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SUPERBAD’s GREG MOTTOLA SPEAKS
If you’re not in the habit of regularly checking out the main page, head over there now for this interview by Nick Dawson of Superbad director Greg Mottola. His debut feature, Daytrippers, was a great no-budget indie, and now, years later, he’s having a spectacular second act with the number one movie in America (and a smaller indie film just about to shoot). While you’re there, click on the RSS feed so all of Dawson’s interviews are sent directly to your feed reader.
A brief excerpt:
Filmmaker: You worked closely with Judd on Undeclared, but at what stage did he first talk to you about Superbad?
Mottola: We did a table read of a version of the script in 2001 or 2002 with all the people from Undeclared. Seth Rogen was reading the lead, and Jason Segel the other lead. I’ve always had a hard time wanting to direct other people’s writing, but this was one of the scripts that I immediately heard and said, “If you guys get this going, think of me as the director.” So I stayed in touch with Judd and we talked about the project over the years. Then one day last spring, Judd called me here in New York and said, “Do you remember Superbad? I think Sony is interested in making it. Would you still want to do it?” I started to launch into a kind of pretentious explanation as to why I thought I was the perfect director for it, and why it really suited me, and Judd was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, OK, we’re going to fly you to L.A. next week.” We went through some rewriting hoops to make the studio happy, and then we were going, and by and large left alone by them. Well, supported but not really hassled.
