Michele, Franco & More Show Support For Braff's Kickstarter Film

Stage and screen star Zach Braff has established a Kickstarter account as a means to fund his new feature film project, WISH I WAS HERE, based on an original screenplay co-written with his brother, and celebrity fans have begun to share - and Tweet - their vocal support.

Lea Michele, James Franco, Jessica Simpson, Jared Leto, Michael J. Fox, Aaron Paul, Courtenay Cox, Sophia Bush, Sara Bareilles and more have Tweeted their enthusiasm for the project, a follow-up to Braff's well-received directorial debut, indie hit GARDEN STATE, which was made nearly ten years ago.

WISH I WAS HERE has already received $1.6 milion since the 30-day fundraising period began less than two days ago, with more than 22,000 individuals making up the total backers as of this writing.

Braff cites the recent VERONICA MARS Kickstarter success as part of the force that propelled him forward to pursue this film now - and, most importantly, in this manner.

In a new interview with BuzzFeed, Braff relays, "I really wavered on it, because I was unsure if it was right for us. I've supported projects on Kickstarter, I've supported projects on Kiva, the micro-financing crowdsourcing for charity. I'm savvy about crowdfunding. But I didn't really think that it'd work. I did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit, and they asked me how come I haven't Made another movie yet. I said, "It's the money. I keep waiting for The Moment when I can have the money without all these strings attached, because I don't want to sign away final cut, and I want to cast the people I want to cast." I didn't think [that moment] was possible. But we started talking to some financiers. Frankly, it was a worse deal than I signed as an untested filmmaker when I Made Garden State. I don't care so much about the back-end dough, because you don't make these movies as get-rich-quick schemes. It's so rare that one breaks through and actually makes money. It's a labor of love, and it's a personal story. With this new script, I started seeing these deal points about casting essentially from a finite list of actors who had enough foreign box-office success to justify the movie, and not having final cut. So I was really torn. I was so desperate and hungry to make a movie. I haven't felt as passionate about a script that I've been attached to since Garden State. I was really wrestling with it. I was about to be like, f*ck it, let's just do it."

And, what about the title? Braff says, "Yeah, it's on purpose. The story is about a guy who's not an academic, and is by no means a candidate to be teaching anyone anything, and then he's called upon to homeschool his children. And his precocious daughter is actually a lot smarter than he is. So it's twofold. We like the way it sounds. And it fits into a grammatical error that Aiden, my character, would make."

Braff was most recently seen onstage Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre and also in the West End in his self-penned play, ALL NEW PEOPLE in 2011 and 2012, respectively. He plans to similarly dedicate the next year of his life to this film project in the same manner he did that theatrical recent endeavor according to the interview.

Check out the full interview here.

Visit Zach Braff's Kickstarter campaign here.

View the video by Braff detailing the WISH I WAS HERE Kickstarter campaign below.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride