As we continue to celebrate 1995 Week here at The A.V. Club, Vanity Fair has published an excerpt from Jen Chaney’s book about one of 1995’s iconic films: Clueless. Adapted from Chaney’s As If!: The Oral History of Clueless, As Told By Amy Heckerling, The Cast, And The Crew, this abridged oral history looks at how the Amy Heckerling-directed comedy became a 1990s cult classic.
In 1993, Heckerling started developing a TV show for Fox centered on a group of popular kids at a California high school. The project—then called No Worries, and later, I Was A Teenage Teenager—went from potentially being a television series on Fox to potentially being a Fox feature film to potentially not happening at all. Heckerling went through a frustrating process of rejection before the project landed at Paramount. Chaney’s article traces the casting process at Fox, the moment when Fox said “whatever” and killed the project, and the eventual restart at Paramount. In other words, the making of Clueless had about as much chill as Cher in the valley.
Chaney’s article includes quotes from Heckerling, Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Stacey Dash, and several of Clueless’ producers. Her book will be published next month by Touchstone.