Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt, "I'm A Lebowski, You're A Lebowski" authors: Mr. Media Interview, Part 2 (Return to Part 1)


BOB ANDELMAN/Mr. MEDIA: Tell me about achievers. Who is an achiever? What is an achiever?

WILL RUSSELL: Achiever: that’s the preferred nomenclature for a fan of The Big Lebowski, kind of like a Deadhead is a Grateful Dead fan. We came up with achiever, which comes from the movie The Little Lebowski Urban Achievers and proud we are of all them. So, yeah, we’ve got these t-shirts. They just say achiever across the front. And people will get their achiever shirts, and then they’ll take their picture wearing their achiever shirt from all different parts of the country and the world. Send them into the website, lebowskifest.com, and we’ve got this gallery of two hundred pictures. It’s just amazing. We’ve got soldiers in Iraq wearing their achiever shirts.

SCOTT SHUFFITT: Taj Mahal, the North Pole…

RUSSELL: …Toledo, Ohio, all the exotic places.

SHUFFITT: Standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona.

RUSSELL: Winslow, Arizona. Yeah. Hating the Eagles.

ANDELMAN: Does the movie translate to other languages well? Have you met a lot of folks who, maybe English is not their native language, who have this obsession?

RUSSELL: Yeah. When we went to London, we had this whole group from all over Europe. We had someone who was dressed as the Jesus, John Turturro’s character. He was from France. We had the stranger who was from Greece, and they were hilarious. They were all just having such a good time, and they were quoting the line in their funny accents. The Scottish fans are really wild and rambunctious, and they’re just like “The Dude a-bides!” They were just quoting all these lines in their funny accents, and it’s crazy to just experience all these people from all over the world who really relate to the movie.





ANDELMAN: Are you ever critical of the movie? Do you ever sit down and go, “That was stupid.” Stupid in a movie sense not just stupid in it’s a funny movie stupid?

RUSSELL: Not really. To us, it’s just like such an every little bit. There’s even mistakes like people have catalogued on IMDB, like different mess-ups. Like you see the dog get into the car, but it never gets out or whatever it is. It’s those little things that we love just as much. It’s like every single frame is precious. Yeah, I’ve never felt anything bad about it.

SHUFFITT: With so much fantastic content, how could you criticize it? When The Dude runs his car into the dumpster, to me, that is pure genius.

ANDELMAN: Is this the most perfect movie ever made?

RUSSELL: Absolutely. Sorry, Citizen Kane. The Big Lebowski takes the cake in my world.

ANDELMAN: Are you guys fans of any other Coen Brothers movies?

RUSSELL: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Raising Arizona is right up there with my favorites of all time.

SHUFFITT: If it would’ve been in a bowling alley, we’d probably be having a different festival.

RUSSELL: Oh yeah. I love Fargo. That new one, No Country for Old Men, was awesome. They’re so good at what they do. They’ve done a couple kind of stinkers lately, but for the most part, I really love their stuff, O’ Brother, Where Art Thou. And the thing is about their movies is you can watch them so many times over and over. At least I can.

JIM DOTEN: You can always pick up something new.

RUSSELL: Yeah, yeah. It’s amazing. You just sit back, and it’s always entertaining for me to watch one of their movies.

ANDELMAN: Let me ask all three of you. Jim, you’re included in this. You’ve watched the movie so many times, and you focus on every moment, every image, and every word. What’s been your favorite Easter egg over the years? What have you found that you were like wow?

SHUFFITT: One thing that I found, not too long ago actually, probably on viewing 93 or something, was the fact that there’s a scene where The Dude has met up with The Big Lebowski, who is married to the trophy wife who has been kidnapped. The kidnappers have sent him a severed toe. The Big Lebowski says to The Dude, “If you don’t fix this situation, I’m gonna see that whatever happens to Bunny happens to you tenfold.” And then in the next scene, we start off looking at The Dude’s toes as they are sticking out of a bubble bath. So I’m taking that to his tenfold. When I saw that, it just really blew me away.

DOTEN: When you watch the movie, there is a lot of foreshadowing…

RUSSELL: Yeah.

DOTEN: …throughout the whole movie so you have to sort of follow it. That’s why you have to watch it so many times is to go back, and then you can see where it’s leading next. You can anticipate the next scene. For me, I’d have to say John Goodman’s character. There’s so many I’m like I don’t know where we’d begin, so many scenes, but the one in the end where they’re doing the eulogy for Donny up on the mountain, and he lets the ashes go. The ashes are in a Folgers can because they didn’t want to spend $180 for an urn. So they went to Ralph’s, which is another reference in the movie, and he lets the ashes go. He does his litany on Vietnam and everything that didn’t have to do with Donny, and he turns around, and the ashes are all over The Dude. That was one of my favorite parts of the movie.




RUSSELL: I always get surprised by the recycled dialogue. It seems like every single phrase in that movie or word is repeated at least once, and they just slip it in at all these strange places, like the word “abide.” The big tagline is “The Dude abides,” and The Big Lebowski, at one point, says, “I will not abide another toe.” And they talk about the achievers, and then The Big Lebowski says, “I went out and achieved anyway even though somebody took my legs in Korea.” There are all these little phrases that are just used over and over again. It’s just amazing because I’ll watch it, and I’ll find a new one. It seems like every few times I watch it I’m like, “Wow. It’s just really brilliant how they do that. I have no idea how the Coen Brothers do all that.”

SHUFFITT: Cause they’re geniuses, Will. That’s why.

RUSSELL: Oh yeah. That’s right. I forgot.

DOTEN: The attention to detail. There’s amazing attention to detail in the movie. Most directors, I don’t think, come anywhere near that.

RUSSELL: Right.

ANDELMAN: Guys, I want to step in here and tell you we’ve got a call.

SUNNY: Hi, this is Sunny.

RUSSELL: Sunny.

SUNNY: Hi. I love “The Great Lebowski.” I absolutely adore that movie, and it is one of my favorites. It’s in my film library, which means I really love it since I only have about 20 movies in my film library. I have watched it over and over again, and I’m amazed that you have a book totally devoted to it.

RUSSELL: Yeah, so are we.

SUNNY: My favorite line…

RUSSELL: Is this a great country or what?

SUNNY: It’s wonderful. What a country, huh? Anyway, my favorite line in the whole thing, it just cracks me up every time, is when they’re shoving him into the limousine, and he has his White Russian, of course, in his hand, and he goes, “Wait, I have a beverage here!” Not concerned about himself. Somebody’s kidnapping him and all this stuff. He’s concerned that he won’t spill his beverage.

RUSSELL: Oh yeah. He has his priorities straight.

SHUFFITT: That’s right.

SUNNY: Of course, he does. And so that is my favorite. That’s, of course, the scene where they’re putting the ashes, throwing the ashes into the ocean, and then it comes back at him. That, of course, can’t be beat. But anyway, I just love it also, and I was shocked. How did you guys get on writing a book about it?

RUSSELL: We got a call from somebody, and he’s like I think there needs to be a Big Lebowski fan book and what better people to write it than you all who are so obsessed with it. And we’re like well, we’re not really writers, and he’s like oh, it doesn’t matter. We tried to assemble as much information about the movie as we possibly could. We interviewed the actors. We interviewed the inspirations for the characters. We had a locations guide. It was a really collaborative effort. We tried to kind of pool as many resources as possible to kind of have the definitive guide to this movie to try to do it justice. And I want to say that this is the one case where the book is not as good as the movie. Usually, you hear people say the book is better than the movie. However, that’s not true in this case. What are you gonna do?

SHUFFITT: It does, however, have some really nice photographs that were taken by Jeff Bridges.

RUSSELL: Oh yeah, behind the scenes. Those are awesome.

SHUFFITT: …which are awesome. Absolutely. And he wrote the forward as well.

RUSSELL: Yeah.

SUNNY: How nice of him.

RUSSELL: Yeah. He’s completely cool, and it is very cool that he wrote that for us.

ANDELMAN: Sunny, I just want to say thank you very much for calling in. Appreciate it.

SUNNY: Okay.

RUSSELL: Take her easy, Sunny.

SUNNY: Okay. Thank you. Bye.

ANDELMAN: Bye-bye. Guys, tell me about Jeff Bridges and how he feels about all this. Obviously, he wrote the forward to the book. He’s also got a message posted on your site this week about his new movie. It seems like he’s taken to the attention pretty well.

RUSSELL: He loves it, man. It’s really cool. He actually came to a Lebowski Fest out in L.A. one time. I don’t even know the words to describe it. A lot of his wardrobe in that movie came from his own closet so he wore his Jelly sandals that he wears in the movie. He wore those that night, and he brought his band. He plays music. Nobody knew he was there. It was a surprise. Right before we showed the movie, I got up on the microphone. I said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I can’t believe the words that are about to come out of my mouth, but please welcome Jeff Bridges!” And the place just exploded like I thought the roof was gonna fly off the Knitting Factory that night, and it was just amazing. And he’s so cool. He’s just as cool as you’d hope he would be.

SHUFFITT: Absolutely.

RUSSELL: …and really down to earth. He’s very Dude-like. He’s very laid back and kind of talks like in the movie. And he’s been such a great supporter of this, and he’s just such a cool guy.

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© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

Labels: Coen Brothers, I'm A Lebowski, Jeff Bridges, Lebowski Fest, Scott Shuffitt, The Big Lebowski, Will Russell, You're A Lebowski

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