80s Interview: Jamison Newlander
Lost Boys, sequels, and Fuse-ball…
Fun Boys
What was the atmosphere like on the Lost Boys set?
It was very fun, very jovial. The guys who played the vampires were party guys, they knew how to have a good time. There was this interesting divide where there was the young crowd, which was me and the two Coreys, and we were all trying to figure it out.
We saw them partying, we wanted to party like them, we wanted to be cool like them. But we were just too young to really know how to do it.
Bathroom Madness
Are there any particular scenes that stand out for you or enduring memories from the shoot?
The thing that I remember most vividly was the scene in the bathroom where the bathtub is exploding. I have really visceral memories of that because it was really disgusting – all that slime coming out of the fixtures.
Between takes we were just lying in the stuff, this cold slime. But also when I see the vampire cave, which was created in LA on the sound stage, I just remember the good times on the set. The producer, knowing that he had all these young people on the set, was just trying to keep us there, not let us wander off… they put a Fuse-ball table there. We had these Fuse-ball tournaments and Jason Patric was a master of Fuse-ball.
Frogs Reunited
You and Corey Feldman also made The Lost Boys: The Tribe together – did you stay close between that and the original?
There was a big gap where we weren’t in touch. Basically what happened is I went off to college pretty soon after Lost Boys came out, and we talked once every couple of years for a few years there.
There was one time we talked, I was living in Brooklyn and he was supposed to come through New York and he was travelling with Michael Jackson, and he was like, "We’ll come to Brooklyn! We wanna be low key; we’ll come and hang out with you in Brooklyn." That never happened. But he wanted to.
Changes Gonna Come
Do you think filmmaking has changed from the '80s?
I can’t say it was better filmmaking because we’ve had some great films since then, but I think there was definitely some kind of groove that the artists in the '80s had.
Future Prospects
What are you up to now?
I’ve written some stuff I think is really great and I’ve started directing as well and I’m really happy with that career path. I’ve also got this new thing I’m starting to work on called Wikisoap ( www.wikisoap.tv ) I have a screenplay that I’m trying to get made. It’s a romantic comedy called Relationslips . It’s something I’m really proud of.
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