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Interview with Josh Sugarman, director of 'Trophy Kids'

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Created on Monday, 26 October 2009 21:31

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First of all, the main deals. Is the film still in post-production? What is the release plan? It will be a theatrical release? Any festivals soon?

JBS: “We went straight into post-production after wrapping early this summer and will be plugging away here in New York for a few more months. The film has a good amount of visual effects work, especially for an indie of our size, and so we’ll be spending the time needed to make those elements really pop.”

At the film's wikipedia page, there is this definition of Trophy Kids: The film's title refers to the generation of Americans also known as "Millennials" who grew up receiving trophies and other praise just for participating and not necessarily for excelling. They were rewarded to avoid damaging their self-esteem. As a result, trophy kids feel confident and accomplished, but the coddling has led them to feel entitled and to have great and often unrealistic expectations about their jobs and life in general. Some questions about this: Do you think you are a "Trophy Kid" yourself?

JBS: “For me, the most fascinating aspect of “trophy kid-ness” is how it cuts across class lines. Rich, poor or middle class – the trophy kid mentality was ground into so many of us from a young age. We were all going to be the President of the United States. Needless to say, most of us are not.”

In your opinion, when the kids should be rewarded with a trophy?

JBS: “I’m not against trophies per se. Or against the issuance of said trophies when the time is right. But perhaps when one opens a crate of tiny, identical plastic trophies to be distributed to hundreds of children en masse, they should stop and say to themselves – boy, this is a whole lot of tiny plastic trophies.”

Assuming that WE are the "Thophy Kids" (I'm 27, I can't find your birthdate, but you look young :P), do you think when we get older, we will wake up one day and learn how to live without these unrealistic expectations?

JBS: “Sure – but will we remember that revelation the day after?”

Will we resign and our self-steem will content just with the things we have achieved? Can we be 'healed'?

JBS: “Not to be a downer or anything, but I think the damage has been done. Every generation has had defining characteristics that remain even after they’ve moved into the other phases of life – the “Greatest Generation” still puts country and self-sacrifice above all else, the “Hippie Generation” puts community and progressive values above country and self-sacrifice and the “Trophy Kid” generation, well, let’s just say there’s not a whole lot of community or self sacrifice in this movie. The way we express our characteristics might change with time and age and, of course, any sort of generational classification is, by definition, a generalization, but I’d say once a trophy kid always a trophy kid.”

This is the film's plot found at wikipedia: 'To win the celebrity and self-made wealth he craves, an aimless, twenty-something Manhattan playboy devises a film based on his party-boy, club-going lifestyle, and hires a self-destructive aspiring playwright to ghost the feature script. As the mismatched pair struggles to complete the script and get a handle on their misdirected lives, they reveal the sometimes comedic, sometimes tragic behaviors of 'Generation Y’- a generation taught to believe each was incomparably special and messianically gifted. Though they begin to vie for the affections of the same girl, and their chance at success and happiness threatens to crumble, they ultimately each find their own, unique life truths.' Is Tania "the girl who they begin to view for affections" or is that Tahyna Tozzi? Anyway, what can you tell us about Tania's role?

JBS: “Tania plays a bartender in the club where Max lives both day and night – and does it with an edge and attitude that only Tania can pull off. As for the “affections” – well let’s just say that there’s a lot of “affection” running through this movie…and a lot of it in a way we don’t typically see.”

The film's conductor thread, how a script is inspired by real life, has been used in multiples films ('Shakespeare in Love' or 'Adaptation' comes to my head quickly). So when you wrote this story, you were writing about a writer who writes his life based on his own personal life! Well, is this not really as write about yourself? Has the plot something of autobiographic? Or… why to use this resource as narrative thread?

JBS: “Wow - when you put it that way it sounds really confusing. There are certainly elements of the film that I’ve seen or experienced in my everyday life and, yes, I was, like a lot of kids I know, raised with a certain Gen-Y mentality. But, no, I’ve never painted with a half naked girl like Reid or entered a club with the swagger of Max. Some of those things are just better in movies anyway.”

Blue Balled. Written and directed by Josh Sugarman in 2008.

Your first two short films has been edited by Truth Through Action, which 'brings independent filmmakers together to create edgy online film and video content to support the Democratic Party, its issues and candidates.' Is 'Throphy Kis' as politicized as those two, is it related to this association too?

JBS: “Nope. The only politics in TROPHY KIDS was when Tania beat Ryan in our on-set “Most likely to…” voting. I can’t tell you what the category was, but let’s just say they both campaigned feverishly.”

American Centurion. Written and directed by Josh Sugarman in 2008.

We don't want to chat about politics on this site, I'm not interested in that. I only want to know, if you, as filmmaker and artist, has raised the question of how good for you and your carrier if to bind all your works to a specific politic party (I don't mind which one). When your ideas as citizen ends and when just the filmmaker starts? How much you, as filmmaker, want to you tell a story and then the audience make its opinion, or directly show your personal (politicized) point of view?

JBS: “I’d say that politics and film-making are pretty inexorably intertwined actually. Politics, at least in its purest form, is really just about how we express our values and priorities as a society. In many ways, that’s exactly what we do with film too. Oh – and we blow things up in both.”

This is a mandatory questions for all the directors. How did you know Tania? Any other work (Lost, Cold Case, etc…)?

JBS: “I think I first caught Tania on LOST. When we started casting her role, I said I wanted Tania and my casting director threw out a whole list of names of actors like Tania. I think she thought I meant “an actor like Tania,” but I was pretty quick to clarify. I wanted Tania. She was perfect for the role and did even more with it than I could have ever expected. There’s one moment, completely improv’d, that’s going to be in the final cut of this movie. My assistant director came up to me after we shot it and asked if I had just written it right there on the spot. But it was all Tania and Eleanor (who plays Max’s mother) and it’s one of the funniest moments in the film, I’d say. I wish I wrote it.”

What we can expect of her?

JBS: “Tania is one of those rare actresses that takes her considerable talents and combines it with a really unique, sexy look. You just can’t put a ceiling on somebody like that.”