Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, the story of a naive young hairdresser who travels to Hollywood in hopes of sleeping with Jon Hamm, has been hailed as an absurdist, deeply meta, and gloriously vulgar comedy since it premiered at Sundance. But the new film from Wet Hot American Summer director David Wain and co-writer Ken Marino is also a second take on The Wizard of Oz.
“As we were building the story of this woman who has to figure out what to do if her celebrity husband-to-be’s pass deal became a reality, we naturally started to see that there was a sort of ‘Wizard of Oz’ thread,” says Wayne. “It seemed like it was part of the DNA of what we were doing.”
So, just like Dorsey Gale, Gale is a simple young girl from Kansas. Only this time, instead of floating on a rainbow, she’s flying economy to a magical version of Tinseltown. There she meets Caleb (Ben Wang), a CAA agent-in-training, and realizes he has the brains to become a top wheeler and dealer. We also meet Vincent (played by Marino), a down-on-his-luck paparazzi who secretly has a heart of gold. Finally, Hamm himself plays John Slattery, Hamm’s Mad Men co-star. Only this version of Slattery is a wailing scary cat who unleashes his inner beast at key moments in the film.
Clearly, these three are stand-ins for the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, and their quest to acquire the brain, the heart, and the courage. To drive home this point, the filmmakers included other references to “The Wizard of Oz.” For example, Gail’s shoes are red, and Slattery often wears yellow clothing, similar to lion pelts.
“We wanted to have these little references, but we were equally motivated to tell this story about these characters and explore this idea of celebrity passes and this quirky journey through a fantasy Hollywood version,” Marino says.
This time, instead of traveling to the Emerald City, Gail and her friends are trying to access Hamm’s suite at the Chateau Marmont. So she wants to fuck Ham’s brains out.
At one point, the filmmakers considered shooting the Kansas scenes in black and white, but thought that would be too close to the color palette of “The Wizard of Oz” and opted to make the Hollywood sequences brighter and more dazzling. Several other things were left on the cutting room floor after Wayne and Marino decided they needed to draw parallels between the two films in more subtle shades.
“There were also more overt references that we shot but didn’t use,” says Wayne. “There was a line towards the end where Jon Hamm says, ‘I’m just behind the curtain pulling the lever,’ and then Ken Marino and John Slattery go, ‘Where have you heard this before?’ But that was too much.”
Marino and Wayne are longtime friends of Hamm. He had a cameo in the 2007 film “The Ten” and also appeared in the show “Children’s Hospital” and the streaming series “Wet Hot American Summer.” Still, the men were worried about Hamm’s reaction when they sent him the script.
“It was definitely scary to share this story, basically about him,” Wayne says. “He could have easily thought, ‘No, this isn’t cool,’ and Slattery was the same way. But luckily, we sent it to Slattery first and he called John and was like, ‘We have to do this together!'”
Jennifer Aniston had a similar reaction. The “Friends” star helps set the film’s plot in motion when Gail’s fiancé (Michael Cassidy) takes the idea of a celebrity sex pass literally and sleeps with Aniston in the back room of a bookstore, where she signs her memoir. Aniston appeared in Wayne and Marino’s film Wanderlust, but they still didn’t think her agent would show her the script. Why would she want to be portrayed as a home destroyer? Instead, she jumped at the chance to submit an A-list image of herself.
“When I talked to Jen on set, she said, ‘This is what we’re supposed to do, something wild and fun and crazy!'” Marino says. “We’re like, ‘100%, all the time!'”
Wayne and Marino aren’t shy about satirizing The Wizard of Oz, but ultimately they hope Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass works as more than just a movie parody.
“Some people who saw the movie didn’t understand the connection at all. At different points in the movie, different people seemed to understand the connection,” Wayne says. “Personally, I like it. I hope it becomes independent.”
