Jamie Kennedy knows he’s not the only one who rocked out in a Puma sweatsuit in the 1980s. To that end, he’s headlining Kickin’ it Old Skool, a comedy about a teenage breakdancing enthusiast who wakes up after 20 years in a coma to find that the more things change, the more he’s stayed the same. With the girl of his dreams (Maria Menounos) engaged to marry his grade-school nemesis (Michael Rosenbaum) and his parents drowning in the debt of his medical costs, Kennedy’s Justin Schumacher must rally his former squad, bust a move and win back the girl of his dreams. In conjunction with the film’s release this Friday, April 27, from Yari Film Group, Kennedy took some time to answer a few questions via email. The chat is excerpted below:
Brent Simon: So, I haven’t read your book, Wannabe, which details your early Hollywood travails, but did you at one point really pose as your own agent? And if so, how did that work, and what did it gain you?
Jamie Kennedy: Yes I did. I did it because I was a good telemarketer… so I decided to sell myself. In the end, I got a development deal with MTV out of it, so I guess it worked.
BS: How did the screenplay for Kickin’ it Old Skool come your way?
JK: I went and found it. I wanted to do a movie about breakdancing, a movie about a guy in a coma, and I also wanted to do a comedy — so I brought ’em all together and made a breakdancing comedy. Coincidentally, the script was already being developed, so we just kept rewriting and tuning it.
BS: So, the millionth-time softball: were you actually into break-dancing culture as a kid?
JK: Yes. One thousand percent!
BS: Given hip-hop culture’s place of prominence within Malibu’s Most Wanted, were you reticent about the appearance of revisiting that, and/or did you do any consultation or work on the KiOS script to remedy that?
JK: A lot of people wanted to see more of Malibu’s Most Wanted, but this is a totally different thing. I’m sure that everyone who liked Malibu’s is going to laugh their ass off with Kickin’ it Old Skool, but it’s different — it’s breakdancing, not hip-hop. It’s also more of an ’80s movie than a hip-hop movie, and Justin “Rocketshoe” Schumacher is very different from B-Rad G in Malibu’s.
BS: Is there any obsession or love that you’ve held onto from your pre-teen or early adolescent years? And conversely, if time were to stop for you by having fallen into a coma, at what time in your life would that have been the most embarrassing?
JK: Videogames.
BS: Were you driven by a performance instinct as a youngster?
JK: Not really, I used to just watch a lot of TV as a kid. When I figured out what I wanted to do, by coming to Hollywood, I changed things around.
BS: As one of the many young actors who, as up-and-comers, have served as headpiece-wearing techie chatterers in their films (as in Enemy of the State), what secrets can you share about the Bruckheimer/Scott production machine?
JK: Here’s the key: Always make sure you cover a shot from 17 different angles… and make sure all the characters are running in the scene.
BS: I loved Three Kings, and you in it. But, David O. Russell: mad genius or just mad?
JK: Oh, mad genius for sure! He’s so good, and great to work with. I’d absolutely let him holler at me all day.
BS: 2000’s The Specials had a lot of now-recognizable names and faces in it, but I’ve also heard some stories about on-set friction. Care to set the record straight?
JK: Sure. That was the first movie I ever produced. James Gunn, the writer, lived with me at the time, and he used to get into arguments with the director, Craig Mazin, who wrote Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4. I used to argue with Jordan Ladd because I wanted her to show more cleavage. Rob Lowe used to argue with Thomas Haden Church to see who dated Laura Flynn Boyle first. I think Lowe had everybody first.
BS: OK, relive for me, if you will, the experience as an extra on Dead Poets Society, which was your first movie. How often was Robin Williams shaved?
JK: It was basically me getting in the movie theater scene. Robin Williams would go to the craft service table and I would begin to harass him with my highly original, “Hey Mork from Ork, nanu-nanu!,” because he had never heard that one before. And after that, the first assistant director made an announcement that “all background should not talk to Mr. Williams because he is a very shy man.” Meanwhile, he’d always be in the corner doing Joan Rivers impersonations for Ethan Hawke. And I thought, how shy is that?! As a footnote: I now know how he felt, though. I experience the same thing when people come up to me and say, “Dude, you’ve been X’ed!”
BS: Given your druthers, where would you like your career to proceed — as strictly an actor? Writer-director? TV impresario?
JK: An actor-producer, and maybe take my chance at directing something.
To visit the film’s official web site, KickinItMovie.com, click here. There you can choose your own b-boy and battle it out in a break-dancing battle royale, as well as insert yourself into the KiOS character poster machine. Kickin’ it Old Skool hits theaters tomorrow, April 27.