Jonathan Levine’s coming-of-age comedy The Wackness won itself many fans at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. While much of that mad love focused on the chemistry between its stars, Josh Peck and Sir Ben Kingsley, it’s also pretty dope for its love story between Peck and Olivia Thirlby.
Peck is known mostly as one half of the comedy duo “Drake and Josh” from the long-running Nickelodeon comedy, while Thirlby has become somewhat of an indie sweetheart, playing Ellen Page’s best friend in Juno as well as a key role in David Gordon Green’s drama Snow Angels.
In The Wackness, Peck plays Luke Shapiro, a 17-year-old living in New York City in the early ’90s and going through the same thing teen boys have gone through since the beginning of time. He’s getting some help from his therapist Dr. Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley), but he’s more interested in helping himself to Squires’ hot stepdaughter Stephanie (Thirlby).
ComingSoon.net had a chance to talk to the two young actors on camera and find out how they first met and worked their way up to the movie’s two unforgettable love scenes. We also learned that although both of them were living in New York City in 1994, neither was old enough to be watching “Yo! MTV Raps” like their characters.
The Wackness is now playing in New York and L. A., and it will open in more cities on Friday, July 11, and then even more over the weeks that follow. Also, check out our earlier interview with director Jonathan Levine.
