Q&A Richard Linklater

By Rebecca Winters

You made indie films Slacker and Dazed and Confused. This is so mainstream.

This movie was calling me in some strange way. I've got a 10-year-old daughter. I thought I could bring something to it, to not make it one of those cheese-bag kids' films.

Are you schooling your daughter in rock 'n' roll?

Yeah. When you're in the car together, that's a good time. I'm always testing her, like, Which Beatle is this? O.K., this is Nirvana, the best band of the '90s. She's sort of a medievalist, music of the Renaissance.

Have you ever been in a band?

I got booted out of junior high band. I wasn't that gifted musically. But I kind of have musician envy.

In School of Rock, Jack Black gets kicked out of his band and becomes a substitute teacher. Is he a slacker?

Sure. A slacker is somebody who's passionate but not fitting into the workaday world, the guy you judge and say, That's a loser. But everybody has something to offer.

You quit college to work on an offshore oil rig. Why?

I hit the end of my thing in college. I was in Texas, and that was a good job. I could get paid a lot of money to do grunt work with a hard hat and steel-toe boots. It's good to not be doing what everyone thinks you should be doing. Or it worked for me, anyway.