Dan Fogler Interview, Fanboys

MoviesOnline sat down with Dan Fogler to talk about his new movie, “Fanboys,” directed by Kyle Newman. Set in 1998, “Fanboys” is a heartwarming comedy that follows a group of young, passionate Star Wars fans on a cross-country quest to break into George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch and watch “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace,” before it’s released. The film also stars Jay Baruchel, Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, and Kristen Bell.

Making an exceptional transition from theater to film, Tony award-winning actor Dan Fogler stars in several upcoming movies. In 2007, he starred in Ben Garant’s “Balls of Fury” opposite Christopher Walken as Randy Daytona, and later he starred in “Good Luck Chuck” opposite Dane Cook and Jessica Alba. Fogler will be seen in “The Marconi Brothers” as well as “Kids in America” with Topher Grace and Anna Faris. Fogler recently was part of the voice cast of the animated feature “Kung Fu Panda” with Jack Black and Jackie Chan, and “Horton Hears a Who” along with Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey.

Taking a more dramatic turn, Fogler recently completed “Traveling,” written and directed by Brandon Camp, starring opposite Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston. ”Traveling” is a romantic drama about an acclaimed self-help expert on grieving who deals with the death of his own wife. Fogler stars as Lane Martin, the self-proclaimed visionary behind Burke Preston (Eckhart).

Fogler won a Tony Award in 2005 for his performance in the Broadway production of William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” directed by James Lapine. Fogler was also honored with the Outer Critics Circle, The Lortel, Drama Desk for Best Ensemble, and Theatre World Awards for his portrayal. He also won the New York Magazine Culture Award for Best Breakthrough Performance that year. He reprised the role in the Spring of 2007 for the West Coast run of the musical.

Dan Fogler is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about his new movie, “Fanboys”:

MoviesOnline: You were attached to this right at the beginning, did you do it because it was a fun script or because you were a Star Wars fan and are you also a Star Trek fan?

DAN FOGLER: (whispers) Yes, don’t tell anybody.  When I got the script I was like, ‘My God, this is paying homage to almost every single aspect of my childhood, every movie I’ve ever loved,’ not just Star Wars, but Star Trek, although I love Star Wars more, so I signed on right away. I was like, ‘This is great.’ I loved paying homage to stuff that I grew up on. A lot of the movies I’ve done – Balls of Fury basically that’s Enter the Dragon, that’s Karate Kid, working with [Christopher] Walken who was an idol of mine, and also a movie called Young Americans, which is basically this movie that takes place in the ‘80s. I just have a real love affair with the time that I grew up in general. I think doesn’t everybody? You get nostalgic and this was like the perfect opportunity to play out all those fantasies that I had as a kid, like when are you ever going to be able to dive with a ray gun through a glass door? There was a lot of this, you know, dive rolls, and those are the best parts of the movie where we’re reenacting those great parts from the Star Wars series that I love, like the van with the light speed, all of those moments were really cool.

MoviesOnline: You were first, so when the cast got together, it sounds like you were all on the same page – was there somebody who just didn’t quite get it?

DAN FOGLER: I think there were different levels. We would sit down and have these little marathons of Star Wars through the Return of the Jedi, and I’d be the guy sitting in the back just like quoting every single second. Jay Baruchel, who plays Windows, I think he only saw Star Wars, he didn’t know about Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, and then once he saw Empire he was like, ‘How did I miss out on this?’ My favorite movie ever is Empire Strikes Back. Yeah, we were all different levels, but by the end Kyle Newman immersed us in all things in the geekdom world.

MoviesOnline: I would imagine with all you guys that you weren’t even born when the original Star Wars came out?

DAN FOGLER: I was a toddler, I was a toddler when Star Wars came out, the first memory I have is ’83 – I was born in ’76. That’s crazy. I think I was at a movie party for my brother in ’83 to see Return of the Jedi. That’s the first memory I have, and all the other ones I saw on HBO or something.

MoviesOnline: And it’s still relevant in terms of the lightsabers and stuff. As a kid, did you have all that stuff?

DAN FOGLER: Oh God, as a kid I had so many toys and piles and piles of comic books and GI Joes and Star Wars, and everything, and it was relevant. I think if those movies came out today, you would still be blown away. He was so ahead of his time when those movies came out, right? What else can you compare them to?

MoviesOnline: Of all of the actors that do cameos, who was the one you were most excited about and enjoyed working with?

DAN FOGLER: Billy Dee Williams was really cool, he was so cool, and just being like, ‘I was Lando Calrissian on my block when I was a child.’ And, of course, seeing Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia, who has this Hollywood history, and then seeing her on set joking around with us as a normal human being was amazing. That was the coolest part was to see that these legends are just people.

MoviesOnline: Did you ask them if they had any stories about what happened on the Star Wars set?

DAN FOGLER: Oh, you know, I never got a chance to ask anybody any specific stuff. It’s tough because you – how many times have they been asked those [questions] over the years? And then suddenly you’re on set and you’re playing a fanboy and you’re just like, ‘Hi.’  So a lot of it was really just trying to – and I find this a lot with a lot of celebrities, the more you make it not about what they’ve done, the more you make it about in the moment, ‘Did you like the smorgasbord?’ Those kind of questions, the more you get along.

MoviesOnline: Your character is so manic and insane, do you know people like him or how did you find this guy?

DAN FOGLER: He’s very much like me in a parallel universe. I was manic when I was in high school. In college, I was a lunatic. I definitely have friends that are wild and so passionate about something that they do ludicrous things, mostly with like rock bands and stuff. ‘Phish is playing, man, I’m going to dress up like a Phish and run across country.’ It’s like, what are you talking about? I’ve had friends that are so fanatic about something, and we met a lot of guys in preparation for the movie who build their own costumes and literally transform their houses into death stars and stuff like that. It wasn’t hard to base him on – they were right there.

MoviesOnline: You looked great too, did you have anything to say about what he was going to wear and the beard?

DAN FOGLER: Definitely, I wanted to look like that if he somehow got sucked into a vortex and was in Star Wars that he would look fine.

MoviesOnline: He also had a Han Solo vest on.

DAN FOGLER: That was the sort of thing where when I was in college I wore chains, a lot of chains, black jeans and chains, lot of vests, so that was a cross between trying to pay homage to how I looked like when I was in college but also like how I think this guy would dress. His closet would be filled with all the same outfits. (laughs) You know how some people say, ‘If I could be born in the sixties, I would love to have been alive during the Roarin’ 20s.’ He would have loved to have been alive during Star Wars, in that galaxy far, far away.

MoviesOnline: Having Kristen there, did she have the affect of keeping you guys grounded or was she one of the guys?

DAN FOGLER: She was one of the guys, she would rile us up, it’s also because it’s not hard to have a crush on the lady, so whenever she was around, the boys would get riled, definitely. But then she is also a consummate professional so she was probably the most professional person on the set. And she was our queen bee, so I would definitely look to her and say – because it was my first movie that I did after Spelling Bee, so I was looking to her for a lot of experience.

MoviesOnline: You won a Tony Award for Spelling Bee, are you looking for other musicals to do?

DAN FOGLER: I think that, yeah, I have a theatre company called Stage 13 in Manhattan, we do our own plays, and we make movies. I’ve got a movie called Hysterical Psycho that I wrote and directed, and it’s hitting the festival circuit right now, which is basically my homage to the sick rock and roll Hitchcock. But to answer your question, I totally see myself doing Broadway at some point down the line, but mostly I’m focusing on doing plays with my own company.

MoviesOnline: If you were speaking to a Star Wars fan, why should they go see this movie?

DAN FOGLER: I think from the beginning to end they will find numerous things that will warm their hearts. It’s so nostalgic, it pays homage to not just Star Wars but I guess all the movies that I watched growing up, and I also think they’ll identify with a lot of the characters and they’ll see themselves in it. There isn’t a movie out there that is for them, that reveres them.

MoviesOnline: Yes, it doesn’t make fun of them

DAN FOGLER: Right, and there’s some documentaries out there that - but this is really a celebration.

MoviesOnline: How do you think the Star Trek fans are going to react?

DAN FOGLER: I think that they’ll dig it, too. I think it’s for them as well. There is a rivalry with the Star Wars guys and the Trekkies, and I think that it would be so cool if after the movie suddenly there was like a West Side Story thing afterwards, like the rivalry grew. But I think they’ll dig it, they may get a little pissy with the treatment of the Trekkies, but what are you going to do?

MoviesOnline: Have you gone to conventions?

DAN FOGLER: I went when I was a kid a lot, comic book conventions

MoviesOnline: Did you go to any conventions with this?

DAN FOGLER: We went with this, this is the same thing – this and Balls of Fury were the same year at Comic Con, so revisiting that was a spectacle to behold.

MoviesOnline: And what did you think of Episode I?

DAN FOGLER: You know, I grew up on Star Wars through Return of the Jedi, so I feel like the technology is impressive. I saw what he was trying to do, but there are certain aspects of the technology, especially when you’re dealing with organic creatures, they’re not the puppets, so they don’t feel tangible. You don’t feel like you can hug them, even though Yoda now is spinning and flipping. Back in the day you were like, that reminds me of the muppets, muppetry, it reminds me of Frank Oz and I can hug Chewbacca. But it’s tough. And also, I think they had a little Harrison Ford injection, they like Benjamin Buttoned him down, 17 or something.

MoviesOnline: What do you have coming up next?

DAN FOGLER: I’ve got a couple of movies coming out, Young Americans is Topher Grace’s company, it’s also like a love letter to the ‘80s. And then Taking Woodstock, Ang Lee’s movie that’s coming out this summer, and Traveling, a Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckheart movie. I’ve got a lot of stuff percolating.

MoviesOnline: What about Wolfman Jack, the biopic that you’re doing with Kyle Newman?

DAN FOGLER: It’s in the preliminary stages right now, but yeah, it’s when Wolfman was first starting out as a disc jockey, he created this legend for himself where, (does Wolfman accent) ‘You heard it on the X’ (XERF was his station). The X was this mysterious radio station out in the middle of Mexico, and so the movie is basically about a week in his life where he created this legend. And the big climax of the movie is he is side by side with James Brown and they are fighting off Mexican banditos. That’s why I’m so excited about it.

“Fanboys” opens in theaters on February 6th.