Over-the-top and out-of-control parties are well known domains for University students. But the “ultimate party” will soon hit theaters.
“Project X,” directed by Nima Nourizadeh and produced by Todd Phillips, of “The Hangover,” comes out today. Following the stories of three high-school unknowns as they try to break into popularity by throwing the best party ever, the movie contains drugs, drinking, explosions, nudity and all the things typical of excess and debauchery.
The three stars of “Project X” — Thomas Mann (Thomas), Oliver Cooper (Costa) and Jonathan Daniel Brown (J.B.) — sat down for a phone interview with The Red & Black following an Athens advanced screening to talk about the process of making the movie and the future.
R&B: Some of the characters’ names are the same as the actors’ actual names. Was there any reason for that decision?
Mann: I think [director Nima Nourizadeh] just wanted the movie to feel authentic and I think it just sort of helps if we all have our same names. We still kind of approached it all as characters. We’re not playing ourselves. We’re playing a version of ourselves.
R&B: So, if you’re playing versions of yourselves, were your high school lives similar?
Mann: My high school life was the saddest thing in America.
Cooper: We’re losers in real life. We didn’t do anything like that.
Brown: If we were the coolest kids and threw all the best parties, do you think they would have cast us? If you had these three awesome dudes throwing a great party, then it wouldn’t be a great comedy. It would be an episode of “Jersey Shore.”
R&B: But if you were complete losers, would you have the charm to land roles and talk to producers?
Cooper: We have likeability, we hope.
Brown: I added the producers after the second audition. I don’t know if that was a good idea or not.
Cooper: And even though we’re losers we’re still...
Brown: Savvy losers?
Cooper: Yeah. Savvy losers. Sometimes losers can be the smartest people in the room.
R&B: During the premiere you said you had to go back for auditions nine times. What was that like?
Mann: It was very discouraging at points.
Brown: It was an emotional roller coaster becomes you had your ups and your downs. Sometimes you’d have three auditions in the course of three days and then you’d hear nothing for three weeks and you’d be like “Oh, I guess I’m going to work at Wal-Mart for the rest of my life.” But it was two months, lots of ups, lots of downs, so many different meetings and then on our final audition they paired the three of us up for the first time — Oliver, Thomas and I — and we just clicked. It was like three jigsaw pieces that were connected by awesomeness.
Mann: Originally they told me that I couldn’t audition because I had already done one other movie and they wanted people who were complete unknowns. So it took some convincing. But all of us ended up going up nine times. They did some mix and matches where we would read with different people to see who had chemistry but we actually never read together until the last day.
R&B: And from there, the director and producer sent you to ride roller coasters?
Mann: We went immediately to Disneyland, to celebrate.
Cooper: It’s what everybody does when they celebrate.
Brown: There aren’t actually many roller coasters at Disneyland. It’s more themed. Although space mountain is pretty great.
Mann: That’s really what we did to prepare. They just wanted us to hang out so we would look natural on screen.
Cooper: It worked. We still hang out all the time. We like each other.
Mann: Really the movie is the only thing holding us together at this point so after that we could just go our separate ways.
Brown: No, no, no. If I lose these two I’ll have nobody.
R&B: So are you hoping to make more movies together? Or to make a sequel to “Project X?”
Mann: Hopefully. If the movie’s good and people see it they’ll do a sequel. It really depends.
