Writer Tucker Max aims for more fame with ‘Beer’ movie
Writer Tucker Max didn’t go the typical route when developing his book, “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” into a motion picture.
“There’s two different ways to make a movie,” Max said in a recent phone interview. “You can go through the normal studio system … or you can raise the money yourself, and make the movie yourself.”
Max, with his writing partner Nils Parker, decided to independently finance the film.
“We decided we wanted to maintain creative control,” Max said.
Max, whose Web site and book detail his activities, primarily involving drunkenness and loutishness, hopes having a film based on his work makes him an even more widely known commodity.
“Right now, the book is a cult hit, and I’m kind of a cult celebrity,” Max said. “What I hope the movie does is it kind of pushes me into the mainstream.”
Matt Czuchry (“Gilmore Girls”) brings Tucker Max to life in the film.
“We went through maybe 200 actors before we found one that we really thought could do it,” Max said. “He’s maybe even a better me than me in a lot of ways.”
Max was in Norman for a screening of his film prior to the official opening.
“I have cousins from Oklahoma, so I’ve been many times,” Max said. “Oklahoma is what it is, you know. I’m from Kentucky, so I can’t really make fun of a state that’s just as redneck and backward as where I’m from.”
Tucker Max, now 33, rose to fame revealing the intimate details of his 20s, from dating to drinking. Will the party someday have to end?
“Listen, nothing lasts forever,” he said. “And life itself doesn’t last forever. I don’t expect to be doing the same thing at 43 as I am at 33. Everyone, hopefully, grows and develops and matures. And if you don’t, that’s kind of a problem.”
Max said he hopes people take his story as one that makes them laugh and inspires them to follow their own dreams. But he doesn’t want to inspire Tucker Max imitators, per se.
“My message is never, be who I am, it’s be who you want to be,” Max said. “There’s all kinds of stuff I’ve done that you shouldn’t do.”
Max’s new book, the name of which can’t be printed in the newspaper, is currently scheduled for 2011.
“It’s the same basic thing as ‘I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell,’ it’s just new stories,” Max said. “But there’s nothing in there, it’s not like I’m going to come out of that book with a wife and kids, and everything’s changed.”
- by Matthew Price
From Friday’s The Oklahoman
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