Academy Award winning Director, Ang Lee, is filming his new film “Taking Woodstock.” Lee’s close friend and writing /producing partner, James Schamus, spoke with MTV about the film and its director.
“Demetri Martin is the main character,” Schamus said, explaining who is really going to steal the show, “This is his ‘Hello world, this is Demetri Martin [moment].” Martin is one of our favorite stand-up comics, and we are super excited for him. We’re glad to see that he isn’t starting out in some terrible rom-com ala Dane Cook. Maybe once his name gets to the masses, his original screenplays will get made.
Starring alongside Martin is Paul Dano, Live Schreiber, Emile Hirsch, Imelda Staunton, and that feature film serial boner slaughterer, Dan Fogler.
“It’s not the story of Woodstock,” Schamus said, “It’s the story of a guy who happened to almost, by accident, help make it happen. Demetri plays this schnooky interior designer, a gay guy, who lives in Greenwich Village. [Martin’s character] is broke and totally under the thumb of his Russian Jewish parents who own this fleabag hotel, this Catskills dump. He has to move back in with them for the summer, and up there he’s in the closet and the president of the Chamber of Commerce, which is a joke because there’s no commerce.”
“Every summer he gives himself a permit to have a music festival on the front lawn to drum up business for the hotel,” he continued. “So one day he’s listening to the radio and hears this music festival lost their permit, and he calls them up and says ‘Well, I’ve got a permit.’ He thinks he’ll drum up business for the hotel. Two-and-a-half weeks later, half a million people show up and it completely changes his life.”