To The Quick

It’s 2:00 AM, and I’m watching the same clips over and over. It’s the video of the callback auditions for the parts of Andy and Peter, and I worry that I’m becoming numb. It’s been months since the callback, and haven’t contacted any of the actors, even to let them know that we are behind schedule. I’ve been terrified of even looking at the tape.

Exploring personal territory isn’t new for me, I’ve been doing that for my entire career. But talking a topic to death is very different from reproducing events; deconstruction makes the confusing things more intelligible, reconstruction throws all that confusion back into your face. Here in front of me is Peter, with all his maddening flaws and contradictions, channeled through an actor whose job it is to understand who Peter is better than Peter ever did himself. And here is young Andy, a child actor reading grown up words that makes the contrast between the two starkly apparent.

My job is to make a decision, but doing so forces me to identify exactly what it is that I want to say about these two characters. Are they in love, or are they willing (or maybe trying) to destroy each other? And maybe more importantly, am I ready to hand that decision over to actors who didn’t live through it?

Meanwhile the shoot dates come closer and closer every minute, and everyone is waiting for me. I know I have to make the hard choice and commit. But for now, I’m going to look at those clips one more time.