Home
Blink and you'll miss it: Somewhere in the middle of Dazed and Confused, Richard Linklater's 1993 comedy about a pack of Texas teens growin' up and gettin' down in 1976, a young, apple-cheeked woman strolls silently past a tall, blond guy. ''That's what I like about high school girls,'' the guy purrs creepily. It wasn't obvious at the time, but that was one of the pivotal star-making moments of the '90s: That groovy duo -- Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger -- would go on to shed their '70s stoner garb and score big hits with A Time to Kill and Jerry Maguire, respectively.
Like 1973's American Graffiti, another high school nostalgia-fest in which a lonely guy (Richard Dreyfuss) gazes wistfully at a taciturn belle (Suzanne Somers), Dazed is starting to look like this generation's finishing school for stardom. True, the Gramercy Pictures film toked no more than $8 million at the box office, but a surprising number of its then-anonymous ensemble cast have graduated to bold-name fame. Just as American Graffiti was an unexpected launching pad for the likes of Dreyfuss, Somers, and Harrison Ford, Dazed featured McConaughey, Zellweger, indie-film darling Parker Posey (Party Girl), Anthony Rapp (a lead in the Broadway smash Rent), and YM mascot Jason London (To Wong Foo...). ''Creatively, everyone knew something very special was going on,'' says Linklater. ''But at the time, the people who distributed the movie felt burdened with a film that 'had no stars in it.'''
Surprisingly, Dazed shares a kinship with yet another star-stoking teen flick. Don Phillips, the casting director for Dazed, was also the man who helped corral Sean Penn, Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Phoebe Cates for 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High. ''Every once in a while,'' Phillips says, ''there just happens to be a whole host of talented young actors, and if you can garner them in one vase, you're lucky.''
-- Jeff Gordinier and Jake Tapper
