"Dude, you don't get to see my popsicle, just my onion boots."
In the new film “The Wackness,” the character Luke Shapiro is a teen drug dealer. He speaks a four-letter-word, and the R-rated film has a scene featuring him in the nude.
Josh Peck does not spring to mind as the choice to play Luke Shapiro. He usually plays a step-brother, not a doobie brother.
“It was an audition for a script that I really responded to, and I battled it out with a lot of cats,” Peck said during a phone interview. “(It was) the usual suspects that I see at a lot of auditions, who are usually booking things instead of me.”
But this was one case in which Peck had an advantage: He’s a native of New York City (where “The Wackness” was filmed) with the proper accent, and at a young age he started developing hip-hop beats, a bonus in a film featuring the music of artists such as the Notorious B.I.G. and De La Soul.
“I don’t know if it was the element of New York,” Peck said, “or that the director (Jonathan Levine) and I are two white boy hip-hop heads from New York, but I had to battle it out and it went my way.”
He added that when offered the part, “I was cheering and it was reverie for about 10 seconds, and then I was thinking, ‘Have I got to be naked?’ Oh yeah, my neuroses were in full effect.”
The film opens Friday at the AMC Southroads 20. It is a sweet-and-sour coming-of-age tale that immediately transitions Peck from his Nickelodeon persona to more mature work, which is natural considering his age (he’s now 21). He is impressive in a demanding role that often finds him in one-on-one scenes with his favorite actor, Ben Kingsley.
While he soaked up every pearl of wisdom that the Oscar-winner had to offer, Peck drew on another influence for his virginal love/breakup/makeup scenes with Olivia Thirlby (of “Juno”).
“I was sort of fresh out of my first relationship, and all the nicks and the scrapes and bruises were rather fresh, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to live or die or not,” Peck said with the bittersweetness of an experience on which he finally can look back and laugh a bit.
“So that’s one of those beautiful, divine gifts that you’re granted as an artist that you can incorporate into your acting, (which) can be very therapeutic. It’s not therapy, unfortunately, but it can be therapeutic.”
Epic, he says
He’s not finished with his Nickelodeon character just yet. Peck called after returning from a costume fitting for a holiday “Drake & Josh” special, which was to begin filming this week.
“It will be epic. Epic. There’s going to be a sufficient amount of ballyhoo, hijinks and tomfoolery, with Drake (co-star and pal Drake Bell) and I hoping to give a young orphan girl the best Christmas ever. I hope it lives up to all the Drake & Josh standards,” he said.
The boy who started a stand-up act at age 8 said “Drake & Josh” was perfect for him during his own tween years. But he’s been waiting, mostly patiently, for “The Wackness” to be released after its warm reception at January’s Sundance Film Festival.
His days as an occasionally reluctant role model may soon be over.
“(“Drake & Josh”) is meant to make kids laugh, and that is such a gift. I guess it’s kind of fortunate, but it wasn’t something that I got into, or was looking for, which is to be this sort of odd role model, that you’re sort of thrust into and you can’t help but be when you’re in young people’s faces, twice a day, every day, much to some parents’ discontent,” Peck said with a laugh.
“So no longer is it a choice but a responsibility to these kids to uphold yourself in a respectable way. That’s just the price of playing (Josh). So I find with characters like (Luke in ‘Wackness’), it’s truly my outlet for my curiosity or, you know, what could be some dangerous interests in life to just be completely let out in the form of a character.
“This way, in my normal life, I can be somewhat respectable,” Peck said before one last comedic jab.
“But I’m not making any promises.”
Courtesy of Tulsa World
Tags: Famous Folk, Sex Sells