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Dax Shepard discusses inspirations for CHiPS feature film
Writer/Director/Actor Dax Shepard and actor Michael Pena arrive at the Premiere Of Warner Bros. Pictures' "CHiPS" at TCL Chinese Theatre on March 20, 2017 in Hollywood, California.
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Dax Shepard discusses inspirations for CHiPS feature film
Forty years ago, a show about two motorcycle cops working in sunny Southern California hit the small screen. CHiPs ran for 139 episodes or over six seasons.
Now, officers Ponch and Jon are back in a reboot starring Michael Pena and Dax Shepard. The movie was released in theaters today.
Shepard wrote and directed the film. His take on CHiPS is more than just pretty women and freeway pile-ups. He also delved into the delicate dynamics of male friendship.
Alex Cohen spoke to Shepard about his memories of the TV show and inspirations for the feature film.
A key part of this film is relationship with your partner. There’s been a lot of films about bromance. What were your goals? It starts off adversarial and then gets to a totally a different place.
The conventional buddy cop movie is that one is straight-laced and by-the-book and the other one is a loose cannon or a live wire. Although I’ve enjoyed that paradigm so much in the past, I kind of wanted to do something different. My approach was to do more of a male-female personality type. My character happens to be an emotional genius and his (Pena’s) character is very logic-based genius. So when they would fight, it was very important for me that they were each making super valid points, but just arguing on two different planes. It’s very mars/venus.
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Southern California plays a huge role in CHiPS, it’s basically a character of its own. You shot all over, what was that like?
I do think California was the biggest star of the TV show and I think it’s the biggest star of the movie. We all have a fantasy of what California is if we grow up outside of California. So the freedom of filming here, having lived here for 22 years, is that I can write a scene off the 210 and I know the geography. I know where to cameras are going to go and I know what’s possible… and so it frees you up to write very specifically.
Now that the filming is over, and you go back to driving around LA, you don’t have CHP escorts, can’t clear the 210 or blow things up, are you sad? Do you miss it?
Yeah, 100 percent. All these places that I had been accumulating in my mind over the years… like “God, I love shoot at Elysian Park” or “I love that view of downtown from the 110.”
Now these places have a sentimental value to them and as well as a beautiful aesthetic. And it’s made me enjoy the city even more.
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