Everybody Wants Some!! Interview with Richard Linklater

Writer/Director Richard Linklater felt like he was on vacation while shooting his latest movie, Everybody Wants Some. The acclaimed filmmaker had just come off his Award winning film Boyhood which took over ten years to shoot.
Boyhood centered around the life of Mason, (Ellar Coltrane) from early childhood to his arrival at college but what made the film so unique was that the actors committed ten years to the production to be shot at various stages in their lives. The film was widely received and went on to win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Patricia Arquette who played Mason's mother. 

Linklater who  visited his high school years 22 years ago with the film, Dazed and Confused decided that it was time to let audiences in on what his College years were like. so, he sat down to write Everybody Wants Some!! The film stars Blake Jenner (Glee) as Jake. He was a star high school baseball player and now he’s joining the team over at Southeast Texas University. But there’s still a few days before classes and hardcore practices start so until then, his upperclassman teammates take it upon themselves to teach Jake and the rest of the fresh meat how to navigate the party scene and make the most of their days before the new school year. Everybody Wants Some!! also stars a cast of up-and-coming male leads — including Tyler Hoechlin, Ryan Guzman, Wyatt Russell and Austin Amelio.

While Linklater admits there is a lot of him in this movie, he says many of the incidents are based on friend's College escapades. He began writing Everybody Wants Some!! around 2005. He was busy making other films, but in the back of his mind was always thinking about jotting down some College experiences to see where that would lead. The first draft covered an entire freshman year. It ended up being something like 180 pages so he paired it down to the opening weekend before classes even started. Linklater says what stood out most for him about those days was friendships and camaraderie. Once he focused on that aspect, the script just poured out. 

To get that special camaraderie between his actors, he invited the guys to stay at his farmhouse near Austin where he put them all in a bunkhouse to bond for a couple of weeks. The experience paid off, and the guys formed some close friendships which are evident when you see the film.

I had the opportunity to speak with Richard Linklater during his recent visit to Toronto where we discussed why he feels that Everybody Wants Some!! is a natural continuation of Boyhood and how glad he was that this movie didn't take ten years to shoot. 

Everybody Wants Some!! hits select theatres on March 30th.

Screenwriter and filmmaker Richard Linklater has directed 18 feature films, including the '70s cult hit Dazed and Confused (93); the Before... trilogy (95, 04, 13), winning the Berlinale Silver Bear Award for Best Director for Before Sunrise; the hit comedy School of Rock (03); A Scanner Darkly (06); and Boyhood (14), for which he received numerous Academy Award nominations. Linklater also serves as the Artistic Director for the Austin Film Society, which he founded in 1985 to showcase films from around the world that are not typically shown in Austin.