Zach Braff, Natalie Portman Movie Turns 20

Garden State was released in theaters on July 28, 2004, telling the offbeat story about a struggling actor who finds love and a new lease on life after returning to his hometown following his mother’s death.

The romantic dramedy, which currently boasts an 86 percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, grossed more than $35 million at the worldwide box office and won best first feature at the 2005 Independent Spirit Awards. Its acclaimed soundtrack also made fans flock straight from the cinema to the nearest record store, with the album later beating Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Shrek 2 for the Grammy for best compilation soundtrack album.

Despite being helmed by and starring Zach Braff, who was in the midst of becoming a major TV star on Scrubs, and starring Natalie Portman, Garden State faced numerous roadblocks. It struggled to secure financing and was ultimately made with a constrained budget of $2.5 million. However, with a resourceful attitude from Braff and producers, they made the movie and took it to Sundance, where it was bought in an unusual joint venture between Fox Searchlight and Miramax.

To commemorate Garden State‘s 20th anniversary, The Hollywood Reporter revisited the making of the film via a series of interviews with its cast and crew — including stars Braff, Portman, Jim Parsons and Jean Smart as well as The Shins frontman James Mercer and producers Pam Abdy and Gary Gilbert.

“SIGN FROM THE UNIVERSE”

Unsatisfied with his post-film school career in New York City, Braff moved to Los Angeles and worked as a waiter at a French-Vietnamese restaurant. Inspired by his life experiences—from his workplace to his visits to his neurologist—he started collecting ideas for a script that would later end up becoming Garden State. Balancing his acting career with his filmmaking goals proved to be challenging, as he found himself procrastinating on fine-tuning his script. Braff was then cast in the lead role on medical sitcom Scrubs in 2001. With the pilot paycheck allowing him to financially sustain himself and quit his service job, the Scrubs pickup waiting period proved to be the boost Braff needed to finish his script.

ZACH BRAFF, writer-director, Andrew Largeman: In the downtime waiting to find out what would happen with Scrubs, I said to myself, “This is the sign from the universe. You now have no excuse. You have some money in your bank. You have a dining room table and a laptop, and if the show goes, this will be the perfect catalyst to at least get your script read.” In those next four or five months, I really worked every day and focused and put it all together. I wrote it, then Scrubs began and it was a success. I thought, “This will get it made [either way], but this will definitely get the script to the top of a pile because I’m on a popular TV show now.” What happened was I gave it to my agents and nothing happened.

“LIKE A SCENE OUT OF A MOVIE”

Braff realized that starring in NBC’s hit show didn’t lead to the interest he thought the film would get. It wasn’t until he took a big risk that Garden State found its producers at Jersey Films.

BRAFF: I was in CAA for a meeting [unrelated to Garden State] and I had such chutzpah; I can’t believe I did this. It’s like a scene out of a movie where the kid walks past the assistant and the assistant’s like, “Wait, wait, wait.” I walked right into [my CAA talent agent] Kevin Huvane’s office [to give him the script], and I remember him looking up at me first with the reaction of, “You’re not supposed to just walk into my office.” He just kind of looked at me and he went, “You know who should produce your movie? Pam Abdy at Jersey Films. I’m going to call her right now.” That was really the moment that everything began to change.

PAM ABDY, producer: I got the script submitted to me from Kevin Huvane at CAA. He knew me really well and had known me from growing up in Jersey, and we had worked together on a couple of other things. He just called me one day and said, “I read this script, and I think you’d be the perfect person for it” because I grew up in New Jersey. I was sitting in my little apartment and I read the script twice in one night. It just moved me so much. I related to the character [of Andrew Largeman] so much, leaving home and having to come back to your hometown and meet all those kids you grew up with.

BRAFF: Pam loved the script. I went to meet with Pam, and she introduced me to Rich Klubeck, Stacey Sher, Michael Shamburg and Danny DeVito [from Jersey Films]. They were lovely and they loved the script, but it really was left to Pam and Rich Klubeck to try and get it made.

ABDY: [The script] just resonated and I felt so like the Large character from growing up there that I had to make it. There was just no stopping me, although we got passed on by every single person in town.

BRAFF: Pam was newly the head of production, young and sprightly. She was like a wunderkind at Jersey Films and she was from Jersey, obviously. She knew this world so well. Kevin was right.

ABDY: I worked at Jersey for eight-and-a-half years. I’d started there as an intern and worked my way up to president. After intern, I was the receptionist, then I was Danny [DeVito’s] assistant, and then I became an executive. I had associate produced Man on the Moon, and I executive produced How High and co-produced The Caveman’s Valentine. Garden State was the first movie that I got a full producer credit on.

“YOU’RE PERFECT FOR IT”

When writing Large’s love interest in Garden State, Braff envisioned Natalie Portman in the role. He was able to get the young star to sign on. Peter Sarsgaard, who had impressed the filmmaker in Boys Don’t Cry also agreed to star in the film, as did Ian Holm and Jean Smart. The then-newcomers — including Jim Parsons, Armando Riesco and Geoffrey Arend — were found through casting director Avy Kaufman.

BRAFF: Around my first hiatus from Scrubs, I was in a production of Twelfth Night at the Delacorte [Theater] in Central Park, and Natalie was always the archetype for who I wanted. I didn’t think I’d ever get Natalie Portman, but I sort of said, “When you make casting lists, go with someone [like her].” I knew that Natalie had done a production of The Seagull at the Delacorte with Meryl Streep. I thought this would be a good intro. I wrote her a letter saying, “I’m sitting in my dressing room, it’s raining at the Delacorte. I know you’ve experienced this too. I have this script. It would be such an honor for me if you were to take a look at it. I think you’re perfect for it.”

NATALIE PORTMAN, Sam: I remember him telling me about this film and him sending me his short [Lionel on a Sun Day] that he had made [at Northwestern]; I was really impressed by it. Then I read the script and was just so excited by the character. I thought it was such an eccentric, fun character and original voice, and I was excited to make it. Zach showed me a bunch of movies that I had never seen as inspiration for the film, and among them were things that are still my favorite movies today. Safe was one that introduced me to Todd Haynes. The Graduate [was also on the list], being another clear reference, that I had of course seen, and I’d already worked with Mike [Nichols] [on the stage production of The Seagull]. I remember screening Garden State for Mike [while working on Closer], which was so exciting.

BRAFF: Natalie was at Harvard and we didn’t really have any time to rehearse. So I said to Peter [Sarsgaard], “Will you go up to Harvard with me for a weekend just so we can have a little bit of bonding with Natalie?” We spent a weekend with Natalie at Harvard, and I remember we went to a frat party. [Peter] was just so cool and so down. We sat in Natalie’s dorm room and read through the script once. That was really our only rehearsal, the three of us sitting on the floor in Natalie’s dorm room.

BRAFF: I had seen [Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Large’s childhood friend Mark] in Boys Don’t Cry and been like, “Whoa, who’s this guy?” He just reminded me of guys from Jersey that I was writing about.​​ He’s just so real. Avy Kaufman really helped me find all the other people that weren’t famous names yet like Geoffrey Arend and Armando Riesco.

JIM PARSONS, Tim: I graduated from grad school and moved to New York in 2001. I had done an off-Broadway play here, I had done a regional play in San Diego and I had done several commercials. I was stringing little things together consistently enough that I felt good, but I don’t believe that I had had anything near a movie role yet. I did not audition for the role that I ended up getting; I came in for something else. I knew that Avy Kaufman, the casting director, always cast good movies.

BRAFF: Jim was just so special. I knew that he was going to have a big career but didn’t know that he’d go on to star in one of the biggest sitcoms of our era. His timing was impeccable, and he was so real. Sometimes you’re watching people and it feels a bit performed, but you’re still laughing because it’s funny. But with Jim, with every single beat, you believe the actor is having those thoughts [the character has]; there wasn’t a false moment.

PARSONS: It’s still a marvel to me that a boy who grew up never watching Star Trek has grown up into having two roles [in Garden State and Big Bang Theory] that knew Klingon so well; it’s very bizarre to me.

JEAN SMART, Carol: I was working with Zach’s then-girlfriend [Bonnie Somerville] and she said to him, “Hey, what do you think of Jean for the part of the mom?” And he went, “Oh yeah, good idea.” So that was it.

BRAFF: [Bonnie] had worked with Jean Smart, and when I was looking for that character, she said, “This has to be Jean Smart.” And I didn’t know Jean’s work that much at the time, but then I did a little research and I was like, “Wow, she’s perfect. Do you think she’d do it?” And Jean said yes. She was pitch perfect.

SMART: I affectionately refer to my role as “skank mom.” I just thought the script was so amazing. I knew [Zach] was incredibly smart and clever, and I thought, “This will be really fun.”

PARSONS: In some ways, [working alongside Jean] was the most exciting part of it to me. I knew Peter’s work and I already felt that he was one of the best actors [in Hollywood]. Because of Designing Women, I had grown up an admirer of the things that Jean Smart was in, and I also loved that I got to be the lover of somebody that Jean Smart was playing. I felt that it was absolutely absurd, and it just tickled me.

ARMANDO RIESCO, Jesse: At the time, I was going into [Avy Kaufman’s] office quite a bit. She was bringing me in for different roles on different things. I read for her first, I think. Then from that tape, I ended up getting a callback with Zach Braff. I knew of Zach because I went to Northwestern also, even though I didn’t know him from there; he was older than I was. At least it’s nice to have some kind of connection. When I went into the room, I was like, “Hey, I went to Northwestern” and [he was like], “Oh, whoa, OK!” The callback went really well.

BRAFF: Pam, I remember, said, “I just want you to know this will never happen to you again, that all of your first choices say yes.” And I was like, “ha ha.” And then she was right. It never did.

“ENTIRELY OUT OF HIS OWN BANK ACCOUNT”

With Jersey Films on board and a star-studded cast of Portman, Sarsgaard and Smart attached, Braff, Abdy and Klubeck had to find a studio willing to make the film. This proved to be a tougher task than expected, as everyone in town passed — until mortgage banker-turned-producer Gary Gilbert decided to step in and finance it in late 2002.

GARY GILBERT, producer: Jim Lefkowitz, who was actually one of the first agents I met in business through a mutual friend, goes, “I have this actor named Zach Braff [who wrote a film].” It was just after his first season of Scrubs. Nobody knew who Zach was [at the time]; it was all about having Natalie attached, which meant something. He sent me the script. He sent me the CD as well, which had all the songs that he picked to put together the soundtrack. After reading the script, I listened to the CD, and I was immediately sold. I just knew right away that I wanted to meet Zach and discuss the film.

ABDY: Zach always had to make the movie on his hiatus. We missed the first hiatus. Then, the second hiatus, I was at a screening for some movie over on Robertson and Jim Lefkowitz, who was an agent at CAA, came up to me, and he was like, “Hi, I’m one of the agents on Zach’s team and I really love the script for Garden State.” And I was like, “Okay, well, if you really love the script for Garden State, find me the money to make the movie!” We were desperate to make the film. And it was Jim who introduced us to Gary Gilbert. Gary had just started making films, and he loved the script. He said, “I’ll finance half of it; let’s go find a partner.” Now we had half the money.

GILBERT: At the time, we were talking about co-financing a 4.5 million dollar, maybe 4.8 million dollar film with Lionsgate. We sat there discussing it, and it was gonna be a little complicated having a studio involved. So I said, “You know what? You guys make this for two-and-a-half [million dollars], I’ll just fund the whole thing.”

BRAFF: I remember we all went to a meeting at the company, and when we got to the parking lot afterwards, Gary was so funny. He was like, “Look, I don’t know anything about this business, but that’s the most ludicrous deal I’ve ever heard. Why would I split it? But they’d recoup first, and again, I’m new to this whole Hollywood model, but as a businessman, this is so stupid.” And then he took a pause and he was like, “Is there any way you can make this movie for [less than] $3 million? Because if you can figure it out, I’ll just pay for the whole thing myself.” We were like, “Can you give us a second?” Pam, Rich and I, we kind of huddled and over the next few days reimagined how you’d make the movie for $2.5 million.

GILBERT: They enthusiastically said yes.

BRAFF: Gary paid for it entirely out of his own bank account; it was amazing.

ABDY: To Gary’s credit, he looked at me and he said, “If you can get the budget down to this, I’ll finance the whole thing and let’s see what happens. We’ll go and sell the movie on the open market.” So Ann Ruark, who was the line producer, and myself slashed the budget. One of the first things I took out was traveling and living for me. So I went and lived with my parents in New Jersey while we made the movie, and I paid for my own rental car, and I paid for my own plane ticket; we made the movie independently.

“REALLY TALKED THE TALK AND WALKED THE WALK”

With budget constraints, the cast and crew only had 26 days to make the film. They took a do-it-yourself approach to the production, making the most of their resources.

ABDY: There’s so many things that my network of friends and family in New Jersey helped us get to make the movie. The cemetery in the opening crane shot when they’re at the mom’s funeral: My dad’s first cousin ran that cemetery so he got us the location. We were struggling because we didn’t have enough money to get extras and we needed to bus the extras into New Jersey from New York. My friend Anthony, who I grew up with, owned a bus company so he gave me the buses; I just had to pay for the driver and the insurance and stuff. There was a medical machine [used] when [Large] goes into the MRI. That was one of my dad’s client’s offices that we were able to use at no rate. My mom would make snacks and bring them to craft service.

JUDY BECKER, production designer: Pam Abdy’s brother was studying graphic design at an art school. He did a lot of the graphics for the movie.

ABDY: My little brother George worked in the art department for us, [and] he was a [production assistant]. He’s a great artist and a graphic designer. In the movie, in that party scene in the beginning where they’re all taking ecstasy and someone goes to do coke off of a golf book, my brother designed the cover, and it says “by George Abdy” on it, like a little nod to his work.

BECKER: We raided Zach’s father’s house and his mother’s house, and Pam Abdy’s parents’ house; they lent us whatever we wanted. I mean, we didn’t steal furniture from their living room but artwork and a lot of stuff. It was really helpful. I have to say that I’ve never been on a movie ever except for Garden State where the director and the producer really talked the talk and walked the walk.

LAWRENCE SHER, cinematographer: Because it was such a small movie, I stayed in my aunt’s basement in Teaneck, New Jersey when we were making the movie. I felt almost like the character of Andrew Largeman, just being back at his house and living in someone else’s home, that kinda thing, even if it’s someone’s home you grew up in. I was basically sleeping on a couch the whole time making it, but it was great; it added to the experience of feeling an emotional connection to the script.

ABDY: It was the best thing that ever could have happened because we were all young, we all were figuring it out. We all had big dreams. Natalie obviously had been working a ton since she was a little kid, but we were a bunch of 20-somethings, doing something really cool and making something that we were passionate about on our own terms.

“THE DARKEST MOMENT IN MY LIFE”

When the production began in late April 2003, Portman received the troubling news of a loved one being injured during a terrorist attack in Israel. The cast and crew rallied around the actress while scrambling to schedule around her four-day absence.

PORTMAN: Someone very close to me was very badly injured in Israel, and [the crew was] so amazing. That was really the beginning of my forever friendship with Pam Abdy because she, without hesitation, was like, “You have to go be there.” They delayed my shooting so that I could be with this person in the hospital. And then I came back and started the movie. It was crazy to go from these two extremes, from probably the darkest moment in my life at that point to a very funny, uplifting film. I was really thinking the whole time about this person, and I think having that in my heart the whole time had an effect, I’m sure.

SHER: We had scheduled the whole movie around Natalie’s availability, because she was basically three days at Harvard and then four days with us, and obviously she’s the co-star of the film, in so many if not every scene. Something that happened with her family on day two. I remember we found out from Pam that Natalie’s not gonna be available for the next four days. We manufactured an extra day of shooting the next day, kind of scrambled to say, “OK, what can we shoot without Natalie?” and we shot something that was very specific just to Zach, and then basically we went down for two days, and a lot of the locations fell through because of this scheduling thing, and it was like re-prepping the movie in 48 hours. It was hectic but kind of amazing because suddenly here we were.

GILBERT: Nobody blamed [Natalie]; we all completely understood what she had to do. But it was a memory: It was a lot of juggling and a lot of panic. We just miraculously juggled a bunch of locations and shooting days and figured it out.

“I NEVER THOUGHT IT WOULD COME OUT AS GOOD AS IT DID IN MY BRAIN. IT CAME OUT BETTER”

For the set design, Braff enlisted the help of Academy Award-nominated production designer Judy Becker. The script had vivid descriptions of each setting, with Becker expertly working to make Braff’s vision a reality. One of the toughest sight gags to pull off was the iconic wallpaper scene, in which Braff’s character Large’s aunt makes him a shirt from the same fabric as his parents’ outdated wallpaper. Becker not only pulled it off, but she also did it in a way that exceeded Braff’s expectations.

BECKER: When I read the script, they were all those sight gags, like the wallpaper and the medical degree on the doctor’s ceiling. I was really nervous about them because I had hardly done any movies and definitely never done a comedy with sight gags before, so I was concerned with how to make them look believable and not junky, [because] this wasn’t an out and out comedy, this was a dramedy. With the wallpaper, I thought that it should be a slightly-dated pattern that came with matching fabrics, because that’s a common thing. It just should feel like this middle class, New Jersey woman would have thought it was beautiful 15 or 20 years before and put it in her house. When dealing with a sight gag, the first impulse for a lot of people would be, “Oh, it should be loud, be funny,” but I wanted to go in the opposite direction. The wallpaper shouldn’t be funny, so that then when Zach is standing against it, that’s what’s funny.

BRAFF: It’s amazing how popular that [scene] was. I never thought it would come out as good as it did in my brain. It came out better. It was her idea that the best way to do it was to pick a material and then just cover the wall and the lampshades and make the shirt with that material.

BECKER: He had a really clear vision, clearer than most very experienced directors. You really knew the story he was telling. Obviously all the creative people on the movie interpreted the script, visually, but it was there, it wasn’t like, “Oh, I’ve got this great idea: let’s have Zach standing in an old shirt that matches the wallpaper.” He’d thought of that. So it’s all the more credit to him, because it was really phenomenal for a first movie.

“OH, IT’S NOT A QUARRY”

In a scene that was used for one of the film’s posters, Mark (Sarsgaard) takes Sam (Portman) and Large (Braff) on a quest to track down a going-away present, stopping by a houseboat atop a quarry, located next to an abandoned crane. The location was a childhood hangout for Braff.

BRAFF: We used to play there as kids and run around. It was so cool. We would sneak in there; we weren’t supposed to be in there. That crane that’s in the movie, that’s on the poster, that was there. It was an incredible piece of undeveloped land. I had this idea that this boat was up there, and I remember saying to Judy Becker, “How are we going to find a boat? And how the fuck are we going to get it up there?”

BECKER: My first interview with Zach was a phone call. Then he came to New York and we met, and he said, “Are you worried about the ark?” And I said, “No, I’m not worried about the ark; we’re gonna make it happen.”

BRAFF: The depth of that is created in post. It didn’t have a giant infinite hole in it. But it was big.

SHER: It was the only day where it [required] visual effects. I remember saying, “Well, where’s this quarry?” And Zach said “Oh, it’s near my house; we used to go there all the time.” You look at it and you’re like, “Oh, it’s not a quarry.” Then Zach’s like, “No, I have this friend who does hand-drawn map paintings and he’s gonna do it.” That was amazing, this old technique used in this movie.

BRAFF: Judy said, “In my experience, the thing you think is going to be the hardest, ends up being pretty easy.” And she found a fucking boat for free.

BECKER: My art director found a boat that was for sale. I don’t really know that much about boats. I think it’s a cruiser. It had rooms; you could go inside of it and down below and you could sleep in there, so we’d have enough space to create something. It was for sale for a dollar; we just had to pay to transport it; someone wanted to get rid of it. I think it cost $2,000, maybe less, to transport it, which was expensive. But once we had it, we could then do whatever we wanted to it. One of the first days we were shooting it was raining outside, so we all went in [the ark] to get out of the rain. Everyone was like, “I want to buy this.” Peter Sarsgaard wanted to buy [the boat] and take it to his house upstate. I was really hoping somebody would but five days later, it was in a dumpster somewhere.

“WE CAN’T CALL THE MOVIE LARGE’S ARK”

The ark scene inspired Garden State‘s original title, which wasn’t changed until after the film had been finished.

BRAFF: The movie was originally called Large’s Ark, because in my mind, what Large finds in that boat is all that he’s looking for. It’s this couple: They have each other; they have this baby; and they have this little safe ark. That’s what he was on a quest to find: safety and the sense of home and someone who loves him for all that he is and all that he’s not and someone he can love for all that they are and all that they’re not. I remember I was moving into my house. There was a guy putting in the phone line. Every day he’d be like, “What’s the movie called?” And we’d be like, “Large’s Ark.” And he’d be like, “Large’s what?” And each day we’d go through it, “Large’s, apostrophe “s”, ark, like Noah’s ark.” And he’d be like, “Oh, OK.” And the third time he asked, I was like, “This title is never going to work.”

ABDY: We [Jersey Films producers] kept saying the whole time, “We can’t call the movie Large’s Ark.” We all just were like, “What are we going to call the movie?”

BRAFF: We made a big list of Zach Braff, Natalie Portman Movie Turns 20 ideas and The Garden State and Garden State were on there because of Jersey’s nickname, obviously. But I really don’t remember if it was my idea or somebody else’s, and I don’t want to take credit for it.

ABDY: It just felt appropriate.

“THE EASIEST JOB: HAVE A PARTY AND HAVE A GREAT TIME”

One of the standout scenes in the film is the party at the home of Large’s self-made-millionaire friend Jesse (Riesco), full of drugs and debauchery. Viewers wouldn’t have guessed that it was filmed early in the morning.

BRAFF: A bunch of people were going to kind of kiss [while playing spin the bottle]. We made sure anyone who was in the scene was open to that. I knew I wanted it to feel real and improvisational, but I was so nervous. I was like, gosh, they’re really going to be sober. It’s going to be like 9 a.m. I remember as a director thinking, “So how is this going to work?”

RIESCO: That’s the easiest job: have a party and have a great time. I don’t remember there being any difficulty in terms of that, if I’m being honest.

BRAFF: All the actors were so committed to it and so into it, and they just kind of created this space that we were all messed up. It was a weird exercise. And you have all these people in a room sort of manifesting that they’re on drugs and obviously everyone was stone-cold sober. Everyone was so good and into it.

RIESCO: [For the slow-motion scene], he just sat there and we partied around him, just like, had a real party. And we came up with all this weird shit. I don’t know how I ended up snorting coke off someone’s belly button or something. We were just playing around.

BRAFF: It took a while to do that stop-motion shot because that’s not an effects shot. It’s Larry Sher. He and I figured how to do it without effects. So it really is sort of a time-lapse in camera. We had everyone move around in real time and I had to stay perfectly still for — I forgot how long, maybe it was 10 minutes or so. And that’s how he got that shot. I had been inspired by Trainspotting, [where] Danny Boyle had done some really cool sort of in-camera and time-lapse stuff.

“I MADE THE COPS TURN AROUND”

One of the most difficult sets to work with was Jesse’s pool. Concerns over the chilly weather in the spring affecting the nighttime dip led to Abdy nearly getting arrested.

BRAFF: I was so nervous about all the actors, especially Natalie, my star, being cold, and of course myself too. I kept saying to Pam, “Make sure that the woman who owns the house turns the heat on long enough to make it hot.” We were going to need to be in the pool all night long. And Pam, a couple days before, she goes, “Stop worrying. I’m going to go check on the water for you just to make sure it’s okay, take it off your plate.” This is what a producer Pam Abdy was and is.

ABDY: We tried to call the woman who owned the house, and she wasn’t there. We went with the location manager [Ronnie Kupferwasser] and the place was locked. We rented out the house; I think at the time we had it for like a couple of days. We climbed the fence, and we started feeling the water with our hands in the pool. And I was like, “I can’t tell, I’m just gonna get in the pool.” I literally stripped down to bra and underwear and I got into the pool and all of a sudden there’s cops in the backyard. They’re like, “You’re trespassing.” I’m like, “No, no, no, no. We’re meant to be here. We were renting this house. We’re shooting here tomorrow, I’m just testing the water.” And [a cop] was like, “Get out of the pool, let me see your license.” And I’m like, “It’s in there. Can you please turn around?” so I made the cops turn around.

BRAFF: She eventually cleared it up. But I always love that story because it’s like the lengths that my amazing producers would go to make sure that the pool was warm enough, and it turns out that it wasn’t warm enough after all of that. And so Pam found this truck that would deliver hot water. That only lasted until about midnight, and then it started getting cold already.

“TAKE JEAN TO BONG SCHOOL”

Jean Smart learned how to use a bong. Jim Parsons took break time cues from Peter Sarsgaard. There was a welcoming camaraderie on set, with many members of the cast and crew making lifelong bonds.

SMART: It was just one of those sets where it was fun to just wait for the next setup. Zach was teasing me so bad because I had never used a bong. I can’t believe that I’m admitting that since I went to college in the ‘70s, but I had never smoked a bong. So he would make these big announcements, “Okay, after lunch break, I’m going to take Jean to bong school.” I had to learn a little lesson, a bong lesson. It was embarrassing.

PARSONS: I remember hanging out outside, next to Peter Saarsgard. He was reading the op-ed section of the New York Times, and that was kinda the first time I had ever thought that might be something I would enjoy doing; I don’t do it as much anymore cause I can’t stand to read the news, but I did go through a period [of doing so]. I always think back to him reading that op-ed section like, “Oh, that’s what a smart actor does on set!”

GILBERT: Zach and Pam told me afterwards that even though I said I wanted to be there the entire time, they were saying to each other, “He’s a finance guy. He’ll be here for a few hours the first week; we probably won’t see him again.” But sure enough, I was there every single day from Colorado because I really wanted to learn how to produce.

RIESCO: I remember seeing [Natalie] at the premiere in New York months later, and I was like, “Well, I’m not even going to say hi to her, because I don’t want to bother her.” And she came across the room and was like, “Armando!” She remembered my name and she said “hi.” That was nice.

PORTMAN: Pam’s the one who I really stayed close to over the years. Peter [Sarsgaard], of course, I worked with again in Jackie years later; that was really fun to get to reunite with him. Zach [Braff], when I see him, I am always happy to see him.

“THAT’S ONE OF THE MOST IMPACTFUL SCENES IN YOUR MOVIE AND IT WILL NEVER BE IN YOUR MOVIE”

Garden State originally had a darker ending, where it was revealed that Large’s father allowed his mother to die by drowning. The film was changed to have a more optimistic ending that focuses on Sam and Large’s love story.

BRAFF: Between Large leaving Sam at the airport, we do a flashback to the night that Andrew Largeman’s mother died. And we hear her begin to slip. Then Ian Holm’s character runs to the bathroom threshold and is going to save her, [ultimately] realizing in his mind that it is her desire to not go on living and to honor that and to let her go. He stops, and then you hear the flailing in the tub stop. And then he goes and sits down on the bed and takes a breath and then calls 911. It was really intense and it was powerful, but it was so not the movie that I ended up making. It hijacked the end of the love story because it was so upsetting that the audience ends up thinking about that instead of focusing on the idea of Andrew and Sam’s love story and him coming back.

I showed [the scene of Large’s mom’s death] to [Scrubs creator] Bill Lawrence, who has been a mentor of mine. I’ll never forget what he said to me: “That’s one of the most impactful scenes in your movie, and it will never be in your movie.” And at first I couldn’t see that, but he was ultimately right.

“DREAM COME TRUE”

After the financial hurdles faced while trying to make Garden State, the last thing the first-time director and the film’s producers expected was an unusual joint deal between Miramax and Searchlight after the Sundance premiere. This marked the beginning of Garden State‘s successful streak.

BRAFF: It was my dream come true in life. All I ever wanted to do was make a movie that would go to Sundance. At the time, Miramax was the top dog. Your hope was that Miramax would want you and bid on you.

ABDY: I remember that feeling like it was yesterday, and it was 20 years ago: the applause and the laughter and the joy that was coming out of that room. And the people coming up to us afterwards about the music and the experience of the film was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Gary had rented this big house for all of us to stay in and we had a party for the filmmakers and our friends. And then the offers started coming in and it was like, holy shit, this is really happening.

GILBERT: The bidding war started that night and went into the wee hours of the morning. I think we finally signed the deal with Miramax at probably 5 a.m. or whatever. At one point, I got a call, and it was both [Searchlight president] Peter Rice and [Miramax boss] Harvey [Weinstein] on the phone. And they said they were interested in buying this together. So I said, “Okay, we can’t ignore that, right?” I mean, at the time, Miramax as well as Searchlight were the premier distributors of small independent films.

BRAFF: I didn’t know what was about to happen, and that was that Miramax and Searchlight both wanted it so badly that they said, “Let’s split it.” Miramax took foreign, and Searchlight took domestic. It was one of the highest highs in my whole life.

GILBERT: Miramax and Searchlight partnered up and bought it together, but they told us that after the fact they were going to figure out which one of them was gonna release domestically and who’s gonna sell foreign. We didn’t care; they’re both phenomenal. But thank God it was Searchlight, not Miramax, that took domestic, because immediately after Sundance, Harvey disappeared. He was trying to renegotiate his deal with Mike Eisner and Disney and he disappeared.

PORTMAN: I was shooting Closer at the time in London, so I couldn’t be at Sundance. I still to this day have never been to Sundance. Pammy was calling me and telling me how exciting it was, but I had this secondhand experience of it.

“WE ARE COMPLETELY SOLD OUT OF THE GARDEN STATE SOUNDTRACK. PLEASE STOP ASKING”

Shortly after the film became a success, so did the soundtrack. The Shins, who had two songs on the Garden State soundtrack, are also a significant part of the film’s story. Coming off a cameo in Gilmore Girls‘ fourth season, their role in Braff’s film catapulted them to become one of the biggest indie acts. The soundtrack went on to win a Grammy for best compilation soundtrack album.

BRAFF: Cary Brothers is one of my best friends, and I love his song “Blue Eyes.” Cary, I should credit, helped me with the soundtrack. He was a big help because he’s so knowledgeable in music. He introduced me to Nick Drake and he’s the one who really helped me refine it and figure it out.

CARY BROTHERS, musician: Zach and l put a collection of songs together that he sent out with the initial script — I think [Quentin] Tarantino had done that back in the day; I’m sure we was partially inspired by that — so that people when they listen, they could understand the vibe of the script. I was playing at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood and “Blue Eyes” was a song that was doing pretty well. He asked me to put the song in the movie. At that time for me, the excitement was just the fact that I was going to have a song in my friend’s movie. There was no expectation of anything at all; I had no idea what was to come.

JAMES MERCER, The Shins frontman: [My label Sub Pop] said that the guy from Scrubs was making a movie of his own and that he wanted to have a couple Shins songs in it. I remember they sent a treatment, showing how the song would be used, but it was so early on in the project; they didn’t say anything about Natalie Portman being in it, and I don’t even recall the detail of somebody putting on the headphones and listening and saying, “Oh, this will change your life,” or whatever. It was just kind of like, “Can they use these songs?” We immediately were like, “Yeah, of course. That’s awesome. It’s like a free music video.”

BRAFF: The Shins were on track to be huge. I think I just gave them a giant boost. That very cue that’s in that scene [where Natalie] says [“New Slang”] will change your life had been used in the background of a Scrubs scene [in the season one episode “My Balancing Act”], really low, not very significantly. I think one of the writers on Scrubs had found it and chosen it for the show. When I saw the episode that it was in, I went, “Whoa, that song is incredible. That song needs way more prominence and placement than what you guys used it for. I love it.” And then I got into [Oh, Inverted World] and was obsessed with the whole album.

MERCER: Friends of mine had seen [Garden State] and they told me, like, “Dude, do you know that your songs are not just in the movie? [The Shins] are kind of part of the movie.” It was really exciting. I went with my girlfriend to see the film, and I remember when that scene happens where Natalie Portman hands the headphones over and actually says, “The Shins,” I felt very conspicuous suddenly in the theater, like, “Oh my God, are people seeing me watch this hugely flattering [moment]?”

ABDY: When we needed to put [the soundtrack] together, Zach wrote this beautiful letter to Coldplay, which was the first band in. We had no money. I think we had $30,000 or something for all the music in the movie. I said, “If you want all this music, we’re gonna have to cut a day from the schedule. So let’s figure out what we’re gonna do.” And we did, we cut a day from the schedule to make the budget go up to like $54,000.

BRAFF: Every song on that soundtrack, other than the ones [from artists] who are my friends, I was told, “You’ll never get any of these; you’re making a mistake because you’re not going to get one of these songs. You think you’re going to get a Coldplay song? You think you’re going to get a Simon & Garfunkel song? We have no money. Are you nuts?” It was a great lesson for me, and I always try and say it to young filmmakers, that of course you don’t know, but you just can’t give up until you’re out of time. Little by little, with one exception, we got every single song.

ABDY: When Zach sent me the script, there was a soundtrack next to it. Basically all the songs that are in the movie, except for one, [Simon & Garfunkel’s] “The Only Living Boy in New York;” with that song there was something else there, and that person didn’t want to end up doing it with us. All those songs were his inspiration when he was writing the script.

BRAFF: Fiona Apple’s song, “Paper Bag” [was the one we couldn’t get]. Her manager was the only person who, no matter what we tried, said no.

BROTHERS: There was a Virgin Megastore across the street from my house and on the back wall, they had the top 20 records. One Sunday, [the Garden State soundtrack] was suddenly No. 20, and I was like, “What?” I remember calling Zach, like “Come down here!” It was incredibly exciting. It got further and further up until it was No. 1. It was absolutely crazy. There’s nothing cooler than word of mouth success.

BRAFF: In Union Square, there was a Virgin Megastore, and around the corner on 13th and Broadway was the movie theater, and people were going in droves right out of the movie and walking around the block to Virgin Megastore to buy the soundtrack. And the Virgin people had put a sign in the soundtrack section, a big cardboard sign that said, “We are completely sold out of the Garden State soundtrack. Please stop asking,” or something like that.

MERCER: I had two songs in the soundtrack, so every one of those CDs that sold, I was getting a chunk of that, and it was the first time I really started to make good money. I feel like Zach and the film and then the soundtrack being popular, it kind of changed the culture. Indie music started to be not just something you make fun of, and people kind of discovered there’s interesting stuff on these smaller labels.

PARSONS: I listened to that thing nonstop. It’s just a great CD. It introduced me to bands that I had never heard [of before]. I’d never heard Iron & Wine; I’d never heard The Shins.

PORTMAN: There have been so many movies like that in my life, like Reality Bites or Clueless or Romeo + Juliet where the soundtrack defines a moment in your life, and I feel like Garden State did that where you can recognize the year by that music. And it was very fun to get to be part of that, especially because my character is the one who introduces The Shins.

MERCER: Chutes Too Narrow, our second record, came out in 2003, and then about a year later, Garden State came out, and then the next thing that we put out was Wincing the Night Away. It totally was great PR leading right into our third record, and it went to number two on the Billboard [200] chart.

BRAFF: Not two days go by in my life where someone doesn’t mention the Garden State soundtrack to me. It had such an impact. It went platinum; I’m sure it’s over platinum. I got nominated for a Grammy. My father — he was my biggest champion; he’s passed away since — but he was like, “I want to come.” I was like, “Dad, there’s no way I’m going to win a Grammy. I’m up against Quentin Tarantino for God’s sake, I’m not going to win this thing.” And then I won. I couldn’t believe it. And I brought Cary Brothers as my date, because he had helped me put it together. It was so crazy. I still can’t believe it.”

“A LEGACY OF ITS OWN”

Twenty years later, Garden State is still referenced as a pop culture phenomenon, from its soundtrack to the movie inadvertently sparking the manic pixie dream girl trope. Its cast also continued to have successful careers, with Jim Parsons becoming a TV star as Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, while Armando Riesco played Agent Hendricks in the National Treasure franchise.

PARSONS: Once I started going to auditions after Garden State was released, it was my first time that several people in casting offices would recognize me from the film, and there’s no way that that wasn’t ultimately helpful. It was deeply exciting to be a part of something that hit the zeitgeist like that. I was still so new to it, and smart enough to know that that wasn’t always common.

SHER: Twenty years later, I always get more people [talking to me about it] and I always think, wow, you’re a generation that wasn’t even around when this came out, because it’ll be people who are 15-,16-,17-,18-year-olds now, or early 20s, who would’ve not even been of viewing age who still connect with the movie. I have more people who mention that movie to me than just about any movie I’ve made.

MERCER: I think every young adult ends up watching Garden State at some point. It’s just a terrific coming of age movie. It certainly has a legacy of its own that still keeps introducing The Shins to new listeners. I’m so thankful that Zach decided to have us on the record.

ABDY: When people know that I’ve produced that film, I get a lot of questions about it. They’re like, “Oh, my God, I saw that film when I was in college,” or “I just watched the film again with my teenage daughter or son.” Even though it’s specific — like the character is specific, and he’s an actor who’s coming home — I think the themes of the movie, and the sort of journey of the character, are universal for people. I think it touches people emotionally in a way that they can relate to, what Large is going through on an emotional level, so I definitely get that it’s resonated for multiple generations.

BRAFF: It’s rare that a few days go by that someone doesn’t tell me how much it meant to them, in their teen years, in their college years. People tell me it’s what was their first date and now they’re married to the person. I have so many years of anecdotes of how important this movie is to people. And I just feel so grateful. I feel nothing but appreciation for how much people love it.