Max Minghella stars as an aspiring artist who enrolls himself in an East Coast art school hoping to become the next Picasso. He soon finds that the school isn't anything like he expected and his fellow students definitely do not appreciate his talent.
The Inspiration for His Character: Suplee co-stars as an aspiring filmmaker in "Art School Confidential." Suplee says ‘Vince’ wasn’t inspired by independent filmmaker Kevin Smith or even Jerry Bruckheimer. Suplee’s worked with Smith on “Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy,” and “Dogma” and Bruckheimer on “Remember the Titans,” but neither filmmaker served as the basis for his “Art School Confidential” character.
“I didn’t actually have a lot of interaction with [Bruckheimer] though so I couldn’t necessarily base it on any aspect of Jerry Bruckheimer that I observed. I think I had dinner with him one time and that was with the rest of the cast. If I said two words to him, I was lucky. I think he’s based on aspects of a lot of people in this town, but nobody specifically.”
Suplee continued. “I didn’t know any film students and didn’t go to an acting school but I’ve definitely worked with people that [were] not kind of as generalized and exaggerated as Vince but had certain aspects of him. But obviously, he just wants to get laid and just wants money. That’s not going to get him anywhere good, but there are definitely people out there with those motives as well as a passion for making movies.”
Analyzing the Characters of “Art School Confidential”: “I don’t think either character is really sympathetic. I think you have my character who kind of starts out wanting to do something for probably not the right reasons, and then ultimately getting there for not the right reasons. And then you have the Jerome character [played by Max Minghella] who starts out wanting to do something for the right reasons but gets there for the wrong reasons, and then wants to push it even further for ludicrous reasons. And ultimately at the base of it, you have fame and wealth and power and recognition as your motivation, rather than just your outlet for communication which is what art is. It suddenly doesn’t become about art. It becomes about corporate sponsorship or something like that.”
Could Suplee relate to anything his character was going through in terms of having to, at times, compromise his art? “I face paying my mortgage and putting money aside for my kids to go to college,” said Suplee. “I also enjoy acting. It’s a pleasure unlike any other that I’ve ever experienced in my life so I feel passionate about it. And yeah, I want to do the best movies I can but I also need to pay my rent.”
The Success of “My Name is Earl”: Suplee has been keeping busy on the small screen as well as the big, co-starring with Jason Lee in the hit comedy series, “My Name is Earl.” “It’s pretty cool,” explained Suplee. “The whole motivation for doing television for me was staying in Los Angeles. I’d find myself outside of the country every year for periods of time and not seeing my family. I was in New Zealand, I brought the family down, but film schedules changed. I had two weeks off and they arrived and the day they arrived, the schedule flip flopped and I worked the entire time they were there. I just wanted to be able to be with them more. And strangely enough, on 'My Name is Earl' it’s almost the same difference because we work such long hours that I don’t see them at all during the week. But at least I’m here on the weekend. But it’s good. I wouldn’t do a pilot hoping that it didn’t get picked up, so it’s nice to know that we’re going to go and do our second season.”
The Difference in Pacing on a TV Series Set to a Film Set: “It’s really weird. I just got a chance to work with David Dobkin who did ‘Wedding Crashers’ and we did re-shoots of a movie called ‘Mr. Woodcock.’ It was very fast paced and I think for comedy, you don’t want to sit around a lot to think. You want to get into a rhythm. Somehow we took a whole day to shoot a two page scene but we were constantly working. That energy was high. On something dramatic, I think it’s better to take your time or maybe more conducive to the work to be able to think about what you’re doing. Not to say that comedy is mindless. It’s not. It’s very analytical and significant in certain aspects of it, unless you’re just falling down and that’s the joke.”
