Last year, as AMI was supporting
Sebastian Pham in his battle with the Royse
City (Texas) school district to wear a mustache to
class, we saw proof of the interest in young people in growing thick, rich luxurious
mustaches.
Now comes Lawrence Lagera, a high school junior attending
the International Baccalaureate Program at Bartow (Florida) High School. He’s created this award-winning video
which has been posted to SchoolTube.com - a great, interactive resource for school-age youngin's today.
The piece is up for Golden Globe consideration, and we recently caught up with Lawrence to talk about his life, his mustache, and his mustache.
AMI: Tell us about
yourself?
LL: I’m an actor, TV
anchor/producer for Yellow Jacket Productions, and a proud mustache wearer for
almost five years. And yes, my teenage social life is still intact.
AMI: Why did you
create this video?
LL: I’ve watched many Public Service Announcements before,
and while they are important in today’s society, the PSAs all seemed rather cliché
in message. “Don’t do drugs.” “Buckle up your seat belt.” “Don’t drink and
drive.” The average teenager has seen these PSAs a million times, and I wasn’t
going to make a video that would fall along the lines of normal and
uninteresting. Since there weren’t any PSAs going around school that advocated
mustache growth, I thought, “Why not take a shot at it?”
AMI: When did you
create this video?
LL: The PSA was created during the month of October, 2007. My
production group filmed the three main scenes over the course of two days.
Editing occurred over the weekend and soon enough, there was a completed PSA
for the news show on Monday.
AMI: What was your
motivation?
LL: My motivation came from watching many news shows that
are able to take creative liberties with their content. Now, everything on
school TV has to be appropriate for students to watch, as well as educational
in some form or another. There isn’t any room to fool around on television,
especially when being criticized by a couple hundred students, teachers, and
the school administration. By marketing this mustached message as an
“informative, comprehensive, and socially important PSA”, the creative liberty
came through.
AMI: What is “People
With Mustaches United?”
LL: This is a fictional group created solely for the PSA. I
had a friend of mine, Ricky Schuler, create the graphic out of the United Way logo. We
replaced the little guy on the hand with a brown mustache and made the logo our
own. I can say that while the PMU has only one member, it has a lot of
supporters.
AMI: Any thoughts
about mustaches in general?
LL: In my view, the ‘stache can be a gift and a curse. For
me, it’s hard not to be noticed around campus as “Larry Lagera: Mustache Man”,
and I’ve been pretty popular in that sense. But when it comes to getting a date
for the dance, it’s been a slippery slope. This facial hair sucker has acted as
my unpaid social life bodyguard for the past 5 years, shooing away all those
girls that actually took interest at
me. While the ‘stache screams out my so-called “individualism” and radiates an
aura of awesomeness that only teenagers could see, it pushes me out of other
areas of life that I would have enjoyed without this black caterpillar on my
lip. It has been a love/hate relationship with the ‘stache, and like a couple
fighting over who uses the TV remote, we’ve made up in the end.
AMI: What do your
classmates think about it (the video and your love of mustaches)?
LL: I wouldn’t say that I’m in love with mustaches, but
there’s a connection I guess.
My classmates have been pretty cool about the video, and
they have grown accustomed to my “mustachioed” image. Of course, there’s always
somebody on campus that hands me a free razor during the school year.
AMI: How long have
you had a mustache?
LL: I had the mustache since 5th Grade, so it has
been around 5 years now.
AMI: Why did you decide
to grow a mustache in the first place?
LL: Way back in the day, when I was about 11 years old, I
shaved off the peach fuzz on my upper lip. With this being the first time
shaving, I cut myself in the process. My father saw the cut and told me to
never shave again. I kept my promise, and because I had shaved once, the facial
hair growth accelerated. That old wives tale rang true for me, and it would
take about two months after that incident to grow a noticeable mustache. I kept
the mustache in the hopes of making my life rather interesting, and it has
succeeded far beyond my hopes and dreams, albeit with a few awkward moments
that I would rather not mention.
AMI: Do you ever
think about shaving your mustache off?
LL: I plan to make that choice on the last day of high school, and it will
determine what image I’ll have when starting a new life in college.
AMI: Are there any
students in your school that have a mustache like yours?
LL: No. Some students around campus make feeble attempts at
growing one, but fail. Miserably.
AMI: Do you plan on
making a second mustache PSA?
LL: It’s in the works at the moment. You can rest assure
that there’s more mustache advocacy to be done.