Director Mike Judge talks Extract, gangsta rap and frog baseball

I think it’s pretty safe to say that your movies had a hand in defining the ‘90s. Is Extract an attempt to squeak into the ‘00s?

Well I started writing it around 2000, so maybe I’m still stuck in the ‘90s. In fact, I kind of see the movie as set in ’99 or 2000, because that’s when I started writing it. There’s a lot of landline use and stuff like that. Maybe it’s an attempt to be stuck in the ‘90s.

Music has always played a big role in your work. How did you go about picking the songs for Extract?

You know, music’s really important to me, and sometimes I’m thinking of the music even before, at the writing stage or at the editing stage. This one, it started to come together when I was prepping the movie. I tried a lot of different music. This one, we did it on a tight budget, and what’s always happened is, like on Office Space, I’ll get these songs that I love and they’re perfect and then you find out the cost. “Oh, that one’s going to be $80,000” and then you can’t afford it. This one, I put in all this music, and then I was just bracing myself for the long battle. And then one day I said, “What’s going on with the music anyway, have we heard back?” “Oh, it’s all, we cleared it all.” [Laughs] and I had all these backup choices that I was going to try. And then, it was the easiest thing ever.

Do you hear songs that you feel like you sort of have to write a sequence for, or do you pick songs to fit the movie?

Yes, it’s a little bit of both. Sometimes, like on Office Space, there was that Ice Cube song, “Down for Whatever,” it’s called, when they’re copying the disk. I’d always imagined, when I’d hear that I’d imagine that sequence, something where it’s a very simple thing, but make it look like it’s a big deal. And then, like the Geto Boys’ song, “Still,” which is in the printer smashing, that’s another one. This one, like the Johnny Paycheck song at the beginning of the movie, I thought about that a lot, with this movie.

Two of the main characters, Jason Bateman and Mila Kunis, are famous for their television shows. Were you familiar with those shows before you cast them?

With Jason, yeah, definitely. I’d seen him in other stuff, where he’s more of a character actor, which he’s really great at. But when I saw Arrested Development, I thought he’d be perfect for this. He’s just one of those guys that, it’s fun to watch him react to people and to see him being put-upon and it’s funny to watch him be frustrated and all that. And then Mila, I hadn’t seen a lot of That ‘70s Show, but actually it was when I saw her in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, that’s where I thought she’d be great for this.

Yeah, I was going to say, there are a lot of similarities between Jason Bateman’s character in this movie and in Arrested Development. How did you go about differentiating Joel from Michael Bluth?

Well I started writing this back in 2000, so I didn’t, there was a moment where thought, maybe it’s going to be too similar, but then I thought, maybe that’s not a bad thing. I mean, I think the tone of this is different than Arrested Development. At some point I actually stopped watching the DVDs of Arrested Development, because I didn’t want to find myself ripping this off, and I wanted to just focus on this. So I didn’t consciously find things to differentiate, I just kind of focused on what I had started writing and just imagined Jason playing this guy.

Historically your characters are underachievers. Was it a difficult transition to write for someone who has accomplished a lot in his life?

Oh, that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about that. This is the first time I, well, I had always been an employee. I’d had dozens of jobs, and always found it hard to get motivated. And when Beavis and Butt-Head happened, suddenly I went from never having anyone working for me to having 30 to as many as 90 people working for me. And I just was suddenly found myself going, “God, these people don’t appreciate anything. You try to be nice to them and they take advantage of you.” And going, “Okay, wait a minute, I’m the boss now. They’re just like I was.” But to me the difference between a boss like this, and what I felt I was in a sense, and somebody who’s, like, the middle management of Office Space — because middle management people they thrive on being in charge because they like being in charge, they like bossing people around. When Beavis and Butt-Head happened, I really do like taking on a big project and seeing it through and steering the ship and all that. That’s a really satisfying thing to do. I don’t get off on just telling people what to do and being a manager for the sake of being a manager. So it wasn’t hard at all for me to imagine this guy who had this idea for a different angle on making extract. I think he really likes that part of it. He doesn’t like the babysitting these people part of it. I had a lot of those kinds of situations when Beavis and Butt-Head became a show.

What was it like to work with Gene Simmons?

You know, he was a total pro. He definitely, like, has a presence about him. When he comes onto the set you know Gene Simmons is on the set. You know, he was totally professional, he’d just do anything you’d ask him to do, he was great. A lot of flirting with the ladies, but that’s just kind of his shtick. I didn’t realize what a huge reality star he was. I was so out of the loop, I thought no one would recognize him without his makeup on, and it would be this really unique thing.

Do you think Beavis and Butt-Head would be proud of you for working with Gene Simmons?

They probably wouldn’t be proud of me no matter what.

All of your movies seem to reach cult status pretty quickly. What do you think is going to be the case for Extract?

I don’t know. I try not to predict those things. I’m never trying to make a cult movie. The Beavis and Butt-Head movie was a big commercial movie, and then I’ve had people say that’s a cult movie too. No, I’ll take anything I can get. If people like the movie at all, on any level, I’m happy. It’s actually been probably the sweetest thing in my career that Office Space ended up finding a big audience, selling all these DVDs and making a lot of money and making Fox want a sequel. Because that was, of all of them, I mean, that was the one I had to really fight hard to get the way I wanted. My successful things have been animated, King of the Hill and the Beavis and Butt-Head movie. Everyone thought that I didn’t know what I was doing. And then when it came out and didn’t do well it was like, “See? you should’ve…” So it was kind of hard to take when it didn’t do well, because I just felt like I’d let everybody down. So then to have it just gradually keep building was so nice.

How many staplers have you signed over the years?

Boy, a lot lately. A few hundred, maybe? That was another really cool thing, because Swingline didn’t make a red stapler. I wanted it to be red so it was show up just color-wise in the cubicle. And Swingline ended up getting so many calls to try to buy them, and then people were making fake ones on eBay, and now they make red staplers. It’s really cool.

Do you think that Extract will bring attention to blue-collar workers the same way Office Space did to white collar workers?

I don’t know, I mean, I just wanted to make a similar kind of movie, because I think the blue-collar workplace has its own unique set of characters the way cubicles do. When I was first starting to write this, a friend of mine, who’d been a musician forever, started working in a parts warehouse, and he was just describing, “Oh, there’s this woman, and she just sits on her stool and shakes her head at everybody and she’s got a Tweety Bird T-shirt and a fanny pack.” And I was just like, “Oh my god, I know exactly, I know that woman. I can’t pinpoint, I’ve seen that woman 100 times in my life, but I don’t know exactly where.” And to me, that’s kind of what a lot of these characters, they’re like, I’ll take some little tidbit and then just imagine something and it just feels familiar.

One last question: Have you ever played frog baseball?

I have not, no. I heard a guy say, “Oh, we used to go down there, we used to play frog baseball.” And I was like, does he mean what I thought he meant? And then I asked him and he was like “Oh yeah.” I think in Texas and a lot of places in the country, after a rain sometimes you’ll get tons of frogs.

Frog Baseball, Judge’s first animation hit.