Reality Bites (1994)

1990s

Sep. 5

Written By Derek Le Beau

Steve Zahn is Sammy, the Gay Best Friend, in actor/director Ben Stiller’s 1994 film REALITY BITES.

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REALITY BITES

1994. USA.

Director: Ben Stiller

Screenplay: Helen Childress

Starring: Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Steve Zahn, Swoosie Kurtz, Joe Don Baker, & John Mahoney

REALITY BITES follows four twenty-something friends looking to start their lives after graduating college in Houston, Texas in the 1990s; Lelaina (Winona Ryder) is an amateur documentarian working as production assistant, Troy (Ethan Hawke) is a struggling musician who can’t keep a job, Vickie (Garofalo) has just been promoted to a manager at The Gap, and Sammy is the Gay Best Friend who wants a career and just kind of tags along with his friends. He doesn’t really do much until the end of the film.

Helen Childress began writing the screenplay when she was 20, and finished at the age of 23, according to a 2023 FilmInk article.

“The film was so personal to me. It’s not like I researched anything. I honestly just wrote about myself and my experiences and my friends’ experiences,” she recalled.

In a 2023 interview with Movie Maker, Ben Stiller spoke of working with Childress on the screenplay after she had already worked through a number of drafts. He loved the dialogue, and the characters, but thought the film needed more structure.

“Originally, it was much more about all the characters in the movie … all their stories were much more fleshed out.” He stated.

The screenplay was then changed to revolve around the love triangle between Lelaina, Troy, and Stiller’s character Michael. It makes you wonder how much more the other characters were present. Despite whatever was cut, Sammy’s brief plotline is still an important and progressive one for the time. He supports Vickie while she’s waiting on the results of an HIV test, and later talks about what he calls the “big A” (AIDS). He says that living in fear of the virus is not what has kept him celibate. After coming out to his mother he says that the reason is that:

“I can’t really start my life without being honest about who I am.”