‘What’s in your gut, shoot it’

In Say Anything, Cameron Crowe’s 1989 film about an unambitious teenager trying to win the love of the beautiful class valedictorian, the kid ( John Cusack) asks his sour, divorced sister a seemingly simple question.

“How hard is it to decide to be in a good mood and just be in a good mood?”

That sunny-side-up take on life has permeated Crowe’s films ever since: Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Aloha. And last month, that mood was manifested on the Manhattan Beach set of Roadies, the first TV show Crowe has created.

Wearing cargo shorts and Converse sneakers, the preternaturally youthful and rumpled Crowe, 58, jumped in the air, pumping his arms in celebration of one take. After another take yielded the desired result, he playfully tagged the director, Jon Kasdan, on his arm.

That feeling of exaggerated joy permeates Roadies, which stars Luke Wilson and Carla Gugino and debuted Sunday night on Showtime ( MUCH in Canada). The series follows a tour of a fictional Pearl Jam- like group called t he Staton- House Band but focuses on the nearly invisible folks behind the scenes who ensure that the fans and artists enjoy a smooth concert experience.

For Crowe, who typically takes years between his movies, the faster pace of TV has been his biggest revelation.

“What’s in your gut, shoot it,” he said. “And the result is Roadies is what’s in my gut.”

Crowe’s brand of entertainment — veined with optimism and concerned more with characters than plot — has not fared particularly well at the multiplex lately. Aloha, his most recent film, was not just skewered by critics and ignored by moviegoers; it was accused of cultural misappropriation and was badmouthed by its studio. Television might just prove a more hospitable environment.

“The time is right for a pay- cable show that makes you feel good,” said David Nevins, chief executive of Showtime Networks, “that is life- affirming and is emotional and makes you feel better for the hour you spent in front of it.”

For Crowe, who was just a teenager when he started writing for Rolling Stone and other music publications in the 1970s, rock music has meant more than a soundtrack to life; it has inspired his movies’ plots and themes and most iconic moments ( like Cusack’s boombox serenade of Ione Skye in Say Anything). But the idea that sparked Roadies actually came from someone else.

Waiting for a concert to begin, writer and director J. J. Abrams, an executive producer on Roadies, spotted a woman perched on the rigging who vanished as soon as the band appeared. His curiosity piqued, he called Crowe: Wouldn’t her story, and that of the rest of the behind- the- scenes crew, be fascinating to tell?

Crowe was intrigued. A subsequent backstage visit at a Fleetwood Mac concert, where he glimpsed a family atmosphere among the crew, cemented the show’s tone in his imagination. “I always knew that the roadies were more pure music geeks than crews on movies are movie geeks,” he added. “And I wanted to honour that.”

Crowe’s movies often fea- ture main characters grappling with classic comingof- age concerns of identity and purpose. Searchers like those inhabit Roadies, most notably Kelly Ann, an electrician played by Imogen Poots, who in the pilot is wrestling with leaving the tour for film school. But the two main characters Crowe created — Bill ( Wilson), the tour manager, and Shelli (Gugino), the production manager — allow him to push into new terrain.

“Cameron has said he’s always wanted to write about marriage, and ironically, this may be the opportunity, with two people who actually aren’t married,” Gugino said.

The workplace marriage can feel, in some ways, more authentic than many official ones, and early on he decided he wanted to explore that kind of platonic relationship. (Shelli is married; since his girlfriend left him seven years earlier, Bill, a recovering alcoholic, has hooked up with a series of age-inappropriate women.)

Crowe has nothing but raves so far for his television experience. But that doesn’t mean it has been devoid of typical new- series bumps. The Roadies pilot was originally shot with Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) in the role of Shelli. But test audiences reacted poorly to the character, finding her too harsh, and the character was recast and softened.

Compared t o some of Crowe’s recent films, television may prove to be an oasis. Aloha took in a mere $ 21 million at the domestic box office, despite having Bradley Cooper as its star. Crowe ended up apologizing for casting Emma Stone as an Asian- American character named Allison Ng, who was one- quarter Chinese and one- quarter Hawaiian. And emails made public by the Sony hack detailed the studio’s angst over Crowe’s script and test screenings.

Coming off the mixed success of We Bought a Zoo ( starring Matt Damon, in 2011) and the disappointment of Elizabethtown (2005), Crowe finds it tougher to get a traditional romantic comedy off the ground.

Still, the doggedly upbeat Crowe hasn’t given up on making movies for the big studios. And he believes, wholeheartedly, that the Hollywood pendulum will swing back to the sorts of movies he loves, and loves to make -- like those of Billy Wilder, James L. Brooks and Wes Anderson.

“They are classic, timeless stories about characters that you fall in love with and transport you,” he said. “That’s what I love to do, and I think there will always be an audience for that when done correctly.”

In the meantime, Roadies will be his canvas for what Poots calls “the hope within his work” ( although some may see syrupy sentimentality). The backstage setting is an apt pairing for someone who speaks about the “transformative power of music.”

“I love writing about what it is to be an optimist in an often- cruel world,” Crowe said. “It’s a tough but satisfying road.”

(HE WRITES ABOUT BEING) AN OPTIMIST IN AN OFTEN-CRUEL WORLD.