What does Kevin have to say about...?
KICKED IN THE HEAD
How the film came to be:
"It was Matthew Harrison's idea to write a script that was loosely based on both of our lives...what he said to me at the inception was 'Why don't we write a script, I
got this great idea and we can write it together. It's about a 25-year-old guy who just got kicked out of his apartment, he set it on fire, now he's just walking around the streets and he's having problems with his girlfriend.' All this stuff was actually happening to me, and I was talking to him on a pay phone because he was one of
my few friends at the time. I thought he was just trying to cheer me up, but he was serious." (From Hollywood Online interview)
"We were describing the worst things that could possibly happen to a person, and we were just cracking up laughing. We would actually think, 'we can't write that'. Whenever we'd get that impulse like that's just too pathetic to put down, to portray a scene like that, we would put it down. We were just going to do it for fun, we were using ourselves as voodoo dolls, and just making up this horrible story
about this crazy path this guy takes." (From HO)
"Matthew made it easy for me by saying to me, don't worry about structuring anything. Just give me your raw material. You know, my napkin poems. I gave him pieces of looseleaf paper with writing on it, like sketches, and he would improve on stuff that I would give him. Actually, he would finish things that I started, rather than the other way around. And then at night he would give everything some cinematic shape. It's the way we do all our stuff, just on our own."(From AMG)
"I'm really grateful (to Harrison), because I was having a terrible writer's block for many years. I went through a period where I didn't write for a long time after writing some plays, and then I met Matt. I made Rhythm Thief, became friends with him, and then after we were friends for a while, he came up with this idea. Kicked In The Head is about a guy who's been kicked out of his apartment, which had just happened to me. And there are romantic
troubles in the movie, which I was also having. Actually, I thought he was just trying to cheer me up by saying, let's make a movie about you. But he wasn't kidding. He said, we can write it together, and I said sure. And that's what we did." (From All Movie Guide)
How Martin Scorsese became involved:
"He [Scorsese] also loved Rhythm Thief. I always felt Rhythm Thief was like Mean Streets. It had a really authentic lower east-side feeling, and it was in black and white, 16mm. It was kind of a goofier, trippier Mean Streets. But sure enough, he saw it somehow, and he must have felt the same way. I assume he
could see his own influence in our movie, and he asked us what else we had, and we said we had this script, we were going to shoot on High 8 video. He read it and said 'I think we can make this.'" (From HO)
"I had worked with Scorsese before when I played Ray Liotta's brother in Goodfellas. But there are some obvious influences there. I'm still kind of wondering myself, but I haven't gotten a chance to talk to the man. Like, one of the things that I liked when we did Rhythm Thief is that it reminded me of Mean Streets. And then when Scorsese saw Rhythm Thief, he apparently loved it. He said it inspired him while he was editing Casino. Maybe he thinks to himself, wow these guys watch my films, it's pretty obvious in their work. Also, I tend to write about Catholic guilt a lot.
Spiritual anxiety is always an issue, and a pretty common theme in Scorsese's life and work as well. He might have been responding to that too." (From AMG)
The character of Redmond:
"Redmond may be a little more vulnerable than the other characters I play, I don't know. I seem to be playing either someone who's abused, or who's dishing out abuse. I think they're all the same. All the characters I play are like cousins."(From AMG)
"I think the role was drawn to me more than the other way around."(From HO)
"The character of Redmond was me maybe three years ago, so I'm having a reunion with my old self to do this movie. In a way, I've had to suspend my growth so I would be able to give it to the film. Hopefully, I'll exorcise some demons with this."(From the KITH website)
"(The film is autobiographical)In a sense. It's 50 per cent me and 50 per cent Matt. The lead character Redmond is a weird mixture of the two of us." (From AMG)
"Then there are times when I don't want to admit that Kicked In The Head is autobiographical, or I've changed my mind and I start thinking, that's not me anymore. That was three years ago. If this is a movie about a guy being confused and under pressure, I've been through a lot worse than this story since we wrote the script, you know?"(From AMG)
"It was me three years ago. I'm still a little like that now. I worry, worry, worry for no reason. I don't know what life would be like without worry. Maybe you would dance more."(From Paper magazine)
The Linda Fiorentino scenes:
"Well, Linda Fiorentino, man... Linda really set the tone for all that sex stuff. We never met 'til the first day working together, and we had to shoot a sex scene just a few days later. She didn't want to rehearse. She just wanted to go for it. It was hard." (From Paper)
"Those scenes were probably the easiest ones to do, because there was no intellectual stuff required. It was just purely physical. You know what you gotta do, and I just went and did it. And generally people don't want to waste too much time doing these things. You want to get them done real quick. So Linda and I both got very into it, did a couple of takes, and it was over with. It was just business."(From AMG)
How did the film attract such big names?:
"Free beer. Just put up a sign and they come running...I don't know. Things changed when our first film Rhythm Thief got into the Sundance Film Festival, and it won an award there. After that, people wanted to see what was up and what we were doing. I think the curiosity just got bigger and bigger. It's like, hey what are those guys doing now, let's go see what they're doing. Let's get in on it."(From AMG)
Working with Matthew Harrison:
"Well, he directs with his hands a lot. He's very animated, and now I can see in the movie where I'm doing that stuff too. That's Matt's influence. It's kind of screwball physicality."(From AMG)
"I guess we got on each others' nerves in a sense. Like he'd say, should this guy get the girl in the end, or should he not get her. And I'd say, I think he should get her. And he'd say, really? I don't think he should get her! And I'd say, Like why? We tried to figure out, should it have a happy ending or a downbeat ending. I'd say, I think we should have a happy ending. And he'd say, I don't think so, I think Redmond should die at the end. So there was that kind of friction, I guess."(From AMG)
Working with Michael Rapaport:
"We get along so well in real life and have such a good communication that when we work together, we just transfer all that energy."(From the KITH website)
BANDWAGON
Musical influences:
"I have a particular kind of affection for Ace Frehley (of the band KISS) because he's from the same part of the Bronx that I am from. When I was growing up it was well known that his parents still lived in the neighborhood, and we would go over to their house. They would give us pictures and other press stuff and posters that
they didn't have a lot of use for."(From the Bandwagon website)
Kevin's tribute to Ace:
"Supposedly his pet name for people is 'Curly.' Even Paul Stanley tells the story of how Ace got into the group and was calling everybody 'Curly.' So there is a scene in Bandwagon where I call Lee Holmes 'Curly.' I hope Ace Frehley sees the movie and notices that."(From the Bandwagon website)
Being in bands:
"I always knew I was going to be in a movie about a band because if Bandwagon hadn't come along I probably would have written something myself. I didn't want to be a rock star. I was just preparing to play the role of one. When you're an actor you can be anything you want."(From BW website)
"I always wanted to be in a movie like that. Me and my brother and my cousin used to pretend we were in a rock group. My cousin, he's a fireman now. My brother works as a guard in a hospital and I'm still doing what we were doing back then. I never stopped believing in it."(From Paper)
The film's delayed release:
"I think it had something to do with that Tom Hanks movie (That Thing You Do!). I hear it's pretty similar, but I haven't seen it. We were all psyched up for it to come out on time, and then it kept being pushed back. It killed us- killed our hearts."(From Paper)
OTHER THINGS:
His bad habits:
"I bite my nails. I'm a nervous guy." (From Premeire magazine)
Fame:
"I saw this happen to my friend Mike last year. You watch other actors, other performers, riding some wave of attention. Then it's happening to you, and it puts a different perspective on things. Now I can think where my friends' heads were at when they were behind these things." (From HO)
"On the way here, I saw some posters for the movie (Kicked) on the street. It was almost like seeing pictures from your family photo album up on a wall. I thought, what are those two doing up there, people are going to see that. I felt like covering them up."(From AMG)
Interviews:
"Interviews are good, interviews are great. They're wonderful. I love them. It's an art form."(From AMG)
"I have no problem with interviews. If I have a problem with anything, it's these electronic gadgets that go along with them. But it hasn't turned me off to interviews. They're okay."(From AMG)
Why he went into acting:
"Well, it looked like a lot of fun. It looked pretty easy too. Not that it is, but from a thirteen year old's point of view it looked that way. I started out with painting for a while. My mother is an artist. Actually, I was interested in doing comics."(From AMG)
His favorite comic?:
"The Hulk. I really don't know why though, because it doesn't seem like it would be much fun to
be the Hulk."(From AMG)
McDowalls:
"Will I ever meet Roddy McDowall? I want him to show me his Planet of the Apes stuff."(From Premiere. Note: that question was asked before the death of the late, great Mr. McDowall. I have no idea if Kevin ever met him, but I hope so!)
"(Malcolm, Kevin's "Pearl" co-star)McDowell's a Lennon fan, too. We didn't talk about it much; it was a psychic connection." (From Paper)
His hangout, the Subway Inn (NYC):
"I don't know how many times I've been here. The last time I was here, a guy fell off the stool. Everybody went over to help him, and then propped him up at the end of the bar."(From Paper)
Ok, that's it for now... but wait... click here for quotes from others about Kevin!
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