Michael Angarano and Michael Cera on Fatherhood, Casting Kristen Stewart and Making the Buddy Comedy ‘Sacramento’
variety.comBrent Lang Executive Editor When Michael Angarano was trying to get “Sacramento,” his indie buddy comedy about two friends who go on a road trip to a certain state capital off the ground, the question he’d get was always the same.
Does it really need to be set in Sacramento? “At one point we were ready to shoot the movie in Atlanta — we had the financing and everything,” remembers Angarano, who directed the film, as well as co-wrote it. “And this was for a movie called ‘Sacramento.’ But it’s like why try to cheat it?
Maybe, we should we just call it ‘Athens’ or ‘Savannah’?” And even though Angarano and his co-writer Chris Smith weren’t that familiar with the city that inspired their film, its appearance on a highway sign, informing them of the California city’s distance from Los Angeles, was foundational.
For them, Sacramento wasn’t just a destination, it was a state of mind. “We had just been to a batting cage and we were driving back and we saw the sign and we just played a game of chicken,” Angarano remembers. “It was like, ‘hey, want to go to Sacramento?’ ‘Yeah, sure.
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