A Star Is Cast

Astonishing Actress loved the script, the deal was made and she's on board. All in 24 hours. When I told Young Star and Young Leading Man they went insane. She's that kind of icon to actors. Even grips and guys on the lighting crew said they were getting chills when they heard she was doing the movie. My wife yelped in excitement. I started to well up and get a lump in my throat. This could really be great. She could bring a level of depth to this project that I got in the plane in L.A. thinking it could never really have.

Whatever happens, at this moment, on the last day of really wonderful, fun and productive first week, this is good.

Next Diva In Line

The Divine Miss M., as anybody with their eyes open might have noticed, is promoting a new Xmas album, appearing daily on talk shows, and was never actually available for the movie, million bucks or not. I called my executive at the network and asked her, perhaps a shade too firmly, to help us cut through the corporate slo-mo and get another offer out, like, NOW. She and I were both hoping for Ann-Margret. What her boss, the Head of the Network, decided may be even better. The Head of the Network authorized an offer to a truly Astonishing Actress, an icon of prestige and artistry for four decades. The offer went out last night, in record speed. Astonishing Actress was to have looked at a DVD of my Young Star and read the script last night. I am to be on call all day, at lunch and between shots, to speak to Astonishing Actress if she should so desire. I think I would jump off Half Dome if Astonishing Actress should so desire.

Light your candles for me, gentle reader.

The Burning of Atlanta

Today I name names. Nicely, though.

On the morning of the third day of shooting we still do not have our second lead cast. A woman in her 60's or 70's, full of verve and vinegar and dying of lung cancer. Jewish. Caustic. Funny. The prototype for the role, Anne Bancroft, sadly left us a couple of years ago. We've made an offer to aLiving Legends who, as discussed in this blog, passed. We gave The Network a list of available goddesses. Ten of them, any of whom I would leap with joy at the idea of working with. You would think they'd be quick to approve one or another of them. You would be wrong. The Head of Casting was unable for a few days to get the Head of the Network's attention. When he did, most of the names were crossed off the list as being "not promotable" "too episodic TV" or "we used her in a movie three years ago." Then, finally, the news came down.

"We authorize an offer of one million dollars to Bette Midler."

Gentle reader, I would walk a thousand miles on my knees to the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadelupe in Mexico to get Bette Midler for this movie. But you don't send Bette Midler a script and say "you need to read this tonight and give us an answer by 10 tomorrow morning." You. Just. Don't. And what you most especially do not do, after the agent has very clearly said, "If you want Bette to even THINK about this, offer a million", get cold feet and offer $725,000. The agent hollered in indignation at the news. "I fucking told you that if you were serious you had to offer a million!!!" The offer was not upped. Here's the really nasty part: with the clock ticking away, and with an actress needing to land in Winnipeg to perform this part no later than 12/7, the offer was not officially made as of close of business last night. The network moves in slow motion. Actual time in the real world does not.

How long will Bette take to play out? (And by the way, if she does the movie, which strikes me as spectacularly unlikely, I delete this post.) On top of that, the network refuses to approve another name to go to in the case that Bette doesn't go for it. So that's potentially a day or two of more dicking around before we can make the next move.

Here's what I remind myself: when you watch Gone with The Wind, notice that as Rhett whips his horses and drives Scarlett through the chaos of the burning of Atlanta, Scarlett has a blanket over her head. Not to protect her from smoke inhalation. She's wearing the blanket because Scarlett had not yet been cast, and Selznick just plain had to start shooting. In fact, it was on the set, during the shooting of the fire, that a casting director introduced Selznick to a promising but relatively unknown British actress names Vivien Leigh.

And by the way: the first two days have gone wonderfully well. More on that later.

Towering Genius

I just saw Babel. Make that I just stumbled out of the theater where I saw Babel. Now I'm listening to the score, just downloaded from iTunes. Have any of you seen it? Or Amores Perros, another movie by the same director, Innaritu? Wow. With cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto, who also shot Brokeback Mountain. And music by Gustavo Santaolalla, who did the music for Motorcycle Diaries. Wow. Wow.

Tomorrow I start shooting my little 19-day-shoot cable movie in Winnipeg. I could go either way with this. I could say: in the face of Innaritu, why bother? Why not just lay down the camera? Or I could go: I'm not Innaritu, but I do get to play with a camera and actors tomorrow. And look what you can do if you catch the wind of a little inspiration! So I'll go with the latter and say: God, hear my prayer, and fill my sails.

The Nerve

So I find this amazing actress to play the lead--we'll call her Amazing Actress--on whose resume you will find wonderful indies, a much-beloved TV series and a universally acclaimed teen hit of a couple of years ago. She's 24. She's gorgeous. She's a big talent. I give the demo reel to the producers, who flip. They pass the reel on to the head of casting for the network. He flips. He tries for days to get the head of the network to watch it. She finally watches it. She flips. She says: okay. We cast her. We send Amazing Actress the script. She loves it. She tells her agents "please get me this movie." We close the deal today. She's in my movie.

Then Head of Network says "let's go back to Major Historic Star who passed because she didn't like TV-Semi-Star and see if she'll do it with Amazing Actress." Head of Network writes a personal note to Major Historic Star--heads of networks basically never do this--we send her my new draft of the script, we send her Amazing Actress's demo reel. All of this ascends to Major Historic Star through various levels of agents, managers and assistants. We are all thinking: how can we lose? She's in the bag.

Then today around 5 my cell phone rings. I answer. "Hello," says Major Historic Star. It's herself, calling me, Tom, who when he was ten years old used to sneak an extra half hour of television time to watch her show when his parents went out. Calling to say: "I loved what you did with the script. I don't think Amazing Actress can handle the movie. I'm not going to do it." All of this is fine--her right. And in fact I thought it was very gracious of her to call me to say no before she had even called her legions of agents and managers etc. But she doesn't stop there. She goes on to say that she thinks I have talked myself into something, that Amazing Actress has no colors or range at all, and then, to quote, "I wanted to do this movie, I had the part memorized, but at my age I can't go into a movie that will end up getting bad reviews, which is what you are going to get."

What!? Please, tell me you don't want to be in my movie, but don't insult my taste and prophesy doom for my project!

The nerve!

The older lead doesn't start work for two more weeks so there's time to cast the right now. The problem is morale. My very excited young leads fly up on Friday. We'll be rehearsing all weekend and start shooting on Monday. Because of the holiday the producers and I won't even be talking to the network about what actress we go to next for the older lead until Monday. How do I keep my actors from getting nervous about that? How do I keep them happy and secure, which is what they need to be to do their best work?

Dodging a Cannonball

TV-Semi-Star, blessed be The Spirit That Animates The Universe, has passed on the project. In the meantime I found the exact right actress for the role. A host of leads in really interesting indies, member of a beloved TV ensemble cast as a kid, an indelibly funny role in a recent teen hit. Made my impassioned plea to head of casting for the network, he looked at her demo reel, fell in love like I did, all is looking good, then: head of network calls, very excited about offering it to a Genuine Authentic TV Star, currently the highest paid woman in television. (You are all going to know who this is, I think. I'm not hiding the names to be coy. I'm hiding them so people don't google their way through the stars' names to this blog and blow my anonymity and my freedom to be as scathing as I wanna be.) She's great, actually. She's incredibly funny. But can she cry? Can she undergo a spiritual transformation? No reason to think she can't. So we all sign on. An offer is going to go out.

But--

And this is a really good but--

She was just at Tom and Katie's wedding in Italy and has jetlag and--with five days until I shoot and Thanksgiving smack in the middle of them--SHE IS TAKING A NAP AND HER AGENT DOESN'T WANT TO WAKE HER UP.

That's where we are at this moment.

Whiter Knuckles

Now it's getting serious. Young Starlet Who Everybody Says Is About To Pop passed on the project. After much campaigning on my part. Actually I thought I was brilliantly persuasive on the phone. Not.

An offer is now out to a TV-semi-star, statuesque, blonde, big-featured, sexy, funny, but: can she shed honest tears? Can she convincingly undergo a spiritual transformation? I've been combing clips of her on YouTube all morning searching for clues. None have been conclusively forthcoming. We've set an ultimatum: an answer by first thing Monday morning L.A. time or we move on. She has lots of dough and her live-in girlfriend has even more and it won't be about needing the gig. So what will entice her to fly away to the frozen north and miss Thanksgiving with friends and family? Chance to be taken more seriously as an actress? Frankly I'm hoping for one of the back up choices. But time is truly truly running out. Last night I took the executive producer, the producer and my assistant out to a dinner where many cosmos were consumed and yes, the following words were uttered: if the production has to shut down, or push (movie lingo for "be delayed") until January, who covers the MILLIONS that will cost, the studio or the network? Nobody knew the answer. And we can't just push a week or two because we can't film over the Christmas/New Years holidays--actors won't go for it.

I remain, however, weirdly calm.

Maybe because they have to pay me no matter what happens?

Not really. It's never really about that for me: it's more about the adventure. And building up foundations for more things to be built on. Pay-offs and buy-outs don't do that.

I think I'm calm because we can't crack the shell of the future. Because we can't know how the billiard balls will hit each other. Because we can't know which eventuality will lead in the long run to hell or which will lead to wonderfulness.

So why fret? Instead I will take a nap, do some work on the script, (the male lead still comes off as a simpering doormat), go see Flags of Our Fathers for inspiration, and then sit at my desk and dream my way to what, shot by shot, I actually want the camera to see.

NEWSFLASH: EVEN WHITER KNUCKLES

I was just woken up from my nap by the news that Major Historic Star, with her deal all-but-closed, and following her agent's assurances that she would be fine working with TV-Semi-Star, has announced that she doesn't like TV-Semi-Star and is pulling out of the project.

We now have no leads at all. And we start shooting on Sunday.

I love the executive producer who called to tell me this. Love isn't too big a word. I never met her before 12 days ago and already she is a friend and somebody I can't wait to work with again. I love her patience, her humor, her kindness, her excellence with script and story. And I was bad with her on the phone right now. She said the plan was not to tell anybody about this until Monday morning when the offer to TV-Semi-Star played out one way or another, because if the network gets word now it could truly make everybody hysterical and derail the project. At first I said of course of course. Then the rising tide of a hissy fit took over. I said I had to tell my own agents. I said that I had pulled out of meetings to staff (lingo for "become a writer/producer on") two network shows in order to direct this movie and I needed to get those meetings back on track if this fell apart. That was reasonably true: the meetings were in the offing. But true or false isn't the point. Bad faith is the point. Abandoning ship before the ship has even sunk is the point. Being a fickle friend is the point. I feel guilty and sad that I went immediately to that. Fortunately I saw right away what I had done and told her she was the captain and I had faith in HER, if in nothing else, and I would follow wherever she would lead.

Her plan now is to try to put together a package of TV-Semi-Star for the young lead and a certain beloved Major Stage and Screen Genius for the older lead, both repped by the agent who reps the project, if TV-Semi-Star is at all inclined to do it. As for Major Stage and Screen Genius, gentle reader, I would be EXTREMELY EXCITED to work with her. Her work truly does border on genius. I mean: wow. So this may yet all come around for the best.

Why I Love My Job

Why I Love My Job #1:

My favorite character in the movie is the antagonist. She's about 40, a financial consultant who's mother is dying of cancer and wants to go out peacefully, no extraordinary measures, but the daughter, being the controlling, stick-up-her-ass person she is, as well as sad and scared about her mother's impending death, is threatening to use her power of attorney to force her mother to undergo radiation therapy. Part of the daughter's back story is that she was a talented singer, her mother gave her 15 years of lessons, had the money saved for Juilliard, and she gave it all up for finance. Through a series of events and encounters she finally accepts the inevitable and at the bang-up birthday/farewell party at her mother's house she stands at the piano and sings a song. So here I sit late at night in Winnipeg wondering: what song? There are limits. We have no budget for this. Anything from Rogers and Hammerstein would cost us not a dime less that sixty grand. West Side Story? 100K, minimum. But the studio owns a few songs and one of them is Love Is A Many Splendored Thing. And then there's Danny Boy, in the public domain. Which should it be? A sweet, sad ballad about love and farewell (Danny Boy) or a schmaltzy rollicking showtune about the glory of love? I'm downloading version after version of both songs on iTunes--Dinah Washington, Andy Williams, Judy Collins, Barry Manilow--and seeing the scene in my head and getting tears in my eyes at the thought of how wonderful both could be, the beautiful warm house packed with guests and the mother, frail, in her last hours, ecstatically happy to see her daughter in an evening gown, with bare shoulders, standing at the piano singing her heart out...

Why I Love My Job #2:

In one scene the mother vomits and goes into a seizure. Yesterday we had a whole meeting on who would handle the vomit. Props? Set dressing? Special effects? Mark Props (in production you refer to people by their first name and their job) said to Deanna Set Dressing: If it's projectile, it's me, but if it's just on the floor, it's you. Deanna Set Dressing felt otherwise. A lively discussion ensued. In the end they decided to work on the vomit together. Would it be oatmeal? Campbell's Soup? What did we think the character had been eating in the last few hours?

What could be a more wonderful way to spend a day?

White Knuckles

One week from Sunday I will be standing on a street in Winnipeg with twenty trucks around me and fifty crew members and generators and props and wardrobe and catering and many many lights shedding beautiful expressive light on---

---nobody.

Because I have not yet cast the movie.

There are two leads. The 70 year old female and the 30 year old female.

The Major Historical Star who has agreed to play the 70 year old now feels, after we arrived at a salary figure that seems acceptable to all, that she is not comfortable changing planes ( there are no non-stop flights to Winnipeg from anywhere; I actually think that people driving here from other cities in Canada have to change cars to get here) and has asked for a private jet in her deal. The network has already balked at paying $5300 for her to bring a private assistant, and has compelled us to pay that out of the budget of the movie. But $50,000, the price of the private jet? Tomorrow we'll find out what's going to happen with this. Wait, did I say tomorrow? First the question goes to the studio. Then the studio asks the question of the out-sourced business affairs office hired by the network. The then out-sourced business affairs office asks the question of the network. This could take four days. Next week is Thanksgiving, and after lunch time Tuesday the entire business of Hollywood shuts down. We start shooting a week from Sunday.

But that's not all.

For the young lead, Big Deal Comic Second Banana, familiar as the funny foil to the plucky heroine in many films, but who has never carried a film on her shoulders, turned us down. The old "Did not respond to the material." Fine, neither did I when I first read it. That, given the tortuous process described above, took just about two weeks to play out. Then we offered it to Extremely Promising Young Starlet Who Everybody Thinks Is About To Pop and she is reading it tonight, but may have conflicts with another movie even if she loves it. And we start shooting a week from Sunday.

So it's white knuckle time.

But not, oddly, for me.

I'm just prepping my movie. Picking locations, choosing props, and most important of all, and most challenging, designing the shots with my director of photography. Today we obsessed for almost on hour on how best to bring two people through a graveyard to a waiting limousine. The options are limitless. I find that limitlessness much scarier than having no stars a week and a half before shooting.

But one way or another, a week from Sunday, the cameras will role.

On somebody.

A Very Good Day

I arrived in cold grey stone and brick Winnipeg, where I am shooting the new movie, in a state of advanced and possibly mortal Buyer's Remorse. WHAT THE HELL HAD I DONE!? I had said yes to directing a meandering, repetitive, sentimental, unfocused script based, of all things, on a book by an outrageously fraudulent pop psychic. I had barely three weeks to prep it. What actor of quality would ever say yes to being in it? What would happen when the thing actually spilled out onto the airwaves? I knew I would be rewriting it, but I had a whole big whopping four days--really three nights--to do that, while simultaneously carrying the 24/7 job of prep. Then, the first night, atrial fibrillation struck--what else? AAUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

Then I got to work. I set up in my hotel room and had my assistant (on this movie I have an assistant of my own, an unheard of luxury in movies for television, but Winnipeg is Canada's bargain basement city, and quite a wonderful place by the way) bringing me Vietnamese takeout and miso soup, and I just started on page one and started re-writing. I slept 7 hour in four nights--that's 7 hours altogether. Page by page, I had no confidence that another idea would come into my fuzzed-out panicked brain. At all times I felt the pressure of an art department, wardrobe department, assistant directors and location scouts wondering what exactly they were supposed to be doing as day after day of undirected prep ticked by.

I'll cut to the chase. When the producer of the movie called me yesterday, after reading the script, she was sobbing. Not just crying. Sobbing. Gentle readers, I seem to have pulled off an authentic tearjerker, which was exactly the goal. The script is still sentimental, it's still based on a book by an outrageously fraudulent (though apparently personally quite sincere) pop psychic, but it's a movie I'm excited about making now.

On top of that a Major Historic Star, 70 years old, winner of one Oscar and an entire raft of Emmys, expressed interest in playing one of the two leads but needed to talk to me about her concerns. We got on the phone. She opened quite bluntly: I love the character, I hate the script. I spent twenty minutes pitching my rewrite and at the end she said yes. Basically the producers gave me a tickertape parade.

So it was a good day.

But for one thing. My daughter had called saying she missed me and wanted to catch up and I called her and we were having a great time and I told her the Major Historic Star was doing my movie and said "She does a lot of TV movies, doesn't she?"

It was quite the pin in the balloon--the implication behind that--(though in fact she has done only a few). I don't think it was said with hostility--was it? No: worse than that. A shade of disappointment. And I can't entire fault her for it. We had all been hoping for an Even More Major Historic (and newly sober) Star, winner of an even earlier Oscar (for a movie which my wife and I saw on our first date in 1972), who would have been the next offer if Major Historic Star had said no.

Fact is, I was slightly feeling the same thing as my daughter.

Welcome to the brain of yours truly. A day as good as can be had by a living organism on planet Earth and there's still a cloud of "Yeah, but..." over the whole transaction.

Only one cure for that, after a terrific nine hours of sleep: Shut up, Tom, put on your sixteen layers of warm clothing (it's 10 below zero centigrade today, which I think is about 20 farenheit), have some breakfast, drive into the office and GET THE HELL BACK TO WORK.

I'm on it.

Movie Star

I couldn't have been more flattered. She read through a big stack of writers and chose me. We met for coffee today at a sort of hip/Latino/intellectual cafe near my house. She's an authentic movie star. An Oscar all her own. At least two genuinely iconic roles. Every single one of you has seen both of those movies. Then her star fell a little. Well, more than a little. For a season she starred in a TV show. For a while it was a sensation. Then it fell apart and was cancelled. Like I said, I was incredibly flattered that she wanted me to write something for her. But my heart sank when I found out what it was: she wanted to go to the network that canceled her show and get them to redevelop it. To try another pilot with the same character and setup. Yes, the head of the network had said to her "Sure, sure, absolutely, bring me an interesting writer and we'll give it a try. " Who isn't going to say that to an authentic movie star? Who isn't going to let her go through the exercise? She looked small and pale without the makeup and the gorgeous lighting and she was a little nervous as she read her ideas to me out of a scribbled-in notebook. A friend of mine who happened to be stopping by for a latte came up to me with a huge "Hi! You'd better introduce me!" smile. Out of respect to my new friend, the authentic movie star, I didn't bite. I just said "Hi, Bob," and he went away un-introduced. She called our mutual agent after the meeting and told him she was in love with me. Why? Because I told her what a fan I am, how brilliant and funny I think she is, how the show did not do her incredible comedic talent justice, and every word of that was true. Because I listened to her sad hopeful bring-Lazarus-back-from-the-dead ideas with open eyes and yes, even an open heart. But I went away sad. Ten years ago--or is it fifteen by now?--she got up and thanked the Academy and her parents and her agent and her husband. I told her I needed to decide if I could really do her and the show justice and I'd call her in a week when I was settled into pre-production on my movie. And so, like the head of the network, I won't actually tell her what I really think. I'll call her in a week and tell her that with everything I have going on right now I don't think I can do her or the series justice. Truth is, I'm a little in love with her too. I have been since the first time I saw her in a movie and fell out my chair at how funny and moving and real she was. But today I came home sad.

Holy Fucking Shit

I said yes. Well I didn't exactly say yes. At the beginning of the phone call with The Network I opened with the word "Okay!" which I meant as the opening gambit of a discussion and which The Network, I now realize, took as "I'm aboard!"--so that at the end of a two hour call haggling page by page over what I want to change and what they love just the way it is The Network said "Well I am soooo excited that you are doing this."

And I didn't open my mouth.

So I didn't say yes. I got yessed.

What have I just taken a big gulp of--champagne, or the Kool-Aid?

So now I'm back in it. With even more anxiety than the last round. Because not only do I have a WEEK LESS TIME TO PREP, I have a MAJOR REWRITE TO DO. And nobody cast, and no locations chosen, and and and and and...

Weren't we just here a few months ago?

I need to take a moment, though. I need to take a moment to

A: be grateful

B: remember that as queasy and uneasy as I'm feeling right now I'd be feeling just as queasy and uneasy if I had said no

C. also remember that all my anxiety the last time led nowhere and predicted nothing

D: and also remember that there's no knowing, but NO knowing, what decision is the right one and what's the wrong one, ever, even after the fact, so I should just go with the decision I've made and DIRECT THE MOVIE!

To put the gratitude issue in a brighter light: in terms of directing gigs, between my short subject and my first movie was five years. Between my first movie and my second was six years. Between my second and my third was eight years. Between my third and my fourth was no time at all--not a second in between.

Of Proofs and Puddings

If I had any doubts as to whether the network liked the movie, they are at rest: as I was finishing my sound mix yesterday--the final step in making the film--I got an offer from the network to direct another movie, starting immediately. In fact, more than immediately: the director fell out, it's already in prep and starts shooting on November 27th. I went slightly and quietly insane with relief and was very happy as I finished the mix and waited for the script to be delivered.

Ah, but then the script came. Why is there always a catch?

It's an insanely shoddy script. Mumbo jumbo about coincidences and visits from the dead (WHY CAN'T THE DEAD STAY DEAD ON TELEVISION ANYMORE! IT'S A FUCKING PLAGUE OF SUPERNATURAL RETURN! SOMEBODY HAS TO NOTIFY THE FBI!). Plotting that can't find its way from A to B with a map and a flashlight. I'm up at 6 A.M. re-reading the script and seeing if there's any way I can make an edible dish out of it while racing through a three week prep, and I have to answer that question for myself before 9 A.M. which is when I have a conference call with the producers. They already know I have script issues. I'm going to raise them on the call. But the decision is in my hands: do I take it on or not?

The adventurer in me says NO. Stay open. Something cooler might--or might not!--be around the corner.

Stay tuned.