About the Production: Second Chances
At 17, Mike O’Donnell is young and in love and thinks he has all the answers. The problem is he doesn’t even know the questions. And years later, he finds himself wishing he could retake the test. But as the saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.”
Zac Efron, who stars as Mike O’Donnell-at age 17 and at 17 again-remarks, “It’s that grand idea of being able to go back and change the whole trajectory of your life. If you went back armed with the knowledge that you have now, what decisions would you alter and what would the outcome be?”
Burr Steers, the director of “17 Again,” offers, “I think anyone can relate to being stuck on that seminal moment when a decision led you down a certain path in life, and always wondering: if you could go back and take the other route, would you?”
The screenplay was written by Jason Filardi, who says that it’s not just a matter of getting a do-over. The key is retaining the memories of the first time around and trying not to follow in your old footsteps. “I have always thought there was a lot of comic potential in the saying ‘If only I knew then what I know now,'” he attests. “As an adult going back to high school, you would assume knowledge is power. I mean, you would know how to work the teachers, the cliques, the sports… It would be a dream come true, right?” Maybe not.
Producer Adam Shankman notes, “It all goes back to that fundamental idea of appreciating what we have in life and not taking anything for granted, which is a recurring theme for me, both in my personal life and in my work. Our hero, Mike O’Donnell, is at a crossroads and is disappointed in how his life turned out. And, apparently, when a man who is not where he wants to be holds a mirror up, he prefers to see Zac Efron’s face,” he smiles.
That’s understandable, considering “when you look at him through the camera, it’s just extraordinary,” continues Shankman, who had just collaborated with the actor on the hit movie musical “Hairspray.” “Zac just has that indefinable ‘It’ factor. But he is also very talented and works so hard. He’s extremely dedicated; he puts so much into everything he does, and I’ve watched him grow leaps and bounds over the last few years.”
In fact, when Shankman and his producing partner and sister, Jennifer Gibgot, got the “17 Again” script from Filardi, they immediately saw it as a perfect starring vehicle for Efron. Gibgot affirms, “We thought this would be a great opportunity to cast Zac outside of the musical comedy mold. We knew how funny he could be, and how good he is with physical comedy. He has a lot of layers that most people haven’t had the opportunity to see yet.”
Reading the script, the young actor appreciated that the story offered him the chance to take on a role that was literally beyond his years. “That’s what initially drew me to the part,” Efron says. “I’ve played teenagers, but it was intriguing to think about playing a guy in his 30s. That’s an area I have no familiarity with. I can relate to playing a kid-I’ve had a first kiss, I’ve had awkward dates, I’ve had fights with my parents… But one thing I’ve never done is gotten into a fight with my teenage daughter,” he laughs. “So having no personal experience to draw on was a little intimidating, but, at the same time, it seemed like it would be a lot of fun.”
With Efron set to star, the producers chose Burr Steers to direct the film. Steers had made his feature film debut with the acclaimed indie hit “Igby Goes Down,” which Shankman calls “a great character study. Burr is a terrific actors’ director; that was important to us. When we met with him, he had a really interesting take on the script, which was exciting to us.”
Gibgot says, “When Burr talked about what he loved about the story, it was all the same things that I loved about it. We also wanted a director with a bit of a quirky sensibility, who wasn’t going to make a straight-down-the-middle comedy, and I think he really achieved that.”
“The first thing that hooked me about the concept was the combination of heart and humor,” recalls Steers. “And Adam and Jennifer are such fun, creative people. I was already an admirer of Adam’s work-he did such an amazing job on ‘Hairspray’-and Jennifer is an incredibly effective producer. She has only one agenda: to make the movie better. Then I met with Zac and we really hit it off, and that sealed the deal.”
“I learned so much from Burr,” Efron says. “He taught me a lot about being real in front of the camera, even in a story that takes a leap of faith, and that’s where a lot of the comedy is generated from. I loved working with him.”
Generation Gap
In “17 Again,” we first see Efron as 17-year-old high school senior Mike O’Donnell, who is living a charmed life in 1989. Handsome, popular and the hero of his high school basketball team, Mike is about to take the court for the big game, the game that will make or break his future. But at that moment, his girlfriend, Scarlet, breaks the news that she is pregnant and Mike makes a pivotal decision: he gives up the game, and a sure college scholarship, choosing to be with Scarlet. Almost 20 years later, Mike’s once-bright future has been overshadowed by a dead-end job, a failing marriage and two teenage kids he barely knows. And now he can’t help but wonder What if…?
“At the beginning,” says Efron, “there were so many doors open to him, but he gave up all those opportunities. It all came down to that one day for him; if he could go back and play in that game, he could keep his future open. I mean, what if you made one decision that made the rest of your life dull and monotonous? Of course you’d want to go back and change it.”
Matthew Perry, who stars as the adult Mike O’Donnell, comments, “Everybody makes choices they regret in life, but if you’re constantly looking back and I thinking, ‘I wish I’d done this or that,’ you’re always going to be miserable. Mike is unhappy with the way his life turned out and is at the end of his rope. He needs to learn to be a little more grateful for what he has-a great wife and terrific kids-and realize that maybe he is the problem. When I read the script, I liked the character even though he’s so bummed out. I could sympathize with him.”
Gibgot offers, “One of the things Matthew does so brilliantly is play the lovable, put-upon guy. That’s what we wanted: somebody who obviously felt all the pain and disappointment but who wasn’t too heavy-handed about it, someone who you could laugh with and be rooting for. Matthew balances that better than anyone else.”
“Matthew has an instant likeability factor,” adds Steers. “That was key to the audience caring about this guy because, initially, Mike is just wallowing in self-pity.”
As it turns out, Mike O’Donnell is still living a charmed life. After a seemingly chance encounter with a mysterious old man (Brian Doyle Murray), who somehow seems to know exactly how he is feeling, Mike is given a miraculous gift. The next time he looks in the mirror, he discovers he has been magically transformed back to the age of 17-at least outwardly. Inwardly, he is still 37 and remembers exactly who, where, and how old he truly is. Incredulity soon gives way to joy and renewed optimism as Mike realizes he has been given a second shot at the life he thought he threw away.
Although they have no actual scenes together in the film, Zac Efron and Matthew Perry enjoyed a different kind of collaboration “because we were essentially playing the same part,” explains Perry. “So a lot of the rehearsal process was me reading some of his lines and him reading some of my lines and listening to the way we said certain things. He was also eager to emulate some of my mannerisms, like he noticed I have a tendency to put my hands in my pockets.”
Efron, who takes over the part after Mike’s reversal to age 17, states, “It was a blast to split the role with Matt. He has an incredible sense of comedic timing with a kind of dryness in his delivery. He’s so naturally funny. Every once in a while, at odd hours of the morning, he would get a phone call from me saying, ‘Hey Matt…so I have this line and I’m not really feeling it. How would you do it?’ And he’d just pop out a few sarcastic jokes. He’s just brilliant at it. He also has a very distinctive smile-I guess I’d call it more of a smirk-and there were other little things I noticed right off the bat that I tried to put into my performance.”
Efron also had to master other physical skills. Returning to the age of 17, Mike discovers that he has not only been given back his youthful good looks but also his prowess on the basketball court, and the actor worked hard to make sure that he “had game.” He acknowledges, “I wasn’t really that good at basketball, so between takes I tried to have a basketball in my hands at all times. I was always spinning or playing around with it until it became like an extension of my body.”
“Zac was very diligent about that,” Shankman says. “It was important to him that, if he was going to be playing an all-star, he was really good with the basketball. After a while he could do all kinds of crazy tricks, and he acquired those skills with a great deal of joy and commitment. I was so proud of him.”
Steers attests, “Zac worked with some coaches and we choreographed those scenes, but he really hit his shots in the film.”
Surprisingly, Efron, who is no stranger to performing in front of an audience, admits that he suffered a bit of stage fright during the filming of the basketball games. “In most scenes, there are only a handful of people on the set watching you, but for the basketball scenes they filled the stands, and I really felt the pressure.”
Becoming 17 again has its rewards, but there are some unique challenges, too- like the fact that Mike’s wife is now old enough to be his mother. Leslie Mann plays the role of the adult Scarlet, who has grown increasingly frustrated with Mike’s inability to let go of the past. But Scarlet has her own flash from the past when she meets the new teenage boy in town, “who looks remarkably like her husband did when he was in high school, which is really strange,” the actress smiles. “I love any movie that has magic in it and I thought it was a great story,” Mann adds, noting that she might also have had some outside influences in taking a role opposite Zac Efron. “My two daughters love him; my older one had pictures of him all over her room. And since I’ve worked with him I have to agree that he’s adorable. We had a great time.”
“I’ve known Leslie for far too long,” Shankman teases. “She is so brilliant and funny and has a sense of wonder that was perfect for this film. I just knew she would be a terrific fit with both Zac and Matthew, and she had wonderful chemistry with both of them.”
With his marriage to Scarlet on the rocks, the adult Mike has moved in with his longtime friend, Ned Gold. Mike and Ned were opposites in high school-Mike was the big man on campus and Ned was, well, not-but they were nevertheless best friends. Now, Ned has grown up from geek to techno wizard, with an undying passion for the worlds of science fiction, fantasy and comic books and the money to support his “habit.” Cast in the role of Ned, Thomas Lennon explains, “Ned has an unparalleled collection of sci-fi memorabilia. Actually, a lot of the things you see in his house are things that you would see in my house… if I weren’t a married adult man,” he jokes. “But if I were still single, that would pretty much be my house.”
Gibgot notes, “We knew it was a scene-stealing role, so we auditioned a lot of people. And when Tom came in, no one had made us laugh harder.”
Steers remarks, “Tom Lennon just inhabited this part. He was so inventive-just non-stop coming up with great, funny ideas-we actually lost takes because the crew kept cracking up. And the thing that’s even more hilarious about him is that he can be totally straight-faced while doing the most insane things.”
“You never know what’s going to happen when you’re in a scene with Tom,” Efron attests. “I really had to be on my toes because he would say the most random things and I would be thinking, ‘What…?’ But you just have to go with it. Working with Tom was one of my favorite things to do in this movie.”
Although he is a science fiction fanatic, Ned is unprepared for the fantastical metamorphosis of his now not-so-old best friend. So when Ned wakes up to find a teenage intruder in his house, he reaches for the closest weapon at hand: a lightsaber.
“I think the memorabilia fight is one of the funniest scenes in the movie,” Shankman states. “Our stunt coordinator, Webster Whinery, worked with Zac and Tom to choreograph the scene, and the guys really got into it.”
Efron recalls, “We practiced with the stunt coordinator, but once we picked up the lightsabers, I said to Tom, ‘Dude, we can pull this off,’ and he agreed. So we just went for it.”
“We actually trained for two months,” Lennon reveals. “Basically, we would go out to the parking lot of the studio, and the stunt coordinator would chase me and swing at me with sticks until I got really good at defending myself.”
Once he convinces Ned that he has, in fact, been rejuvenated, Mike goes one step further: he talks his friend into acting as his “dad” so that the faux teen can enroll in high school and restart his life. Ned’s reluctance turns to rapture when he falls instantly, head-over-heels in love with the school’s principal, Jane Masterson, played by Melora Hardin. Steers says, “Melora is really great at playing those authoritative characters but with an underlying warmth and humor. And she and Tom played really well off each other; it was a great pairing.”
Finally back in high school, Mike O’Donnell thinks he is again on top of the world and can’t wait to get back on the basketball court. But it isn’t long before he discovers that being a 21st-century teen is a whole new ball game and that there is a big difference between a youthful appearance and a youthful outlook. Confronted with the uncomfortable fact that his teenage kids are now his peers, he is also treated to a firsthand look at their own teenage angst and finds that parenthood is not as easy to escape as adulthood.
Complicating matters, he has caught the interest of his daughter, Maggie, who obviously has no idea that this new kid is really her old man. “She is sort of a rebellious teen,” describes Michelle Trachtenberg, who plays the role. “I liked that she is a strong girl, confident, opinionated and smart. I thought she was a fun, cool, modern teenager, which was attractive to me.”
“I’ve been a fan of Michelle’s for years, so it was a big deal for me to meet her. But it was completely strange to be playing her father,” Efron laughs.
Matthew Perry echoes that thought, albeit from a slightly different perspective. “It was just disturbing to be playing the father of a teenager,” he says, only half joking. “In fact, that’s the true magic of the movie-that I’m playing father to a teenager. Forget about switching places; that’s the thing I don’t think people will believe,” he deadpans.
In the film, Efron and Perry also share the role of parenting Mike’s son, Alex, who, his father learns, is not exactly a chip off the old block. “He’s hopeless,” admits Sterling Knight, who makes his major feature film debut in the role. “He has no idea how to dress or how to talk to girls and gets picked on every day. Then this new kid comes in and takes him under his wing. The irony is that Alex had a terrible relationship with his dad. He needed guidance, and he finds what he has been lacking in his new best friend, not knowing it is, in fact, his dad.”
Steers comments, “Sterling Knight has a really interesting screen presence. He has the most innocent looking face, which is so deceiving because he has a very dry sense of humor. And Michelle Trachtenberg is very, very funny and just a total pro. So we were lucky to have such a great young cast.”
Class Reunion
Burr Steers worked with his creative team-including director of photography Tim Suhrstedt, production designer Garreth Stover and costume designer Pamela Withers Chilton-to craft a visual style for the film that subtly conveys Mike’s changing perspective at the different points in his life. The director explains, “When Mike is 17, his world is bright and the colors are much more vivid. Then when he is older, he is looking at life through a tainted lens-the colors are muted and drab, reflecting the grim reality of being an adult having to support his family in a job he hates.”
“17 Again” was filmed at various locations in and around Los Angeles, California. The O’Donnell home was located in a San Fernando Valley suburb, where Garreth Stover and his team transformed the backyard into a lush garden spot to reflect Scarlet’s aspirations of becoming a landscape architect.
A house in the hills near Griffith Park became Ned Gold’s house, which was designed to look like the ultimate fanboy retreat, right down to the bed made to look like a landspeeder from “Star Wars.” “Our set decorator, Natalie Pope, did a helluva job shopping for much of the memorabilia, which ran the gamut of anything that was science fiction or comic book-oriented,” Stover says. “And Lucasfilm gave us permission to use the ‘Star Wars’ stuff, which was wonderful of them.”
Pamela Withers Chilton was also able to get wildly creative with Ned’s wardrobe, which Thomas Lennon says “ranges from nerdy to totally hideous, but Ned is supposed to be rich, so it’s all quite expensive. Every time they hung something in my trailer, I could hardly believe it-I wore a shiny vest that looks like it was made out of a plastic garbage bag and it was something like eleven hundred dollars. I guess the mission statement for my character was ‘There’s no accounting for taste.'”
Chilton offers, “Thomas Lennon is hilarious and was so much fun to work with. Putting together his wardrobe was truly a collaboration: I would go out and find pieces that struck me and then bring them in for him to try on. I think my favorite moment was when he put on an outfit and said, ‘Okay, maybe we have gone too far,'” she laughs.
The costume designer says she conceived Zac Efron’s clothes to reflect the transition of his character as Mike adjusts to the styles of the day. “The first time he goes to register for school, he is overly trendy and realizes that he is out of touch with the current fashion sense of teenagers. The next time we see Mike, he is trying hard to be cool in his jeans, white t-shirt and leather jacket. But as we go on, he becomes more and more comfortable in his ‘new skin,’ and there is no need to grandstand. He looks great, but it appears effortless.”
One of the main locations utilized in “17 Again” was Santa Monica High School, where the cast and filmmakers got a taste of what it might be like to step into Mike O’Donnell’s shoes… at least for the moment. Efron reflects, “The idea of going back to high school as an adult is incredible… until you actually get there. It’s like this scary world of adolescent insecurities, where everyone is trying to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives. It’s organized chaos.”
“I would not want to go back to high school,” producer Jennifer Gibgot states. “I feel lucky that I don’t have to relive all those awkward phases to become the person that I am. But,” she smiles, “I can happily look back on that time, and I confess I did enjoy experiencing a little bit of it again vicariously through this film.”
Producer Adam Shankman concludes, “Those moments of wanting to be young again and start over is something I believe most people can relate to. I like aspirational entertainment, living out my dreams through movies. I think that’s what makes movies like this so much fun.”
Production notes provided by New Line Cinema.
17 Again
Starring: Zac Efron, Leslie Mann, Thomas Lennon, Matthew Perry, Michelle Trachtenberg, Melora Hardin, Hunter Parrish, Jim Gaffigan
Directed by: Burr Steers
Screenplay by: Jason Filardi
Release Date: April 17th, 2009
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language, some sexual material and teen partying.
Studio: New Line Cinema
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $64,167,069 (47.2%)
Foreign: $71,797,500 (52.8%)
Total: $135,964,569 (Worldwide)