Since the release of Mid90s, and the subsequent press junket surrounding the film, Jonah Hill will be connected with skateboarding forever. He was first introduced as an unlikely ambassador of our culture via a series of Palace commercials. At the time, Hill’s involvement with the brand seemed like it came out of nowhere. He explains how it happened in a new interview published by Vague to coincide with the Mid90s UK release on April 14.
How did working with Palace come first about?
Lev, who knew I was into skating and shit back in the day, he hit me up years ago and was like “Do you wanna make this commercial?” and what I love about Lev and those guys, Lev and Stuart are just personal, close friends of mine, but it started through working together. He just called me up, he got my number from someone and was like “Is it true you used to skate, are you into that?” and I was so into it and it was really early days for Palace.
What I like about Lev so much was, you know, with Supreme when I was growing up, before it became this whole other thing, I’d come to New York in the 90’s and my brother and I would go to Supreme right from the plane because we were so excited, we didn’t even have one in L.A. we’d just heard about it and it would be so exciting to go and part of the whole experience is that everyone was an asshole to you (laughs). The culture I’m showing in mid90s is like ass-hole culture; you know what I mean, like how Stevie has to work so hard to get into his group of friends everyday because you walk into a skate shop and it wasn’t like this friendly environment, and what I love about Lev and those guys is that they’re as cool as Supreme, they’re as cool as any other great company but they’re nice people, and they’re friendly and they’re funny. They have a sense of humor about themselves and they’re kind, and it makes a big difference, I was like “Wow you’re doing something good for this culture”. People should be nice to each other, the fact that you walk into the Palace store and people were just fucking nice to you is awesome, you know.
Head over to Vague to read the entire piece.