Interview: Darren Stein Talks G.B.F. Distribution and a Jawbreaker Musical

With G.B.F. coming to DirecTV and a Jawbreaker musical in the works, the teen-comedy director is finding new and exciting ways to get his movies to the public.

Last week in New York City, in a small dance studio near Union Square, we were invited to attend the very first preview performance of Jawbreaker: The Musical, an adaptation of the 1999 cult film starring Rose McGowan, Rebecca Gayheart, and Judy Greer as high-schoolers caught up in the merciless throes of high school social politics and the accidental (or was it?) death of their friend.

The writer/director of the film is Darren Stein, and its Stein who is writing the book for its musical adaptation. This new musical features a talented cast (Liz Gilles, pop star Jojo, American Idol alum Diana DeGarmo) and an impressive array of pop-influenced show tunes. Moreover, its one more creative outlet now available for directors whose cult films are crying out for a second life.

Stein was here in New York this past spring as his new film, the gay teen comedy G.B.F., premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film now is set to premiere nationwide with an exclusive DirecTV release in November, followed by a general VOD/theater platform in January.

We sat down to talk to Stein about Jawbreaker, G.B.F., and the different ways in which his work is making its way to the public.

Tribeca: So to start, did someone come to you with the idea for Jawbreaker [as a musical]?

Darren Stein: I had always fantasized about it. When I wrote the screenplay, it crossed my mind that maybe it could be a musical too.

Jawbreaker was ahead of its time in that the level of darkness wasn't as digestible back then as it is now - like in a post-Ryan Murphy world.

Tribeca: The movie definitely has musical portions to it.

DS: It's very heightened. The hallway strut, the colors, the makeover montage -- I think are all part of an iambic pentameter interlude. Bob Fosse is one of my major influences, especially All That Jazz,' so everything came through that lens. A fledgling producer from New York called me about five years ago saying, Would you be interested in doing a Jawbreaker musical? I said, YES. Then he said, Well let me introduce you to some composers and lyricists, and Im like, "Okay, Stephen Trask! Lets go right to the source. I love Hedwig. But we couldn't get to him, so he introduced me to Jeff [Thomson] and Jordan [Mann] the composer and lyricist and I sent them a bunch of music that I liked, that I thought was the tone of Jawbreaker. So stuff like Alphabeat, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Courtney Love -- edgier female vocalists. I wanted to include some new wave and like shoegaze stuff, and then they processed everything and brought the musical theatre aspect into it and wrote three spec songs that blew me away. So they came out to L.A. for about ten days, and we beat out the entire narrative together what the songs are called, where they land, and every emotional beat of the story.

Tribeca: It's been about 14 years since Jawbreaker. Was there a balance you wanted to strike between the story and the movie as something set in stone, versus ideas and experiences that have evolved over time, being that its your own work?

DS: You have to reinvent what you did. You have to sort of throw it away and reinvent it, but keep the essence of the original thing. Music in musicals is intrinsically emotional in a way that, for film, it never was. So I think the new version of Jawbreaker has added a whole emotional undercurrent to the film, particularly with the Rebecca Gayheart character and with Fern Mayos transformation into Vylette. I think Jawbreaker is considered a cult film because it didn't address emotion in a way that is pleasing to the human mind and soul. So what's exciting now is making a dark story accessible to a broader audience through music. I think Jawbreaker was ahead of its time in that the level of darkness wasn't as digestible back then as it is now - like in a post-Ryan Murphy world.

I think as a filmmaker, you're just lucky if your film ages in a way that somehow merits a musical.

Tribeca: Movie-to-musical has become a genre in itself. Are there specific examples you've seen in the past several years that were able to make the transition while still maintaining the originality and edge?

DS: Hairspray is the first that comes to mind. It's by John Waters, so it's immediately subversive. You have Divine -- a drag queen, you have Ricki Lake, you have Debbie Harry - it's very underground. I think the musical made it more populist and it actually made it more fun in a way. John Waters himself has said that he made more money making Hairspray the Musical' than he was his entire career making movies.

Tribeca: Living in Hollywood and being among a community of filmmakers, is this a new outlet for artists to imagine their work? Creating a musical version of a film?

DS: I think it's still a New York thing. I believe the theatre community is trying to translate the right movies into musicals. I think as a filmmaker, you're just lucky if your film ages in a way that somehow merits a musical. I think it takes a confluence of elements to make that successful. I think a perfect movie shouldnt be made into a musical, because what else can you do with it? Whereas a film that may be a bit more flawed could have that potential because it has the seeds for something interesting.

Like Jawbreaker, for instance, is a Faustian story. Fern is essentially selling herself to the devil, and the devil is a high school student, and that translates. Someone who came to the musical said, I was watching this and it felt like Richard III in high school.

Tribeca: That's a great point. You definitely see that kind of stalwart theatre and Shakespeare translate really well to teenage, high s

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