Movies | Pop Culture | 00s
'Josie And The Pussycats' Cast Reunited For The First Time In 15 Years
With all the excitement surrounding the Josie and the Pussycats album release on vinyl, it makes sense that the cast would share some memories about making the movie. What we didn't expect was that the whole cast would get back together and remind us why they were the best fake band ever!
They album release was celebrated by the actors and the band who were the voices behind the hit songs, and it made us all feel like we were back in 2001.
Kay Hanley and her band, Letters to Cleo, sang through five songs that were made for the movie, including "3 Small Words" and "Pretend to be Nice".
After singing the songs from the movie, the actors from the movie came on stage to see what it would be like if they were actually rock stars.
Backstage, the people from the movie shared some behind the scenes secrets...
Our favorite fake band got together and they still look like they would make the coolest rock band ever.
The release of the Josie and the Pussycats vinyl has not only gotten the stars together, it has also brought up some secrets from the set that we didn't know about.
Casting process
We learned that Beyoncé auditioned for Val, and both Maggie Gyllenhaal and Zooey Deschanel auditioned for the part of Josie.
"We fell in love with [Zooey] because she came in with a little microphone, you know, the kind that you used to plug into those old-fashioned tape recorders and just a made up song," writer, Harry Elfont, said. "We'd never seen her. We didn't know who she was. But we were like, she's amazing. Then the studio guy said we can't cast somebody no one has ever heard of."
Even though Deschanel was unknown at the time, many other big names auditioned. Elfont added, "the list of people who auditioned to be in the movie. The fact that Beyoncé, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and Aaliyah came in to audition was crazy. I think it was 2000. We read Left Eye twice. She really wanted to play the part. Beyoncé was really quiet and shy. Who knew? It was a comedy and Aaliyah was more serious and thoughtful. We wanted someone who could really play the comedy."
How much did the girls actually sing?
Elfont said that "we wanted their vocals on the tracks. They weren’t able to do the lead vocals, but I think they’re credited with background vocals on the album. They learned how to play too. We had a two week band camp where we had musicians in L.A. take them through the songs. Rachael was barring in the right place on guitars. Tara knew the drum fills. Rosario learned how to play the bass. The girls were hurting after that band camp."
What does the movie mean to its star?
Rachael Leigh Cook played Josie in the movie and she said that "it’s a perfect time-capsule for what that experience was for me, which was an insanely good time. People like to say that the movie was ahead of its time or it wasn’t marketed right…that was difficult to us at the time when it came out, but it found an audience now, which is what mattered. I think [audiences] would like it a lot more today because people are a lot more “woke” about the way media manipulates, either subtle or overt."