The Kings of Summer Come of Age
June 5, 2013
One of this summer's surprises for movie goers will certainly be
the film THE KINGS OF SUMMER, an offbeat, coming of age comedy from
first time director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. As a "film about kids made
for adults" the humor and warmth of KINGS is sure to draw in those
who remember STAND BY ME and THE BAD NEWS BEARS as similar type
landmarks, but like its main characters, this award-winning movie
blazes a new trail all its own.
THE KINGS OF SUMMER is about three teenage friends - Joe (Nick
Robinson), Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and the eccentric and
unpredictable Biaggio (Moises Arias) - who, in the ultimate act of
independence, decide to spend their summer building a house in the
woods and living off the land. It premiered to rave reviews at the
2013 Sundance Film Festival and the Dallas International Film
Festival and Vogt-Roberts is still overwhelmed at its
success.
"It's ridiculous and surreal and I'm still processing what's going
on," he recently said in an interview with CineArts' Frank
Gonzales, along with co-stars Arias and Basso. "The thing that's
the most satisfying is that we did a lot of stuff with this movie
that people didn't want us to do: it's about kids, but for adults;
and tonally it's all over the place. To see a kid get bitten by a
snake and still know it's funny and ok to laugh without breaking
the movie's tone was a great thing for me as a director. But
watching the audience follow the journey and react to it was even
sweeter."
Vogt-Roberts needed a real family vibe to the set so casting was
very important. "I legitimately believe in casting; that someone
comes in as the role. You know right away. Rarely do you have to
really convince yourself that someone is right for the part.
"The tricky thing about this is that it doesn't exist in a vacuum.
So it comes down to chemistry too. I loved Nick and Gabe at their
screen tests, but would they work well together? So we did a bunch
of mix and match tests to make sure the physicality was
right."
But the uniqueness of one character determined a different set of
rules for that casting process. "Moises was totally different,"
said Vogt-Roberts. "I cast him off tape. I had never met him before
we started shooting, which is crazy to think about!"
Arias adds, "We did some improv classes to get to know each other,
but I actually couldn't make all of them, just one."
"Which really worked out better because we really wanted him to be
a bit off to the side," concurred Vogt-Roberts.
"And I was 100% the outsider," Arias continued, "so I don't think
you would say 'what a great friendship Biaggio has with the rest of
them' It's more like 'what is he doing there?'"
Vogt-Roberts used improv as a tool to not only get the actors to
bond, but to also flesh out new ways to approach a scene. "I do a
lot of improv on the set, but we were able to do that only because
we started with a wonderful base, which was the script written by
Chris Galletta. Improv is ultimately a way to better inform the
characters and situation.
"With improv it's really easy to just go 'funny, funny, funny' but
that's not what it is about. We could have riffed for days and had
the craziest things come out of people's mouths, but if it's not
servicing the story then it just takes you out of the narrative.
There are scenes in the movie that are almost entirely improvised
and they were organically built into the movie as we went
along."
"The Spanish scene was an improvisation," Arias chimes in.
"Exactly! From day one Moises came on set saying 'dude, I'm
Columbian'" Vogt-Roberts continued. "But if anything, the character
of Biaggio should have been Italian, and he should have spoken
something else. So I said 'do the scene in Spanish' and it was one
of the first times I saw Moises trip up and think about it."
"Yeah, I had to text my mom to make sure the Spanish was right.
There were a lot of words that didn't translate one hundred percent
from English to Spanish," Arias remembers, "but I think it worked
out well."
"It was totally one of those things that worked," Vogt-Roberts
laughs. "He was speaking Spanish, the dad responded in English, and
the last thing you say is in English. It was such a weird, raw
point in the movie and it gets such a big laugh! It's one of my
favorite moments: it's one shot, you don't see the dads face at
all, and it's simple."
Read the rest of the interview by
visiting the CinéArts Facebook page.
THE KINGS OF SUMMER opens June 7 at select Cinemark Theatres and
continue to expand throughout the summer. For tickets, click here.
