Cult Classic `Basketball Diaries’ Finally Makes It to Film

Industry’s Top Young Actors Have Coveted Project for Years
By Claudia Eller
Minneapolis Star Tribune 30 Jan. 1995 (p.05E)

At
the last minute, underground poet/ novelist/ musician Jim Carroll
canceled plans to attend the Sundance Film Festival premiere of
the movie version of his 1978 cult classic, “The Basketball Diaries.”
The self-described recluse opted to stay home in New York to meet
with a priest – all in the name of research for a new novel Carroll
is writing.

“I’ve
been corresponding with this priest from the Vatican who grew
up in New York City . . . so I can’t blow him off,” Carroll said
by phone. “He investigates miracles, and he’s got the goods I
need.”

In
many ways, it’s a miracle that “The Basketball Diaries” finally
was made.

It
has taken some 15 years and countless attempts by Hollywood to
adapt the writer’s from-the-gut, journal-like entries about growing
up a teenage junkie on New York’s mean streets. And the Carroll,
44, is thrilled that someone finally got it right. The movie,
produced by Liz Heller and John Bard Manulis for Island Pictures
on a shoestring budget of $4 million, and directed by first-timer
Scott Kalvert, debuted at the Park City, Utah, festival and is
tentatively scheduled for release March 17 in the Twin Cities.

Leonardo
DiCaprio, who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to a young
Carroll, landed the role that for years had been coveted by many
young actors, including River Phoenix, Ethan Hawke and Eric Stoltz.
Nearly every year since its publication, the book had been optioned
to various parties – including Sundance founder Robert Redford
and actor John Malkovich.

Carroll recalled that the first option on his book was by two
entertainment lawyers from New York who were moving to Los Angeles
to start a movie company and talked of Matt Dillon starring and
John Cassavetes directing.

The
closest a movie ever got to being made was by Columbia Pictures
in the late ’80s with a script by Jeff Fiskin (“Cutter’s Way”).
Anthony Michael Hall was to have starred.

“I
thought {Hall} would have been perfect, and it was a good screenplay,”
said Carroll, “but right before they were going to start, {Coca-Cola}
bought Columbia and kicked out all of the executives.”

As
it turned out, Carroll said, “I couldn’t have imagined having
a better person than Leonardo playing the part.” Carroll, who
was a consultant on the film and appears in a cameo role as a
junkie, hung out with DiCaprio whenever he visited the set, and
the two apparently bonded.

“Jim
is one of the coolest guys I’ve ever met,” DiCaprio said.

Sounding
wise beyond his 20 years, the actor said Carroll’s “been to places
that most people try to avoid – drugs . . . living on the streets,
the loneliness . . . He’s been to the depths of his own darkness
and come out surviving. He’s truly a walking miracle.”

When
he first heard DiCaprio was interested in the role, Carroll had
no idea who the actor was. He had not seen “This Boy’s Life,”
in which DiCaprio stars with Robert DeNiro, and “What’s Eating
Gilbert Grape?” – for which DiCaprio received a best supporting
Oscar nomination – had not yet hit the theaters.

It
was Heller, senior vice president of new media at Capitol Records,
who really made the movie finally happen. A couple of years ago,
when she was running the audiovisual division at Island Records,
she ran into an old pal, music video director Kalvert. He told
her how much he wanted to option Carroll’s book and make it into
a movie.

Kalvert,
30, had grown up in New York a big fan of Carroll. “I read the
book when I was 15 and always wanted to make it because it’s a
great coming-of-age story. It was like reading `Catcher in the
Rye,’ ” Kalvert said by phone.

Before
reuniting with Heller, Kalvert had made the studio rounds with
the project. “Nobody really wanted to make the movie. Some wanted
{the locale} changed to Seattle because Seattle was cool. Someone
wanted to change it so Jim wasn’t the one involved in drugs, and
I had a specific take on it,” said Kalvert, well-known for his
work with such musical artists as Marky Mark, Belinda Carlisle
and Guns N’ Roses.

Heller
went to her Island boss, Chris Blackwell, and pitched the movie.
He loved the idea and agreed to put up $4 million. Heller hired
another Carroll devotee, Bryan Goluboff, to write the screenplay.

As
a young teen, Goluboff followed Carroll around Greenwich Village
where he was playing rock ‘n’ roll and hanging out at the St.
Mark’s Place poetry scene. Carroll was taken immediately with
the script, saying Goluboff “had such a great ear for the character.”

Goluboff
essentially had to create Carroll’s character since he is not
a figure in the book, but the storyteller. From 1963 to 66, beginning
when he was 13, Carroll documented his escapades as a Catholic
high school basketball star, who, along with his three best-friend
teammates, spiraled into an underworld of heroin, crime, sex and
violence.