Fred Durst, the Limp Bizkit frontman and occasional pop culture punching bag, staged something of a career reinvention a few years ago, leaving music behind to chase his dream of making movies. His first effort, the coming-of-age tale “The Education of Charlie Banks,” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007. Now, two years later, it’s finally getting a theatrical release—at the same as Durst’s life has come full circle, with Bizkit getting set to reunite for a new album and a European tour.
“Sometimes you feel like it’s cursed when something takes so long to come out and you don’t know if it’s going to really come out,” the 38-year-old Durst recently told MTV News about his movie. “So the anticipation and anxiety that comes with it has really paid off because I’m so glad that ‘Charlie Banks’ has waited until now to come out. I just feel like the timing is everything with this.”
The film stars Jesse Eisenberg (“Adventureland”) as Charlie, an Ivy League student whose life is turned upside down when an unstable but charismatic old acquaintance (Jason Ritter from CBS’ “Joan of Arcadia”) shows up at his dorm.
The subtle, character-driven drama is hardly the sort of material you’d associate with Durst, who’s better known for thrasher-metal fury or public shenanigans (such as his short-lived fling with Britney Spears). But the marriage of Durst and the indie-emo “Charlie Banks” seems positively unremarkable when compared to the seeming disconnect between Durst and his second directorial project, “The Longshots.” That film, which was actually released last summer, was a family-friendly true story about a struggling former football star (Ice Cube) who starts coaching the local Pop Warner team.
With independent distributor Anchor Bay Entertainment releasing “Charlie Banks” on March 27, Durst seems happy to be leaving behind a major studio. “It’s not about the bells and whistles for me,” he said. “You have to be careful who you get involved with. You hear the nightmares about the studios and different things.”
While he has always wanted to be a director rather than a musician, Durst admits to enjoying being on the road with Limp Bizkit more than promoting his movies. “I say that touring supporting the film is difficult because of having to repeat yourself about one specific tone, feeling, story, the whole time,” he says. “And with music at least you get all kinds of different [questions]. But with us for a while it was cliché and everyone wanted to know the same old s—t.”
Do you think Durst has what it takes to be a big-time filmmaker? Or are you more excited that Limp Bizkit is getting back together?
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