Arts Life

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Natalie Portman and Zach Braff in "Garden State"

the protagonists we'd see in youth come-
dies," Hurwitz says.
"They were these good-looking, suave
guys, like Paul Walker in She's All Thai
but they didn't look like us or the people
we hung out with. So when we started
writing, we figured we'd create R-rated
comedies that represented ourselves and
our group of friends."
Sitting side by side in a luxurious suite
at the W Hotel in Westwood, Calif,

Hurwitz and Schlossberg seem more like
nice-Jewish-boy archetypes than the
authors of a film featuring raunchy poop
jokes. With affable expressions and hands
clasped in their laps, they apologize for
using the occasional expletive and for a
certain Harold joke involving the
Holocaust and a starlet's breasts ("I'm
embarrassed by that," Hurwitz says,
blushing).
They say they became close friends

Gentle Fun

"Scrubs" star sheds Jersey Jewish guilt.

MICHAEL FOX

Special to the Jewish News

Z

IN

8/ 6

2004

38

ach Braff's character on the TV
series Scrubs is nondenomina-
tional. But occasionally the 29-
year-old actor's affection for a comic
icon of an earlier generation pushes his
performance past some invisible
boundary.
"J.D.'s supposed to be Everyman
U.S.A., but there are times when all I
hear is how Woody would deliver the
line," Braff confesses with a smile.
"And the show runner says, Alright, a
little too Jewish, buddy. Pull it
back. "
_Unabashedly proud of his Jewish
heritage, Braff makes gentle fun of it
in Garden State, a likable deadpan
comedy-cum-romance that he wrote,
directed and stars in. The quirky,

indie film features Israeli-born actress
Natalie Portman.
"I wanted to write what I knew, and
what I knew was growing up in a
Conservative Jewish family in suburban
New Jersey," the gangly, self-assured
Braff explains.
Garden State opens with the numb
waiter-actor Andrew Largeman (Braff)
returning home, after nine years in L.A.,
for his estranged mother's funeral.
The time may have arrived to deal
with his stiff father (Ian Holm), a psy-
chiatrist who started Andrew on a steady
dose of lithium long ago. That's the real
reason for Andrew's numbness, which is
now beginning to fade since he stopped
taking his meds when he boarded the
plane to New Jersey.
"I think there's the good old-fashioned
Jewish guilt that's very strong in this
movie," Braff says. 'And there's a lot of

while serving on their high-school debate
team; both engaged in "hard-core" cram-
ming for the SATs to secure admission to
a top university, which pleased theist- nice,
professional Jewish parents. Hurwitz
dutifully went off to the University of
Pennsylvania to become an investment
banker, while Schlossberg attended the
University of Chicago to become a
lawyer; they scrapped those sensible plans
only after their first screenplay, Filthy,
was sold to MGM during their senior
year.
Filthy was a gross-out comedy featur-
ing culturally Jewish protagonists like
Hurwitz and Schlossberg, but the screen-
writers wanted Harold to be even more
radical. They intended the movie to
reflect the predilections and ethnic diver-
sity of their social circle, which included
Korean-Americans, Indian-Americans
and Jews who had more in common
with the protagonists of American Pie
than Yentl or Bollywood/Hollywood
"Whenever we saw characters like us
on screen, they were relegated to stock,
stereotypical roles," Schlossberg says.
"But we're just like everyone else our age
in terms of attitudes and issues."
The screenwriters and their friends
liked to talk about women; to watch
Comedy Central's South Park, to rip on
each other in politically incorrect ways
(Hurwitz and Schlossberg were nick-

unsaid pressure put on the father and •
son to somehow forgive each other, and
yet neither one is willing to step up and
do that."
Although the setting is autobiographi-
cal — Braff shot the film on location in
New Jersey, and his mother and stepfa-
ther are psychologists — the budding
filmmaker's adolescence diverged signifi-
candy from that of his character.
"If you're going to go with Jewish
stereotypes, then the one I experienced
in my family was a great deal of affec-
tion," Braff says. "My father always
hugged me. We come from a family of
big huggers, and [we're] very open with
our emotions."
Braff also had more of a Jewish
upbringing than Largeman.
"I was raised for the first 13 years of
my life kosher. When I had my bar
mitzvah, my father allowed me to make
up my mind, and by that time I was
really ready to have a cheeseburger," he
says with a chuckle.
For a huge and supposedly very funny
shiva scene, Braff saved the cost of extras
by using his relatives and his parents'
friends. He gave his trial lawyer father

named "Manny" and "Shevitz"); and to
embark upon the kind of munchies
quests only people in their 20s under-
take.
Harold in fact, was partly inspired by a
late-night, two-hour trek to the Valley in
L.A., during which the authors braved
crack addicts while searching for the per-
fect Boston cream donut.
As for why the main characters are
Korean- and Indian-American, Hurwitz
and Schlossberg thought it would be
subversive to create a youth comedy in
which the most marginalized minorities
were the leads. The film revolves around
Harold (John Cho), a put-upon office
drone; Kumar (Kal Penn), a rebellious
medical school applicant, and to a lesser
extent, their Jewish neighbors, Rosenberg
and Goldstein (aka "Manny" and
"Shevitz'').
"The movie both pokes fun at stereo-
types and subverts them, which is unique
in this kind of broad comedy," director
Danny Leiner says.
For example, Harold is introduced as
the generic 'Asian guy' but ultimately
gets the girl; the Indian Kumar is smart
but prefers partying to science; and
Rosenberg and Goldstein, far from being
studious Jews, are the film's biggest slack-
ers, contentedly smoking dope out of
their shofar bong.
The protagonist of Garden State is

Zach Braf in "Garden State"•
"I think there's the good old-
fashioned Jewish guilt that's
very strong in this movie."

— who acted for years in community
theater and was the inspiration for Braff
going into acting — an especially tricky
line that he eventually nailed.
We must take Braff's word for all this,
because he cut the scene at the last

