Moving Doc Reveals A Year in the Life of the American Teen: Colin, Megan, Jake and Mitch on the Politics of High School, Friendship and New Beginnings

By Lee Shoquist

You can dispel any concerns about the youth of America after you see American Teen, a winning new documentary following the senior year of high school for several different teenagers in the small town America of tiny Warsaw, Indiana.

Eradicating cynical Hollywood cliches by featuring an appealing and thoughtful collection of teenagers with more on their minds than parties and hijinks, filmmaker Nanette Burstein spent nine months following their dreams and heartbreaks. The result just may be the most compelling “characters” onscreen this year, and we like each of them tremendously while we share in their ups and downs.

Billed as a modern-day The Breakfast Club, the iconic 80s classic about the bonding of five disparate teens who transcend peer groups, American Teen is a moving and often surprising glimpse into the lives of a handful of genuinely nice kids dealing with college, family and emotional pressures.

I caught up with four of them recently—Colin Clemens, the fledgling basketball star under pressure, Megan Krizmanich, the popular achiever, Mitch Reinholt, the handsome, high-school leading man and Jake Tusing, the lonely outsider—to discover what has transpired in their lives since graduation, their thoughts on being a teen today and what it feels like to be sudden movie stars.

LS: What does it mean to be an American Teen today?

Mitch Reinholt: I think it means something very similar to what it meant twenty years ago. Obviously technology and things have changed. But through the movie and people talking to us after the movie, it seems like a similar experience. People struggle with the same things now that they did twenty years ago. High school is a timeless thing.

LS: How representative is the film of your actual year of school?

Jake Tusing: It is a condensed version of the major points of our lives.

Colin Clemens: I look at it as a summary. Obviously they could not touch on everything with each of us, otherwise we would each have ninety minutes. You have to focus on the important things. I think Nanette captured it well and at least our personalities if nothing else. I’m more than just a basketball player and an Elvis dad. There are other things that she could not get in.

LS: Mitch, what are we not seeing about you that was shot? You do not emerge until the film’s second half.

MR: A lot, but I am not one of the featured characters. I sort of help to tell the four other ones. You see me and who I am, but it doesn’t go deep into my character.

JT: I think you are a lot nicer than the movie.

Megan Krizmanich: You’re a heartthrob!

MR: I don’t consider myself a heartthrob so I’m not crazy about that title. But I think that is kind of my focus in the movie.

LS: Are you going to tell us what was the deciding factor to send Hannah the infamous break-up text?

MR: There were a lot of things that factored into it. Some of it was peer pressure and I admit that. I am not proud of it. Also, it was a relatively short relationship. We only dated for about a month. It was never really serious. It was at the very end of the year. We were about to go to college and there was a lot of change about to take place in our lives. I just didn’t feel like it was a great time to jump into a relationship when there was so much unknown.

LS: Did you ever have a conversation with her to reconcile after?

MR: Yeah. We did talk. We really are good friends now.

LS: Megan, explain how Nanette gained your trust enough that you agreed to participate.

MK: I actually said no several times before I said yes. I was the only one who didn’t audition. I gave her an initial tour of Warsaw and just got to know her and loved her and her other work. She really made a true effort to be our friends and integrate herself into our lives and make it as comfortable as possible when we were away from the camera, so when we were on camera… I think it was after about a month we could all say that we were very comfortable in front of the cameras and able to be ourselves. It was like another friend was in the room.

LS: Jake, how much reality is there actually in the film? Did you forget the cameras were on after a certain point?

JT: That’s pretty much how it was for me. Like she said actually, the first month or so you tune them out. And having Nanette there and the rest of the crew, it felt more like friends and that was their job. I felt comfortable talking to them and like I developed a strong trust with them and nothing reserved anymore. I think that is what I was looking for to begin with was a relationship where someone would be there for me if I needed it and people who would listen to what I had to say, and give me constructive criticism. It was like having an adult friend that wasn’t a parent. For me, that was a first.

LS: Colin, talk about your relationship with your father. There is one scene at the dinner table where you speak up to him and say, “Parents are supposed to pay for college.” I have to imagine that thought characterized your relationship for quite some time.

CC: There was a lot of pressure. He is more negative sometimes than what the film showed. He can be negative at times without really realizing it. It’s not like he intentionally did it. But sometimes if I came home with a twenty point, ten rebound game—a good game for myself—I’d come home and he would say, “Oh, you could have gotten twenty-five.” Just little things like that, instead of saying “Good job.” But it was never really intentional. And for the most part, you can see that he was very supportive. He can be overbearing, but he has always had my best interests at heart.

LS: How is school going for you? I hear you have a 3.7, right?

CC: It’s actually 3.8 now! Academics are going well. I’m finally starting to actually get into studying and getting good grades. I went through high school…

MK: Schlumped through high school…

CC: …Schlumped through it, yes.

LS: How important is it, really, to get good grades in high school?

CC: I would say that it’s important. I had a 3.3 or a 3.4. That is not terrible, but at the same time it was enough to get me some help financially.

LS: How about you Megan? You had a lot riding on your Notre Dame acceptance.

MK: I think it is important to learn to study and be disciplined in high school so that you have that when you get to college. I didn’t study at all in high school and when I went off to college, I wasn’t adjusted to that.

JT: Getting good grades in high school is pointless. If I can achieve all As and Bs without ever doing homework or having to try, what is the point of having the schoolwork in the first place? If I have to put no effort into it in the first place, how important can it be? That is how I think of it.

LS: Megan, you took some risks by participating in an act of vandalism. Yet you had no trepidation about having it filmed, which really surprised me.

MK: I think it was definitely the comfort level. In high school you think you are invincible. And doing that was very high school. I don’t know why I did it in front of a camera. I think the comfort level with Nanette just got extreme, at least I did, about doing anything in front of the camera.

LS: I read that you are living life more drama free now. What does that mean?

MK: (laughs) I think just the initial going to college and the responsibility and having to grow up almost instantly. I am in pre-med, so I study a lot. I don’t really have time for drama. I have close friends that I try to stick with, and try not to create any more drama.

LS: Where do you see yourselves career-wise in the next five years? Megan, you mentioned you are pre-med.

MR: I am also pre-med. I want to be an eye doctor.

LS: Why eyes?

MR: Great question. I don’t know. Just because. I like eyes.

MK: I think you ought to be a gynecologist.

MR: That’s your job.

MK: I want to be a gynecologist.

MR: We could be in a partnership.

JT: I have no idea what I want to do, so I am taking a year off and see where that takes me. And just enjoy my freedom while I have it.

LS: Colin, what are your thoughts?

CC: I’m majoring in marketing. However, right after college I am going overseas to play. I’m going to start in Australia and hopefully work my way over to Europe if I can. That is the goal, but there will be a day that comes when I can’t play anymore. And when that day comes, I will have my marketing degree.

LS: What do you love about playing basketball?

CC: Some people see sports as entertainment. But I see it more as a professional and obviously there are professional basketball, baseball and football players. I look at it as maybe some guys are good at sales, some guys are good at business and I’m good at basketball. That’s what I do. I love it. It is my passion and always has been. And I’m really good at it. I like the fact that I can have something that I do well and enjoy watching.

LS: Jake, are you still in love?

JT: No. The girl I took to prom ended up breaking up with me in August.

LS: Not by text, I assume.

JT: No, not by text. In person, after I flew her out to California. I think that is a bigger slap in the face that I spent a week with her and she was like, “I don’t think that we should see each other anymore.”

LS: Was that a big heartbreak?

JT: It was. I was in tears for a couple days. It was bad. But she is engaged now and happy down in Texas, where she moved. But I’m still looking.

LS: What is your social life like now?

JT: Non-existent.

MK: You can’t say that! Look at the last month and a half!

JT: But this is my job, not my social life. Well, yes, these guys are my social life.

CC: We’re your friends now.

MK: What about day-date girl?

JT: You just told me not to see day-date girl!

CC: What about in-and-out?

MK: That’s day-date!

JT: I know that sounds really bad—in-and-out on a day-date. I’ve talked to people. I am hoping back home things develop with other people.

MR: You have to admit it is better than it was.

JT: Yes.

LS: But on tour now there must be a lot of options.

JT: I am hoping they are positive. I am hoping people don’t just come to me saying, “Hey, you’re in a movie. Want to hang out?” I don’t want it to be because of that. I want it to be because, “I saw who you were in this movie, and you are a pretty cool guy. Let’s hang out.”

LS: Colin, you mentioned that you are all friends now. Obviously you are going through an intense period traveling together and the film has bonded you in many ways. How about a few years from now?

CC: I can definitely see me being friends with Mitch and Megan because we have grown up together and are buddies. We were probably going to have that anyway. And through this I now have that with Jake and Hannah. I figure, this is something that we have gone through together. I am sure that somewhere down the road we will have a reunion thing, and that will be fun and interesting to see where we are at that stage, whether it is ten or twenty or whatever, just looking back on the experiences we had.

LS: I grew up in small-town Michigan, in a place even smaller than Warsaw. What are the great things about growing up in a small town, and what is not so great?

MR: For me, it was the family aspect of growing up in a small town and the comfort. I always felt supported and that made a big difference for me growing up. But negatively, everybody knows everything about everyone. If something happens, the whole town knows the next day. That is frustrating. You are also known by your family name.

CC: Negatively, everybody knows your business all the time, especially when you are in high school. If something happens it is pretty much going to be known by everyone quickly. Positive would be like Mitch said—family and friends. You get to know a lot more people because you are barricaded in. You are stuck there. So you get to know people and I really enjoyed that. We don’t have a mall, so we just hang out at each other’s houses spending time with friends.

JT: I like living in a small town community because you know where everything is. It is good and bad. You know everything going on and it get predictable. We missed out on the fair this year, and that was like a big thing. Everybody waited all summer for it. Missed out on the fireworks. So the typical summertime things I didn’t get to participate in. Warsaw is growing now.

MK: I hated the small town, especially being the fifth out of six children. It was impossible to go through school and have my own identity without the teachers saying, “Oh, another Krizmanich!” I felt like I could never get away from my name, and like I always wanted that anonymity. So I am going to live in a big city.

LS: Where do you think you will end up?

MK: Chicago. I think New York is too big. I may live there for a little bit. But when I have a family, I will live in Chicago. There is never sh*t to do in Warsaw either.

LS: What is the biggest misperception about teenagers today in Hollywood or the mainstream media? Everything is so cynical and feels different than the time of The Breakfast Club. But you guys are not. And the film is refreshing because of that.

MK: I think most of the movies just take it to the extreme and run with it. As Mitch said, high school is high school and though technology has changed things, for the most part I think it is the same struggles and experiences. I feel like they make it out to be this horrible generation that is getting into all this trouble and I don’t feel like we are that.

MR: I agree. Drama sells. So Hollywood wants to focus on the negative part of high school. Not necessarily the worst of it, but that is entertaining and people want to see it. And that sets the benchmark for what high school is like, which is a very small percentage.

CC: Most high school movies always have a bully. At least at Warsaw, we did not have a bully or a guy going and giving wedgies and stuffing kids in lockers. That is just dumb and I don’t think it happens too often. Usually if there is a fight it is an actual fistfight. Another thing I notice is that Hollywood wants to focus on the negative. For example, in Superbad, all the kids want to do is drink. There is so much more to high school than stupid things like that.

LS: Jake, do you ever see experiences from your life in Hollywood teen movies?

JT: I haven’t.

MK: Charlie Bartlett?

LS: That one was funny.

MK: I don’t like how they compared it to Ferris Bueller.

JT: I haven’t seen anything I can identify with. I think a lot of characters in movies have a lot more confidence than I did. They seem to have a pretty strong sense of self. I was always unsure of who I wanted to be and where I fit in. Maybe it will be a new take for people who watch this movie—that they are not alone.

LS: Megan, I want to know what you love about Ferris Bueller.

MK: I love his free spirit. He reminds me a lot of Hannah. And I admire Hannah for how she was in high school. I feel like my life was always so planned out. I always have goals and wish I could have had some of that free spirit and not worry about my future. I am always worrying about something.

LS: Does Hannah know that you feel that way?

MK: Yeah, I have told her.

LS: Do you feel like movie stars now?

MR: I respect what movie stars do now. The press is exhausting.

MK: I have a new respect for celebrities having to do this all the time!

CC: Waking up and traveling just wears you down.

LS: What is the dumbest question you have been asked?

CC: “Are those your real parents?”

JT: Or if the Erica pictures were available!

LS: Do you get asked for autographs?

JT: Three times.

LS: Is that surreal?

MR: It is embarrassing. We’re not special. We just went to high school.

Special thanks to Colin Clemens, Megan Krizmanich, Mitch Reinholt and Jake Tusing for this interview.

lee@atnzone.com