Contributed by Matt Merkin
Posted on Jun 27, 2015
Richard Linklater hit a nerve with his 1993 memory tri, Dazed and Confused. The film manages a delicate balancing act of being both a universal coming of age story and a personal memory of a very specific time and place: that being small town Texas in 1976.
In the midst of all the weed smoking, keg tapping and hormonal absurdity, Dazed also featured iconic performances by some fresh faces who have since become household names.
Read on to see where they are now, man.
Image: movieboozer.com
As star quarterback Randall “Pink” Floyd, London plays a character at a crossroads. He’s a promising athlete with natural good looks and charm, but he can sense that this is a route being planned for him, instead of by him. So he chucks his “pledge sheet” in the trash and goes to a party. Ah, youth!
Since then, Jason has worked steadily in television and film, notably in The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999) and Jason and the Argonauts (2000). In 2013, he made minor off-screen news for a particularly rough night out in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Currently, he has over six projects in the works, including Roswell FM, a comedy about a paranormal talk radio station, and Wiener Dog Internationals, about, well, you can guess.
Images: timeinc.net & usmagazine.com
Ukrainian born actress Milla Jovovich was still a minor when she played Michelle Burroughs in Dazed and Confused. In fact, she eloped during filming to marry another star of the film, Kevin Pickford (her mother had the marriage annulled).
Outside of acting, Jovovich has also been a musician, fashion designer and a model.
She’s played the lead in a number of notable sci-fi and action films, including the instantly-memorable Leeloo in Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, and Alice, the ass-kicking hero of the Resident Evil series.
Currently, she’s set to star alongside Pierce Brosnan in the international spy thriller Survivor and in another Resident Evil movie. In addition to her upcoming film work, she just gave birth to her second daughter.
Images: bluraymedia.com & Instagram
Adam Goldberg’s Mike Newhouse is a tightly wound bundle of neurosis and self-doubt. Unfortunately for him, those traits don’t translate to fist fights very well.
Since Dazed, Goldberg has played a wide range of characters, including roles in Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Hebrew Hammer (2003), 2 Days in Paris (2007), and most recently he played Mr. Numbers in the television adaptation of Fargo. He is currently set to release No Way Jose, a “coming of middle age” comedy that he also directed.
Images: fanpop.com & Youtube
The scene where the tormented underclassmen arrange a paint dump onto O’Bannion’s head is a contender for the top “revenge of the nerds” scene in movie history. Affleck’s stuttering rage and hyper-aggressive bullying are a window into both his character’s self-loathing and the purposelessness of his post–high school life. They also hint at the bright acting future for Affleck.
He’s had roles in blockbusters, such as Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, as well as more recent and mature roles in films like To The Wonder, Gone Girl and Argo, which he also directed). Affleck is set to take on the role of Batman, as well.
Images: wordpress.com & salon.com
Wiley Wiggins is as unforgettable as Mitch Kramer, the gangly, baby-faced center of Dazed and Confused. He starts as a scared, awkward child, but grows into himself over the course of the film. As he plays it cool in Wooderson’s ’70 Chevelle, buys beer, turns the tables on his bully and even scores a make-out sesh with a sophomore, he becomes a gangly, baby-faced…man? Well, at the very least, he grows up a lot.
Since then, he has appeared in a number of small indie movies like Love and a .45 (1994), Goliath (2008) and 2013’s left-field fan favorite, Computer Chess.
He is still best known for his work with director Richard Linklater, both for his role in Dazed, and for playing the main character in 2001’s lucid-dreaming, philosophically rambling Waking Life.
Images: Tumblr & Twitter
“Alright, alright, alright.”
“Be a lot cooler if you did.”
“Livin’…L-I-V-I-N.”
Matthew McConaughey based his character on his older brother, which is a bit of trivia that doesn’t add much to the film, but probably makes you really curious about his elder sibling.
This is the role that started it all for the actor, who lately has been on a wildly successful run (or “McConaissance”).
As Wooderson, his trademark slacker likability was on full display, a talent he would use to make a name for himself in a slew of popular rom-coms such as The Wedding Planner (2001) and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003).
In 2013, he won Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his role in Dallas Buyers Club, and starred in The Wolf of Wall Street, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, and, of course, in HBO’s True Detective as Rust Cohl, the unhinged, Lone Star–chugging, occasionally transcendent detective.
Currently, McConaughey is set to star in Gus Van Sant’s Sea of Trees, set in a Japanese “suicide forest.”
Images: indiewire.com & janeheller.com
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