CHRIS NEUMER: This isn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, but I had so much fun watching it. I realized that I was cheering you on in the middle of the movie. There was a time about midway through it when I realized that I didn’t know whether you were going to get this date or not. I was also like, "Come on, come on. Do it. Come on."
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Thank you, that’s great.
CHRIS NEUMER: You know, I see so many movies. How often do I do that? Never. Here we are with you and I’m yelling. So then I was looking at the interviews you’ve done and you had 7 questions being asked of you. I think the first 3 minutes of every interview are probably always the same, but for you it seemed worse. You only had 7 questions ever and then I figured you got to be tempted to spice it up a little.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: I want you to spice it up.
CHRIS NEUMER: No, no. You, like saying, "I got this idea because I was contacted from the planet Vogon…"
BRIAN HERZLINGER: [laughs] Right. I never did that. That’s a good idea. Is that your question?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, are you spicing it up? How do you keep sane?
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Honestly, I understand the point of doing it. I’ve never done a press tour before. I’ve never talked to 15 people in a row for 11 minutes saying the exact same thing. I’ve never done that. I don’t want to hear myself talk ever, let alone 15 in a row.
CHRIS NEUMER: You also seem to be, I’ll say this, down to earth. It seems you might be slightly amused by having to constantly talk about yourself.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: I think it’s hysterical. I am the last person who wants to watch me for 90 minutes. The last person. The thing is I’m promoting the movie. This movie is literally my life. My life is an open window to this little video camera. This is not a movie that I worked on for 3 days, came in had a crew call and laughed after I played my role. This journey started when I was six and the movie happened as a side effect. The thing is that this is a movie I made with two of my best friends whom I went to film school with and grew up with in New Jersey. We shot the whole thing with a video camera without a tripod, without a microphone, without lighting and we edited the whole movie on a laptop computer. Our $1,100 movie is getting worldwide theatrical release. It is unbelievable! We couldn’t be more ecstatic. We never expected it. So when I’m doing these interviews, I know why I’m doing it. I want people to know about the movie. I want the word to get out, I want the concept of it to get out. And when everybody comes in, everybody has been really excited about it and it gets me going again.
CHRIS NEUMER: So if I was like, [quietly] "Hey, how’s it going?" it wouldn’t be the same?
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Yeah. I’ll tell you what, there was one… The first day I did this was in Dallas. I had done so many and I’m not used to it. I’ve never done it before. I was halfway through one question on, I think, the 11th interview and it was a very long, windy question. During the question I felt myself drifting, totally drifting. I was scared. At the end of it I didn’t want to say, "Could you say that again" because I didn’t want her to think I wasn’t listening. So I started from the beginning, told about 30 days, $1100 and before I knew it, the answer was what she needed. She asked me the entire story of the movie.
CHRIS NEUMER: Really?
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Yeah, that was her question.
CHRIS NEUMER: I found that I should just start yelling at people. I did something with Nick Nolte recently. Well first of all he is criminally insane, criminally insane.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Is he really?
CHRIS NEUMER: He does not track. It was scary. At one point in time I asked him a question like "How do you portray peaceful?" He stood up, pointed at me and said, "I’m from Iowa. Go ahead." and then sat back down. I was like, "Okay, wow!" How do you come back from that? I said, "How about we focus on being peaceful." The reason that I’m telling you this is that if you get too long-winded I’m just going to reach across and probably slap you a little bit.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Is that what you said to him?
CHRIS NEUMER: No. I said, "Let’s get back here. What are you talking about. We’ve got some time here. What the hell is this about?" It seems like not only have you done a lot of interviews for your tour, but you’ve probably done a lot of interviews prior to the tour. I’m always getting a lot of stuff from festivals on you.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Oh God yes.
CHRIS NEUMER: You guys were at Tribeca right?
BRIAN HERZLINGER: No. We played 4 festivals and we won all four. Aspen Comedy Arts Festival was the first one.
CHRIS NEUMER: I know the list. I’m trying to think was it Insignia PR that you guys were working with? Let me put it this way; I have about 5 PR firms that have contacted me to talk through somebody in–
BRIAN HERZLINGER: About us?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah. Somebody … God I can’t even remember the name. One firm was up in North Hollywood and I launched into a three-minute long thing about how bad North Hollywood was before it became apparent that they were actually located in North Hollywood.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Oh, that’s really good. You’ve got to look up the zip code before you do that.
CHRIS NEUMER: Well, he was saying, "We don’t have a great office; but we’re in Hollywood." My response was, "At least you’re not in North Hollywood." And then he said, "Well, actually we’re in NoHo." I said, "You could have told me this before I said that. "North Hollywood is the place where dogs go to die."
BRIAN HERZLINGER: That’s where filmmakers live. Their first apartment is usually in North Hollywood.
CHRIS NEUMER : It’s a place you go and then you’re like, "I used to live there."
BRIAN HERZLINGER: It’s great for work stories. It’s great to be able to say, "Look, I suffer." It’s like when I say I went there after college. The weather there is ridiculous. I’ve never had wind go through me before in my life. So I say I did that, I suffered through that so that I don’t have any guilt about living in Los Angeles now. The weather is beautiful and sunshine everyday. Sunshine, happiness and beautiful people. Probably because they all had plastic surgery but I digress.
CHRIS NEUMER: I understand.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: By the way, what I am very excited about in talking to you about and doing the interview at all is the fact that you took the risk and started this magazine.
CHRIS NEUMER: Oh no, it wasn’t a risk. It was the fear of a real job.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: No, no. It’s the fact that you actually went and did something and you created this and this is yours. No one is ever going to be able to take it away from you and you went for it. It is a risk. You know what I mean? If you don’t take risks, you will have a wasted soul. The fact is I respect any publication, any person who is willing to take the time to recognize this, the film culture. That is the best experience.
CHRIS NEUMER: This is more interesting than hearing you talk about the $1,100.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: [laughs] Yes. Two of the best feelings that have happened over this journey for all of us is when we started playing the film festivals and we won the audience award for best feature and we won over Napoleon Dynamite, Garden State and Super Size Me. Those are great movies, great movies that we love and respect. When the audience judged us better, they wanted to give us that award. Unbelievable! Afterwards when some in the audience came up to us and said, "Thank you for making the movie. You inspired me to follow my own life-long dream." That was the best feeling in the world until we went back to our alma mater, Ithaca College. We screened our movie at the Park Auditorium, which is the only auditorium for the film and TV program. It was sold out. They had to bring chairs from other classrooms to fill the aisles. We showed our movie to film students who were sitting in the same seats that we were sitting in saying, "Huh. Did anybody from Ithaca actually do anything? Did anyone make a movie? Will anyone come back and talk to us?" When we were standing up there doing our Q & A after the movie, after watching them cheer and react to the film, watching them tense up during the premiere sequence, watching them scream for other scenes, every hand went up and we answered every question.
CHRIS NEUMER: Did you get the, "How are you so good" question? That’s the question I love.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Are you so good?
CHRIS NEUMER: Well, you get the "Oh my God I love this movie" statement. And then you have the follow up question of, "This movie is so good. How did you make it so good?"
BRIAN HERZLINGER: I never got that one. I guess people don’t think it is that good. I never got it.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’m surprised.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: But the thing is playing the movie for film students, filmmakers, independent filmmakers it just shows you that technology has caught up to us to the point where you can ‘t make any excuses for not going out and making a movie.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s a good point.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Do you know what I mean?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah. I was thinking that if I was an actual filmmaker, like if I was somebody who was familiar with working with 35mm and I see this getting a theatrical release, I’d be pissed. Are you kidding me. They bought something in Circuit City and I’m sitting on a $500,000 Panaflex thing here. Oh, shit, I’ve gotta go do this.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: [laughs] Hey, if we had a $500,000 Panaflex, we would have used it.
CHRIS NEUMER: Costuming wouldn’t have been any better. That was great.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Biggest compliment I ever got. The idea is though the only thing stopping you from making a movie and thus following your dream of making films is yourself. There’s no excuse to not do it. It’s right at your fingertips. It’s affordable. You can do it. The idea that Jon and I went back to our school and told film students who were inspired by the movie to go out and make movies, that you can do it. We sat right in that seat you are sitting in right there. I told one kid, "I remember sitting right there, freaking out and being upset, why doesn’t anyone come here and talk." That was amazing! I never thought I would be on the other side of the chairs. So it’s very important to us as independent filmmakers who went through the process. I moved out to LA to make movies and I’ve been there for 8 years. I started out as an intern worked my way up to being a production assistant, worked my way up to being an assistant, worked my way up to unemployment. And that’s the road.
CHRIS NEUMER: Being a P.A. is actually below being unemployed?
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Yeah, you make more on unemployment.
CHRIS NEUMER: That could be the opening of the article.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: I’m telling you, you make more on unemployment. That’s when I went on a game show and everything changed. I said I have nothing to lose. I just want to try and make this lifelong dream come true.
CHRIS NEUMER: Now has anyone … and I’m sure this is teetering on the borderline of questions that you’ve already gotten …
BRIAN HERZLINGER: That’s okay.
CHRIS NEUMER: It’s not bad, it’s just a personal thing. Has anyone come up to you and been like, "I was thinking about parking outside Eva Longoria’s house, but I was like no, no. Then I saw your film and I was like yes. I’m going to go."
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Well since that’s your question, I will give you the answer that I have given everybody else. You know from the beginning of the movie that my biggest concern was being a stalker. I did not want to come off as a stalker. I did not want to advocate that. I never had any aspirations to be in front of the camera. It was not something that I needed to do. The movie is the side effect of the journey. I happen to be the guy who had the crush on Drew. That’s why I’m in front of the camera. The thing is that the four of us were very clear in deciding not to go down any ‘stalkery paths’. We didn’t go sit outside of her house. We didn’t try to get to Flower. We didn’t try to get to Drew’s mom. I knew what the journey was. I knew that this was a positive dream of a kid growing up in Jersey looking at the poster of the girl on his bedroom wall, dreaming about meeting her, dreaming about getting a date with her. That’s one of the reasons we are so thrilled that people are responding so overwhelmingly positive to it and are saying, "You inspired me to follow my dream." When we put the website up, in 1 weeks we had over 150,000 hits on the mydatewithdrew.com site. It was from people all around the world saying, "Go for it Brian and get that date with Drew and if you get it, can you get me a date with Angelina Jolie?" Either that or one with Brad Pitt. It’s a universal theme.
CHRIS NEUMER: That’s the same guy too, right?
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Yeah. Actually the guys were asking for Brad Pitt and the girls for Angelina Jolie and Meg Ryan in there before the plastic surgery. The idea is that everybody related to the question. It’s about a dream. It’s about trying to make that come true. As after-school special as it sounds, it is about trying to go for something that seems out of your reach.
CHRIS NEUMER: This is something that I noticed. I was thinking about this on the el ride home after seeing it. It seems like it is this really triumphant portrayal of American perseverance and the ability to fight through obstacles. I hesitate to call it the American dream because that is too trite, but you show this dogged persistence and craftiness. You are the underdog, you’ve got no cash and I can relate to that.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: [laughs] A lot of people can.
CHRIS NEUMER: But on the other hand … you’ve got this great ball of success that you are striving for. Wow, that’s pretty good. Then you think about it and it’s like you were just trying to get a date with Drew Barrymore. You balance the two and there’s this great disconnect which makes it a very interesting combination.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Number one, thank you because that’s awesome. I knew that my quest for Drew Barrymore is not going to matter my boss, Bill de Lia. He’s not going to think that’s something. He thinks world peace is the thing that you should be going for. That should be a dream.
CHRIS NEUMER: I was trying to figure out which one of those was more obtainable at the time, world peace or Drew Barrymore.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: [laughs] Well under Bush’s watch… world peace seems very far away. My mom and my dad–I couldn’t ask for a more supportive family. My parents are great. My mom’s opinion of Drew Barrymore, of her being a slut, is formed by Star Magazine. You know what I mean? She’s also a protective Jewish mom. She doesn’t think any girl is good enough for her Jewish son. That’s it. We kept that in the movie because–
CHRIS NEUMER: Well, it was funny for starters.
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Thank you. It is funny. Look my parents crack me up. I’m glad other people laugh at it. It was a huge laugh in the movie. It also shows we’re not delirious about what the quest is. We know that to other people this is ridiculous and we accept that. I accept that other people think it is stupid to go after Drew Barrymore and yet, for me, it’s my lifelong dream. That is a representation of something that everyone else has. Everyone has a dream that they haven’t gone for, that they want to go for or they are willing to go for and are scared to. They are afraid to take the risk. And that’s what she is for me.
CHRIS NEUMER: I’m not comparing it to something like Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man, but when you take a look at something like that or E. M. Forrester or some Faulkner stuff, you have to take the metaphoric content out of it. You read it and think, "Benjy is this character and he means this." I was thinking you take a film like yours or something else like Neal Moritz produces–
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Like Fast and Furious?
CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah. With The Fast and the Furious, there’s nothing there. Then you take a look at yours and you’re like, "Wait a minute. There actually is something here; there are some valiant attempts here and there’s emotion. It frankly made more sense to me than the Faulkner stuff
BRIAN HERZLINGER: Thank you. The thing is that underneath everything that happens in this movie conceptually with the theme of trying to make dreams come true, there is a transindentalist quality to this movie, there really is. It’s the ‘life is like a vacation; you’ve got to live it up before it’s over’ kind of thing. What’s the point if you don’t try, if you don’t take that risk, if you don’t go for it. It’s hard to stop your life for 30 days. For me, it was easier because I was unemployed. I didn’t have to worry about the job part. However, I should also have spent that time looking for a job, trying to get secure, trying to at least get rid of some of this debt before I got evicted. So it was difficult, but for Jon, Brett and Cary they stopped their lives for 30 days–which is now two years–to help me pursue a lifelong dream.
