![]() Twenty-six years have passed, so you can see the consequences of that.” “Well, my response to that is - whose truth? Is it the truth, and what are the costs of telling that truth to other people? It was marketed in a particular way that had an impact on those who were sold as particular characters. “Larry always says, ‘I tell the truth and the truth can be shocking,'” says Martin. They also discovered they were being stereotyped as amoral street kids, which further complicated their feelings. Then, when the movie became a box office sensation, the cast found themselves locked out of any kind of profit participation. ![]() In “The Kids,” the low-budget production sounds more like a bacchanal than a film set. Underage actors were shot naked and drugs were readily available. The filming of “Kids” didn’t sound like a professional experience. And then they didn’t have anyone around to help them or give them guidance while there was a narrow window of opportunity that opened for them.” They were very trusting of the filmmakers in a way and gave a lot. “Do they take that opportunity? Many of them were runaways or people from traumatic backgrounds or troubled homes. “It’s complex, especially when you’re approaching teenagers who really don’t have a lot of chances around them,” says Martin. People like Pierce and Hunter didn’t have the support systems in place to help them navigate the Hollywood scene, he argues. A few people made a fortune, while the rest of the players were left to pick up the pieces. Martin thinks that the story of “Kids” should be a cautionary tale. What drives a person to do that? We need to understand.” He was acting, but then he killed himself. “There’s reasons why Harold did drugs and if that’s not understood then we can’t appreciate the fullness of who he was as a human being,” says Harris. In 2006, he was found dead from a cocaine overdose in his Lower East Side apartment. Hunter turned to drugs and alcohol after failing to find acting work. Pierce was able to leverage his work in “Kids” into appearances in “Next Friday” and a guest stint on “Malcolm in the Middle,” but he died by suicide in 2000, hanging himself in a Las Vegas hotel room at the age of 25. Harris felt a responsibility to do justice to the story because two of his co-stars in “Kids,” Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter, died young after struggling to make sense of their newfound notoriety. But when I met Eddie, I knew he would allow me to be at my most vulnerable and I can’t do that if I feel like I’m going to be taken advantage of or put down or used.” “I didn’t feel like I was going into something with people who were going to honor what I wanted to say. ![]() “I had conversations with other directors and it didn’t feel right,” says Harris. Through a mutual friend, he was put in touch with Eddie Martin, a documentarian whose works include “Have You Seen the Listers,” a look at Australian street artist Anthony Lister, and “All This Mayhem,” a deep dive into the world of professional skateboarding. Slowly, he began to realize that he needed to bring in a professional director. Then he decided that it would be better served as a documentary. ![]() At one point, he envisioned it as a narrative feature and started writing a screenplay. Harris has been trying to get “The Kids” produced for more than a decade. You can take a person out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of a person, and to me ghetto refers to the mental and emotional trauma we went through.” “We were in the right place at the right time and we become part of this cult classic film and had to deal with everything that comes with that. “We were a tight-knit group who skateboarded and hung out,” says Harris. At the same time, he felt that Clark and Korine failed to capture the strong sense of community that these teenagers had created and some of the more positive elements of their intense friendships. Harris felt that the film, which many audience members mistakenly believed was so steeped in reality that it was almost a documentary, played up the shock value, dwelling on the hardships faced by the skateboarders who came from unstable homes. “My feelings about the movie started to shift after I saw it in the theater and saw the global reaction,” says Hamilton Harris, one of the non-professional actors who appeared in “Kids.” “It was extremely overwhelming and it brought the realization that I needed to do some work on myself.” “The Kids,” a new documentary that’s premiering at the Tribeca Festival this week, grapples with the lives that were upended by the movie’s overnight success. Many of the young men and women that Clark tapped to play key roles struggled to find work after the film premiered, and grew frustrated that they’d been paid a pittance while the director and the Weinstein brothers scored major paydays. ![]() But the film’s legacy is more complicated. ![]()
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