Writer/director Jonathan Levine made his biggest splash this year with the acclaimed The Wackness, a film that debuted at Sundance in January and is rolling out around the country this month. With a great ensemble that includes the unusual combination of Mary-Kate Olsen and Ben Kingsley, along with Juno's Olivia Thirlby and Mean Creek's Josh Peck, the hip-hop comedy has been building buzz all year long. The comedy tells the story of a young man selling drugs in 1994 NYC in the last summer before college and dealing with the pitfalls of love and hip-hop.

Peck and Levine sat down with us on a trip through Chicago to wax nostalgic about some of our favorite things from the '90s, including Fresh, Legend of Zelda, and Bottle Rocket.

THE DEADBOLT: I saw this movie about a month ago and I thought it was great.

JONATHAN LEVINE: Thank you, man.

THE DEADBOLT: I really liked it. And it didn’t feel like anything I’d seen in a long time, which is great. That’s the best thing about it.

LEVINE: That’s quite a compliment; I appreciate that.

THE DEADBOLT: And one of my favorite things about it is that there doesn’t seem to be any real clear messaging - where it’s, "Here’s what you’ve gotta take away from this, here’s what you’ve gotta learn." The movie sorta meanders around and you stumble across some things to think about and find some stuff to meditate on - which is awesome, because a lot of films don’t do that. Was that your intent?

LEVINE: Yes, it was intentional to never give a sort of pat answer to anything. To sort of have it all work out nicely, ya know. I think there are certain broad themes that we try to address.

THE DEADBOLT: Yeah, there are definitely themes that emerge, but rather naturally, I think.

LEVINE: The movie asks questions, rather than provides answers, and I think my favorite movies do that. And most movies today feel the need to provide answers and we deliberately did not do that.

THE DEADBOLT: Sometimes, even from the first frame, you kind of know where the movie’s headed and what it’s going to try and show you. But here it felt like it wandered naturally until it came across things.

LEVINE: Yeah, that’s kind of how I wrote it. Actually, it really is. I had no idea what I was writing. And then I wrote it and it was really long, and then I was sort of wandering and lost. Then through retroactively endowing certain things, with significance and bringing things out and focusing on things, that’s how we got to the movie we have. But the writing journey was very much a search in itself and I’m glad that shows on-screen.

THE DEADBOLT: In regard to the dialogue - in 1994, I had just turned 18, so I was entering college. And I definitely knew a number of people who spoke exactly like the characters in the film. But, obviously, on paper, that sort of dialogue could easily look silly and seem like something that might not work. A good example is the line "I see the dopeness in everything, but you just see the wackness." At what point were you guys able to give yourselves over to using that kind of language?

LEVINE: Perhaps I should’ve been worried about it. But once I saw Josh and Olivia, their delivery of it felt so natural. Certainly, there were actors who came in where I would’ve been very worried about it. But I think it’s less about the words and more about the way the characters carry themselves, and it allows us to get away with the words, as long as they feel authentic. So I was worried about until I cast the fantastic actors I cast.

THE DEADBOLT: Did you, at any point in your life, speak like that yourselves and use that kind of language? We all use a little of it these days, obviously.

JOSH PECK: I think I used more of it than most people probably. That’s just how me and my boys talk. We all grew up in the city, went to high school together and whatnot. The speech patterns have slowly evolved, but there are still key words that are reminiscent of ’94. And then there are new phrases and you try to revive the old things you were saying. Jon would tell me, "Well, we don’t really say, 'What’s good.'" But we’d say stuff like "That’s mad crazy, son." It’s all in your intention. It’s all in your commitment. If you commit to it and it doesn’t sound weird to you, then it won’t sound weird to the audience. If people can tell you’re trepidatious and you don’t commit, it will sound that way. Although the language is really rooted in this slang and at one time, it was viewed more as a certain ethnic way to talk. In movies, especially, it’s another way to draw audiences in and turn your character into something different.

THE DEADBOLT: In the beginning, the language catches you off guard a bit. But then after a little while, when you can tell that everyone in the film is committed to creating that sort of language, it works and you’re in there.

LEVINE: I agree with you. At the beginning, it’s a very strong introduction. And then we sort of ease into it. It’s a slippery slope. It’s also about not making it a caricature of itself. In writing the dialogue too, you want to be always conscious of going too far with the vernacular. So that’s what we tried to do. But it’s mostly the actors.

THE DEADBOLT: So what sort of relief or validation does finding out that Ben Kingsley is going to do the movie provide for you guys?

LEVINE: For me, the movie doesn’t exist without him. So while we did have a commitment from financiers, we needed a certain level of actor to be in that role.

THE DEADBOLT: But Ben Kingsley? Did you need an actor on that level? Could you have gotten the movie made otherwise?

LEVINE: Yeah, he’s absolutely fantastic. And no, we didn’t need the best actor in the world. [laughs] But luckily we got him and he’s f**king awesome. And the day that I found out he was into it was just a very joyful occasion. Because not only did it mean that he was in the movie, but it meant that the movie existed. And beyond that, it is very hard making an independent film. And while I found producers that I’m so grateful to, and would work with again any day of the week, Sir Ben is also an advocate for me and my vision. And frequently, logistics kind of overwhelm the directors’ vision. But to have someone that powerful in your corner is really helpful. He was like another collaborator.

THE DEADBOLT: I didn’t grow up in New York, but there are obviously a lot of great details that capture 1994. One of my favorites is the blowing on the Nintendo cartridge to get it to work. What cartridge was that, by the way?

PECK: Zelda!

THE DEADBOLT: So what percentage of that was in your original script? How much of that was a result of suggestions from you [Josh] and how much of that was up to set designers, props guys and whatnot?

LEVINE: Really specific, yeah. It was always really important to ground it in that kind of world. With the lines, Josh, Olivia and Sir Ben had a lot of free reign and license and we would often get beautiful things out of adlibbing and stuff like that. But as far as the world, I took great pains in the script to create all the little details, because the details are what you remember. And an accumulation of the details is how you paint the picture.

THE DEADBOLT: That speaks to the pacing of the film, too. Obviously, the setting of that scene is his room and he’s there playing video games. But you actually take a second to set up the game and then blow on the cartridge to make sure it works. The movie takes its time.

PECK: I was suggesting some nerdy sh*t, like Game Genie or something. [laughs]

LEVINE: What’s Game Genie?

PECK: You’d put the cartridge into Game Genie, and then into the NES, and then you could put cheat codes into the game. It was hilarious.

LEVINE: Oh, right.

Seeing the Dopeness in The Wackness with Jonathan Levine and Josh Peck Page 2