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American Dreamz Picture 3
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American Dreamz Production Notes "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." - Andy Warhol
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 Actual Cast of a Fixed Show: The Stars of American Dreamz“I'd rather jab my eyes out with a toothpick and eat them than lose this thing.”
-“American Dreamz” contestant Sally Kendoo
Many of the cast members of the film are veterans of Paul and Chris Weitz projects and expressed great interest in working with the brothers again. Weitz recalls of casting his troupe of actors: “It was like a fever dream-all these people I knew doing these crazy characters.”
Hugh Grant starred as Will, the self-involved bachelor who finally grows up with the help of a young boy, in the Weitz brothers' film version of Nick Hornby's best-selling novel About a Boy. Academy Award® nominated for best screenplay adaptation, About a Boy was co-written and co-directed by Paul and Chris Weitz.
Weitz relates, “I sent Hugh the script, and I think he was upset when he read it and actually was intrigued by it. Hugh has a very cynical, acid sense of humor and uses that to its fullest extent in this film.”
The concept of the film was one that amused Grant at every turn. “The blackness of this script very much appealed to me. But what makes it work is that it's done with a strange kind of affection and warmth.”
Commenting on working with the director, Grant offers, “Paul's always been in tune with my darker side. He is kind of amused by it. He told me that he put a certain amount of that darkness and existential angst into this part, so I felt it was quite a juicy thing to come and actually play it out on screen.”
Also an easy character sell, American President Joe Staton was cast during a single conversation between Dennis Quaid-star of the Weitz's critically acclaimed film In Good Company-and Paul Weitz.
“He just asked me to do it,” recalls Quaid. “He wanted me to play the President, and I just said, `Yes'-without even reading the script. He's so talented, and I want to hitch myself up to his wagon.
“Paul can be satirical, but all of his material has a heart to it as well,” observes Quaid. “It doesn't drift into caricature, and it's not mean-spirited. The President is a guy with a heart that makes him an interesting character, and I was more interested in portraying the difference between the public and the personal persona of the man.”
Of creating his character, Quaid comments, “I didn't want to do an impersonation of anyone. I wanted to put in a little flavor of Bush but also have President Staton be his own man. And there's a little bit of Reagan and Clinton and presidents I've watched over the years.”
The director agrees with Quaid's take on the role: “Dennis brings a lot of heart to whatever he does, so this would have been boring if he had just done a parody of Bush.”
Actress and singer Mandy Moore was cast to play the manipulative Sally Kendoo, who uses all her talents to make it to the finals in this latest season of “American Dreamz.”
Weitz laughs, “Sally is basically a sociopath. She desperately wants to be a star.”
The filmmaker needed to find an actor who could play very sweet with a very naughty side, and that actor was Moore. “I wanted Mandy because I actually believe she could win `American Dreamz,' he says. “There's something very sweet about her, and it makes it very interesting to see her in a villainess role.”
“When I was preparing for the film,” shares Moore, “I was thinking, `This is a girl who has watched every season of the show. She knows everything about Martin Tweed.' So when she makes it to the opening round and gets chosen to go to Hollywood, she has it all planned out, every step of the way.”
Supporting and encouraging Sally as she pursues her dream are her on-again/off-again boyfriend William Williams, devoted stage mother Martha Kendoo and her win-at-any-cost agent Chet Krogl. Jennifer Coolidge plays the somewhat overbearing, yet supportive mom Martha; Chris Klein, Weitz's do-gooder jock from the American Pie films, portrays William-Sally's wounded-war-veteran and dim-witted beau-and Seth Meyers steps in as Sally's agent Chet.
To Klein, while the character of William Williams is as all-American as you could possibly get, he is also very determined. “William will do whatever it takes to get what he wants,” the actor comments. “All these characters will, and I love that.”
Weitz feels Klein's character encapsulates his film's message that “Everybody is consumed by a dream here-for better or worse. He's fixating on this girl who clearly doesn't care for him…thinking his love for her is going to overcome everything.”
Oscar® winner Marcia Gay Harden takes a refreshing comic turn as the salt-of-the-earth First Lady to Dennis Quaid's President Staton, while veteran thespian Willem Dafoe dives into the role-and offers an uncanny resemblance to a certain administration official-as the manipulative Chief of Staff who just wants the President to behave as he did in his first term: completely clueless.
Adding a unique spin to American Dreamz is Weitz's core group of newcomers, including Sam Golzari as Omer, Tony Yalda as Iqbal, Noureen DeWulf as Shazzy and Adam Busch as Sholem. The young actors bring to his film the spirit of a tried-and-true Paul Weitz technique: mixing it up with old- and new-school performers.
“One of the big thrills for me in filmmaking is to take people who've done absolutely nothing in movies and put them with people who are incredibly well-known film stars,” the director says. “It points to the fact that acting is an amazing talent, and it doesn't matter if you've done it a hundred times or are doing it for the first time.”
Golzari and Yalda had an especially difficult task at hand: playing starry-eyed talent show hopefuls. The Svengali to Omer's aspiring reality star, Iqbal needed to be as talentless as he was hilarious. Yalda jokingly explains of his self-centered Iqbal, “I'm playing a character of Middle Eastern descent that actually is rich, a little bit conceited and wrapped up in his own world. I thought it was me…except for the rich part.
Weitz knew for the character of his bumbling terrorist Omer, he had to cast a young man with both deep wisdom in his fresh face and great comic timing; he found that in Golzari. Omer was perhaps the most changed of the `American Dreamz' hopefuls-from his experience training at (and singing show-tunes in) a terrorist camp in the Middle East to living the American dream in Orange County…and becoming cast on one of the world's most popular reality shows.
Sam Golzari suggests, “When describing Omer, the word `terrorist' just feels so weird to me; I don't see him like that. It was exciting for me to play a guy who is more than a simple terrorist. I saw Omer more as a good kid getting mixed up with a gang. He had made some really bad choices, but in the end has a good heart.”
Of Golzari's performance as Omer on the talent show, Weitz notes, “The first (song) he sings is `Impossible Dream,' which has a whole different light when it's being sung by a terrorist, as there are lines in it talking about marching into hell for a heavenly cause-which seems to be how some of these people define themselves. (To them), their causes are so worthwhile that you can utterly suspend the semblances of morality.”
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