14 Things You Didn’t Know About Dazed And Confused

It’s all about havin’ a good time man, not cursing. Due to the centrality of stoners, the F-bomb is only said 49 times, way less in comparison to the word “man” which is said a total of 203 times.

11. Stoner Hair

There was a lot of pot-smoking by a lot of characters in the film but the main stoner was without a doubt Slater played by Rory Cochrane. While his portrayal was very real, his hair was not, Cochrane wore a long hair wig for the film.

10. The Marriage

On-screen love between Michelle (Jovovich) and Pickford (Shawn Andrews) became real when the two eloped to Las Vegas and got married during filming. While Andrews was legal at 21, Jovovich was only 16 and her mother had the marriage annulled.

9. Jovovich’s Role

Milla Jovovich’s character is considered one of the main ones although she ended up having a pretty small role. Originally she had a lot more dialogue but it ended up being cut including a whole subplot that had to with the KISS statues that Michelle paints. There was a whole other story that went with those statues that didn’t make it to the final cut of the film. KISS member Gene Simmons ended up buying the statues before selling them at a KISS auction in 2000.

8. Cast Clash

Everything was not all groovy with everyone on-set. Apparently actors Jason London (‘Pink’ Floyd) and Shawn Andrews (Kevin Pickford) did not get along and even got in an on-set fight that director Richard Linklater had to break up. As a result, the original script had to be altered to include fewer interactions between the two characters, resulting in a lot fewer lines for Pickford. In fact, the last scene which focuses on the group smoking pot on the 50-yard line was supposed to feature Pickford instead of Wooderson (McConaughey).

7. Casting Matthew McConaughey

Speaking of Wooderson, not long ago an amazing video surfaced of  Matthew McConaughey auditioning for his iconic role in the film but the story behind how he got it is also pretty great. The film was shot in Texas where McConaughey happens to be from and one night in Austin he was hanging out a bar when he ran into the casting director Don Phillips. The two then got so drunk they got kicked out by management but Phillips told McConaughey to go to the casting office the next day, and well, we all know what happened there.

6. The Lawsuit

In 2004, 11 years after the movie’s release three former classmates of Linklater’s filed a defamation lawsuit against him stating that three of the central characters were based on them without their permission. The case was dismissed due to statute of limitations but they had a point considering their names were Bobby Wooderson, Andy Slater, and Richard Floyd.

5. Marissa Ribisi

Actress Marissa Ribisi plays Cynthia Dunn, the redheaded love interest of Wooderson and while she has continued acting, her biggest role remains to be that of Cynthia. She is, however, the twin sister of actor Giovanni Ribisi who you would recognize from pretty much everything. She has also been married to Grammy-winning singer Beck since 2004 and they have two children.

4. Drugs/Alcohol On-Set

Contrary to popular belief Linklater did not actually let the actors get stoned while filming but he admitted that did not stop them from getting stoned before the scenes, although they did apparently light one up for real for the final scene where Pink, Wooderson, Simone and Slater drive away to go get Aerosmith tickets. However, some of the party scenes included real beer and alcohol drunk by the actors, except for the minors of course.

3. The Freshmen Hazing

A huge part of the film focuses on the hazing of the Freshmen class by the Seniors which was inspired by Linklater’s own high school experience, especially the scene where Mitch is targeted after his baseball game which also happened to Linklater at his own summer-league game. The wooden paddles used by the guys were designed by the actors themselves and one had “17” on it to indicate the time between the film’s setting (1976) and the release (1993).

2. The Music

Obviously the music was central to the film and an incredible 15% of the entire $6.9 million budget was spent on getting copyrights for the songs featured. Even though the Aerosmith song “Sweet Emotion” features in the film’s opening scenes, the band would not allow it to go on the movie’s soundtrack and you may have noticed that even though the whole thing is named after an iconic Led Zeppelin song, not one of the band’s songs including “Dazed and Confused” appear in the movie. Linklater asked the remaining members of the band if he could use “Rock and Roll” for the movie and Page and Jones agreed but Robert Plant refused, so no-go on the Zeppelin- denied!

1. Wooderson’s Lines

“All right, all right, all right” has become Matthew McConaughey’s most famous line even after his vast Hollywood career and it all began with this movie. McConaughey’s first scene for the film was when he used the line to hit on Cynthia Dunn so to calm his nerves he meditated to The Doors and on the live album Jim Morrison yells out “All right” four times in between two songs. McConaughey later explained he only said it three times because he had his rock ‘n’ roll, his car and his weed but didn’t have the woman yet, 3/4. While “all right” is the actor’s most famous line, the best line of the movie is also delivered by McConaughey, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” And of course, “You just gotta keep livin’ man. L-I-V-I-N,” which is behind the name of his production company (JKL Productions) and his charity (Just Keep Living Foundation).

Telisa Carter