By Eric Tiettmeyer
22 April 2008

We caught up with Neil Mandt, who plays Charlie in the film "Last Stop for Paul." Mandt also wrote and directed the movie.  In the film, friends Charlie and Cliff decide they want to go to the Full Moon party in Thailand. Along the way, they travel around the world sprinkling the ashes of their dead friend Paul. As they go from country to country the two friends meet a wide variety of interesting people and have insane adventures.

Student Traveler: You filmed the movie in a month, but the storyline is based on a two week journey. Did you spend twice as much time in each country? Did you visit more countries not in the movie? Were there a lot of extra scenes that got deleted?

Neil Mandt: The movie was shot in almost real time. If we were in the country for two days in the movie, then we were really in the country for only two days. There weren’t any extra countries that were shot, however there were several extra scenes which are represented on the DVD in the deleted scenes section.

STM: "Last Stop for Paul" is based on a true story. What is the true story and what is fictional?

NM: The true stories in the movie are all the adventures I have had while traveling before. What I was doing was reenacting actual events in my travels. I had been to all the places in the movie except for Greece.

The fictional part was the story line of spreading the ashes of a friend who had suddenly passed away, after his life long dream was to travel around the world in two weeks.

STM: So then the guying peeing in front of you in Moscow and you getting arrested by the police in Kremlin Square and then escaping is a true story?

NM: Yes, it happened. Only in Germany and it was a woman. We couldn’t find a woman that would have done that on camera.

STM: And Moscow is just a great place for a story like that to happen…

NM: Exactly.

STM: What makes a traveler experience the adventures like you see in the movie? Would they want to avoid these things happening to them?

NM: If a person travels extensively, there’s no way to avoid these kind of adventures. If you travel alone it makes it almost impossible. Those that travel for one or two weeks to a place, or are traveling with a few friends and all just hanging around each other probably won’t have these kind of crazy adventures from the road.

STM: But to make these stories for "Hollywood" you had to focus on the crazier situations.

NM: Yes, we had to play more to the extreme situations from my journeys for the movie. Like the scene with the Irish guys in Chile. It happened just that way (losing the brakes on their VW bus coming down a steep hill after snowboarding in the Andes).

STM: The scenes from Jamaica are pretty interesting. Do they really smoke that much pot down there?

NM: Yes, they do. I don’t smoke pot, but you get high just being around it all day.

STM: And also in Jamaica, you show a scene with two locals that make it look like they will have sex with your friend in the movie. But then they tie him up with his own clothes and steal all his money. How do you decide on the storyline for parts of the movie without stereotyping or generalizing that’s how things are throughout the country?

NM: I have to hope that people who watch the movie don’t see these scenes as what happens throughout the country. We are not trying to generalize, but rather are playing on extreme situations.

STM: How did you start traveling?

NM: I took a high school trip to Spain. The day I graduated - literally, the night of my graduation, I was on a plane back to Europe and traveled solo for three months. That was in 1985 and I have been traveling ever since.

STM: Any last words about travel?

I would say to anyone who is planning a trip to get ready to talk to strangers. It is very important to break that rule your mother taught you! You need to reach out and try and make friendships with new people in foreign lands. Remember, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

STM: How can someone see the movie?

NM: They can order the DVD online at www.laststopforpaul.com.