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The Love Bugs

With the help of 50,000 cockroaches, Jerry O'Connell gets the girl

By Helen Lee
This article appeared
in the July 1996 issue
of Cinescape magazine.

Anyone who's ever lived in an urban area knows that cockroaches are just another annoying fact of life. But John Payson, who wrote and directed Joe's Apartment for Geffen Pictures, had a different reaction to the six-legged critters: He found them inspirational.

"I was sitting in my apartment feeling sorry for myself," Payson says, explaining how he got the idea for his roach flick while watching the bugs overrun his New York City home. His only cheery thought at the time, he says, was that "it could be worse--cockroaches could talk."

Thus was born the three-minute cockroach extravaganza Payson made for MTV in 1992. Deciding that the skittish creatures deserved a shot at the big time, Payson made them the stars of his debut feature, Joe's Apartment, which opens on July 26. The film, which Payson describes as "tender, sticky and sentimental," tells an unconventional urban tale: Boy moves to the city, boy meets girl, boy meets roaches, girl meets roaches, boy loses girl, roaches feel bad and get girl back for boy. In the course of winning back the sweetheart of their "roommate," nature's most hardy insects not only talk up a storm, they sing, dance and strut their stuff in production numbers that make them look like multi-legged Radio City Rockettes.

Joe's Apartment, the largest effects project ever filmed completely in New York City, employed computer-generated roaches in many of the more complicated scenes, and the filmmakers used puppets (think of the merchandising possibilities!) for much of the rest of the flick. But of course, to give the film that extra dose of reality, a dumpster's worth of live roaches were also used--and insect-rights activists will be happy to note that not a single one was harmed during production.

Director Payson says Jerry O'Connell, star of Joe's Apartment as well as the Fox series Sliders, was admirably fearless in his encounters with the bugs. O'Connell even put two in his mouth for a scene in which he discovers roaches in his cereal, but the actor's tolerance reached its limit during a scene in which more than two dozen cockroaches roamed his face--if there had been any more than that on him, O'Connell admits, he "probably would have thrown up." Still, he's optimistic about the film's chances of influencing moviegoers. "I think this movie will bring down the barrier between man and roach," he proclaims. "Humans squash first and ask questions later. I think this film is going to change all that."

O'Connell says that he himself hasn't squashed one of the beady-eyed bugs since completing the movie. "I've had a lot of trouble killing roaches. I've got to chance my ways because the roach problem at my apartment is getting a little out of control. The roaches realize that I'm not killing them, so they're getting a little brave."

He's not the only one whose opinion of roaches has changed. "You might say they're the most peaceful creatures around...they don't pollute, they don't make war, they don't write New Age music," Payson offers. "They don't bother me anymore, but they do remind me of work sometimes." He's got big plans for his bugs, too--a veritable cockroach dynasty that will include talking refrigerator magnets and movie sequels "up the wazoo." Who knows, maybe even a roach ride at Disney World.