'That Thing You Do!' Cast Virtually Reunites Before Tonight's Livestream Commentary

Tonight will add another livestream commentary to the ongoing pile of quarantined filmmakers and their casts talking about the experience of making a movie. Taika Waititi and the cast of Thor: Ragnarok recently assembled online to discuss the Marvel Studios sequel, Kevin Smith provided a live commentary for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and now the four main cast members who played The Oneders in That Thing You Do! are assembling for one tonight, April 17.

But before the That Thing You Do! reunion happens for a live commentary, Tom Everett Scott, Jonathan Schaech, Ethan Embry and Steve Zahn virtually got back together to reflect on the 1996 movie in a 17-minute interview. It's the first time they've all ever been "together" since the movie was made with director and co-star Tom Hanks. Watch below as they discuss getting together as a band for the first time, pay tribute to late songwriter Adam Schlesinger, and more.

Rolling Stone sat down with the That Thing You Do! cast on Zoom and immediately went back to the beginning. Steve Zahn remembered that rehearsing with the rest of the guys started with the music before they started working with scenes. He recalled:

"The cool thing about this was we rehearsed as a band. We didn't rehearse as a cast. We didn't do scene work. All I remember is us in a studio together playing these songs over and over and over again because [producers] Tom [Hanks] and Gary [Goetzman] didn't want to dick around when we were shooting and have to orchestrate who was on and who was off. They wanted it to be really authentic."

Surprisingly, none of the cast had any major musical experience, even though Ethan Embry could play the bass a little bit. But otherwise, Schaech and Zahn had never played guitar, and Scott never played drums. But they became a legitimate band.

Of course, tribute had to be paid to Fountains of Wayne frontman Adam Schlesinger for coming up with the catchy, titular song for That Thing You Do!, and the cast agreed that even though they heard the song countless times during the making of the movie, they never really got sick of it, which speaks to the genius of that track. Over 300 different versions of the song were submitted, including one written by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, but Schlesinger's is the one that made the cut.

Part of the livestream on Friday for That Thing You Do! will be a tribute to Adam Schlesinger, who unfortunately died recently after complications from COVID-19.

You can watch the full interview above to hear more reminiscing about That Thing You Do!, including Tom Hanks kindly reprimanding the guys for being late to set one day, and listing all the shrimp he learned from Forrest Gump. And there's bound to be more revealed during the livestream commentary tonight, so be sure to tune in.