Director-writer Amy Heckerling cemented her reputation as a director with her finger on the pulse of pop culture with her now classic hit comedies Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless. Now, with Loser, a quirky, romantic comedy about trusting yourself, taking a chance, and turning your back on the people who take advantage of you, she promises to do for college what she did for high school.
“I had a great time doing Clueless,” states Heckerling. “I had such fun with those characters. But after the movie and the television show, I felt that I wanted to do something that was closer to my experience in college. I mean, when I was in college, I didn’t even know I was a teenager; I just knew that I was somebody struggling to get money for tuition. My whole life revolved around money – how I was going to get it, how not to spend it, how was I going to get more credits for less money, what was I going to do if they raised the tuition.
“So,” elaborates Heckerling, “I decided to tell the story about the people who don’t have the money to buy the new things, the people who don’t have it all, who don’t fit in – the sort of displaced characters, the people that are not invited to the party. I guess you could call Loser the anti-Clueless,” she laughs.
Producer Twink Caplan, whose friendship and business partnership with Heckerling dates back fifteen years, says the fact that Heckerling is so young at heart is what makes her such a keen social commentator on young people. “Amy really gets it,” states Caplan. “I sometimes tease her about having the mind of a high school student, but really, it’s because she’s so young at heart that she’s so good with kids. They know she gets it and they trust her to express how they’re feeling.”
Jason Biggs, the movie’s titular hero agrees. “Amy understands us better than us, and she’s able to translate that onto paper and onto film and that makes for great, great movies,” enthuses Biggs. “I don’t know how old she really is, but whatever she tells you, she’s lying. I think she’s still a teenager. I consider her a peer; I respect her as an elder, and as an accomplished director, but I still like to think of her as a peer. She’s just so cool and so much fun.”
Like millions of moviegoers, Heckerling first noticed Jason Biggs when he starred in last summer’s blockbuster hit American Pie. “The first time I saw Jason was in American Pie. And I fell in love with him,” states the director. “His agents sent me a reel of other things he did and I was amazed at his range. And then we met and I knew right away that I didn’t want anyone else to play the role of Paul Tannek. Jason was perfect.”
As luck would have it, the young actor was already committed to a project for another studio that was scheduled to film at the same time as Loser and, for a time, it looked as though he wouldn’t be able to appear in the movie. But Heckerling stuck to her guns and the two studios eventually agreed that with a bit of deft planning and a lot of cross-country travel, Biggs could appear in both movies.
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