Taglines: This is not what I ordered.
Waiting… movie storyline. A hilarious comedy about frustrated waiters, stingy tippers and dicey food, Lions Gate Films’ Waiting… stars Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris and Justin Long as young employees battling boredom at ShenaniganZ, a generic chain restaurant.
A waiter for four years since high school, Dean (Justin Long) has never questioned his job at ShenaniganZ. But when he learns that Chett, a high school classmate, now has a lucrative career in electrical engineering, he’s thrown into turmoil about his dead-end life. Dean’s friend Monty is in exactly the same boat, but he couldn’t care less.
More concerned with partying and getting laid, Monty is put in charge of training Mitch (John Francis Daley), a shy new employee. Over the course of one chaotic shift, Mitch gets to know the rest of ShenaniganZ’s quirky staff: Monty’s tough-talking exgirlfriend, Serena (Anna Faris); ShenaniganZ’s over-zealous manager, Dan (David Koechner); and head cook Raddimus (Luis Guzman), who’s obsessed with a senseless staff-wide competition known only as “The Game”…
Featuring lazy busboys, unsanitary kitchen antics, and lots of talk about sex, WAITING… is a hysterical, behind-the-scenes look at the restaurant industry, and an affectionate ode to those lost, and unproductive, days of youth.
About the Production
Stingy tippers, demanding customers, incestuous gossip-mongering and ritual humiliation – anyone who’s experienced the vagaries of waiting tables will relate to the behind-the-scenes antics at ShenaniganZ, the all-too-familiar chain restaurant in Lions Gate Films’ WAITING… For the talented cast of Rob McKittrick’s comedy, playing a group of frustrated waiters was by no means a stretch. Like too many actors, many had already experienced the drill first-hand.
“I waited at this chi-chi restaurant in Connecticut and I hated every minute of it,” admits Justin Long, who plays Dean, a frustrated waiter who’s running out of patience with his job. “I was such a terrible waiter that it’s ironic I’m playing a good one in Waiting… I really can’t relate to that at all.”
“When I was in college, I worked at a retirement home restaurant,” remembers Anna Faris. “I got $5.70 an hour with no tips, and I had to do weird things like clean out the buttermilk refrigerator. Those old people love their buttermilk.”
“The only restaurant I work in is my own kitchen,” announces Luis Guzman. “I can cook anything. And I do not drop steaks on the floor and put them back on the plate.”
Faris confesses: “I once took an entire order from four people and when I got back to the kitchen, I looked at my pad and I had just written down scribbles,” she says. “I had no idea what anyone ordered, and I just broke into this cold sweat. I think I quit right after that.”
It should come as no surprise that writer/director Rob McKittrick was once just like one of his lost characters in WAITING… He worked for years in an Orlando, Florida restaurant much like ShenaniganZ, and his experience there provided the basis for the film.
“I was 23 years old. All I had was a community college degree, and I was basically shaping up to be a loser,” remembers McKittrick. “But after working at a few different restaurants, I realized that the same types kept showing up: the hostess everyone wanted to sleep with, the asshole manager, the burnt-out waitress. I started to see the possibilities of turning that world into a script.”
Admiring films like Clerks and Dazed and Confused, McKittrick wrote the script for WAITING… with the intention of shooting it on an ultra low budget. He partnered up with a local producer he met while waiting tables, scraped together approximately $20,000 and started planning his production. But Hollywood came calling– and McKittrick began a long process of waiting himself.
“I sent the script to anyone and everyone who would read it, and met with anyone who seemed remotely interested,” including a meeting with a local Orlando producer who had space on the Universal Orlando lot. He says the meeting “went horribly;” but on his way out of the office, his partner began flirting with the receptionist. This receptionist went to High School with Jeff Balis (Project Greenlight), so she sent him the script and got the interest of Chris Moore’s production company. Eventually, McKittrick landed an agent, and his script was optioned by Artisan Entertainment. For two years, the film languished in development, only to be subsequently mired in the legal fall-out of Artisan’s sale to Lions Gate Films.
Now, seven years of waiting later, McKittrick has finally made his directorial debut with a cast that first-time directors only dream about. “This is probably the greatest cast of all time,” says Ryan Reynolds, who plays Monty, a sarcastic waiter with no ambition. “You could look at any particular cast member and say they stole the movie. It’s just an amazing ensemble, with no weak link. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that on a movie.”
“One of the selling points of doing the movie was working with the cast that Rob got,” says Long. “It always elevates your own game when you’re around people like that. It makes you better.”
Reynolds attached himself to WAITING… over three years ago when he was completing Van Wilder. Since that film, Reynolds has emerged as a rising star, with memorable leading turns in Blade: Trinity and The Amityville Horror; yet he remained steadfastly committed to McKittrick’s project throughout its lengthy development. “Ryan read the script and loved the role. And he stayed with it the whole time,” says McKittrick. “I can’t thank him enough.”
“I spent three years working on this with Rob, and it was worth it,” says Reynolds. “I think we made an amazing, amazing movie.”
A lovable loser and an incorrigible smart-ass, Monty is a role that seems tailormade for Ryan’s gift for dry sarcasm. Even after seven years of anticipating Monty’s onscreen incarnation, McKittrick was overwhelmed by Reynolds’ performance. “Ryan is Monty,” avows the director. “He’d either nail a line exactly the way I heard it in my mind, or he would make it far better than I had imagined. No small feat considering I had almost seven years to imagine it. He’s the single easiest person to work with.”
“Ryan is one of my most favorite people in the world. He’s much nicer than Monty, but he does share that alpha-male personality,” says Faris. “He just brings so much to a role, and he adds all these great, funny ad-libs. He’s very professional. He works hard. It was really a pleasure to work with him.”
Adds Long, “Ryan just brings natural comedic timing to everything he does. It’s like the part was written for him. He underplays it perfectly.”
Like Reynolds, Anna Faris read the script years ago and attached herself to the project on the basis of McKittrick’s writing. “I thought the script was really raunchy but also really true, “she says. “I thought it was the kind of thing people would recognize and relate to.”
Faris was originally cast as Amy, Dean’s girlfriend, played in the film by Kaitlin Doubleday. But three years later, when the film was finally entering production, Faris convinced McKittrick to recast her as Serena. “I had been playing a string of really nice girls in that period,” says Faris. “And I really wanted to play the sassy, rough girl and learn how to smoke.”
“I wasn’t sure at first, because Anna wasn’t as known then, and none of us had seen her play that kind of part before,” remembers McKittrick. “Then I saw Lost in Translation and I was completely convinced. It seemed right to have her opposite Ryan, and she pulled it off expertly.”
Known for comedic, scene-stealing character parts in films like Dodgeball, Justin Long was initially skeptical about playing Dean, the quiet leading man with a heavy conscience. “I had to wear Justin down and convince him to do it,” says McKittrick. “I’m glad I did, because he was perfect. Dean is a hard character to cast, because the part can feel too weighty. I wanted someone who was inherently likable and had comedic chops.”
Waiting… (2005)
Directed by: Rob McKittrick
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Justin Long, Anna Faris, David Koechner, John Francis Daley, Luis Guzmán, Chi McBride, Kaitlin Doubleday, Alanna Ubach, Vanessa Lengies, Rob Benedict
Screenplay by: Rob McKittrick
Production Design by: Devorah Herbert
Cinematography by: Matthew Irving
Film Editing by: Andy Blumenthal, David Finfer, Shane A. Walsh
Costume Design by: Jillian Ann Kreiner
Set Decoration by: Frank Zito
Art Direction by: Morgan Blackledge
Music by: Adam Gorgoni
MPAA Rating: R for strong crude and sexual humor, pervasive language and drug use.
Distributed by: Lionsgate Films
Release Date: October 7, 2005
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