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Mike Judge on Extract
By Fred Topel | Image property of Miramax Films
Extract
Mike Judge Presses Extract
“It actually kind of started out as that, like a subplot,” said writer/director Mike Judge. “In fact, then I realized it was only worthy of a subplot and the rest kind of came later. That came out of a conversation, two friends of mine, this was a long time ago, around ’99 I guess. We started talking about the Howard Stern show and how he would do that thing where, when he was married and he’s got a striper in there or whatever and he’s telling them his wife has cancer. We’re talking about how, because he’s never going to cheat on her, that’s the only way, if she were to die and then saying, or if she cheated. Kind of that conversation that they have [in the movie], we just had and started talking about that show and us being married guys. I just thought maybe that could be something that in a really messed up moment, that logic makes sense for a second and then it’s too late to stop. That’s how that started and I started just writing that, not knowing where it goes. Then I also had the thing about Mila [Kunis]’s character as a separate thing that I started to write. Sometimes I’ll just write little bits to see if I can work something out. Then I decided to make it all part of this workplace comedy.”
Judge gave himself a cameo as a factory employee too, but that was an accident. “I screwed up in this one because I said early on when people at Miramax were asking me if I was going to be in it, I said, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll play that guy.’ I described him as having a really big moustache and I wanted him to be really skinny but with a little belly. So once I said that, I think the casting people kind of got a little lazy and didn’t look as hard for that role because by the time, I don't know, we had people reading it that sounded like Elmer Fudd, kind of almost like cartoonish blue collar people so I said, ‘All right, I’ll [do it].’ I didn’t want the guy to look like I look.”
For the other parts, Judge pretty much had open casting. He did not write with anyone particularly in mind. “With this, I started writing it a long time ago, wasn’t thinking about anybody. Then after I’d seen Arrested Development, I did a rewrite thinking about Jason but not anybody else in it. A couple times I have, like with Idiocracy I was thinking about Luke when I did a rewrite. Other than that, and in that movie I was thinking about Benicio del Toro for President Camacho. When Terry Crews came in, well Benicio didn’t do it anyway, didn’t want to do it, but when Terry Crews came in, that was one of those times where he wasn’t how I imagined him but he just stole the part. He just did something different with it that I liked a lot.”
Bateman may follow in the Luke Wilson model of Mike Judge character. “I guess both of them, it’s like in different ways, watching them react to things, watching them react to crazy things. I think when I was first writing this, and Office Space also, I was imagining a young Bob Newhart I guess maybe, or like Charles Grodin, that kind of thing. Sometimes it’s a hard thing to describe but I think in different ways it’s just seeing fun people to watch react to other, crazier [ones].”
Extract opens to theaters on September 4th.
For the trailer, posters and more movie info, go to the Extract Movie Page.
Fred Topel
Sources: Image property of Miramax Films
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