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This concludes Calvin's Harold & Kumar 2 interview series. Enjoy!
Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg, writers and directors of Harold & Kumar 1 & 2
Will you do a Harold & Kumar 3?
JH & HS: Yes we would do a third film if given the chance. The DVDs are the main source of income for films. What we’ve heard is that our DVDs have sold at a level the same as bigger movies. 30 million in sales I think.
I have a copy of Entertainment Weekly that says it right here: 80 million
JH & HS: There’s really no source. If that’s the actual truth, than we and the actors should be paid more money. I guess [studio executives] hide the truth so that they keep all that money.
So just how sick are you guys?!
JH & HS: We were really pleased that people responded to the first Harold & Kumar. We didn’t expect so many people pick up on a lot of the nuances. We tried to do the same in Harold & Kumar 2 so that people laugh and get that something extra.
We’re fortunate that we didn’t do well so quickly because we would have written a completely different story about going to Amsterdam and having a commentary about Americans overseas. That story isn’t fresh though. However, because this process happened over time we got to do something about post 9/11 paranoia, the attitudes of the government, things we’re embarrassed about the government. The truth is that we’re very patriotic Americans, but as George Bush says in the movie: “you don't have to believe in the government to be good Americans; you have to believe in this country and the people.”
The post 9/11 embarrassment of the flip of America becoming the warmongering villains was frustrating; that drove us to make the film as a commentary.
JH & HS: So we tried to make this as broad as possible: it’s a multicultural cast. It doesn’t focus on culture. It does have an anarchist tone of comedy. However, it’s not about focusing on young people or the formula of outrageous comedy concerning an edgy odd couple, etc. This film works on all types of people. We love to play on stereotypes; in fact, the stereotype is that this film is for young people.
You mean young people as in over 17 (rated R)?
JH & HS: We certainly expect the 12-14 year olds to watch the movies they can’t watch.
What about the ethnicity of the duo that makes this unique?
JH & HS: Thats the thing we enjoyed about these movies. It could’ve been a black or white guy. It’s just that we chose the Indian and Korean guy because really, they’re no different from any of us. Some of our best friends in high school and college are Indians and East Asian Americans, etc. So why don’t we put these people in our movie?
What about the antagonist of the film?
In his world, he’s the hero of the movie. He thinks he’s tracking down the villains, and he thinks his [racist] tactics are good.
Wouldn’t you think jokes like “cockmeat sandwich” and other aspects of the film would be offensive or damaging to a young person’s sense of homophobia?
JH & HS: We just focused on what would Harold & Kumar do in those situations.
What about the Roger Bart character who has this great moment and all of a sudden you kill him off?
JH & HS: In terms of Roger Bart, we just thought about what would be funny. We’re building up this guy to be this hero, and he does that. But just in the moment he has his moment and everything is resolved, he ends up dying. We’re not out to show everyone in government is bad. We wanted work in a style that if we have a serious poignant moment, we wanted to destroy it, like getting sucked out of a plane.
Why White Castle?
JH & HS: We wanted a burger chain in Jersey. But there's also the play on the name of these two guys going to “WHITE castle”. But that was like those smarter/double meaning elements in the script that comes by accident.
We also found that a lot of times in LA, there's soooo many burger chains and people would always wanted to go to this ONE burger chain and they would drive for 30 min past all those OTHER burger chains just to go to this one chain. So this movie also makes fun of American commercialization in that we need 20,000 versions of the same thing to be satisfied.
What was with that reference to the lovechild NPH had with the Whoopi Goldberg stand-in?
JH & HS: Whenever we write for NPH, we always think about what would be more disturbing for him? We treat him like an 11 year old child.
What happens when you two fight?
JH & HS: Never happens. We’re always really happy and appreciative of how lucky we are. We have disagreements, but we talk about it.
What’s next?
JH & HS: Not sure. We’re literally handing in a script the day Harold & Kumar 2 comes out. It’s about the way male friendship changes when a guy gets married. It’s actually a personal story of Thomas.
And with that they’re cut off and ushered into the next room. That’s a wrap! All the journalists and myself quickly clean up and left as quickly as we came in, grabbing a few complimentary cookies along the way. Thank you Regency Hotel!
Tags: Harold and Kumar, interviews, media, movie
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