Behind the Scenes of "Stan"

The Concept

-Phil Atwell and Dr. Dre are sitting together on set —

Phil Atwell — Today, we’re here on the set of Stan, who’s a fan of Eminem’s. And we decided to do a video on Stan.

-Cut away to Dr. Dre-

Dr. Dre — Eminem is in this video very little, and it’s his song.

-Back to Phil-

Phil — It was interesting, you know. It was like it’s Stan, he has, he has a girl, you know? We didn’t wanna make this like, so much of characters and then four minutes later by Dido.

-Back to Dre-

Dre — The first three verses, it’s not him. You know? Of course it’s him, but he’s um, playing a character. And that character is Stan.

-Back to Phil-

Phil — So we wanted to figure out a way. And we’re gonna figure out another way to incorporate Eminem back into this, you know… film.

-Back to Dre-

Dre — We found creative ways to make sure his face is same with pictures, and you know, posters and what have you.

-Cut to Eminem on set-

Eminem — Can I see what I look like?

Dre — Yeah.

Casting

-Phil and Dre are still sitting together-

Phil — We had a list of people. We kinda just looked at a group of people, and Devon was one of them, one of the people that we looked at.

-Cut to Devon Sawa sitting down on set-

Devon Sawa — What’s up? I’m Devon Sawa. Um, I’m on the set of Eminem’s new video, Stan, and uh, I’m just having a lot of fun.

-Cut back to Phil-

Phil — You know, Dre’s been talking about his film forever.

-Back to Devon-

Devon — Since Final Destination’s a really spooky movie they, they thought I’d be perfect for this, you know? It’s Stan the psycho fan.

-Cut to Devon in another place on set — He twirls his index finger round as a gesture to Stan’s obsession.

Devon — Cuckoo!

-Cut back to Devon sitting down-

Devon — I mean, I’m hanging out with Dr. Dre. It doesn’t get better than that (a huge grin spreads across his face)! You know what I mean?

-Cut to Devon with Dakota on set-

Devon — This is Dakota. Right here. It’s my man! Right Buddy? Say hi!

Dakota — (Looks at the camera and waves) Hi!

-Cut to Eminem signing a photo for Dakota-

Eminem — Dakota, what do you wanna be? You wanna be a actor?

Dakota — Yeah.

Eminem — You don’t wanna be a rapper?

Dakota — Well… I think I wanna be both.

Eminem — You wanna be both? Rapper slash actor? That’s hot.

Prompts to Emily for transcribing this. This was originally taken from the Eminem E 2000 DVD, so go rent it today if you want visuals!

Back 12.31.2007.