Gaten Matarazzo realizes that his “Pizza Movie” is intentionally one wild and crazy film that genuflects to the druggy teen comedies of earlier eras.
“What’s really fun about this,” Matarazzo, 23, the “Stranger Things veteran said in a virtual interview with his castmates, “is that it is ultimately a real love letter to the movies that inspired it. It’s very self referential.
“The one thing,” he noted, “that comes along when you do stoner comedies, or buddy comedies in general, is that they tend to have their consistencies, their expected stereotypes.
“And what this movie does really well is acknowledge that and builds a movie around that reference point in a very fun, pretty refreshing way. It’s part of the reason why I, personally, fell in love with it a lot.”
“It’s cathartic to watch a movie like this,” added Lulu Wilson, 20, “and just be able to escape and laugh with your buddies. At the heart of it is just like a really fun movie to watch with your friends. Maybe get a little high.
“Maybe,” she added slyly, “if you want to. If you’re into that kind of thing. If you’re a legal age.”
“It is like a classic movie of the 80s, with friendships and bullies,” Sean Giambrone, 26, offered. “But then it feels extremely like contemporary with what’s going on. Then it’s just, like, stirred, flipped on its head with all the experimental drugs.
“So it’s very new, but it feels relatable in ways that you have seen.”
Matarazzo’s Jack is “Pizza” ’s troubled center.
“Jack’s really interesting and really fun to jump into,” he said. “Jack, in a weird way, is attention-obsessed and hyper-concerned as he’s caught up in a newly found situation of being, I guess you could call it, canceled by the people in the school and in his social life.
“As someone who values the perception of other people around him so highly, it’s catastrophic. It becomes an all-consuming effort on his part to find a redeemability.
“This despite having people very close to him, that are very clearly going to support and love him throughout any mishaps that may have occurred over the course of the last few weeks leading up to the movie.
“That’s a pretty cool balance of playing somebody who fiercely loves and wants to be a very positive force and have fun and engage and know people. He wants to be a very good person,
“But he’s forgetting that the people right in front of him are the ones who matter more than anything.
“That’s a cool, weird little balance to play with. And I’m sure a lot of people will probably find him insufferable. So apologies.”
“Pizza Movie” streams on Hulu April 3
