As we know, Richard Linklater borrowed a lot from his own life for Dazed and Confused – including the names of some of the people knew while growing up in Austin, Texas, and much to the chagrin of some of those particular individuals, apparently.
In 2004, eleven years after the film’s release, The Washington Post reported that Andy Slater, Richard “Pink “ Floyd, and Bobby Wooderson filed a defamation lawsuit against Universal Studios and the filmmaker (their former classmate) feeling that the characters who bear their names grossly misrepresented them.
Wooderson is quoted in the article as saying he felt “kicked in the stomach” by the depiction of Matthew McConaughey’s role, and Slater adamantly claims he never built a bong in shop class like Rory Cochrane’s character of the same name does, but does admit he knew people who did.