You guys, it's been 20 — yep, count 20 — years since everyone's favorite record store employees bust into our lives. That's right: Empire Records. To celebrate the epic achievement of the little movie that could, BuzzFeed LA threw a special screening and invited cast members Ethan Embry, Robin Tunney, Johnny Whitworth, and Coyote Shivers along with director Allan Moyle and screenwriter Carol Heikkinen.
And luckily for everyone, the group participated in a live Q&A and revealed some awesome secrets from the set. Check it out!
1. The movie was inspired by screenwriter Carol Heikkinen's experiences working at a record store.
Carol worked at Tower Records in Phoenix while in high school and also worked at Tower Video in West Hollywood while in college. Carol said, "That was the best job I've ever had... it's like your family."
2. And each character is based off of a real person Carol worked with.
That's right, there's a real Berko out there — same name and everything. And the woman who inspired Corey (Liv Tyler) made an appearance at the Q&A!
3. The studio wanted all "famous people and pretty people," according to Allan. Because, you know, Hollywood.
4. Also, the studio straight up changed the title.
That's right, it was originally called Empire. Thankfully, the title got switched, which ended up saving people a lot confusion in 2015.
5. The amazing chemistry shown onscreen was due to a whole month of rehearsals and bonding time for the actors.
"Allan Moyle loves to make a movie that ends in a big party — he loves a party," Robin said. "I think that during the whole process none of us understood that the bonding and the stuff we were doing was work. It was bonding us and it came onscreen and I think we were all really spoiled because the rest of your career, we don't get to do that now. And we were doing pilates in the morning — nobody even heard of that! Hungover. You're kind of looking at each like, this is acting?"
6. Debra's shaved head was totally not in the script.
"Allan came to me and he's like, 'I think the studio wants to fire you 'cause they think you're kind of too cute to be depressed," Robin said. "I was like, 'Well, I could shave my head.'
And then I shaved my head, which made everyone very nervous 'cause it was live so if the film got damaged or anything went wrong, we could not do that over again. [Allan] just loved pushing the boundaries and that's why the film feels authentic."
7. And that GWAR scene? Pitched by Ethan.
8. Coyote hated dancing and tried to get out of every dancing scene he could.
"Any scene where there's dancing, I always thought of an excuse," Coyote said. "My character was out back smoking, my character was in jail so I couldn't dance."
9. Ethan and James "Kimo" Wills got into some trouble.
10. If you couldn't tell, putting together a bunch of young actors was a recipe for a lot of fun aka debauchery. Well, except for one particular adult.
Robin said, "It didn't feel like anarchy to us but I think it did to the adults and Anthony LaPaglia was just tortured he was like the one adult."
How bad was it? Apparently at one point, Ethan crashed his golf cart into Anthony's brand-new car.
11. One thing that the cast agreed on? The surprise that Empire Records became such a cult classic.
