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Nic Costa and Rob Taylor, stars and the respective producer and director of upcoming Portland-made nostalgia fest Raging Midlife, have over the span of three films shown a certain facility for wringing laughs from genre pastiche and absolute genius for luring familiar faces to their elongated productions.
Their sci-fi spoof Neil Stryker and the Tyrant of Time enlisted Walter Koenig (Star Trek’s Chekov) and David Ogden Stiers (M*A*S*H’s Major Winchester) during the decadelong shoot. Despite considerable delays spurred by COVID and the Taliban—Costa, an immigration lawyer, originally hoped to cast an Afghani mixed martial arts fighter as Raging Abe Lincoln, whose missing shirt sparks the central escapade—Raging Midlife took less than half as long for filming and features a cast topped by Koenig, Eddie Griffin and immortal pop pixie Paula Abdul.
Costa and Taylor, who also co-wrote the screenplay, are a pair of ’80s-obsessed malcontents grappling with mortality. They exploit retro signifiers as shamelessly as their previous film traded on the endless absurdities of time travel, but the throwback emphasis lends a welcome dollop of genuine poignancy that grounds the coming-of-middle-age comedy’s otherwise cartoonish instincts into a more fully realized vision.
Raging Midlife’s premiere at the Austin Film Festival in October won rave reviews and heightened expectations for its release. Cinema 21 will host what’s billed as the movie’s theatrical world premiere on Thursday, March 13, the night before Raging Midlife hits video on demand platforms. Costa and Taylor told WW about the trouble with casting locals as camera-ready wrestlers, the delights of hugging Paula Abdul and how they cope when filmmaking feels like one step forward and two steps back.
WW: Raging Midlife wasn’t originally about wrestling?
Rob Taylor: We wrote the screenplay about two fans questing after a piece of memorabilia that changed and evolved over the years until we found something accessible to a younger audience. Nic came up with [substituting] the tank top that Hulk Hogan wore during Wrestlemania III, when he ripped it off his body and threw it to the audience. That’s where 10-year-old Alex, hero of our film, catches the shirt and quickly loses it in the big tumult that followed. And he’s been chasing it ever since.
Nic Costa: The original concept was guys going after the tank top Kurt Russell wore for Big Trouble in Little China, but we needed to update. Well, what about wrestling? That bridges all the political divides. It’s entertainment, but, weirdly, it brings all the people together. Left, right, center, all sizes and shapes—everybody watches wrestling.
Taylor: The wrestlers’ roles were the most difficult to cast of any movie we’ve ever done.
Costa: This isn’t a real beefcake town, you know? You’re not gonna find any musclebound beach bodies. Go to Florida and everyone’s ripped. We have, like, a local indie wrestling scene—
Taylor: Where your dad goes to wrestle someone’s uncle. People in Florida look like they were wrestlers in the ’80s.
Costa: We poached guys from Blue Collar Wrestling. Hell, Rob and I even did some training to be wrestlers. Rob went for one day, and I went for nine weeks. Some of them came on board as stunt coordinators, and we even threw a few into the wrestling scene we shot at the Milwaukie Elks Lodge—
Taylor: The indie wrestlers are easy, but trying to create a WWF feel is a whole different can of worms.
Costa: For Abe’s big match against opponent Tomahawk Tony, we found Joseph Aviel, this 270-pound dude from Canada who’s, like, a double for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Greased huge body popping this “get to the chopper” [vibe].
Taylor: This was [also] our biggest production. One day, we had more than 13 additional actors, 40 crew, 130-plus extras and a pop icon. Things ran for, like, 14 hours, but [Abdul] was just a machine and so gracious—always spending time with her fans and the little girl extras. You often hear the refrain “don’t meet your heroes,” but Paula’s amazing. She’s a hugger.
This was during COVID? After you missed her in Los Angeles?
Costa: August 2021, she flies up to Portland for one day—on her own dime, by the way. She’s such a baller and so sweet. That’s why we chose her, you know. After her scene, she says she knows we’re planning a flashback. We were going to go back to the 1980s and shoot a past version of the character. Paula Abdul looks at me, like, why would you hire a younger actor? How do I even answer that? [laughter] She looks at the makeup artist who flew up with her: “You can make me look 40 years younger, right?” Initially, her people kept saying she couldn’t do the date we’d booked at the Expo Center because she had scheduled this comic convention in Philadelphia, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
And playing a character 30 years younger…
Costa: First of all, this woman doesn’t age. Her glam artist was basically magic. Check out the montage video on our Instagram. The woman is 60 years old but didn’t look a day over 30 in those photographs. She walked on the set, opened her suitcase [while explaining], “In 1989, I wore this dress at the Grammys with John Stamos. What do you think?”
Taylor: She made a believer out of me, let’s put it that way. She made a believer out of all of us.
Costa: And that’s how the sausage gets made. Let’s face it, filmmaking is a very bougie privilege. It’s indulgent. Every movie is basically the little train that could. “Can we do it a little bit bigger and better and wilder and crazier? Oh my gosh, do you think we could get Paula Abdul?” If you don’t try for the impossible, it’ll never become possible. We’ve all been through a pandemic. This is probably the last movie we’ll ever make, for chrissakes. We’ve all been shrouded in darkness for so long. Let’s just bring some light to people. And who’s nothing but a ray of sunshine?
Last movie? You’re done with filmmaking?
Taylor: Movies are so fucking expensive. If somebody wanted us to make another movie for a bunch of money that wasn’t mine, we’d do so gladly. The next one might just end up being a play, but there are always ideas tickling in the back of the head. Nic’s crazy about this concept called Predator the Musical: If It Sings, We Can Kill It.
Costa: Rob? Paula’s already on board.
SEE IT: Raging Midlife at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515, cinema21.com. 7:30 pm Thursday, March 13. $12.