Saturday 16 May 2009

Jason Lee

?: Tell me about your background.

LEE: I was born in Orange, California and I grew up in Huntington Beach. I started skateboarding when I was five and continued to do so off and on over the years.


?: Was it a neighborhood thing?

LEE: Growing up in Huntington Beach, you were either a traditional sports athlete, a skateboarder, or a surfer. I got my first skateboard when I was five and skated off and on over the years, did a little BMX racing as a kid, and then in my freshman or sophomore year I started getting a little bit more into skateboarding.


?: This was what, the late 80's?

LEE: I was born in 70, so my sophomore year must have been 86. 85- 86 I started getting really heavily into skateboarding, but I had done it for so many years prior that it was easy for me to dive right into it and pick up on it, once I got older and I grew a little bit and matured some physically. Then in 88 I turned professional.


?: This is when the professional scene had begun to legitimize itself, right?

LEE: Absolutely. Skateboarding was becoming a very big, well-recognized sport. It wasn't as big as it is now we didn't have the X-Games back then. We had much fewer professional skateboarders. Now, just about everybody who rides a skateboard is either sponsored or professional and competing. So it was much different back then it wasn't that long ago, but it was definitely much different.


?: Is there a difference about how you felt as a skateboarder then and how a skateboarder might feel today?


Jason Lee skateboarding in Mumford

LEE: Oh yeah. When I first turned pro, it was March of 89 a month before my 19th birthday. Again, there were fewer professional skateboarders. There was a lot more individualism within skateboarding. People were sort of into their own thing. There's a lot more people now and there's a lot more pressure that comes with being a professional skateboarder ¿ to keep up with what everybody's doing.

It's a lot more corporate now everybody has their own shoe company or clothing line or their own skateboard company these young, entrepreneur, professional skateboarders. It seemed like it was skateboarding back than. Yes, there was pressure, but it seemed more fun and more enjoyable and more of an individual act something that you got pleasure from. The simple act of riding your skateboard. Traveling was fun and competing was fun, but at the end of the day, nobody really cared they just liked skateboarding. Now, it's almost like an Olympic event with the X-Games, endorsements, commercials it's this is huge world now. I think I got out of it at the right time. I had been pro for seven years, achieved everything I had wanted to achieve¿


?: Which was?

LEE: I started a company with a friend of mine named Stereo Skateboards, which still exists today out of San Francisco very innovative, very creative company. Very kind of jazz influenced... blue note we used a lot of retro graphics. We did a video with Super 8 film photography scored entirely with jazz music. Really, really innovative stuff. I got to travel skateboarding got me out of the suburbs. I saw other worlds, met a lot of people, and started this company which we had a blast doing during my time. I just slipped out through the back door at the perfect time. I didn¿t want to be one of those ex-pro skateboarders that has nowhere to go, so he ultimately ends up starting a company and managing it and so on and so forth. I just wanted to cut the line completely.


?: So you don't just twist in the wind?

LEE: Exactly. I wanted to be looked at for the skateboarder that I was. I didn't want to be the 36-year-old skateboarder who's still holding on while owning a company at the same time. I wanted to make my mark and travel and accomplish a few things here and there and then get out.


?: It's also a very youth-driven sport, isn't it?

LEE: Absolutely. There are exceptions. Tony Hawk, he's, as a lot of people say, the Michael Jordan of skateboarding. He's definitely the best at what he does. He's a great businessman. His name costs a lot of money now. He's a multi, multi, multi, multimillionaire, and he's still respected as, by far, without a doubt, the best vertical ramp skateboarder in the world, and he's got to be, now, 32 ? and he's still at it. So there are exceptions.


?: It's amazing to hear the phrase, he's got to be 32? I guess, looking at that sport, the average is what, 15 to 20 years old?

LEE: Professional skateboarders, I'd say, anywhere from 19 to probably 27. Even though skateboarders like to drink a lot and goof off and not eat the best food and train like an Olympic athlete would, they¿re in good shape. A 28-year-old skateboarder who's been at it his whole life may be banged up some, but he's still got some juice in him. When I was skateboarding, I was in really, really good shape. I find myself having to kind of move around a lot and walk and things like that, otherwise my muscles get sore. Skateboarding everyday is unbelievable exercise.


?: Then there is the added pressure, as you said, of the corporate sponsorships and having to deal with the kind of pressure of keeping on your game in order to keep the contracts ?

LEE: Yeah, and you have to. Skateboarders can be harsh ¿ if you¿re not keeping up with the latest tricks that everybody's doing ¿ the tricks that have been seen in skateboard videos or the new issue of Thrasher magazine or Transworld Skateboarding magazine ¿ there are people out there that will give you a hard time for it within the inner circles and cliques that exist. I used to get a hard time from my peers in a joking manner but if I didnt skateboard for three days because I was playing guitar or hanging out with my girlfriend at the time, I'd get s*** for it. Dude, why aren't you skateboarding? What's up? You haven't skateboarded in three days? Oh my God, man. It's a weird kind of thing, to where people are so wrapped up in having to stay on top of their game that they absorb themselves with skateboarding to the point where it's a lifestyle to such a degree that outside of that is a little bit unknown. It was like that for me, too, for a long time all I knew was skateboarding and I didn't relate to anything else. As I got older, of course, I had traveled so much and started hanging out with people who had nothing to do with skateboarding and I was playing guitar and doing other things and running the company with my friend and shooting Super 8 film of the skaters that were on our team and whatnot ¿ and I saw a lot of that single-mindedness in these young up-and-coming skaters... the insecurities that I had too ,I'd better be on top of my game, too, or I'm going to be left behind.


?: The sport fosters that, though, doesn't it?

LEE: Yeah. Absolutely. More than any other sport. In baseball, there's no new trick to keep up on it's just a matter of playing the game. In skateboarding, it's very, very, very high-pressured to the point where it drives people crazy.


?: At what point did you decide that you were going to stop skateboarding?

LEE: After Mallrats , my first movie because I wasn't skateboarding as much. I wasn't interested. I didn't have it in me, and I thought, I don't want to milk this thing. I'm just going to end it now. A lot of ex-pro skaters still skate, still hang out with skaters, still have some kind of an involvement in skateboarding. I didn't have that in me. I burnt out completely.


?: You had also expanded your worldview beyond that group

LEE: Yeah.


?: To some extent, is it the kind of thing where ¿ once you¿re exposed to the outside world, it makes you look at that microcosm of skating more critically?

LEE: No, because, fortunately when I turned pro skateboarding was much different than it is now, so I have a lot of good memories. I'm not bitter about anything frankly, I don't care one way or the other. Skateboarding is what it is now. I had my time in it I would like to think that I made a mark in that world and got out at a great time.


?: Before it burned you out completely?

LEE: Yeah, before it really burnt me out. The tours and the traveling and being around skateboarding all the time, talking about skateboarding, reading skateboard magazines, watching skateboard videos, and just being around it all the time it was literally like being in the dugout all the time if you were a baseball player and sleeping on the baseball field and reading Baseball Weekly and hanging out with only baseball players, talking only about baseball then retiring from that and starting, like, a bat manufacturing company. Just hanging on to it and being around it all the time. With acting, I'm acting when I'm on the set when I go home, I can be a human being with no ties to that world whatsoever. Then three months later, or a month later, or six months later go off and do another movie. Just be an actor when I'm acting, and that's it. Whereas, with skateboarding, you re a skateboarder all the time. So yeah, it was a good point getting out when I did because I didn't feel washed up and I had done just about everything that I had wanted to do. I still have friends from skateboarding that I've known for a long time that have done some amazing things for skateboarding


?: But in the end, they're friends

LEE: In the end, it's the people who have other interests. My friend Chris who I started Stereo with he goes to school, he records music, he's an artist he's got a lot going on about him. He's one of those skateboarders who has real human qualities to him, and skateboarding is just one of the many things that he does. Those are the people that I associated myself with.

?: The people to which skateboarding was a part of their life, but not their whole life

LEE: Exactly.


?: How did the audition process for Mallrats come about, since you were still skating at the time?

LEE: I moved to LA from Huntington Beach when I was 21 in 91. I moved into a loft in downtown LA with a couple of guys that knew these guys from this band that had also moved from Huntington Beach into that same warehouse. I knew a skateboarder that was also an actor he had done some television shows and whatnot. He wasn't a professional skateboarder, but he knew some pro skaters. He introduced me to the Ribisi family. Gay Ribisi the mother of Giovanni and Marissa Ribisi is my manager, and has been since the very beginning. So I met the Ribisi family and I dated Marisa for about four years when I was still a skater. Her mother, being their manager at the time, would submit me on auditions for s***s and giggles just to see how I would do on commercials and for small roles on sitcoms. I was just horrible I was really awful. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. My head wasn't at the right place at that time, so I never did anything with it.

The most I ever did really was a small walk-on part in Mi Vida Loca. I had done a Sonic Youth video that Spike Jonze shot where I was skateboarding. I flew to Malaysia to do skateboarding double work for a British Petroleum commercial. Other than that, I had headshots over the years here and there, and nothing ever came of it. A few months before I found out about Mallrats, I approached Gay and said, I really like movies. I've always liked movies, and I'm really intrigued by the idea of creating characters and I wonder what that would be like. Could you submit me on movie auditions only? Forget about commercials and television because I hated sitcoms and I didn¿t want to do commercials. I actually auditioned for commercials and it was a nightmare the fake smile holding the Pepsi can ¿ it was just so not me. I hated it with a passion.


?: Well, then, it¿s a good thing you¿re not in skateboarding today

LEE: Yeah¿ exactly. A lot of commercials. So I said to Gay, If I get something within three months, you can take me on as my agent. If I don't, I'll try again later. Then three months later, she talked with Don Phillips who cast Mallrats about me, and she said, I've got this kid, he's dating my daughter Oh wait, I wasn't dating her at the time. I had a new girlfriend at the time who is now my wife of five years. So I went in and met Don Phillips and he told Gay, Yeah, he's a nice kid, but he's a skateboarder and not an actor. But I will let him come back and read for Kevin Smith anyway. So I go back in and I read for Jeremy London's role that's the role all the guys had to read for and I was awful. I didn't have that straight guy in me the leading man type.

?: Were you self aware of that at the time?

LEE: Yeah. I was still naive, and I didn¿t have that confidence that comes of experience. That's why I was able to get into acting as easily as I did, because I wasn't jaded. I didn't have a cynical bone in my body concerning acting. I didn't know better one way or the other. I wasn't a kid who moved out from Iowa with aspirations of becoming a famous star ¿ I was intrigued by the idea of filmmaking and by the idea of what it would be like to play a character in a movie... So my initial purpose was a very clean one. It wasn't, ¿I want to be famous. I want to make a lot of money. OK, let's try acting


?: So it was very similar to what initially drew you to skateboarding?

LEE: Exactly. I grew up skateboarding, it was fun . I didn't think about money, I didn't know how much professional skateboarders made. I just knew that if I became a professional skateboarder, I would achieve a lot and get to travel and do these great things. My intentions have always been very clean, very clear cut, very honest, and pure. Therefore, I was able to get these things that I wanted, because I didn't have an ego about it. I didn't have anyone whispering in my ear saying, You can't make it, son. Acting is hard. Give up. If you want to do movies first, you're dreaming. It's impossible. You've got to do commercials and television first and build up your resume . I didn't have any of that bulls*** from anybody. I just didn't open myself up to it, because I was so outside of the loop, so to speak, of that world.

So I had a very clean, clear cut, pure purpose.Hey, movies are cool. Let's try to do movies, because I'd really like to see what it would be like to play characters. That was the initial purpose. With that in mind, I went in and I read for Kevin, but I didn't have the ¿technical aspect down. I didn't have that confidence that comes with experience, so I was awful. Then Kevin said, Why don't you read for Brodie? I came back and I read for Brodie and he laughed, and then while I was outside I pulled his producer aside before he went back in the room and said, What does he want? He said, He wants it fast. It's got to be fast. So I went in again and I read it with a much faster pace, he laughed, and I got called back quite a few times over a three week period. Then I got a called back to the final call back, which is the infamous Don Phillips Pizza Party, where three or four actors up for each role are there there's about 35 of us and they're switching us off. Okay, now you read with so-and-so, and then you read this part with so-and-so. And Don Phillips, over the course of the entire day, slowly lets people go.


?: That's got to be fun

LEE: It was exciting to be at the final call back, but it wasn't fun in that he would come out and tell people, Okay, you can go home now. Which meant, This isn't going any further. So I was wondering, S*** Is he going to come to me? Is he going to come to me? Lo and behold, I was there at the end of the day the last one there. Kevin Smith pulled me into his temporary office ¿ my friend had bought me some Carl's Jr., because I couldn't eat any of the pizza because I was so nervous that I couldn't eat all day I was sweating like a pig all day, I had the worst body odor, I was jittery I was just so disoriented and so delirious¿ and Kevin said, You've got to the part. Needless to say, I practically crapped myself. And he said, But you're inexperienced, so I want to fly you out early and start working with you. I said, Great! Whatever it takes! So I flew out early and we rehearsed, and it was at that time that I realized, Okay, I can either screw this up by taking this whole experience for granted, or I can be the most professional person that I can possibly be and not screw this up. That was the beginning of the work ethic that I have that still applies in that I'm making good money, I'm doing something I like to do. The day I become the jaded, cynical, asshole actor that takes it all for granted doing parts just for money is the day I get the f*** out of acting for good. I'll never let that happen. That marked that time for me.OK, this is my start into this new world let's not screw it up. Let's do the right thing. Let's show up on time. Let's ask all the questions that need to be asked in order to play this role the way it was intended to be played.

?: Whereas somebody ego-driven would find any way possible not to show that they don't know

LEE: Exactly. Exactly. That's such a good point. That's right. I wasn't scared to be the newcomer. I wasn't going to play like I'd done it before, or be like, I've got the funny role in the movie hey look at me! Or brag to all my friends about it. I thought, Hell, if I screw this up, they'll kick me off. They don't give a s***. They'll hire somebody else in five minutes. So I was like, Hey, I'm open. What the hell do I do here? Tell me. Please. That was why I think it was so successful for me. That marked the beginning of this whole journey, and I still apply to this day what I applied on that set back in 94 in cold-ass Minnesota.

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