{"id":2021353,"date":"2025-09-14T16:38:29","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T16:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2021353"},"modified":"2025-09-14T16:38:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T16:38:29","slug":"say-anything-director-tricked-john-cusack-for-boom-box-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/say-anything-director-tricked-john-cusack-for-boom-box-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Say Anything\u2019 director tricked John Cusack for boom box scene"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2025%2F09%2F111380743.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Cameron Crowe dropped a major bombshell about the most iconic scene in \u201cSay Anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The director of the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2009\/11\/01\/anything-for-love\/\">1989 teen rom-com<\/a> revealed that John Cusack did not want to film the sequence where Lloyd (Cusack) plays \u201cIn Your Eyes\u201d by Peter Gabriel from a boom box outside Diane\u2019s (Ione Skye) window to win her back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe felt like it was a subservient act: Why does Lloyd have to be a wuss like that?\u201d Crowe, 68, told the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/09\/13\/magazine\/cameron-crowe-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.l08.NyAM.BW7aCsCoHNSh&amp;smid=url-share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New York Times<\/a> in an interview published Saturday.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>John Cusack in \u201cSay Anything.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">20th Century Fox Licensing\/Merchandising \/ Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe struggled with how to get that scene,\u201d Crowe added.<\/p>\n<p>The filmmaker explained that cinematographer\u00a0Laszlo Kovacs \u201cknew that we\u2019d been battling\u201d with the scene, so they tricked Cusack, 59, into thinking he shot an alternative sequence.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Cameron Crowe at the 2025 Austin City Limits Hall Of Fame Inductions. <span class=\"credit\">WireImage<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>John Cusack, Ione Skye in \u201cSay Anything.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">\u00a920thCentFox\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe had actually shot the scene where Cusack had the boom box on the hood of a car and he was saying, \u2018That\u2019s more what I would do,&#8217;\u201d Crowe recalled. \u201cL\u00e1szl\u00f3 leaned over and whispered in my ear, \u2018Don\u2019t worry, there\u2019s no film in the camera.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the last day, as we were losing the sun, he said: \u2018I found a place across the street that would be good, and the car is parked there. Let\u2019s get him across the street and see if we can get it,&#8217;\u201d Crowe continued. \u201cSo we ran across the street. [John] said, \u2018Okay, I\u2019ll do it.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Cameron Crowe, cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs on the set of \u201cSay Anything\u201d in 1989. <span class=\"credit\">\u00a920thCentFox\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Cusack, according to Crowe, held up the boom box and was \u201ckind of pissed that he\u2019s having to do it one more time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd you knew it watching in the monitor: That was the perfect emotion for the scene,\u201d the director added.<\/p>\n<p>Cusack plays an average high school student who falls in love with his class valedictorian, Diane, as they graduate in \u201cSay Anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Ione Skye, John Cusack in \u201cSay Anything.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">\u00a920thCentFox\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>During <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cTsoT3T5QwE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a screening<\/a> for the film in Dallas in 2023, Cusack admitted that he didn\u2019t want to do the boom box scene.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought it was too corny, and that sort of was the tension of making the movie,\u201d the actor shared. \u201cThe character I liked, but I thought he was a little too soft. He was like a Paul McCartney song without John Lennon.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>John Cusack in \u201cSay Anything.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">\u00a920thCentFox\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI was like, \u2018C\u2019mon, he can\u2019t be such a sap,&#8217;\u201d Cusack continued. \u201cSo we sort of went back and forth on it, and finally, I just said, \u2018Let\u2019s just put the boom box on the car or something.\u2019 And then Cameron said, \u2018Will you just do it one time?\u2019 And I said, \u2018Alright, I\u2019ll do it once.\u2019 And so I held it up once, and that\u2019s the only time we ever did it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In Crowe\u2019s NYT interview, he acknowledged that Cusack \u201cgrew up on that movie in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe wanted to dial\u00a0down\u00a0his Cusackness when I met him,\u201d Crowe said. \u201cHe was like, \u2018I can\u2019t do another teen movie.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018It\u2019s really not a teen movie, I swear.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cameron Crowe dropped a major bombshell about the most iconic scene in \u201cSay Anything.\u201d The director of the 1989 teen rom-com revealed that John Cusack did not want to film the sequence where Lloyd (Cusack) plays \u201cIn Your Eyes\u201d by Peter Gabriel from a boom box outside Diane\u2019s (Ione Skye) window to win her back. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2021354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[25538,343715,364346,22556,21741,21993,321422,21912],"class_list":["post-2021353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-actors","tag-cameron-crowe","tag-classic-movies","tag-directors","tag-entertainment","tag-films","tag-john-cusack","tag-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Say-Anything-director-tricked-John-Cusack-for-boom-box-scene.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2021353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2021354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2021353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2021353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2021353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}