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"I feel like, in general, our parents, more or less, grew up much, much sooner than we did."
As we get older, do we become versions of our parents? And if not, how did we evolve differently? That's what Michael Angarano explores in Sacramento. "My parents have been together since they were 19, and by the time they were 30, they already had three kids and started their own business. When I was 30, I was just starting to go to therapy." The film follows childhood friends Rickey (Angarano) and Glenn (Michael Cera) as they grapple, over the course of an impromptu road trip, with the realities of how we change as we get older. "Glenn and Rickey are just another iteration of what our fathers were, and trying to change that somehow, but not really quite knowing where to start." Angarano, who also directed and cowrote the film, knows most people recognize him from his work as a child actor on shows like Will & Grace and films like Lords of Dogtown. "Here's the truth— I still recognize myself from those things. I'm not that far removed." But he says all of those projects were "the building blocks. I couldn't have had Sacramento without those things."
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Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.
Where did the idea for Sacramento come from?
Chris Smith and I, who I cowrote it with, we worked together on a pilot like nine or 10 years ago now, and that pilot did not get picked up. Three or four weeks after that, we were still kind of reeling and we were hanging out. We were on the 5 [freeway], getting on the 5 north, and we were just like, "You want to go to Sacramento?" "Yeah, fuck it. Let's go on a long-ass trip to a place I know nothing about." Literally, those lines, almost verbatim, became that scene in the film. So, it started as this joke between the two of us, because we would go home and write that scene, and over the next seven years we would get together and write the script. It did not start as this story about fatherhood and growing up; it was really an excuse for the two of us to hang out. The evolution of the script walked hand-in-hand with just us growing up as guys. As we wrote dozens and dozens of drafts of that script, it wasn't until, I would say, the last couple of years, where we really tied it all together and realized what the story was. And so the initial inception of the script was just an excuse for us to hang out. Yeah, yeah, two guys going on a road trip. We even questioned, as we were breaking it down, why do people go on a road trip? What's on the other side of it? And we played with the idea that there was nothing on the other side of it. And we thought we might make this movie at one point with a cameraman and a sound person and just take this trip and improvise the whole thing. So it really just evolved. But the inception, the initial conceit, was a joke of two guys who go on a trip.
But also, why Sacramento? I love Sacramento, but it doesn't seem like the best vacation destination.
That was a question posed to us by several financiers when we were pitching this movie. "Why not San Francisco? Why not New York? Why not any other place?" And the general answer is the destination is not the point. Right? The conceit of the film rests in the idea that they could point to a sign and say, "Hey, you want to go to Sacramento?" They could easily say, "Hey, you want to go to San Diego? Hey, do you want to go to Barstow?" It's the idea that these two people who are listless in their own lives with nowhere to go, have this idea of going somewhere, and so it could be anywhere. And not to spoil the film, but there is a specific reason for one of these characters to be in Sacramento. And it's also a little bit of a red herring, because it's being marketed as a road trip, but it's really not so much a road trip. The road trip itself is about six minutes of the film.
How did you craft these two friends?
So I think, I think in terms of archetypes, Rickey represents that person we all know—that person you know from high school, or that person you know from childhood, or that person you know from college—who is not really getting over the certain phase of his life. He's in that arrested development, for better or for worse, and he brings with him that excitement and that joy and that guilelessness. Over the course of writing the film, I don't think I was ever the Rickey, so to speak, but I feel like by the time we made the film, I was closer on the spectrum to the Glenn archetype, who's somebody who maybe once was that, and has just grown past that, has really accepted his responsibilities and really accepted this new phase of his life. I think Glenn and Rickey came from the same pool, maybe at one point Glenn was the wild one, and he was the one who was the influence on Rickey but as time went on, Glenn just evolved in a more healthy way. His problem is that he's still not really capable of expressing what he's actually going through, he's more projecting the idea of what he wants to be versus the person who he actually is. So they're both stunted in that sense. And for Chris and I, those themes were always imbued in the very original structure. When we actually wrote it and put it down, [from] the earliest drafts we knew immediately that it was about two guys who were not really able to articulate their feelings and communicate properly. Even our partners in real life, when we would go home, [they'd] be like, "What did you guys do today? You and Chris were together for six hours. What did you guys do? What did you talk about?" "Nothing." We wrote for about 15 minutes at the end of it, but we really just hung out for five-and-a-half, six hours. And so that was always something we wanted to show thematically in the film.
For this generation, millennials, there is very much this arrested development. From the moment we graduated college, it was either 9/11, the Great Recession, and then COVID. The way we dress, so much is just different from how our parents were at our ages.
And that's definitely something we wanted to show and articulate. It's the idea of a male friendship, but it's also the idea of the kind of men these two guys want to be, the kind of men that these guys think they are. I think it's generational, and I feel like that's exactly what you're saying, where Rickey's father clearly has a big influence on him, and Glenn's father clearly has a large influence on him. And I think the way that the generation before us, our fathers dealt with being men, communicating, being emotional, and all of these things, I feel like our generation is coming to terms with that, while also finding new ways around it. I look at pictures of my dad when he's 23 and he looks like he's 45. I feel like my dad looks younger now than he did when I see pictures of him when he's like, 22 and I don't know exactly why that is, but I feel like, in general, our parents more or less, grew up much, much sooner then we did. Just as an example, my parents have been together since they were 19, and by the time they were 30, they already had three kids and already started their own business. When I was 30, I was just starting to go to therapy. Just like drastically different life experiences. So, Glenn and Rickey are also just another iteration of that, of what our fathers were, and dealing with how our fathers dealt with them, and trying to change that somehow, but not really quite knowing where to start.
Were there any films you watched for influence?
Definitely. Hopefully the influences are clear. I always called it like the imperfect Sideways. You look at Sideways, and it's such a beautiful film, and they might not even be that much older, but they feel a lot older. We definitely were influenced by Sideways in as much as it's about two men, old friends. But also, obviously going up the California coast, there's so many similarities, and they're also very different in a lot of ways, too. But also the film Bottle Rocket, Wes Anderson's first film. One of my favorite movies of all time, Swingers, is very much in here. There is an old Italian film called Il Sorpasso that is directed by Dino Risi. That was a film that Sideways was inspired by and we're really just standing on the shoulders of those movies. But there were so many different influences.
Does being as involved with the writing and the directing of a movie impact your performance in the film?
I directed something that I acted in once before, but on this film, I really felt there is this holistic thing for me where I can kind of blend the two jobs. But directing is such a job. You are doing so much more than meets the eye, especially from the perspective of an actor. When you're an actor, you really are in a bubble, and you show up, you know your lines, and you don't really have to communicate. You really don't. All you have to do is express. It's a very, very different job. And so, I'm kind of going to answer it from the perspective of an actor, because no matter if you've directed or have experience, you'll always feel the same insecurities as an actor, which is, am I doing it? Am I getting it right? Am I doing enough? Am I prepared enough? You'll always sort of find the same hole, so to speak, that you'll go down. And when you're directing, you are seeing so much more than just a performance. You're looking at the flowers behind the actor, you're checking out the lighting, there's so many other things, and that perspective is really helpful as an actor, if you can somehow manage to carry that with you, and it might take some pressure off of yourself, because an actor who's feeling doubtful or insecure or nervous, it's very clear that it's only because of what they're going through internally, that they're sort of getting in their own way. And when you watch it from a bigger picture, all you got to do is stand on the mark and say your line, and there's a whole team of people around you working to make sure that it works. So, I don't know if that answers the question, but that helps me sometimes as an actor, knowing that.
How did you assemble this incredible cast? But then also, did you discover new things about the story based on the performances they gave?
Yeah, absolutely. And just in terms of writing the script from a very early point, both of us, Chris and I, were very conscious and open and aware of the fact that any person we cast is going to do something completely different and something that we weren't expecting and we really wanted that. Every actor is so different, particularly Mike [Michael] Cera, when we brought him on, I think he really tied the film together. Chris and I could imagine Glenn speaking and sounding and looking. Creatively, Mike also pushed it, and he pushed us. And it was early when Mike agreed, in good faith, to attach himself to it so we can go and try and find some money. The script wasn't in the right place. It wasn't there yet. And Mike communicated that to us, and we agreed. Really it was in the third act, late second act of the third act, where we always were searching for something new. We always were looking for another place to bring it. And Mike really helped push us in that direction, and the script really materialized.
It was always from a Rickey perspective that we were writing the script. Once we looked at Glenn as the main character and Rickey as the friend, it really helped us and where we wanted it to go. And it just gave Glenn a fuller arc. And so Mike, as early as development, really helped us find Glenn's voice, and everybody from Maya [Erskine] and Kristen [Stewart], Rosalind Chao, all of those actors brought such a groundedness and a humanity. I feel like in lesser hands, those characters could easily be devices, because the real estate in the film is so dedicated to these two male characters, and it was really important to us that Tallie [Erskine] and Rosie [Stewart] felt real and felt like they weren't just these tertiary characters to service these guys, that these women are also broken, these women are also insecure, these women also have flaws, they're not these perfect characters. When I contacted Maya about being in this movie, I actually described it as the most important role in the film. And I really believe that, because I felt the film hinged on that performance, and in a no-pressure kind of way, but I was also like, we need somebody who is grounded and real, and also different than these two men, different from any other character in the film, but somebody you fully believe and somebody that you know exists out there, somebody who's also funny, and somebody who really has their own voice, because it really dictates the tone of the film. So that was always something that we knew going into it, that those characters were going to bring something of themselves. That's exactly what I said to Kristen. I was like, "Whatever it is that you and Mike have is going to be what we rely on. I'm not sure what it is. I've never seen you guys together. I love the idea of you guys being together, but whatever that is, we are going to be in that world, and that is going to be the world that, more or less, sells this movie."
You've been in this business since you were a kid, and a lot of people, particularly fans your age, are going to experience this film as if they've watched something of someone they've grown up with. What is it like to have that experience with fans?
It's really interesting, I find that most people recognize me from stuff I did when I was a kid, like either Will & Grace or Sky High or Lords of Dogtown or Almost Famous, which is wild because I was 10 years old. Here's the truth, I still recognize myself from those things, which is really weird to say. Those things, even though they're so long ago. I'm not that far removed from being on the set of Almost Famous and having so much fun and looking up to actors like Billy Crudup and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Frances McDormand. And I'm not far removed from working on Will & Grace for the first time and being so incredibly nervous. And I'm not far removed from being on the set of Sky High and having so much fun. I'm not emotionally that far removed. In time, in terms of years, I'm far removed. So on one hand, I respond as if you know those things aren't that long ago. It's like, "Oh, wow, thank you." But at the same time, it's interesting to me, because I have a son who's about to turn 4, and I started acting when I was 5. That shift in perspective I haven't quite reconciled with yet, that I was that young, and again, I have generally very positive experiences, and knowing how lucky I was and am to have that still and still enjoy this is [something] I feel very grateful for, and at the same time knowing that those things, just innocent experiences for me, but they were also the building blocks to Sacramento. I couldn't have had Sacramento without those things. It's also funny, because people genuinely believe that I've disappeared off the face of the earth for about 25 years, which is also fine, that's cool, too.
