John Cusack had some notes for his character Lloyd Dobler in 1989 Say everything.
Cusack recalled that he only agreed to star in Cameron Crowe’s directorial debut on the condition that he be allowed to make some changes to the script.
He felt that most films about young people put a “45 to 50-year-old professional writer in the mouths of all these people.”
“The character was more optimistic, but had no dark sides,” noted John Cusack, adding that he made Lloyd “choose to be optimistic”, which made him “a bit heroic”.
He also recalled the struggle to create the most memorable scene in the rom-com.
Cusack couldn’t get into the mind of his character Lloyd and understand why he was holding up a boombox while blaring the sounds of Peter Gabriel. In your eyes outside the window of Diane Court, played by Ione Sky.
“I didn’t know how to do it because I thought the character was, you know, sitting outside whining and saying, ‘Please come back to me,'” Cusack explained during a screening of the film at the Kings Theater in New York City, per People.
He emphasized the reason by saying, “Boys are proud, right?”
Eventually he “figured that part out.”
“He knew there was something fishy going on, maybe with the father, or that there was someone in her head,” he continued about his character in the Cameron Crowe-directed film.
“So I thought, I don’t really know how to do it. And finally, at the end of the movie, I thought, ‘Oh, what if he’s really bad? And he’s more challenging.’ And that was what made it work,” said the 1408 star explained.
