STURDY ON "CLASS"

As the lights go down in the theatre, our small group slips into the cordoned-off back row. We are about to screen the Atlanta premiere of the new comedy, "Class," to a packed house. Viewers are unaware that the two young men sitting next to me will be flashing across the screen in a few moments. Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy laugh nervously. This is the first time they will be seeing the film with an objective audience, and the tension of anticipation is

rising.

The next two hours are filled with genuine laughter from an appreciative crowd. The mob scenes that follows the screening, when the patrons discover the stars, is right out of a Hollywood script. We talked over breakfast the next morning. JACK: What was your reaction last

night?

ANDY: I felt great. I thought that it went very well. It was fun

to watch the reaction of the people when they liked the characters.

ROB: Yes! We had seen it once before, but it was a half-truth audience. It was half agents, lawyers and producers, and half college kids. So this is the first true audience we've seen it with.

JACK:

How about the film itself? Was filming in Chicago on 10cation easier than Hollywood filming?

ANDY: Well, I've never filmed a

ROB:

Hollywood film. "Class" was a lot of work, but it was great. The fact that we were all in the same hotel, going through it all together was helpful to

me.

That's the difference about locations. When your're in L.A. you really don't have to get to know your fellow actors. On

JACK:

ROB:

location you're forced into doing it, which can be helpful. Did your living situation help you develop your characters? (Laughs) When we first moved into the hotel in Chicago, they had me about five floors from Andy.

I immediately changed to

an

adjoining room. That had its good points and its bad points. You know, his alarm goes off in the middle of the night.... (Breaks in) And he doesn't put the cap back on the toothSo paste. Things like that.

ANDY:

you get the roommate life, like it or not.

JACK: Did that help you in particular, Andy, this being your first feature film?

ANDY:

JACK:

It has to. You're living it. How close to that kind of lifestyle is the film?

ANDY: We didn't dress up in women's underwear and play pranks like we did in the film. But I think some of the reality of living with people we captured in subtle ways. Like Rob coming in, in the morning, and telling me I looked terrible, the little behavioral things were real. JACK: Much of what makes "Class" work is snappy dialog. Both of you contributed nuances that added to your characterizations. Most of the dialog was wonderful, but there were a few little things. Some of the dialog was too written, like an older person writing for a teenager. I would say "I wouldn't say that," and Lewis Carlino, our director, would say, "Then say something," and I would, and it was kept. That's the strange quality that you have with a script. A lot of times it looks true and full on paper, and you say it, and.... ANDY:

ROB:

And then there are other times when hou read it on paper and it doesn't work, and the actors

read it and for some reason it does work.

ROB: The laugh lines are the stran-

gest. You never know when people will laugh. That's what was fun to see last night. We're too close to the movie to know what's funny any more. When you first read the script, everything is funny; then, after that, you've it done it fifty times and see in dailies and think about it... nothing is funny. We laugh at things that no one else laughs at because they are inside jokes.

ANDY:

But it's fun and refreshing to see what people do find funny. They laugh because they're pulling for the characters, which is nice.

JACK: Anyone who's seen the TV promos for "Class" knows that Andy's character has an affair with the mother of Rob's character. There was some pretty strong stuff in those scenes with Jacqueline Bisset. Did that bother Andy? ANDY: Not really, At the beginning I was very nervous about it. But we hit it off right away and got along great. She made it very easy, not intimidating. She didn't give me pointers, but she helped me stay relaxed, joked around.

JACK:

How about the steamy sex scene? Was that tough?

ANDY: (Wipes his brow) Sure it was tough. The elevator wasn't tough. That was fun. We had great dialog and the little subtie things like up is fun, down is etc. The words were fun to say in the situation. The scenes in bed were embarassing. They closed the set down, but eight (people) is enough. You try to forget about them and look at it through your character's eyes. JACK: Andy, I understand you had to

work pretty hard to get this part. ANDY: The audition was an open call that one of my friends read about in the trade papers in New York where I was a student at NYU studying acting. They wanted an 18-year-old kid to play a part in the movie. The friend and I went to a hotel where we waited three hours to finally go in and meet a casting man, give him a picture, talk to him about a minute, and that was it. Then they called me back. And what's amazing to me is how one person sees something in you and not in the three hundred other people. That's just amazing to me. ROB: That's what makes good casting directors.

JACK: What was the quality they wanted from you?

ANDY:

JACK:

I don't know.

You can't identify it?

ANDY:

There are a million young vulnerable sensitives around. I don't know what they saw. glad they saw it.

I'm

ROB: (Very seriously) I know what they saw.

ANDY: ROB:

saw.

(baffled) What?

I know what they told me they I said "Who the hell is playing Jonathan?" and they said "We don't know. We have an unknown from New York that we like

a lot." ANDY: (Interrupting) Lew (Carlino) liked my eyes. He said, "He's got weird eyes," referring to me. ROB: They said you seemed like sometimes you had this almost kind of half-crazed look.. When I saw you, that was absolutely right.

ANDY:

ROB:

(Gets "that" look, then speaks) I went back to audition seven or eight times, meeting casting people and the director, talking with Lewis and reading and testing, and finally I tested with Rob and they gave me the part.

(Nods agreement) I think they were just looking for a chemistry between the two of us, and we did well in that testing. When I saw Andy for the first time, we were all at breakfast. I knew that he would be Jonathan. I told him that, too.

The interview finished with a typical bit of humor from the guys. I made the mistake of asking them about future projects. They looked at each other, did a little eye roll, and blurted simultaneously, "Love Boat III

in 3-D!"

Andy added, "Rob's gonna shave his head for the Bavin McLeod role. He's gonna wear socks that jump off the screen into your lap!" And all of us fell into uncontrollable laughter.