“You’re stalking her”: John Cusack rethinks his iconic Say Anything scene in a modern light
John Cusack weighs in on how Say Anything’s iconic boombox scene plays with today’s audiences—and longtime fans may not expect where he lands.
On Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, John Cusack didn’t dance around the question. Asked how Lloyd Dobler’s grand gesture — hoisting a boombox outside Diane’s window to Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” — would land now, he said modern audiences might see it through a totally different lens, one focused on boundaries and consent.
"There's a good chance if Say Anything was made today, they'd be like, 'You can't do that. You're stalking her. You know, she gave you her emotional boundaries and you're you're putting a boom box," he said.
Cusack added that there’s a newer habit of grading older characters by today’s rules. He also talked about how he helped shape Lloyd back then, pushing the character away from a glossy fantasy into a kid who had some shadows but chose optimism anyway. At a screening last year, he explained the turn that made the character click for him.
“So I thought, I don't really know how to do it. And then finally at the end of the movie, I thought, ‘Oh, what if he's really bad? And he's more defiant.’ And that was what made it work," he said.
Released in 1989, Say Anything was Cameron Crowe’s directorial debut, written by Crowe, and followed the post–graduation romance between underachiever-turned-true-believer Lloyd and class valedictorian Diane Court.
- John Cusack — Lloyd Dobler
- Ione Skye — Diane Court
- John Mahoney
- Lili Taylor
- Amy Brooks
- Pamela Segall
How to watch
Say Anything is currently available to rent digitally on Prime Video and Apple TV .