It’s all happening, again.
The music industry is very different nowHollywood is, too.
ButFamousremains as captivating as ever.
Neal Preston/Paramount
Consider this your backstage pass for one of the greatest rock movies ever made.
Kate Hudson on Cameron Crowe
“[This] was his story, it’s his life.
He had to get that right.
Neal Preston/Paramount
And he did.”
“We didn’t quite know what the band was yet.
We were still in our rehearsal phase, trying to figure out the dynamic between all of us.
Jimmy Fallon as Dennis Hope in ‘Almost Famous’.Neal Preston/Paramount
It’s a great behind-the-scenes of how people create a company.
That’s us trying to figure out what Stillwater was.”
Adds Crowe of the promo shot, “Mostly they remind me of the Eagles.
Neal Preston/Paramount
This is all about Jason Lee’s face.
And about John Fedevich, silent Ed, knowing there are going to be problems.
Russell is torturing Bebe.
Neal Preston/Paramount
Eventually, Crowe brought more people in to give them an audience.
“Cameron wanted Kate Hudson and the girls to come in and watch us perform,” adds Lee.
It was then that everything really started to come together.”
Neal Preston/Paramount
“Jimmy had a musical presence on [Saturday Night Live],” Crowe remembers.
I always thought I might, but I didn’t.")
“I turned down two pretty big parts at that time to work with Cameron.
Neal Preston/Paramount
And he hired me.”
The scene contains some personal Easter eggs for Crowe.
I remember going by one time and Joni Mitchell’sBluewas on a display mount."
Neal Preston/Paramount
He was amazing," recalls Fugit.
“I remember that was a very important line,” Deschanel says.
“We did it a lot of timesI don’t know, maybe 40 times.
Neal Preston/Paramount
Cameron likes to have a lot of options in the editing room.
Guess which one I used.'
I’m like, ‘The first one?’
Neal Preston/Paramount
And he was like, ‘Yeah, I’m using the first one.'”
Crowe says that scene replicated a real moment with his sister.
“This is the Hyatt House scene,” says Crowe.
Neal Preston/Paramount
That’s the magic of Kate."
(Hudson’s take: “That picture of me and Cameron embodies me and Cameron.")
Their collaboration, Hudson says, was “one of the great working relationships of my life.
Neal Preston/Paramount
And we really had so much respect for each other.”
Behind them is Kelly Curtis, Pearl Jam’s manager and a longtime friend of Crowe’s.
“I think we all stepped into our characters,” he says.
Neal Preston/Paramount
“My character is this distressed guy trying to make a decent movie out of my actual childhood.
“He was sort of silently sweating and just crushing the scene after scene.”
“He’s like, ‘It’s great that you’re here.
Neal Preston/Paramount
“But in a very caring way.”
“There’s Patrick easing into William, hanging onto the bag for dear life,” says Crowe.
I went across the street and watched the scene.
Neal Preston/Paramount
I was listening on the headset as he’s talking to the kid, and it sounded like Lester.
I got a chill.
He is channeling the guy on the exact corner where I met him.”
Neal Preston/Paramount
And David Geffen goes,‘Jerry Maguirewas what brought you there.
I have to go,’ and he hung up.”
Wouldn’t that be cool?'”
Neal Preston/Paramount
His portrayal then came through working with the director and studying during downtime moments like this.
(Notes Crowe: “I love that photo because that’s Billy.
That’s not Russell.
Neal Preston/Paramount
That’s Billy Crudup at f—ing work.")
“It’s not hard to fall in love with Billy Crudup.
We didn’t have to work on it,” says Hudson of her costar.
Neal Preston/Paramount
Billy takes it very seriously.
And he kind of made me focus.
We didn’t have cell phones, we didn’t have Instagram, we didn’t have social media.
Neal Preston/Paramount
Everybody just hung out and played guitar, told jokes, and lived the life.
We were living the movie, and it was just such a special, special time.”
“She called me over the weekend right as we were starting to film,” he says.
Neal Preston/Paramount
“She had trepidation; she was like, ‘Where am I in this ensemble?’
I think she was trying to figure out where to drop an anchor and how to play it.
I’m like, ‘You are the soul of this movie.
Neal Preston/Paramount
You have the speech that is everything that the movie is about.
And she’s like, ‘Okay, All right.”
So that was always an aspect of William’s kind of cluelessness and also Polexia’s world-weariness.
Neal Preston/Paramount
“Baby Baruchel” recalls Crowe.
“He was so young but a complete live wire.
He completely is the spirit ofthe real guy, Ric Munoz.
Neal Preston/Paramount
[Jay] really reminded me of Jimmy Fallon.
Whenever they were in the same place, I was like, ‘Come on, guys.
What’s our buddy movie?’
Neal Preston/Paramount
They’re looking at me that way people look at you: ‘Why do you think we look alike?
We don’t really look alike.
Stop it.'”
Neal Preston/Paramount
Hudson and Preston took this photo during a break from filming.
Note the busStillwater’s first mode of tour transportationin the background.
“See the rig?
It was so hot in that bus,” says Hudson.
“We were in Sacramento, I believe, and oh my God, it was so hot.”
It’s the same vibe.
You start being insulated and very cloistered from the outside world."
Lee and Hudson aboard the bus, site of one of the film’s most memorable moments.
As she tells it, that scene’s apex came together as they were shooting.
“Ben knows how to command the situation.
When he walked in, he became the music editor ofRolling Stone.
He and Terry really hit it off.
What’s great was Ben said to me, ‘I never used to wear shirts like that.’
And, I’m like, ‘You wore form-fitting, semi-paisley shirts.’
He was like, ‘I never did.’
This is him just ripping some incredible guitar part.”
I would say, ‘Thank you so much.
This next song is, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’
Then playback would play and then we’d go into the next song," says Lee.
“It was literally like filming a mini concert.
The crowd was loud, and we just went through it.
It was astonishing that we pulled that off and the cameras were moving around and covering it all.”
Crowe decided to work it into the movie.)
It gives me chills thinking about it."
That was a very important moment for Cameron."
We’d talk a lot of details of Almost Famous."
When Crowe finally finished the film and was left with a four-hour cut, he turned to her again.
“I was a little lost,” he says.
And, I did."
(“A bootleg version, very good,” notes the director.)
But there’s more to the sequence than an alternate ending.
“I thought that would be in there if you knew what to look for.”
I didn’t read even really think about it until Cameron pointed it out.
That’s the energy missing from the family.’
It’s f—ing sad.
I remember when he told me that, I was kind of blown away."
“It’s Kate feeling free and going there with this character.”
Hudson calls the scene “beautifully innocent and sad.”
Yet while William’s intentions may be heartfelt, Fugit notes the moment’s creepy undertones.
Still , he recognizes what Crowe was trying to do.
“How do you change the behavioral nature of that to something that is still unsettling but very sweet?
How is it that William is going to express his love for this woman?
He’s for sure being a scoundrel.”
Crowe ended up changing the scene when headapted the film as a musical.
I think it brings people hope.
I think when they see it, they’re hopeful for life.
And it’s just Cameron.
When Cameron hits it, nobody’s better.
When he hits his sweet spot, there’s nobody like him.
[This] was his story, it’s his life.
He had to get that right.
And he did."
A version of this story appears in the September 2020 issue ofEntertainment Weekly.
