Starring
Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, “The Internship” finds Nick (Owen Wilson) and his
partner Billy (Vince Vaughn), as two newly unemployed watch salesman trying to
find employment with a limited skill-set in a world that appears to have passed
them by.
“As salesmen they are incredibly good at what
they do,” says director Shawn Levy, “but the whole profession of selling in
person, in an age where most people are increasingly buying their goods on the
Internet, is on the wane. So they are downsized, suddenly unemployed, and
Vince's character comes up with this idea of applying for an internship at
Google, a company that represents the vanguard of the new economy. It's a long
shot, but this possibility of self-reinvention is exciting to Billy and Nick
and they take their shot.”
It
required a certain amount of Googliness on the part of Levy and production
designer Tom Meyer to reimagine a world where innovation intersects with fun
and purpose. “We scouted Google a number
of times. It's quirky, idyllic, strange,
and very specific,” says Levy. “But, it
was clear to us that there's no way the production could shoot at Google for an
entire month and a half, because they're an ongoing business. So we needed to find a way to replicate
Google in Atlanta, which I initially thought would be impossible.”
But
infrastructure alone does not a Google campus make. “When you go to Google, the
most important thing that you take away from it is its non-traditional aspect
and out of the box thinking,” says Meyer.
“Google reps said to me when I was trying to recreate it, ‘Do it, but
keep the spirit of what Google is about.’”
“For
each one of the sets we did a photo-real illustration, or a model, or both,
then sent it off to Google, and had conversations back and forth,” adds
Meyer. “I tried to capture that feeling
that you take away when you’re an employee or visitor there. There’s a huge sense of playfulness. And the idea of a healthy body and mind is
central to Google.”
“This isn’t Owen and Vince being interns at
Corporate Office Number 5. This is
Google; this is Oz,” adds Meyer. “So,
the film starts off in the first act at a normal, almost retro-office
environment, which we call Kansas [as in the “Wizard of Oz” setting], our black
and white atmosphere. And then, when you
go to Google, you hit those primary colors, the clean glass, white walls, and
wacky, crazy objects, which provided a real sense of a pop and wonder.’”
Ultimately,
“The Internship’s Googliness is that
it’s not just about life at Google.
“It's about every one of us who'd like to believe that another shot is
possible,that another kind of chapter in the story of you is possible,” says
Levy. “I don't know anyone who doesn't
relate to that; whether you're 16, 22, or 40, we all want to believe that we
can change our lives – that it’s never too late. And so, the movie is really about
possibility.”
In
other words, we must dare to search.
Billy and Nick remind us that the best is yet to come, and that old dogs
are capable of learning new tricks. With
guts, grit and Googliness, everyone has a chance. So, dream big, dream again, dream some
more. Because the world loves second
acts.
“The
Internship” opens August 14 in theaters from 20th Century Fox to be
distributed by Warner Bros.
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