Hasitha Fernando on the story behind Almost Famous as it celebrates its 25th anniversary…
Almost Famous was one of the quintessential 2000s films that effortlessly captured the 1970s era replete with rock stars, touring with groupies and reckless behavior. And in spite of hits like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Jerry McGuire under his belt, its safe to say the film is Cameron Crowe’s best effort to date. As the movie celebrates its 25th anniversary we look back at what went on behind-the-scenes during the making of the cult classic..
Almost Famous was a semi-autobiography of Cameron Crowe’s own life
From a very young age Cameron Crowe has been something of an outlier. Somewhat precocious in nature he skipped kindergarten and two grades in elementary school so by the time he was in high school Crowe was already several years younger than his classmates. Because of this, and frequent bouts of nephritis he was constantly alienated by his peers and led a solitary life. At the age of 13, however, Crowe discovered his passion for writing and began scribbling for the school newspaper and contributing music reviews for an underground publication to The San Diego Door. In this time period Crowe started corresponding with Creem magazines’ Lester Bangs and began submitting articles for them.
After graduating from high school, he met the editor of Rolling Stone, who then subsequently hired Crowe as a contributing writer. During his stint at Rolling Stone Crowe interviewed the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eagles, David Bowie, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin whilst scaling career heights and becoming an associate editor of the magazine. Crowe’s first cover story was regarding the Allman Brothers Band, with whom he went on the road for three weeks with, interviewing all band members and the road crew. The story of Almost Famous was based on many of the aforementioned details and that unforgettable road trip Crowe undertook at the age of 16 with the Allman Brothers Band.
Steven Spielberg had only good things to say about the film’s script
Whilst Almost Famous earned Cameron Crowe his first Oscar award for Best Original Screenplay, Crowe had surprising success for his previous efforts such as the cult classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High, whose script he penned and the rom-com sports drama Jerry McGuire for which Cuba Gooding Jr. won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The script for Almost Famous was shopped to various Hollywood studios at first to see if anyone would show interest to it. The script eventually came to DreamWorks founder Steven Spielberg who read Crowe’s 172- page screenplay over one weekend and called Crowe on Monday to tell him to, “Direct every word”. Keeping with Spielberg’s genuine suggestion Crowe pretty much shot the entire script he’d penned word-for-word.
“Stillwater” was a composite of multiple bands from the filmmaker’s era
Having met with and interviewed many rock bands during his time at Rolling Stone, Crowe had valuable insights on what aspects he should focus on when crafting the fictional band “Stillwater” for his story. The name of the band, however, was already taken by a real-life band signed to the Capricorn Records label, which meant that the producers had to obtain permission from the band to utilize their name. After a fair remuneration Crowe and company were granted permission to use the name for Almost Famous. Peter Frampton, of The Herd and Humble Pie, fame served as the movie’s technical consultant while he, Crowe and his then-wife Nancy Wilson co-wrote the five Stillwater songs featured in the film while Mike McCready of Pearl Jam played lead guitar. In the credits’ music acknowledgments Russell Hammond and Stillwater are mentioned as if they were the real life creators/performers of the five songs.
Patrick Fugit was a then unknown actor when he was cast in the lead role
Patrick Fugit, who played the lead role in Almost Famous, was cast late in the casting process when director Cameron Crowe and casting director Gail Levin came across the young actor’s self-taped audition sent to them. The up-and-coming actor was a complete unknown at the time, when he nabbed his breakout role to play child prodigy cum musical aficionado William Miller in Almost Famous. Interestingly, Fugit thought he’d missed his opportunity when his audition tape got misplaced but as fate would have it Crowe and Levin did watch the audition tape and Fugit was asked to come in for a screen test and the rest, as they say, is history.
Brad Pitt was originally set to play Stillwater’s Russell Hammond
None other than Brad Pitt was originally set to play Stillwater’s Russell Hammond in the movie. However, shortly prior to commencement of filming both Pitt and Crowe collectively decided that the actor wasn’t the right fit for the role. After Pitt dropped out the casting of Russell Hammond came down to Christian Bale and Billy Crudup, with the latter nabbing the role in the end. Some of the lines uttered by the character, which highlight his unusually good looks, were originally written for Pitt but remained in the script even after Crudup was cast.
Frances McDormand’s character was based on Cameron Crowe’s mother
In a career that spans four decades Frances McDormand has gone on to win three Academy Awards in the Best Actress category for Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Nomadland. McDormand even received an Oscar nod for her brilliant portrayal of an overbearing mother in Almost Famous. During filming Crowe made every effort to keep her mother away from McDormand, as her character was based on Crowe’s mother. But that didn’t stop McDormand from associating her, and on the first day Crowe found the two having lunch together in the few minutes he left the set.
Kate Hudson was initially cast in a different role before becoming “Penny Lane”
In interviews Cameron Crowe has stated that the utterly mesmerizing character of Penny Lane was “loosely based” on a friend he knew named Pennie Lane Trumbull, who went by the nickname “Penny Lane”, and was part of a group of female promoters who went by the name “Flying Garter Girls Group”. The role was originally written for Sarah Polley, who dropped out of the project one month into rehearsals to star in the low-budget indie drama The Law of Enclosures. Similar to Brad Pitt, Polley admitted that she wasn’t the best choice to play Penny Lane. So, Kate Hudson who was originally cast as William’s sister Anita (played in the film by Zooey Deschanel) screen tested for the role and won the part. Cameron Crowe’s favorite scene from the film is Penny Lane dancing in an empty, rubbish strewn auditorium in Cleveland.
The movie didn’t even have a title by the time production wrapped
That’s right. Cameron Crowe hadn’t settled on a title for the movie even when the film was close to wrapping up production. Desperate for ideas, Crowe put out a suggestion for the cast and crew of the effort to submit their ideas for a suitable title. Jimmy Fallon, whose acting debut this was, submitted 25 titles to help the director achieve his objective. While none of the submissions ended up being used Crowe admitted during The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that one of Fallon’s submissions – “Vinyl Days” – was his favorite pick out of the lot.
Led Zeppelin allowed four of their song to be used in the flick
Led Zeppelin is a band that is notoriously selective when allowing their songs to be used in media. However, when it came to Almost Famous the world famous British band allowed four of their songs to be used after seeing a special screening of the film Crowe arranged, exclusively for band members Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. However, they did not grant the filmmaker the rights to use “Stairway to Heaven” for one of his planned scenes. Due to film featuring over 50 different songs from the era it was set in; the music budget itself was close to $3.5 million. Most movies have music budgets less than $1.5 million.
Box-office disappointment, widespread acclaim and awards glory
From the get-go Almost Famous received rave reviews from critics across the board and as of writing holds a more than respectable 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 277 reviews with an average rating of 8/10. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars calling it the best film of the year 2000. A.O Scott writing for The New York Times also had only good things to say about the flick elaborating, “The movie’s real pleasures are to be found not in its story but in its profusion of funny, offbeat scenes. It’s the kind of picture that invites you to go back and savor your favorite moments like choice album cuts.” Richard Corliss also showered praise on Cameron Crowe’s script for, “giving each character his reasons, making everyone in the emotional debate charming and compelling, creating fictional people who breathe in a story with an organic life.”
Despite receiving universal critical acclaim, the movie failed to recoup its $60 million production budget, only making $47.4 million by the conclusion of its worldwide theatrical run. Crowe made his disappointment known publicly and when his film underperformed the same time Warner Bros. re-released The Exorcist in theaters it added insult to injury. Come award season, however, Crowe certainly had good reason to perk up because the film ended up receiving four Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in Supporting Role, Best Editing and Best Original Screenplay. Crowe walked away with the golden nudie for his brilliant screenplay as the movie also received accolades in the same categories for Kate Hudson at the Golden Globes and Best Screenplay and Best Sound at the BAFTAs. Regardless of what you think about the flick there is no denying that Almost Famous was one of the best pieces of cinema to debut in the 2000s and certainly auteur Cameron Crowe’s best effort to date.
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Hasitha Fernando is a part-time medical practitioner and full-time cinephile. Follow him on Twitter via @DoctorCinephile for regular updates on the world of entertainment.
