It's like a nice warm piece of apple pie – Adam Herz tells it like it is

By NICK POWILLS

If there was a decade I wish I could have experienced more of, it would have been the 80s, especially with the high quality teen flicks where the guys want to lose their virginity and the girls desire love.

Unfortunately, I had yet to reach pull pledged puberty by the time the 80s had passed, therefore leaving me with a void that prevented me from experiencing what some of the greatest filmmakers had to offer. Of course I have seen the DVDs, but it's not the same as understanding them during the time they came out.

Fortunately, there was a writer who wanted to bring back the 80s in the late 90s, so he set out to do it. Adam Herz knew there were a lot of new generation people who wanted to experience the teen thrill movie.

"I wanted to know what happened to all these great movies from the 80s, about teenagers running around wanting to have sex," Herz says. "And I was like I want to make one of those. And we are like that's not a bad idea cause we could do it cheap."

Creating the perfect film for current age people was what Herz was born to do. He was created to give the world a big giant slice of American pie.

Finding the drive

Hertz began his dream at a very early age. His mom took him to see Steven Speilberg's Poltergeist, a movie that sparked his interest in the inner workings behind the movie. This was the second grade.

"As soon as I learned that movies just didn't exist, that there was work behind it, I was pretty interested in that. I pretty much loved movies growing up. That's all I really wanted to do. I loved acting, but once I got older I realized I wasn't that great, I just thought it was fun, so I thought I should get behind the camera."

Herz experimented with different life ventures before deciding that Hollywood was his calling.

"When I was a junior and senior in high school, I had to decide what I wanted to do with my life," Herz says. "I decided to be a political science major, but I was like, "This sucks, I am not going to be a lawyer."

While attending the University of Michigan, Herz found the steps he wanted to take to making it to Hollywood. He was studying film at the University, but wasn't being given the necessary tools to take his game to the next level. So for a summer, he left behind his home in Grand Rapids and headed to New York City to take a film making class at NYU.

"That was the most influential thing I did," Herz says. "You're on your own in the big city. It was great because I had nothing to do there for six weeks but make movies."

The college thing got Herz focused, but Los Angeles set him straight. He moved out West after graduating, pumped with the notion to work on movies. "I thought any job I could get on a movie was the shit. So I started PAing (personal assisting) on TV shows and started collecting some writing samples."

While packing in 15 hour days, Herz found his grove, his idea, his dream.

"Originally I just wanted to write a teenage party. I had a few false starts and I was PA, so I was exhausted cause I was working 15 hours a day, so there was no way I could focus on writing it. I was going to need a huge chunk of time, so I quit the PA and started maxing out credit cards and writing. It wasn't going so well. But then I wrote enough to give to the people who managed me.

"They said the first two pages genius, but the other 28 were shit. They said what I needed to do is take those fist two pages and make all 28 like that. So I thought, lets just make this movie about guys who want to get laid. And when I had that idea, I really wrote the script in two to three weeks."

Three weeks, 113 pages and a few maxed out credit cards later, the American Pie franchise was born.

Brilliance behind the screen

The dialog used by the American Pie cast members is absolutely genius. The way "Fucker" roles off of Stifler's tongue or the way Jim stutters through the most nerve challenging situations, is some of the most realistic dialog created in our time. The American Pie franchise is packed solid with perfect writing.

When you break down the writing, spotting the inspiration for the voices of the characters is easy. We all had each and every of one of these characters at our high schools and colleges, especially the jackasses that spoke like Stifler. So Herz, simply took those jackasses, juggled them around and came up with some of the best teenage dialog possible.

"They were inspired by all my friends," Herz says. "In the original draft I just named them so that I could keep the characters straight. If you read a bad screen play, all the characters sound the same, but obviously life isn't like that. Everyone knows a Stifler, everyone went to high school with one, so I thought of a couple of jackasses that I went to high school with. And the characters are based on me too.

"I knew a couple of guys in high school where there was no internal censor. Everything they think of they said. You kind of have to admire that. Like, wow, that guy is really an asshole, but at least what you see is what you get. 'Hey I just got my haircut how does it look?' Shitty. OK.

"In the first American Pie a lot more of the dialog was catch praises, like things my friends and I would say, but a lot of Stifler is Seann [William Scott] too. It became more Seann, and the more he got to know the character, the crazier it got."

Herz says that he can be linked to all of the characters in bits and pieces, but if he has to relate to just one of the characters, it would be Jimbo.

"I tend to say Jim, with all the insecurities. And I take my own things and magnify them so that the does the things I only dream of doing."

American Divorce?

"Not for a long time. I mean no, but if there is one not for a long time."

But why not? With the first three in the franchise making so much cash and developing such a solid following, wouldn't it make sense to give the fans another chance? I mean, this series could go on for ever. The plot provides an infinite cushion for more movies.

"Yeah, you know it would be fun to do it that way," Herz says. "The movie is fun, but there are practicalities too. After American Pie Three I was tired. I mean how many things can Stifler put in his mouth? And the actors don't want to be labeled. With Jason Biggs everyone says, 'Oh, you're the pie fucker.' Nobody wants to be typecast. But, I wouldn't be surprised if some time, like in 10 years or something, there is another film."

Like Herz, if I could be like Herz!

He has been there and done that, so taking Herz's advice seems like a solid idea. The man has gone from nothing to something based on following his dream, so taking his advice should be a blessing to all of us who wish to make it someday.

"It's basically this: If you have talent, if you have a voice, and you know you write well, then you can make it. Here's the deal. In Hollywood there is such a lack of good scripts that if you write a good script, it will sell. And it's weird to hear, because there are so many people who come out here and are like, 'No one will sign me, its so hard,' but they are not willing to do the work. Just like Hemingway said, 'The first draft ain't shit.' And a bunch of people aren't willing to write it and re-write it.

"I can't give you advice to make you talented, but my big piece of advice is sell out first. And what I mean by that, especially in college, is you are learning things about you and how the world works and what is what, and everyone has this all American movie they want to write, but it's not that simple. If it's so easy to write a Hollywood movie, then do it, because people will pay you right away for it.

"When I wrote American pie, I literally didn't write many scenes for night because it's more expensive to shoot at night. Make it cheap. After I wrote the first one, the studio asked me what I wanted to do next. And I was like I want to write and direct a movie and they were like done. So, you see what I mean by selling out. You will see the benefits in the end. I got to take my career the way I wanted to take it."

To the next step

Herz gets to work in the morning, after sleeping in of course (cause he can), and usually writes for five to six hours a day. What exactly is he writing? The next great movie.

"I'm working on a new broad comedy that I will direct," Herz says. "Who knows when it will be done. I would like to be shooting it sometime in the next year."

Waiting for the next piece of pie can be tough for Herz fans, but don't you worry, you will be pleased with what's next.

"Oh you'll like the next thing," Herz says.