We are now one short week away from the release of Jonah Hill's directorial debut Mid90s, starring Sunny Suljic. The film has already garnered glowing reviews and multiple standing ovations, marking a fitting end to the journey that—for Hill, who also wrote the script—began with a personal story of finding a family outside your home as a kid.
On Thursday's Tonight Show, Hill went deep on what it felt like to finally bring this years-in-the-making story to the screen and detailed his appreciation for Nutella. "I've wanted to be a writer/director/filmmaker my entire life and I kind of fell into this amazing 15-year acting career and I went to the best film school in the world," Hill said. "You know, I got to learn from a lot of the masters. I got a front-row education to what I wanted to do."
The shoot, which Hill credits as the "singular most moving experience of my life," was greatly assisted by the aforementioned snack Nutella. "I literally kept [Sunny Suljic] running on Nutella for the whole shoot," Hill said. "I figured out his drug of choice was Nutella. Thank you to the good people at Nutella because you got me through my first filmmaking experience with Sunny. He's amazing."
Speaking on the film's score and soundtrack, Hill revealed that he's actually never met composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. He did, however, manage to finally get an emailed "ha" from Reznor after repeatedly joking for six months straight that he could provide backing vocals on Nine Inch Nails' "Head Like a Hole."
As for the songs on the soundtrack, all of which were specifically written into the script, Hill said his budgetary restrictions resulted in him sending out personal letters to the artists asking for their participation. "We had no money so I had to write letters to all my favorite artists," Hill said. "For the first, I go 'We gotta go for the boss first.' Every song that's in the film, I wrote the scene to have that song in it. I wrote to Morrissey and I wrote him a really personal letter. He wrote back 'It is my pleasure and I can't wait to see Mid90s—Morrissey' [in] all caps. Drop the mic!"
