Alpha Dog Movie Trailer. In summer 2000—before the release of his films The Notebook and John Q—filmmaker Nick Cassavetes found himself putting pen to paper to outline a story about some of the types of teens who populated his daughter Gina’s high school. He pondered what would happen if a group of kids took a prank way too far, and made a series of decisions and missteps that would ensnare them in a situation from which they could not be extricated.
While researching the family life of some of these San Fernando, California, Valley kids, Cassavetes found their home dynamics to be surprising and particularly compelling. These stories would quickly find their way into a screenplay. “I expected to find a bunch of spoiled, disaffected rich kids raised by parents with a great sense of ennui, and that’s not what I found at all,” he explains. “What I ended up finding, which frankly I’m guilty of in my own life, was that it’s a complicated world now where both parents have jobs and get caught up in their own lives. The by-product of that is you find yourself ‘checking in’ with your children to find out if they’re okay, where they are going to be and if they need any money…instead of putting in the time and hanging out with them.”
Cassavetes continues, “That was the thing that impressed me the most and was the common thread among almost all of these people. Most of them were people I wouldn’t find great fault with. The problems were born out of letting all these children get together and make decisions without any kind of parental guidance or interference, and they could create the ‘perfect storm’ of circumstances and coincidences that would allow something to happen that never should have.”
After many discussions with colleagues and extensive research about the types who inhabit this world, Cassavetes would create the screenplay for Alpha Dog. He found one of the keys to unlocking the script lay in the way these alpha-teens spoke. “These are not really good kids that just lose their way for one weekend. I wanted to use language that I think the kids use, which is very offensive and almost an assault. But for me, that would give the film a type of genuineness. I didn’t want to back away from them being unsympathetic. Children can be ugly. They haven’t had their time to get their routines and their personalities in order. They have many rough edges, and I didn’t want to lose that.”
Veteran producer Sidney Kimmel, head of Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, found the project to be a great package for his company, which was built on a diverse offering of intriguing, offbeat stories helmed by talented filmmakers. He offers, “Nick comes from the best of Hollywood talent, and has made his own name with his actor-driven films and his acting work. He’s able to easily shift gears—moving from the romance of The Notebook to the gritty realism of Alpha Dog. I was extremely enthusiastic to get behind this picture. It’s an unflinching look at what can happen when a series of bad turns leads to even worse consequences. It’s a kind of cautionary tale about contemporary culture, but it doesn’t preach.”
Designing the Despicable
Before production began, in true Cassavetes fashion, the director explored an unconventional approach to preparing the actors for their roles. Instead of the customary scene rehearsals in the weeks leading up to the start of principal photography, the young performers were put through a fitness program that involved intense workouts and a very strict diet, all of which were supervised by the director’s brother, Frank.
The characters in Alpha Dog have known each other for a while, having gone to school together and lived in the same neighborhood since early childhood. The challenge for their creator, then, was how to replicate that sense of camaraderie born out of years of being together. “They have a certain ease and familiarity with each other, and how do you direct that? I don’t happen to believe that blood is thicker than water—that if you’re stuck in the same house with somebody it gives you a proper amount of time to develop a deep relationship with that person. I think that’s why we’re close to our parents, our brothers and sisters, because we’ve been forced to live with them…it’s shared misery.
And I had to think of a way to make these kids ‘miserable’ together. “So I got them all to come to this house in the [San Fernando] Valley at the crack of dawn to start training. And a little bit in, they started getting into it. Pretty soon they were cracking jokes and challenging each other, and even showing up 15 minutes early to the sessions—and this was already really early in the morning. And I knew I had them when they called and told me that they wouldn’t do any more unless I came, too. So I dragged my fat, old ass to training every day. And they laughed at me when I couldn’t do some of the stuff, and I got to laugh at them, also. Pretty soon, I realized that we would move on to set together as a unit, as a pack. They would trust me. I would trust them.”
This process created a bond among the actors that allowed them to organically explore their characters and helped to create an environment of familiarity. “I don’t know if Nick had a clear plan for what he wanted to accomplish with the preparation process, but I think it was more instinctual,” explains Foster. “We ended up cutting out the world and creating our own little subculture away from where we live. It was like forming a little cult where you create a different language and environment that really brings everyone together.
“Outside of Nick just wanting to torture us, what that process did was create a strong sense of who we were with each other, of camaraderie,” adds Timberlake. “It’s interesting because when characters butt heads in a script, actors tend to act that way towards each other in real life. I think, however, that the closer you get to someone before shooting, the easier it is to have conflict onscreen, because you feel comfortable with each other. Although the process was grueling, it definitely heightened our performances.”
In addition to the group’s physical preparation process, the actors were provided with materials with which to familiarize themselves to help them gain understanding of the types of people who informed Cassavetes’ development of their characters. Dealing with a story as complex as Alpha Dog, actors are confronted with a particular challenge—just how much real life is bled into the on-screen character? “I thought long and hard about how to create the character Frankie,” recalls Timberlake. “I took the opportunity to really develop my own character from Nick’s words.”
Actress Olivia Wilde, who plays Johnny’s thrill-seeking girlfriend, Angela, found it challenging to play a character lacking a great deal of ethical merit. “What I heard around the set is that a lot of people felt a little uncomfortable playing these characters, because they didn’t necessarily like them. As an actor, you get used to playing characters that you have some empathy for, that you can really understand and might even have a real connection with. On this film, there were days when I felt a little dirty, having to make these people human to allow the audiences to get closer to them.”
Although the material was challenging and schedule grueling, the actors found inspiration in each other. “Nick put together a cast of workhorses and nothing inspires competition, excitement or pleasure like knowing that people are coming to the table with their guns loaded,” says Ben Foster.
“The cast is a plethora of very hungry actors who love the process,” explains Timberlake. “Everyone brought their A-game, but that’s what Nick brings out of you. He creates an environment where you feel extremely comfortable and throw it all out on the table. He gets different options from you and then decides what’s best in the edit.”
All in the ensemble laud Cassavetes for his thorough knowledge, commitment and creativity during the process. “Nick is a brilliant writer/director and really knows how to communicate with actors and everyone on the set,” says producer Chuck Pacheco. “It’s amazing to watch him go through the process of writing the script and watch it develop into that movie that was originally in his head.”
Timberlake agrees that Cassavetes’ prior acting experience offers a depth of understanding not always present when working with other directors. “Nick’s right there with us in the scene and the fact that he’s had experience in front of the camera helps tremendously, because he knows how to relay the message to the actor.
“He’s a very dynamic director and is all heart,” continues Timberlake. “Nick’s not about being a diplomat—he’s an emotional director, and I respond to that. He’s also very honest and admits when he doesn’t know something and if you have something better, he allows you to bring it out. He makes you feel comfortable; nothing is taboo.”
“Nick doesn’t work from angst or bloodletting,” says Foster. “He sets the tone for joyful creating, which says that we can come into work and have a really good time, but also maintain a focus and make something that has value.”
To help create the backdrop of Alpha Dog, Cassavetes enlisted cinematographer Robert Fraisse, with whom he had worked on The Notebook and whose extensive resume boasts such films as Enemy at the Gates, Ronin and Hotel Rwanda. The filmmaker’s choice of Fraisse blatantly knocks out the assumption that such a project as Alpha Dog—with its unflinching look at a dark and troubling story—necessarily “look the part,” replete with indie-type grittiness and feel. The choice of an award-winning cinematographer (who received worldwide attention for his lush photography that added gloss and incandescent heat to L’Amant, a story of forbidden love set in 1929 French colonial Vietnam) would go miles toward accomplishing this.
Explains Cassavetes: “Just as this world is seductive to the participants, we wanted the film to also look seductive. Robert really got into the script and had definite ideas that synched with ours.”
However, in keeping with the indie spirit that informed a great deal of Alpha Dog, production utilized a panoply of locations in Southern California, in and around the San Fernando Valley and greater Los Angeles. They also traveled to the desert and the resort community of Palm Springs, and shot in the Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park near Agua Dulce Spring, California.
While avoiding an overtly philosophical or judgmental tone, Alpha Dog touches on many larger themes present in American society and youth culture. “The film is about the new suburban, white, middle-class American dream of young people…which seems to be wanting to be gangster,” observes Olivia Wilde. “There’s a lack of identity that seems prevalent in a world where kids went to good schools but had their eyes closed. A lot of these kids had good parents, but also had a lot of freedom and didn’t know what to do with it.”
“America, by nature, is about counter-culture and our counter-culture heroes are criminals, the guys on the outside,” argues Cassavetes. “Our young look up to and try to emulate criminal culture. The kids take on all the affectations of being those types of people, even though they’re not, and what can happen is one day they have to become that. When you ‘talk the talk’ and halfway believe you are something that you’re not, at some time, you will have to back it up to prove yourself. That’s where the trouble begins. If you have a gun in your hand and someone calls you out, you just might have to use it. You hear white American kids talk about these things—they listen to music that introduces them to the criminal culture, their language and violence—and after a while, it becomes a part of who they are.”
The combination of an accomplished group of actors and a steadfast dedication to an honesty in storytelling from a passionate writer/director give Alpha Dog an unexpected poignancy, sandwiched between an unflinching look at a tough story. “I think audiences should expect a really emotional film,” says Hirsch. “The film highlights everything going on in these kids’ lives at the time, and it’s quite ridiculous at some points; the jokes are totally wild and crude. However, there’s a certain sensitivity and it reminds you that these characters really are just kids.”
“I don’t think this film is pointing the finger at America, because everybody has the right to their own family and its dynamics,” reflects Timberlake. “Everybody was young once and thought they were indestructible. As a young person, it never crosses your mind that life is delicate, but you eventually find this out through your own experiences. At the end of the day, you realize that these characters are not simply just bad kids. The story is a perfect example of ignorance, naiveté and not fully understanding the consequences of life and death.”
But for writer/director Cassavetes, the sad occurrences detailed in Alpha Dog don’t dissolve into easy answers, no matter how scrutinizing his film might look. He closes, “The experience for me from making this movie is to try to understand how this could happen.”
Stone echoes the sentiments of the cast and crew as she encapsulates the “tragic flaw” at the heart of Alpha Dog: “Standing up and saying, ‘This is my mistake; this is what I did—now what can be done to fix it?’ This is part of being the best human you can be. We’re not perfect. We’re going to fail small, and we’re going to fail big. But I think a lot of people don’t learn this. They don’t learn it from their parents, their community, their job. We learn fear of failure—one mistake and you’re out.
And I think this is a lot of what happened to those kids in the story. They made this mistake of taking this kid, and this is the consequence. You see them acting like others that they’ve seen in society. But in truth, they are kids. You see them vacillating between being children and acting out like bad adults—and they don’t have the tools to deal, so they choose a truly horrendous way out of an already dreadful situation.”
Alpha Dog (2007)
Directed by: Nick Cassavetes
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Justin Timberlake, Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Emile Hirsch, Anthon Yelchin, Harry Dean Stanton, Regina Rice, Laura Nativo, Frank Cassavetes, Alex Solowitz
Screenplay by: Nick Cassavetes
Production Design by: Dominic Watkins
Cinematography by: Robert Fraisse
Film Editing by: Alan Heim
Costume Design by: Sarah Jane Slotnick
Set Decoration by: Fainche MacCarthy
Art Direction by: Alan Petherick
Music by: Aaron Zigman
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive drug use and language, strong violence, sexuality, nudity.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: January 12, 2007
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