Interview with cast from "Everybody Wants Some!!

Everybody Wants Some!!
Director: Richard Linklater
Writers: Richard Linklater
Starring: Tyler Hoechlin, Zoey Deutch, Ryan Guzman 
MPAA Rating: Rated R for language throughout, sexual content, drug use and some nudity
Official Socials: Site | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | IMDb
Hashtag: #EverybodyWantsSome

A group of college baseball players navigate their way through the freedoms and responsibilities of unsupervised adulthood.

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When I was asked to interview Blake Jenner, Tyler Hoechlin, Will Brittain, and Ryan Guzman from the cast of the movie “Everybody Wants Some!!” I didn’t hesitate it for a moment. I got to sit down with four of the most gorgeous, fun, sweet, and humble guys on the planet. I’m telling you, when they walked into the room, I could feel my ovaries exploding from so much hotness surrounding me.

Here’s what we got to talk about (brace yourselves, there were four of them and they talk a lot)

What was your initial reaction when you found out you got casted in a film that takes place in the 80s?

Tyler: I think it is kind of cool, especially knowing that Rick was directing, so obviously it was something that let me know I was going to be part of something that is very authentic, and so you kind of feel like you experienced it, which is always a fun thing to do.

Ryan: I think I was really more stoked that was in a baseball movie. Well, not a movie about baseball, but that it’s in the background. But I had never been in a movie that has some kind of baseball in it.

Blake: It was pretty surreal for me. I remember after my last audition, Rick kind of called me after and told me face to face. On the inside I was like having a fiesta, but on the outside I was trying to be like a chill dude, like “Cool”. It was crazy, but crazy is fun.

Will: Yeah, I grew up watching a lot of 80s movies like the “Breakfast Club”, and it was really rad to be part of a movie that fits into that category.

Ryan: I’ve never seen anybody doing an interview while playing Tic Tac Toe (Will started playing the game with me as he also paid attention to the questions. He beat me, if you want to know).

Will: I get distracted

Ryan: He’s got ADD

Will: We have to sit in front of cameras and look like we are normal people. I’m not a normal person. Well, so far I’ve beaten her, so if anyone wants to challenge me?

Dancing was one of my favorite parts of the movie. For the discos, was that you guys just letting lose or did you have to be choreographed, take lessons?

Blake: Oh, we definitely had to have lessons. We had a cool lady teaching us, she was awesome. We did the rehearsals with her there and then on set. But there, she would just kind of be there to give us a perimeter to dance within a certain moves and certain characteristics that the disco has and she taught us that it is also about the way you feel. So sometimes we could be as silly as we wanted. It was cool.

Will: Parameter, not perimeter

Blake: Parameter! You get what I am saying

(All laugh)

Tyler: Will and I didn’t get to dance at all

Ryan: Oh yeah, you guys didn’t get to dance at all, huh?

Tyler: I danced a little bit at the rehearsal

Will: I danced a little bit in my bedroom by myself

Ryan: Oh, yeah. That was cool!

Besides dancing, do you have any other surprising skills? (To Tyler) Actually, didn’t you play baseball?

Tyler: I played through college

So you got to teach the others?

Will: He’s got a really interesting skill of splitting a baseball with an ax

Tyler: (laughs)

Will: He did it. Did he not do it guys?

Ryan and Blake: Yes, he did

Will: He split in half a ball and I have a half at home.

How did you get the ax?

Blake: He stole it from a fireman

Tyler: No, from the props department

In the movie, you guys become like a little family. (To Will) Even with your character that they made fun of you at first, they end up protecting you and stuff. It’s obvious it’s happened here between you guys, but did that happen with everyone else since it’s such a big group?

Tyler: The chemistry among the group was insane. Especially in an ensemble; it’s tough to make everybody get along, twelve guys in particular. And so I think from the first time we all met that we were out on Rick’s property and we stayed at a bunkhouse and about the second or third day in, everyone had this moment in which we all thought, “Wow, everyone is actually really cool. We are not going to have a problem”, which is amazing. So that was a very special thing and a great set to be on, and we have a text chain that goes off every day basically, and yeah.

(Everyone laughs)

Tyler: The moral of the story is that it’s like family.

Will: We literally are close friends, like we know each others’ moms and we go to each other’s houses for dinner

Ryan: Some of us live together (Blake points at Ryan and Tyler)

Will: And some of us live separated. But yes, it’s cool. It’s a blessing to do a movie you get out of with real good friends who get you and you can trust.

Blake: We all have severe separation anxiety

(Everyone laughs)

Will: I keep forgetting this isn’t on camera so sarcasm doesn’t translate so good. It’s just going to be “Blake Jenner says we have severe separation anxiety”, “I am not a normal person”.

Ryan (to Will): Just drink your tea, bro, just drink your tea.

This is a college movie, but there’s a noticeable lack of classes and things like that. So what do you think college students are going to find most relatable from the movie?

Will: That they don’t want to go to class

(Everyone laughs)

Tyler: Yes, but it’s purposefully done on the days leading up to class. That’s the real reason for the absence for it because what we wanted to capture was what it’s like for someone to go off to school, and the moment of getting there. I remember getting dropped off at college and that moment my parents driving away and realizing “Oh, wow. I’m actually, like, on my own. And these are the first moments in which I am free, and do what I want to do, be who I want to be, and the consequences are my responsibility as well”. I think that is the real reason for not having the class in there. But, in the end, that’s what’s nice about baseball. You are reminded that these guys are there for a reason, and so you get that sense of going into it.

Will: Whatever he said

Tyler: Yes, kids, kids, pay attention.

Were you guys able to improvise during filming?

Blake: We were allowed to improvise during rehearsals. And, unless you did something that could service the movie, then yeah, but for the most part, we had the whole script done. We elaborated before hand with Rick and we tried different things out and see what worked in the scenes.

Ryan: We kind of had to run it by Rick first

Tyler: The direction was never like “Ok, just make it up, go”. It was a controlled improvisation.

Will: I think it’s very fair to say that it wasn’t improve, but it was really well workshopped. And we workshopped ideas with each other, and Tyler even brought in a text, a text for a scene, a final draft. You couldn’t just go up to Rick and say, “Oh, it’d be cool if we did this”. We had to present it and have a justification for it, as to why your character would be doing such a thing. So it was more like a play.

Ryan: I’ve never seen so much stuff happen during an interview

Will: Keep up buddy, it’s ok (Will challenged everyone in the room to a game of Tic Tac Toe and took turns playing with each one of us).

This movie obviously takes place in 1980, but it’s still in that general time period in which disco is still a big trend, so what was it like filming that sort of time period and also having fun filming it?

Blake: I got to realize what the fuss was about. My parents, they were always jamming out to the music of that era, so it’s kind of cool I get to embrace all that stuff now.

Tyler: It’s one of those things that you would hear those songs on the radio in the car with my dad and stuff, and you hear the music. But, when you put it with these people and those characters, you are at the disco, and you have that energy, the look and everything, it brings a whole new feeling to it. At least it did to me, so I had a new appreciation for “We Got the Funk”. That just has a whole new vibe when I hear it.

Will: Disco dancing is nice because I am not a great dancer, but disco dancing really allows you to be yourself and no one can look at you dancing and say, “No, that’s not how you do it”. You do the “Soldier Boy”, you gotta know how to do the “Soldier Boy”. Disco allows for expression.

Do you think your characters fit your personality?

Tyler: I would say the one thing Mac and I have most in common is the competitive thing. I grew up playing baseball, and that’s kind of it. I find it fun to compete, I love competing. The ping pong scene, that’s what I want to do every time I lose, so that was actually a nice release from me that I got to do it. Other than that, I don’t think there are whole other things about Mac that I actually share.

Blake: I think there are a couple of things Jake and I have in common. He’s breaks situations apart and analyzes them, and that’s how I relate to him: analyzing life.

Ryan: I think for my character, there’s not too many things I can say I relate to. He’s very misogynistic, he’s a partier, but the one thing he does have in an undertone is caring for his boys. He cares about the people he lives with, even though he may not show it in the conventional standard. So yeah, I can relate to that.

Will: I don’t relate to Beuter in some of the scenes. But I do relate to coming to college and having that overwhelming sense of uncertainty, with all the different people you are meeting, all the different classes. I remember I took my first class over evolution when I first started college…

Tyler: What’d you learn?

Will: I learned a lot. You know, the chromosome, yeah (Everyone laughs). But you know, I think college for me, and probably for you guys too, I don’t know, freshman year, that first semester was just like whoa! And I think that’s what Beuter was going through quite a bit, but he’s just not handling it with the grace these other guys are, which is why the older guys kind of go for his throat. That’s what I can relate to.

I have a question for Blake. You did Impromedy here in Miami, when you used to live here. You performed at a studio called Artistic Vibes (Blake: Yes, yes!). The owners are my friends, they say hello (Blake: Oh man, tell them I say what’s up). But my question is: how do you feel you’ve come in your career from then to now?

Will: That’s a great question

Blake: I think I have just been very fortunate to, you know, be able to work with fine actors like these dudes, and the rest of our group, you know. Doing improve and growing up out here, it was always the one thing I loved to do and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I just see it here, it’s kind of surreal. I feel like I’m still here, like it was yesterday I was doing plays in [Felix] Varela [Senior High School]. It’s a terrible answer to the question, but I just feel like it’s gone so fast

Will and Ryan: It was a good answer, good answer.

Do you have any favorite memories from being on set?

Tyler: Every day was different, every day was awesome.

Ryan: And even if you weren’t working, you’d find yourself on set, supporting the guys, so we’d have these guys doing a scene, we’d be outside throwing a football.

Will: One of the coolest scenes was when we were in our bedroom and we are going at each other, trying to get the room. We shot that on a very cold, rainy day and it was late, like between 5pm and 7pm, and we had shot a full day before that, and I was stoked after the scene. We wrapped it up, and I go downstairs and I look and Tyler and Ryan and all the guys are still there, gathered around watching the scene. It’s just a very good feeling that they come support you, you know?

What, in you guys’ opinion, is what makes this film a great one?

Blake: I think the best thing about it is that it’s timeless, you know? For people that are like our parents, or for people now in their twenties, about to go to college. I just think that even though things have changed, growing up and figuring out who you are, that all stays the same.

Tyler: I think it’s refreshing to see a movie being labeled as a comedy actually just be about the characters. It’s such a character driven film, and there aren’t a lot of movies you can go into and, for two hours, come out feeling like you know five or six new people, let alone twelve or thirteen. So, to be able to spend time with this group, with these thirteen people you get to know, I think it’s something incredibly refreshing about that. You don’t have to dumb something down for an audience, you can actually tell a great story and let people identify with them, connect with them, find something they can relate to them. I think that’s the most important thing for people who watch films.

Ryan: For me, it’s just the director. It’s Rick. Everything that we are right now, is because of him.

Blake: Yeah, he took a chance in everybody here.

Will: That’s literally what I was going to say. I feel like watching one of Rick’s movies is like riding in a Cadillac and looking out the window of the world we are immersed in.

Ryan: (to Will) Did you just think of that? That is beautiful

Will: Yeah. You know, it’s smooth and it’s comfy and it smells like Cadillac too. That’s what it feels like to be part of one of Rick’s movies, and it’s cool to be a part of that, you know?

If you wouldn’t be acting, what would you be doing?

Blake: I’ve taught Improve to kids down here, and done workshops, so I can see myself being like a teacher, or something. Or, like a therapist, I like listening to people, talk to them.

Tyler: There’s three things that I would do: one, directing and producing, which I plan on doing eventually at some point anyway, the other one would be a baseball coach, or I would like to be in renovating houses. I like the idea of taking something and improving on it, and kind of creating a painting, so I kind of like that.

Will: Top three: personal trainer, military man, or storm chaser. I grew up in North East section of Tornado valley and there are a lot of tornadoes and I’ve always thought it’d be fun to be one of the guys who chase them. Me and Jodi Foster, in Twister.

Blake: It’s Helen Hunt, man

Will: Helen Hunt, that’s what I meant. They look so much alike.

Which one of you four made the most mistakes, or the funniest bloopers?

Tyler: We spent so much time rehearsing that by the time we were filming anything, we felt like we had already made the movie, we just needed the cameras to show up to actually record it because we had gone over it so much. I’ll put it this way, the best thing about working with Rick is that, as an actor, in my opinion, is getting into it with the idea of right or wrong. Those two words never existed on set. We were allowed to do something or say something different, but it was always the same idea. And Rick made it so comfortable, and made you feel so welcome to play and explore within the scene and the character that there was never that second of “I want to try this but I don’t know if it’s right”. There was never that. It was “I want to try this, but if it sucks, then we try something else.” But it was very, very inviting and welcome to explore, play with an idea, and see if it works or not. Those failures get you into eventually what works.

Will: Touche

And, of course, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass by without getting a picture with them:

Here I just kept laughing because Will is hilarious and they all kept making jokes. 

I got to sneak in a pic with Ryan...whom I was hoping to be able to steal in my purse and keep for ever. Just kidding! He stayed back chatting with me about his tattoo and his Mexican background. He's a cool dude.

And here is the sheet with all the games of Tic Tac Toe we all played with Will, who was kind enough to autograph it for me, even before I asked him. Thank Will! You're a tough match to beat!