40 Years Later, ‘Vision Quest’ Is Still a Great Sports Movie — with a Wild Horny Streak

Before you read a 40th anniversary piece about the 1985 film “Vision Quest,” it would be malpractice to not watch star Matthew Modine as Louden Swain jogging along in a rubber suit to the sounds of Journey’s “Only the Young.”

Anyway, you’re in luck, here’s a link to that scene right now:

“There’s a song from a band named Pony Up, they wrote a song called ‘Matthew Modine,’” said Modine during a recent interview with IndieWire, reflecting on this particular scene. “And they talk about me running in my jogging suit and how they want to sexually violate me. It’s a filthy song, but it’s really funny. It came out when my son was in high school and he was just absolutely horrified because all his friends were listening to it. That’s not what you want to hear.”

No, if you’re Matthew Modine’s son, that’s most definitely not what you want to hear. But, it’s a good example of the fairly intense cult status surrounding this film.

Directed by Harold Becker, who was coming off “Taps,” and based on Terry Davis’s book of the same name, the film follow the exploits of the aforementioned Louden Swain. Louden is a high school wrestler in Spokane, Washington, in his senior year and, in an effort to do something meaningful with his young life, decides to drop two weight classes — from 190 pounds to 168 — so he can go up against the best wrestler in the state, Brian Schute (played by Frank Jasper). Dropping this much weight in such a short amount of time is both dangerous and, according to his teammates, selfish.

But once Louden makes up his mind, no one can talk him out of his quest.

Around this same time in Louden’s life, a woman named Carla (Linda Fiorentino) is passing through Spokane on her way from New Jersey to San Francisco (Spokane is most definitely not on the way from New Jersey to San Francisco). After she experiences some car trouble, she needs a place to stay and Louden’s father (Ronny Cox, who also happens to be Carla’s mechanic) decides she can stay at the Swain household.

To Louden, Carla is a mysterious older woman, and he immediately falls in love with her (in reality, Linda Fiorentino is only a year older than Modine). He does a lot of peculiar things in the process— like sniffing her underwear and repeating her name ad nauseam. “Caaaarla. Caaaaaaarla.”

‘Vision Quest’©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

On paper, “Vision Quest” might seem like a nice film about high school wrestling, but it just may be one of the best movies of that era to capture what it was like to be an idealistic, naïve, and horny teen.

“That’s kind of who I was,” said Modine, at least about the naïve part of the equation. “When Harold Becker cast me, he said I had the appropriate amount of hay in my hair. I grew up in Utah. I was pretty naïve about the world. I didn’t really understand my place in the world and I was trying to figure it out.”

And what does Becker think about the cult following surrounding “Vision Quest”? “I think he would prefer we were talking about ‘Sea of Love’ or ‘The Onion Fields,’ said Modine. “He’s kind of baffled by ‘Vision Quest.’ It wasn’t a great box office success when it came out. It did well oversees because of Madonna and they changed the title to ‘Crazy for You.’ She blew up, so people wanted to go see the movie Madonna was in. But I think Harold Becker is baffled that this event would be taking place today. He’s baffled by the success of this film — 40 years later people are still talking about it. Nobody is talking about ‘Sea of Love.’”

(For the record, there are people who talk about “Sea of Love,” though the Venn diagram of “Vision Quest” fans and “Sea of Love” fans doesn’t really intersect all that much.)

And, yes, that’s true, “Vision Quest” would mark Madonna’s big screen debut, as the musical act at a Spokane bar where Louden and Carla finally share an intimate dance. Madonna would record two songs for the “Vision Quest” soundtrack. One of them, “Gambler,” you might not be familiar with. The other one, “Crazy for You,” you most definitely know and would hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

“Nobody on our set knew who she was,” said Modine. “‘Like a Virgin’ hadn’t come out. I don’t think she was on set for more than six hours.”

‘Vision Quest’©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

“I remember the producers and everyone were thrilled about that soundtrack,” said Daphne Zuniga, who plays the editor of the school paper, Margie, who has a huge crush on Louden. Unfortunately for Margie, Louden only has eyes for Carla. 

“She’s just not woman enough yet compared to Carla,” remembered Zuniga. “I love how Ronny Cox is the dad and it’s like, which one would she go for? Jailbait or the older guy? Because her age is right in-between.”

Modine added, “In real life, Linda is the big romance that was never meant to last … then he probably would have married Daphne Zuniga.”

“Yeah, I’d agree with that,” said Zuniga. “And a little meta life meets art: Matthew and I did go on to star in ‘Gross Anatomy’ together a couple of years later. Yeah, I didn’t see Carla around that set.”

The Shoe Debate

There’s one particular scene “Vision Quest” fans still debate to this day. Or, at least, wonder what on earth actually happened there. When he’s not training, Louden works at a local hotel, delivering room service. One night, he encounters a guest who is practicing Tai Chi in his room. To put it kindly, this man “makes a move” on Louden. (In reality, it’s probably a little more serious than that.)

In the typical film from this era, we’d most definitely hear a slur from Louden. Instead, Louden just says he has to get home. The man says he sells sporting goods for a living and offers Louden a new pair of wrestling shoes. Louden declines this offer, then goes out into the hallway and does some pushups.

But later and with no explanation, we see Louden exiting the hotel with the red wrestling shoes the man offered him. So how exactly does Louden get these shoes? 

When I told Modine there was something I’ve been wondering, he interrupted me, “The shoes?” Yes, the shoes.

As Modine explained, there’s a scene that was cut. “So, the next time Louden brings Kevin the pie and coffee, he just wants to get out of the room as quickly as he can,” he said. “The guy goes, ‘No, no, I heard what you’re doing trying to lose weight and wrestle this guy who has never been defeated and I have something for you. I sell sports equipment and I want to give you this pair of shoes to apologize for what I did.’” 

Modine continued, “I was not happy about that. He didn’t get the closure that other characters get in the film. To be able to say, ‘I’m sorry I did that. That was inappropriate.’ I can’t believe I remember this, because Louden doesn’t want to accept the shoes, Kevin says, ‘Listen, if I was going to pay for sex it would be for something a lot more sophisticated than you.’ And Louden accepts the shoes.”

And back to that original scene that was in the film, when Modine does the pushups in the hallway, that was not in the script. Why did Modine decide Louden needed to do some pushups?

He explained, “The pushup thing wasn’t scripted. I did a movie with David Alan Grier, we did Robert Altman’s ‘Streamers’ together. One of the characters in ‘Streamers’ is gay, played by Mitchell Lichtenstein. It takes place in 1965 and David doesn’t know what to say to this character. He says, ‘You know, you just have to do some pushups. That will get you straight.’ It stuck in my mind how ridiculous it is to make someone change their sexual orientation by doing pushups. So, when I was doing the film and Louden had this homosexual encounter, what he needed to do was some pushups.”

The Best Wrestler in the State

“In the book, it all ends as Matthew opens the door to go out and face Brian Schute,” said Frank Jasper, who plays the ominous Brian Schute. As Modine added, “Because he accomplished his goal. It wasn’t about winning or losing.” 

The actual final version of the film ends with Carla leaving Louden, then having a change of heart and returning to watch Louden finally square off against Brian Schute. Originally, the film was supposed to end as the book had ended. 

“Once the film was finished and they watched the movie they went, wait a minute, ‘Rocky’ was a really big successful film,” said Modine. “In the original script, Linda was gone. When she’s gone, she’s gone. They had her come back to the locker room and have the Talia Shire ‘Rocky’ moment. ‘Louden, kick his ass,’ that was a reshoot. Linda in the audience was a reshoot.”

In fact, one of the film’s most memorable scenes, in which Louden finds out if he’s successfully dropped the weight or not, was also filmed in reshoots. Again: this entire movie about Louden Swain struggling to get to 168 pounds didn’t even have a scene in which he found out if he accomplished his goal or not. The only problem was, by the time they filmed this in reshoots, both Modine and Jasper looked drastically different. 

Modine remembered, “I went off to make ‘Birdy,’ I lost 30 pounds. The whole movie was about losing weight and they didn’t have a weigh-in scene to see if he made the weight. In ‘Birdy,’ I have a shaved head, so I have a wig on and I’m really skinny because of ‘Birdy.’”

‘Vision Quest’©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

Jasper — who, at the time, was a college student, bodybuilder, and part-time bouncer who idolized Arnold Schwarzenegger — had to drop a significant amount of weight to play Brian Schute. By the time reshoots came around, he had gained his bulk back, so he had to drop it once again. 

“I dropped 25 pounds in two and a half weeks,” said Jasper. “Then we filmed for 10 weeks. Then I went back to school. Three months later I get another call, ‘We have another shoot.’ So I had a month to drop the weight again, that was the weigh-in scene, by the way.”

When he first meet Brian Schute in the film, Louden has traveled to Schute’s school to get a look at what he’s facing. Schute is training by carrying a giant log over his shoulders up and down the school’s stadium stairs.

“That’s the first time you see this guy and you just go, holy crap, this guy is a freaking beast,” said Jasper, who currently maintains a website in which he offers health and fitness tips and sells Schute merchandise. But he wasn’t a bad guy. He was just the best at what he does. For the reshoots, they gave Schute a mean streak, which meant yet a third round of filming for Modine and Jasper.

“So, Brian Schute wasn’t a bad guy,” said Modine. “When Louden visits him at the stadium and he has the log on his back, Louden realizes they are the same person. They are both training really hard. And then they made Frank Jasper into a monster after the match in which I get a bloody nose. He comes in, ‘You’re a bleeder. You can’t hold your mud,’ that was to turn him into a monster. And that wasn’t in the original script, because he wasn’t a bad guy. He was just an opponent.”

At this point, Jasper just couldn’t justify losing all that weight for a third time: “Then I got another call. Three times now! I only dropped to 200 and that’s why I’m in the jean jacket and you don’t notice it so much.”

Making Weight

What’s the legacy of “Vision Quest” for its actors? 

Zuniga’s part wasn’t that big, but her memories of her first real studio production are that she basically just had a fantastic time, hanging out. “I was in Spokane for a month, at least,” said Zuniga. “I had a lot of off-camera time and I just remember hanging out with, of course Matthew, and Forest Whitaker*, and Raphael Sbarge, and J.C. Quinn! Ronny Cox! Linda. It was just this great time.” 

(*Yes, a young Forest Whitaker is also in this movie in a small role.) 

‘Vision Quest’©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

She continued, “I remember we had a video arcade. A huge warehouse of these games. You know, ‘Pac-Man.’ It was the best. Jazz clubs with J.C. Quinn! He was a legend. Old school character actor giving advice like, ‘Just put your money under your mattress, girl. Don’t trust it in the bank.'”

That sounds like terrible advice. “I know, but it was old school. I was like, well, OK, thanks J.C. for that advice,” Zuniga said. “I’m not sure my business manager would agree.” 

For Jasper? Well, yes, he’s aware of “Cobra Kai” and has wondered if “Vision Quest” could also benefit from a series. “‘Cobra Kai’ did a reboot,” he said. “Three or four years ago we wrote a series: Thirty years later, what happened to Schute? Why did he lose? Did Matthew go on to be a wrestler? Did he get his doctoral [degree]? How did that one event impact them?”

Modine sums it up with a story that’s both touching and insane at the same time. “One time I was walking in Venice Beach, California, and the guy was looking at me really hard in the car. He got out of his car while it was still rolling. It rolled and crashed into another car!,” he said. “He was big, he was probably just coming from Gold’s Gym. Tears were running down his face, ‘You saved my life. I was an alcoholic and a drug addict and I had no direction. Louden Swain saved me!’ And he gave me a big bear hug.”