Tagline: He’s across the pond and out of his debt.
Sidney Young is a disillusioned intellectual who both adores and despises the world of celebrity, fame and glamour. His alternative magazine, Post Modern Review, pokes fun at the media obsessed stars and bucks trends, and so when Young is offered a job at the diametrically opposed conservative New York based Sharps magazine its something of a shock!
It seems Sharps editor Clayton Harding is amused by Young’s disruption of a post-BAFTA party with a pig posing as Babe. Thus begins Sidney’s descent into success – his gradual move from derided outsider to confidante of starlet Sophie Maes – and a love affair with colleague Alison Olsen, that will either make him or break him.
First published in 2001, Toby Young’s memoir, How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, charts Young’s move from London to New York to become a contributing editor at the Vanity Fair. Fired less than two years later, the memoir hilariously captures Young’s failed attempt to take Manhattan by storm.
About the Production
How To Lose Friends & Alienate People is directed by Oscar® nominated Robert Weide and produced by Oscar® nominated Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen. The Stephen Woolley / Elizabeth Karlsen/ Number 9 Films production was developed as part of the UK Film Council’s slate funding initiative with Film4, the Irish Film Board, Intandem Films and Audley Films. It is based on the bestselling memoir by Toby Young and the screenplay is by Peter Straughan. The cast is led by Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead), Kirsten Dunst (Spider-Man trilogy, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Bring It On), Danny Huston (The Constant Gardener, 30 Days of Night), Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, The Last King of Scotland), Megan Fox (Transformers), Max Minghella (Hippie Hippie Shake) and Jeff Bridges (Seabiscuit, The Big Lebowski).
First published in 2001, Toby Young’s memoir, How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, charts Young’s move from London to New York to become a contributing editor at the highly prestigious magazine Vanity Fair. Fired less than two years later, the memoir hilariously captures Young’s failed attempt to take Manhattan by storm.
Toby Young reminisces: “Things really didn’t work out for me at Vanity Fair, and one of the reasons was that I was just completely naïve about what being a journalist in New York was like. I had seen films like, His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story, and I was expecting the corridors of Vanity Fair to be full of these debonair wits, trading wisecracks in-between sips from the hip flask. It was actually this incredibly rule-bound society – much more rule-bound than the culture I’d come from. We have this idea that America’s this great informal place, it’s like one giant speakeasy where everyone is completely themselves. But London’s quite like that; New York is nothing like that. New York’s much more like London was a hundred years ago, and I felt almost like I was Austin Powers who’d come of age in this kind of permissive, swinging `60s era who’d been teleported back in time to the Victorian era.”
The memoir was optioned by Film4 in 2002 and Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen of Number 9 Films approached both Film4 and Toby Young to produce it. Stephen was drawn to the memoir because, as he says, “in the book he explains why he [Toby Young] is like he is, a pain in the arse, and the self deprecation saves Toby from sheer sleaziness. It’s also laugh out loud hilarious!”
Producer Stephen Woolley was aware that there needed to be changes to the memoir to make the transition to film, he comments: “The book is a series of tremendously funny but disconnected events that happened to Toby Young whilst he was working at Vanity Fair in the late 1990s. What we wanted to do was really find a spine to the tale, a romance, so that the Sidney Young not only falls in love with New York but also a character from New York who, like him, realizes that the magazine industry at heart can be corrupting.”
Screenwriter Peter Straughan was brought onto the project because Producers Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen had liked his script Three Bad Men; he had previously written the screenplay for Sixty Six, which Elizabeth Karlsen also produced, and is currently working with George Clooney on Men Who Stare At Goats. Peter created the character Alison (played by Kirsten Dunst) who works at Sharps magazine and although she instantly dislikes Sidney Young, begins to warm to his bumbling charm throughout the course of the film.
Toby Young adds: “One of the differences between the story that’s told in the film and the real story, is that the film is a romantic comedy and the courtship between Simon Pegg and Kirsten Dunst is kind of cute and funny, and it hits a few roadblocks, then their coming together. In reality, I dated the woman for a while (who subsequently became my wife) and then she dumped me. Then I managed to persuade her to go back out with me, and then she dumped me again. And then I proposed to her and she said, `no.’ And then we went back out with each other and I proposed to her again, and she said, `I’ll think about it.’ It literally took me five years of continuous stalking to get her to agree to marry me. And a film that actually, faithfully, recreated that story would be more of a dark psychological thriller than a romantic comedy!”
With a great script, the producers turned their attention to finding the right director. Stephen Woolley, Toby Young and Peter Straughan are great fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm and thought that Robert Weide, Director and Executive Producer of the television series, could bring that same comic sensibility to similar material. Stephen reasons that the director needed a comedy background and Robert was the natural choice, he says: “The most important thing is that this film delivers what it says on the tin: comedy. I thought that if Bob [Robert Weide] can bring half of what he had with Curb Your Enthusiasm we could have a good chance of making people laugh.”
Robert Weide had been keen to do the right film for a couple of years and “a few pages into it, I thought, I really want to do this… I was really impressed with what Peter brought to it in that he kept a lot of the anecdotes and then fabricated this new story line, the love story and created new characters out of old cloth that were really interesting. It feels like an original piece in that it is not beholden to the book.”
Casting the Film
According to the producers, the key to the whole film was to cast someone who can portray Sidney Young in a sympathetic light. Producer Stephen Woolley says: “The character of Sidney Young is fairly close to the character that Toby [Young] creates in his own book with one slight difference: I think that Sidney is a hell of a lot more sympathetic than Toby’s character, and that doesn’t come through necessarily only in the writing, that comes through Simon Pegg. Simon is generally somebody that, no matter how hard or tough or bad they seem, you always know that it’s Simon Pegg and in the end he’s going to make you smile. You instantly love him: he’s an instantly lovable guy.” Toby Young jokingly adds: “He is immensely likeable, you can’t dislike Simon and given how appalling the character he’s playing is, I mean me, being so likeable is a hugely important quality.”
Director Robert Weide explains: “Simon just has that way about him that he can get away with anything; he can say really obnoxious things, act like a jerk and be very inappropriate, yet he is just so likeable at the core that I think the audience’s sympathies will stay with him and they will root for him. Simon is able to walk that line between just being really uproariously funny and being a very sympathetic character that I think you care about.”
Robert Weide had become a fan of Simon Pegg’s work and thought that he would be perfect for the role due to his proven comedy track record with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Robert comments: “Simon needs very little directing as his first instincts are always so good. I literally cannot imagine having done this film without Simon now, I don’t know who else could have played him, I don’t know who could have ridden that line between being so obnoxious and so sympathetic and so funny.”
Simon Pegg was first drawn to the project because of the screenplay, he says: “I read the script and I really liked it. I think Peter [Straughan] is a really good writer, it is funny and it just had what I think as an actor you look for in a script which is a challenging character and an interesting situation. When you read the book you think how could this possibly be turned into a film? But he’s taken the spirit of it and the heart of it and put it on the screen, the page, which is a really clever thing to do. It’s a funny comedy, a lot of which is based on truth.”
Director Robert Weide’s attachment to the project was also a big draw because of his comedy background directing Curb Your Enthusiasm. Simon Pegg explains: “When you’re doing a comedy it’s really important that the person behind the lens understands the dynamics of comedy. They have to be, the best comedies are shot by funny people and Bob’s a very funny guy.”
Kirsten Dunst plays Alison Olsen, Sidney Young’s colleague and eventual love interest. Stephen Woolley and Robert Weide had previously worked with Kirsten Dunst on Interview with a Vampire and Mother Night respectively. Stephen has watched her career since and thought of her for the role because of Bring it On which “is really funny and Kirsten is terrific in it. It is this film that made me think, she really knows humour,” states Stephen.
Drawn to the project for a number of reasons, Kirsten says: “20 pages into the script you can usually tell whether it’s good or not, and I was laughing. And when I had heard that Simon was attached, I’d seen Shaun of the Dead and was a big fan of his and I really wanted to work with him. It was nice to have the comfort of knowing Bob [Robert Weide] and having an environment where everyone just really wants to have good time together and is open. I felt very collaborative from the very beginning with Bob, we all respect each other a lot.” She adds: “I’m very instinctual about the things that I do and with the people that are surrounding the project. So meeting and knowing Bob and reading the script it was a definite yes for me.”
Jeff Bridges plays Clayton Harding, the Editor-In-Chief of Sharps magazine. Robert Weide says: “As soon as I read the script, I immediately saw Jeff Bridges.” Stephen Woolley adds: “we had a very clear idea of who we would like to play the boss of the magazine because the character should be someone who recognizes in Sidney the rebel and the anarchist that he was when he was Sidney’s age. The person who does that for me, just as an actor in terms of their career, is Jeff Bridges. When I was a teenager watching movies, anything with Jeff Bridges was fantastic because he also played anti-heroes, he always played the rebel. The list of great Jeff Bridges’ movies is just phenomenal. Clayton Harding is a role that was made for Jeff, because it’s someone who was that old anarchist, that old rebel, who’s now got stuck in this role that he’s in as one of the most successful editors in the world at a point in his life where he doesn’t want to upset the barrel.”
Toby Young agrees with Producer Stephen Woolley: “Casting Jeff Bridges as Clayton Harding is just perfect. Clayton is based on Graydon Carter, the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, and Graydon was in his youth a real rebel. He’s a poacher-turned-gamekeeper, he’s a sort of reluctant member of the establishment, and Jeff has often played rebellious roles, he’s very closely associated with independent films, he’s won various Independent Spirit awards, and so for him to now be playing this kind of rather patrician Yankee, glossy magazine editor is just a perfect fit.”
Jeff Bridges chose the project for a myriad of reasons, he explains: “Probably the top of the list was a chance to work with my buddy, Bob Weide. We go back about 12 years and we were working on a project that fell through but we worked on it for a long time, long and hard. So when he called me up and told me about this movie he was making, the chance to be involved in his first movie was very exciting to me. And he told me about the wonderful cast that he was assembling and I just prayed that the script was going to be good so that I could say yes to it. And it made me laugh and it was a wonderful script, wonderful tale.”
Megan Fox plays Sophie Maes, an aspiring actress who is coveted by Sidney Young. Casting Sophie Maes took a long time as Stephen Woolley explains: “It was sheer hard work to find somebody who could play the part. We wanted someone who was reminiscent of Judy Holliday who played in films like The Solid Gold Cadillac, a kind of blonde bimbo and a little like Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch; we wanted that quality of having sexuality and power over men that was innocent and yet not quite innocent.” Director Robert Weide recalls: “I saw a lot of great people. Megan, who was unknown at the time, … walked in and just did this audition that made my jaw drop and she walked out and I looked at the casting directors and said that the search was over. It was as if the part had been written for her.”
Toby Young adds: “Casting Megan Fox as Sophie Maes is a master-stroke. The character, Sophie Maes, is supposed to be a hot, young Hollywood starlet, the next big thing, the actress that every producer wants to cast in his blockbuster and, that’s exactly who Megan Fox is so it’s just perfect.”
Megan comments that whilst her character shares some similarities with famous celebutantes, Sophie Maes “is not a bad girl, but she’s not a good girl either, and she sort of loses her head in the process of finding her new-found fame.”
Danny Huston plays Lawrence Maddox, Sidney Young’s immediate boss at Sharp’s magazine. Producer Stephen Woolley remembers: “Danny Huston was a first choice for us because he is used to playing a slightly sleazy, slightly sexy kind of role. That kind of guy who is so handsome, gets all the girls and all the other guys hate. The kind of guy who is slightly mannered, slightly effete in a way that’s attractive to women – complimentary about the hair, complimentary about the way they look, would pay attention to their little dogs – in a way that we, most guys would find very hard to do. Danny just fits so well into that mould.” Director Robert Weide agreed and says that “I can’t see anyone other than Danny playing this part.”
Danny Huston comments: “I took this role because I thought it was a wonderful satire, in the old fashioned Preston Sturges kind of way – with a modern flair of the wry tabloid world – and with a combination of marvelous actors such as the witty Simon Pegg, the delightful and beautiful Kirsten Dunst, the legendary Jeff Bridges, and director Bob Weide grounding this deliciously vicious witty and romantic tale, based on the book by Toby Young. How could I possibly resist?”
Gillian Anderson plays Eleanor Johnson, the PR doyenne of New York who represents both Sophie Maes and Vincent Lepak. Stephen Woolley says: “We had no idea that we could get somebody as great as Gillian to play Eleanor. She’s a terrific actress, as she’s proven on the stage in London, in Bleak House on TV, and of course in movies, in Terrence Davies’ film, she was absolutely fantastic. The interesting thing about Gillian Anderson is that, despite the amazing career she’s had – of course all the episodes of The X Files that became such a phenomenal cult series around the world – she has rarely played humor. So she brings a great sense of sophistication to the role of Eleanor.
“Eleanor is in the sassy Bette Davis mould. I always think about, whenever I see Eleanor in her costume strutting around the office, Davis in All About Eve – that sort of cutting, clever wit, and that sort of obsession, so self-obsessed and yet so seemingly caring about other people. She doesn’t simply see Sophie Maes as just another instant meal ticket. She grooms her! Eleanor’s very cagey, very sensitive, very sly, very attractive, and I think Gillian brings all those things to the part.
“There was a little bit of a concern about Gillian being kind of too attractive, because she’s a gorgeous person and a knock-out, but I think she’s played it so perfectly that you really can’t like her very much. She comes across, from the first moment you meet her, as being just not the kind of person you want to hang out with.”
Gillian was primarily drawn to the script, she comments: “It was witnessing a purely funny script which doesn’t happen very often. I’d recently become a fan of Bob’s after having been exposed, ten years on, to Curb Your Enthusiasm for the first time. The attachment of Simon, who I’ve been a big fan of for a while, also helped.”
Production notes provided by Paramount Pictures.
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
Starring: Simon Pegg, Megan Fox, Kirsten Dunst, Gillian Anderson, Jeff Bridges
Directed by: Robert B. Weide
Screenplay by: Peter Straughan, Toby Young
Release Date: October 3, 2008
MPAA Rating: R for language, some graphic nudity and brief drug material.
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $2,778,752 (16.1%)
Foreign: $14,507,547 (83.9%)
Total: $17,286,299 (Worldwide)