Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical rock and roll opus Almost Famous has endured for over 20 years. The director and writer used his experience as a teenage Rolling Stone reporter to inform the film. Crowe came of age while chronicling the touring adventures of legendary acts like The Who, The Allman Brothers Band, Yes, Led Zeppelin, and many more.
Set in 1973, Almost Famous follows a teenage reporter (Patrick Fugit) who gets a gig with Rolling Stone magazine to go on tour with fictional band Stillwater and write a story for the magazine. Inspired by Crowe’s own experiences as a teenager hanging out with some of the biggest rock and rollers in the world, Almost Famous serves as a loving tribute to, and deconstruction of, the rock stars who are mythologized by the young people who are influenced by their music.
Almost Famous is all about growing up, so for its 21st anniversary (as opposed to the 20th), Paramount released a new, 4K edition of the film, which includes brand new transfers of both the theatrical version and the “Untitled Bootleg Cut,” which runs nearly 40 minutes longer and dives deeper into the strained relationships that form the backbone of Stillwater and how they’re barely keeping it together on the road. The set includes numerous brand new special features and aims to be the ultimate must-have item for any fan of the movie and its rock and roll inspirations.
While promoting the release of Almost Famous on 4K, Patrick Fugit spoke to Screen Rant about his work on the film and how it changed his life forever. He talks about his feelings on the two different cuts and laments how he wasn’t allowed to party with the crew during filming, since he was only 16 and had to be protected for the sake of his character’s innocence. He also talks briefly about his role as Owen in The Last of Us Part II and how he was such a huge fan of the first game before he was cast in the sequel.
Screen Rant: I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that 21 years ago-ish, I guess a little more because of filming and all that… your life and career were changed. You had been an actor, but did you think you were gonna get to be the lead?
Patrick Fugit: You know, I had grown up with this kind of vision in my head that I was going to be an actor and that it would work out, and that sort of thing. So it was obviously very exciting for me, but there was also this element of, “Yeah, this is what should be happening. If my dream is meant to come true, then this is the way that it happens.” I’m very fortunate to be the right age and the right tone for what Cameron was looking for. But obviously, from there, I’ve been an actor, professionally, since then. So it was a pretty amazing shift of gears for me in my life.
I actually haven’t seen the extended cut, the director’s cut, the Untitled cut. I’m really looking forward to getting the 4K Blu-ray to finally see it. I’ve seen the theatrical version a bunch of times, including yesterday, just to brush up. Do you have a favored cut?
Patrick Fugit: Oh yeah. Absolutely, the extended cut. The Untitled Bootleg Cut. It’s like, the only one that I want to watch! Now and then, a friend will want to watch it with me. It’s so many years later than when we filmed it, and that’s, without fail, the one that I want to watch. When I saw the theatrical version for the first time, I saw it in an Additional Dialogue Recording booth, so it was like a sound booth. And Cameron was like, “Do you want to watch the movie?” And I was like, “Yes!” So we watched it and I remember thinking, as the credits rolled, “That was amazing, but… That was it?” It felt like it was only five minutes long! It felt so condensed compared to the experience that I had, which was seven months or something like that of my life, between the casting time, the pre-production, and actual filming. There was so much more that happened, that wasn’t in the theatrical release. But when I watched the Bootleg Cut, it was like, “Oh, that’s where all that stuff went.”
I think that movie is so rewatchable on so many different levels, but just for me, personally, as someone who writes about this stuff, now I’m doing your thing! I mean, I haven’t been in high school in, like, twelve years or something. But tell me a little bit about being 17 or 18 when you were making the movie. Were you “the kid?” Did you get to hang, or did you get shuttled away when the parties started?
Patrick Fugit: I was 16. I was not into party stuff. I wasn’t really looking for it. But even if I had been, Cameron was like, “We have to keep this kid’s naivete intact. We have to keep how green he is intact.”
It’s for the character!
Patrick Fugit: Yeah. He was like, “Nobody is going to be offering him drinks or to smoke pot or anything.” He was just, like, “We’ll let all the first time things happen while we’re filming. On camera.” There were other castmates who had kind of a side-mission to corrupt me and to get me out into those environments, but between my mom, who was there, and the hawk crew that was the set teacher, Rhona Gordon, and the set acting coach, Belita Moreno, and Cameron, it just was not going to happen! So I would go to set, and I would work, and then I would go do school in the trailer while everybody else was playing Allman Brothers on acoustic guitars. We had some amazing musicians in there, and they’re playing their own music, they’re playing rock and roll together, all in costume, in the dressing room of an actual concert venue. And I’d be like, “Cool. I’m gonna go learn some geography. I’ll be back in 40 minutes, whenever we’re ready again.” That was kind of lame for me as a 16-year-old, but in hindsight, probably a good thing. It kept me feeling like the outsider that William really was.
Did you get to make up for it on We Bought a Zoo? Were you like, “Now I’m a grown-up, let’s GO!”
Patrick Fugit: (Laughs) Yeah. Yup. But there really weren’t any party people on that one. I remember, that was when Scarlett was dating Sean Penn, and so Sean Penn would come hang around, and Sean Penn has an intense personality. And I was playing a lot of flamenco guitar at the time. And so he stopped me one day and said, “Hey, do you have your flamenco guitar?” He’s, like, hanging out by Scarlett’s trailer. And I’m like, “Uh, yeah, I have my guitar.” And he’s like, “C’mon, bring it over here!” So he had me bring my flamenco guitar over and he’s like, “Baby, baby, you’ve gotta listen to this, you’ve gotta listen to this kid play.” And he’s like, “Alright, Patrick, take us to SPAIN!” And I’m like, “Okay.” So I’m playing flamenco guitar for Sean Penn and Scarlett Johansson while we’re chilling out on the ranch that we filmed in out in Thousand Oaks or wherever. So that was a pretty wild time, but it wasn’t really a party atmosphere on that one.
Sure. I mean, you’ve got work to do! You’re there to work! You’re not there to party! Okay, back to Almost Famous, famously, the character is very much an avatar for Cameron himself, in some ways. Did you have to go to Cameron-School, or did you get the freedom to make it your own and just have the script be Cameron’s personality, just through that?
Patrick Fugit: Yeah, he sent me some of his articles that were an insight into how he viewed the world that he was in and how much passion he had, how much care he invested in it. But they were only indicators. He didn’t want me to mimic him or anything like that. For sure, I put some mannerisms in there that were fun to include, that Cameron recognized and was like, “Yeah, okay, I do that, whatever, you can put that in there.” But for the most part, everything he wanted to communicate was really in the script, and on the page. So it was about me bringing my performance into that structure, and breathing life into that. He was never really concerned about how accurate to him it was, or anything like that.
The movie, just having seen it again yesterday, stands the test of time. It’s 21. It can go drink if it wants to. And this 4K Blu-ray, I can’t wait to get my hands on it. I don’t think that role could have been played by anybody else. That’s not something I say lightly, about a lot of roles, but I think it’s perfect.
Patrick Fugit: Thanks, man. Yeah, it was a synergy of a lot of different things in time and space that gave me the privilege to play that part.
Thanks so much, and I hope to catch you for something else down the line, too. And The Last of Us 2, 10/10 performance.
[Gestures towards Last of Us 2 artwork on his wall] Ashley Johnson and her boyfriend, Brian Foster gave me that. It’s amazing. Last of Us 2, how fu**ing good is that game?
I got to tell Troy Baker that it was the first game I played after my father passed away.
No way.
And he was just like, “Oh my God, how are you?” I haven’t gone back to it since then, because I just feel like it’s too close. I want to, but I feel like there’s a wall that’s up and I don’t know if I can bring that down again.
Bro, playing those games, I had a similar experience with Last of Us 1. My best friend had passed away, probably three months before I played the game, so I was, like, in a heavy space. And then the prologue of The Last of Us part 1 is intense as f***. And I was like, “Isn’t this supposed to be some f****** zombie game? Like, I’m weeping at the opening of this fu***** game! I was like, if this doesn’t get lighter, I don’t know if I can play it! But I did play it. And I loved it. The Last of Us 2, I played through it, and I haven’t replayed it yet, for kind of the same reason. It is such a space to go into, and it is so immersive and so good and so masterfully executed by everybody. It is an amazing experience, but it’s so intense that it’s not like Breath of the Wild, which I can throw on anytime, or Skyrim or something like that, that I can just throw on and play over and over again. The Last of Us is, like, you’ve gotta take a deep breath and jump in again.
Almost Famous is out now on a brand new 4K Steelbook edition.
About The Author
