If you regularly attend your local arthouse theater, you’re likely to have heard the name of “Harmony Korine.” Maybe you’ve even seen some of his sporadic filmography that ranges from reputable films like Julien Donkey-Boy and Larry Clark’s Kids (which Korine wrote) to more divisive ones like Gummo and Trash Humpers and in the latter cases, you may have sworn to never pay to see one of his movies ever again.
To those latter people, Korine’s latest film Spring Breakers may come as a bit of a surprise since it’s a shockingly accessible crime thriller, starring no less than former Disney Channel stars Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens as two of four friends–along with Ashley Benson and Korine’s wife Rachel–who travel down to St. Petersburg, Florida for spring break. Once there, they get caught up in the world of a rapping drugdealer who goes by the name “Alien,” played by James Franco in one of the most outrageous roles of his career, and things just go downhill from there.
If you’ve read our review (or any reviews for that matter), you already know that most people either love the movie or hate it, which is par for the course for Korine’s work, but there are a lot more people on the plus side this time, those who have found it to be one of the craziest and most entertaining movies they’ve seen this year.
Harmony and his wife Rachel have been doing the rounds for the movie which eventually brought them to the SXSW, where Spring Breakers had its U.S. Premiere. That’s also where ComingSoon.net had a chance to sit down with the Korines to talk about making the film.
In the following video interview, we spoke to the Nashville-based couple about:
* How “Spring Breakers” has been a completely different experience for Korine compared to his past films
* When and why he decided to do a movie in this setting
* Whether Rachel was aware of what Harmony was working on
* How she sent him to Florida to write the script for the movie
* Whether Harmony knew that this movie would be seen by a different audience than his past work and how he wanted to create a more physical trance-like film
* Rachel’s first reaction to the script and why she wanted to play one of the roles
* How and why three of the girls have a very similar look and how they represent four parts of a whole
* Casting Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens
* What it was like for Rachel to work with them and how she shared a trailer with them
* Shooting a movie with two popular actresses that tend to attract fans and paparazzi alike
And lots more!
Spring Breakers opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, March 15, and nationwide on March 22.
