuff up and do what we needed to do out there.”
According to Sam Rockwell, however, conditions there were less than ideal for earthlings. “One of the grips made a T-shirt that read ‘I Survived Stansbury Island,’” he says. “The place was full of bugs and gnats that got into my hair and my beard. They loved the wig. And then the salt water got in everything. But the gnats were the worst. They were so intense, people were wearing those bee masks.”
Hess’s success as a filmmaker, in Wright’s opinion, is based on two important strengths that allow him to tell his sometimes outlandish stories in a believable way. “Jared always makes a movie from a sincere point of view. He wants it to be fun to make and fun to watch. I think that’s what his life is centered around, and everyone who works on the film gets a piece of that.”
In addition, Hess brings great storytelling skills to the table. “He’s always telling stories,” says Wright. “I got the sense through the stories that GENTLEMEN BRONCOS is practically autobiography. To hear Jared tell it, what you see in this movie
either did happen or could happen. That may seem hard to believe, but so are most of his stories.
“He is able to observe the world in ways that other people don’t,” adds Wright. “For me that’s the draw of his films—they seem completely ludicrous, but there’s some element of truth there that he builds a real world out of.”
