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Mar 6, 2019 · Childress has not, though she has written a number of them. “I have worked … consistently and constantly for 29 years,” she declared, estimating her total output at about 40 screenplays.
May 1, 2024 · The screenwriter, Helen Childress, was raised in Missouri City, just outside of Houston, and the movie has a real sense of place, of young people toiling in a big city that was rarely...
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- The Writer of The Movie Never Wanted to Be A Screenwriter.
- Ben Stiller Made Some Key Changes to Childress’ script.
- Tristar Pictures Changed Its Mind About Making The Movie.
- Winona Ryder Advocated Hard For Ethan Hawke and Janeane Garofalo.
- Gwyneth Paltrow, Parker Posey, and Anne Heche Auditioned For Vickie.
- Hawke Put Steve Zahn on The Producers’ Radar.
- It Was Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki’s First American Film.
- Garofalo Was Fired (“Sort Of”), and Ryder Fought For Her again.
- None of The Companies mentioned in The Movie insisted on A Change in The script.
- Hawke Turned Stiller on to Lisa Loeb.
In 1994, Reality Bites screenwriter Helen Childress told Entertainment Weeklythat she had “no interest in screenwriting. I wanted to be a poet. But poets don't make any money.” So she wrote a script all the same about people in their 20s in the early 1990s, which is exactly what producer Michael Shamberg was looking for. Childress was 24 years old ...
Stiller believed the script to be “extremely funny,” but tweaked it anyway. “Originally, it was much more about all the characters in the movie,” he said in an interview around the time of the film’s release. “Janeane’s character, Vickie, and Steve’s character, Sammy, and Ethan’s character, Troy; all their stories were much more fleshed out. I felt...
In 1993, the studio also eventually said no to Pulp Fiction. Made for $11.5 million, Reality Bites would end up being released by Universal Pictures, after Stiller claimed they were “turned down by everybody” else because twentysomething coming-of-age movies such as Singles(1992) didn’t make enough money.
Winona Ryder had seen Ethan Hawke in the World War II dramaA Midnight Clear (1992), and subsequently pushed for him to play Troy. Despite working with Stiller earlier on The Ben Stiller Show (1993), Garofalo saidshe didn’t know if she would have been cast as Vickie without Ryder’s high opinion of her.
Garofalo beat them out. In another interesting could-have-been, the part of Sammy came down to Steve Zahn and Noah Wyle (later of ERfame).
Hawke and Zahn co-starred in the play Sophistry. Hawke encouraged executive producer Stacey Sher to see Zahn for Sammy. “Tons of people read for the part and it was just once we saw Steve, we knew,” Sher told HitFix.
The Mexico City-born Lubezki was brought in as the director of photography. “I was very young and I was inexperienced and coming to America and uncomfortable living here,” Lubezki recalled. “I didn't have many friends. I was just coming here to work. When I got this offer, I read the script, and I have to be honest, I barely understood the humor in...
“That was my first experience with a studio film,” Garofalo told The A.V. Club. “I didn't understand what was going to happen, or why the hours were so long. I know Ben was not thrilled with me there. He also didn't like my attitude during rehearsal, because I hate to rehearse. He sort of fired me, but luckily I was rehired because Winona stepped i...
“There is product placement in the movie, but I don’t have any problem with it because it never happened where they said ‘OK, you can put our product in but you have to change your script,’” Stiller reasoned. Diet Coke specifically was written into the script because Childress lived off of it.
Loeb had participated in Hawke’s theater company, writing music in New York City. Hawke sent her new song, “Stay,” to Stiller, who agreed it should be in the movie. After they were refused permission by Atlantic Records to use a song by The Lemonheads (fronted by Evan Dando, who appears in the film), “Stay” was slotted as the second song to play du...
May 12, 2022 · The NBCUniversal-backed streamer is developing a “reframing” of the 1994 Gen-X classic Reality Bites, with screenwriter Helen Childress attached to pen the update.
Helen Childress was born on October 19, 1969 in Tarrant County, Texas, USA. She is a producer and writer, known for Reality Bites (1994), Good Girls (2018) and The Curiosity.
- October 19, 1969
Reality Bites is a 1994 American romantic comedy-drama film written by Helen Childress and directed by Ben Stiller in his feature directorial debut. It stars Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, and Stiller, with supporting roles by Janeane Garofalo and Steve Zahn.
Jan 24, 2012 · Stiller and the film’s screenwriter Helen Childress, executive producer Stacey Sher, and producer Michael Shamberg talked about the film and answered the audience’s questions with New York Times “Carpetbagger” columnist Melena Ryzik moderating.
