Exclusive – The Cast of Take Me Home Tonight

In theaters today from Relativity Media is the laugh out loud 80′s rewind comedy Take Me Home Tonight, and Killer Film was lucky enough to sit in on a roundtable discussion with the four main leads from the film.

Is it true that you once worked at a Suncoast Video?

Topher Grace: I worked at the Stanford Mall Suncoast for two summers. My theory was that I would watch movies all summer long because that was what I was going to do anyway. I wasn’t that social at the time. When I got there they played one movie which was Space Jam. Space Jam, as you know, is one of the finest films ever made, so I was lucky to be able to watch that three thousand times.

Were there any great 80′s movies that you couldn’t clear for the background scenes in the Suncoast Video?

Topher Grace: No, we wanted Harry and the Hendersons. We wanted that and it’s in there. I wanted Back to the Future because it’s my favorite movie. We wanted something that had these weird characters like E.T., movies that had these families that get weirdly close with otherworldly creatures like Batteries Not Included and Alf. We thought Harry and the Hendersons would be just hilarious. You wouldn’t make that movie now.

Can you talk about casting Teresa Palmer?

Topher Grace: We met on an audition for another film and I thought she was excellent. I thought even though the director hated me in the audition that she liked my work. I never auditioned actors before. I’ve been in many auditions, but I’ve never been the one on the other side of the room. You learn so much by doing that as an actor. It would be like if I was writing an article on you guys, which I am not. It was amazing because you have so many people come in and they are really good actors and they are professional. But when someone like Theresa walks in, who is obviously beautiful, and who also has an amazing sense of humor and really invests in the material.

It’s a light comedy movie, but there are some heavy undertones. It was like a grand slam. I remember when the casting director ran out out of the room over to Brian Grazer’s office, and not even asking me. It was so obvious. Nobody was like, “What do you think?”

Any time you do a 80′s movie the soundtrack is always important. How did you come to the decision to use N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” for the sing along in the car scene that echoed Wayne’s World using “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle singing Wilson Phillips’ “Hold On”?

Topher Grace: When my producing partner and I came up with the idea to do the film, before we hired writers, we had a loose idea for a story. We came up with an ultimate 80′s mix. And it was under the guidelines that none of it is making fun of the 80′s. We wanted to be the first film that doesn’t spoof the 80′s. The first movie that actually is like it was made in the 80′s and that has an affection for the 80′s. The same way that Dazed and Confused did it in the 90′s about the 70′s. The way American Graffiti did it being made in the 70′s and was about the 50′s. No one has done it for this generation. Ninety percent of that mix is the actual soundtrack for the film.

When you are spoofing a movie from any time period, and the 80′s is really easy to spoof, you can lay songs over it like “Rock Me Amadeus” or “Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car” and people will go, “Yeah, wow, we were so crazy back then. Can you believe that was a hit?” But we wanted to be more like where the music comes out of the characters and what they are going through. Meaning if they’re stealing a car, you gotta have “Straight Outta Compton”! When I see the girl walk in it has to be “Bette Davis Eyes”. I know how successful the soundtrack is with those feelings because that’s what pop music is.

How imperative is it to have boobies and cocaine in a comedy about the 80′s?

Topher Grace: It’s imperative! It’s like air. It was really important to us because we wanted to go for a really hard R, mostly because that’s what real life feels like. It’s one thing if you are making Up and you are experiencing it through that kids point of view. But for something like this, and you are in your twenties in the mid-80′s, there is going to be cocaine.

Speaking of great 80′s film, you cast the great Michael Biehn (The Terminator, Aliens) as your father. How cool was it to get him for the film?

Topher Grace: Amazing! I’m a big fan of his. What we wanted to do with that role was to have someone who was really synonymous with the 80′s, but not completely trapped by the 80′s. There are these celebrities who don’t exist outside of the 80′s. Michael has done amazing work in 80′s films, as well as being in The Rock and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse. I thought he was great and the perfect actor to play my dad. Michael is really funny, too. Have you guys seen the music video yet? He’s in the video in a little cameo.

Did you have any crushes in school?

Teresa Palmer: I had a crush on a boy. It started pretty young. I was crushing out on him in the second grade. I had a crush on him until I was about fifteen. He ended up being the first boy I ever kissed. He ignored me throughout the whole time in primary school because I was such a loser. I was a socks and sandal girl. And I got teased awfully. I met him again after I came to America and started working in film. I saw him again and he said, “I always knew.”

Can you talk about the pressures of the “boomerang” generation?

Teresa Palmer: I think it’s such a bizarre thing that society and your parents and your peers expect you to know what you want to do for the rest of your life at the age of twenty-two. You don’t know where you fit in. There’s this crazy pressure on you. I remember when I read the script I could definitely relate to that feeling of being lost and confused, and I think that’s why audiences are going to feel connected to our movie.

How was Topher Grace as a boss?

Dan Fogler: He was cool with me, man. He had a very specific vision and you need that.

Can you talk about the dance-off, as well as getting the chance to make-out with Angie Everhart?

Dan Fogler: Let’s talk about the dancing. I had this whole thing that I choreographed. I even whispered a couple of moves to my opponent telling him he should maybe do this anti-gravity move here and he did. The director saw my thing and he was like, ” You have to look like you don’t know how to dance, man?” I was like, “I’m just too good.” I bet they can find a lot of stuff that was on the cutting room floor where you could see I was incredible, almost “Solid Gold” like dancer, as opposed to the strange dancing that is in the film that I had to work very hard at doing.

Angie was an absolute pleasure. It was hard to be a gentleman in that shot, but I was. She was great. She looks amazing! That’s going amazingly and we’re snorting powdered milk. What could be better? Then all of the sudden in comes the man in the leather outfit. It was hard for to be like, “This is awkward.” A lot of that was feeding off of the environment. Kissing her was delightful.

Did you ever get in the ball for fun?

Anna Faris: That thing was terrifying! It was huge. It was sharp and very dangerous. It was terrifying to look at. When we did the shot where the ball actually runs down the hill, in one of the takes it veers off and flew off the cliff.