by Logan Miller
Then Noah asked, “So you’re free after Thanksgiving, right?” CUT TO—AGENT MAN
No, no, NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OUR APARTMENT
“Yeah,” Ed replied. “I’m free after Thanksgiving.”
“Are you sure the play won’t go beyond Thanksgiving?”
“I told them that’s all I’m giving them.”
“Great. So you’ll do our movie if we push until after Thanksgiving?”
“You sure you want to do that, guys?” Ed asked. “I don’t want to be the one to hold up your movie.”
“Ed, you’re our number one guy. Nobody else is playing our father. NOBODY. We got a deal. We shook on it.”
CUT TO—AGENT MAN
Fuck a handshake! It’ll never hold up in court!
OUR APARTMENT
Ed said, “If you guys can push until after Thanksgiving, I’m yours.”
“Done. We’ll push until after Thanksgiving.”
“Thanks, guys.” Ed got fired up. “All right, my boys!”
“All right then, Pops.”
CUT TO—AGENT MAN
The phone, the chair, and the desk are flying out the window onto the street, glass bouncing on the pavement. A screaming man can be heard throughout Beverly Hills.
OUR APARTMENT
We sprouted gray hair during that conversation. From then on, every day was the Cuban Missile Crisis. At any moment our world could blow up.
PART V
DANCING AROUND THE FIRES OF GREED
MONEY, WHERE DOES IT GROW?
NO MONEY, NO movie.
Raise money.
Raise money.
We gotta raise money.
How the hell do we do that?
We don’t know anybody with big money.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing in this entire struggle came close to exceeding the anxiety produced by the hunt for money. Nothing.
Most movies, at least most of the movies that make it into a theater, are the product of a studio: Fox, Universal, Warner Bros., Disney, Sony, etc. These studios have production companies responsible for manufacturing movies. Typically, a producer is the head of one of these production companies. The studio is essentially the bank. The producer secures a loan from the studio and makes the movie.
So why not take our movie to a studio and secure a loan? Because we had no credit. The studios are not in the subprime, easy lending business. We would not qualify for one of their loans under any circumstances. Nobody in Hollywood was going to give us a chance to direct and act in our movie. Nobody. It was too risky.
A production company might buy the script from us with Ed Harris attached. Might. But then the production company would, in all likelihood, marginalize our involvement, or get rid of us entirely, bring on a new writer or writer(s) to mutilate our script, and then, five years later, if ever, get a loan from the bank and produce our movie. Chances are we wouldn’t even recognize our story once it was thrown on the big screen.
We could live with failing on our own terms, but we couldn’t live with failing on someone else’s. If we made our movie and it failed, we could live with that. But if someone else made our movie and it failed? Well, that wasn’t an option.
We would need to be the studio and production company. And in order to accomplish this, we needed money.
But where to find it?
Everybody loves movies. Most people are fascinated with celebrities and the mystery behind making a movie. Most people, that is, except those in Hollywood. It’s what they do every day. The charm has worn off. But people outside of Hollywood? They can’t get enough.
We needed to find an investor that wanted to rub elbows with famous people, hang out on set and watch the camera roll, someone who would mount the poster on his wall like a Picasso. Someone far from the jaded world of filmmaking. Someone who still felt the magic each time he watched a movie. And that was the opportunity we could provide him.
What’s more, there was a new tax incentive. Prior to 2001, movie financiers had to write off their investment by amortizing it over ten years. A pain in the ass. But now a financier could write off the entire investment in one year. This write-off also carried with it the prospect of gain. If the movie was successful, the financier would make money on a wad of cash he had already written off.
So we packed our bags for Northern California, determined to stay until we raised the money. Our mom said we could move back in with her. Not exactly a confidence builder—moving back in with our mom, that is. But we are fortunate that she loves us. It was the fifth time we’d moved back home since we’d left at twenty. A record we were not proud of…
On our way out of town, we stopped to meet a couple of people.
ROBERT FORSTER AND THE SILVER SPOON
Connie Hoy, our first assistant director in Tucson, had worked with Robert Forster on a movie a year earlier and suggested him for the role of “Perk.” We sent the script to Robert’s manager. Robert read the script and wanted the role. We’d heard he was a great guy, but we’d also heard too many horror stories about difficult actors making the director’s life hell. So before we could give him the role we needed to meet him, feel him out, see for ourselves.
During the first few days of filming the crew sizes up the director. Is the director a leader, decisive? Do the actors respect him or her? If the actors respect the director, the crew follows. If the actors don’t, the crew probably won’t either. And with first-time directors working with highly distinguished actors, this relationship was dramatically intensified.
We met Robert at the Silver Spoon restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. He has his own table there. He greeted us as though we’d just walked into his house.
Robert is a throwback: classy, manly, and charming, self-possessed and confident. You immediately get the feeling that you can trust what he says. He treated us like established directors.
“This is my lucky table,” Robert said. “A lot of good things have happened to me at this table. I figured it was a good place for us to sit. When I was at the lowest point in my career and thought I’d never work again, this kid tracked me down here and dropped a script on this table, said he loved my work, wanted me to read the script and see if I would be interested in acting in the movie.”
The kid was Quentin Tarantino. The script was Jackie Brown. Robert was nominated for an Academy Award in that role. It resurrected his career.
“I really like your script, guys,” Robert said. “You’ve got your foot on the audience’s chest the entire time.”
The waitress came over and refilled Robert’s coffee.
“These young gentlemen wrote a terrific script,” Robert said to the waitress. He introduced us. She poured us coffee.
Robert continued. “The characters are excellent. They’re all different. You don’t even need to look at their names when they speak, you just know who they are by what they say—really well-developed characters.”
His praise was uplifting. Here was an actor we deeply respected, worked with Tarantino and John Huston, an old pro who’s read thousands of scripts from the top writers in the business, and he was now complimenting our script.
The waitress returned.
Robert said, “Get whatever you want, boys. It’s on me.”
“Don’t fight him,” the waitress said. “It won’t happen. Robert would never let me take your money.”
We ordered bacon and eggs.
“So this character you want me to play, this ‘Perk,’ or rather, excuse me, this character I’d like to play,” Robert said. “Is he modeled after a real-life guy? Someone you know?”
“Yes, sir,” Noah said. “He’s modeled after Coach Gough, a retired San Francisco cop and Khe Sanh Marine. He was like our surrogate father growing up, always real good to our dad. They had an understanding you know, both were veterans…You look just like Coach.”
“What about the name? Why do you call him ‘Perk’ in the script?”
/> “We took the name ‘Perk’ from another one of our favorite coaches, Jim Perky.”
We asked Robert how he got into acting.
“Well, I was in college at Syracuse and I saw this great-looking gal walk by…So I followed her and she walked into the drama department theater. They were holding auditions for a play. I figured this was a good place to be.”
“Did you audition?”
“Yeah, and I got the role.”
“What about the woman?”
“I ended up marrying her.”
The Silver Spoon was filled with actors and actresses in their sixties and seventies, modest and polite, with color and high character, and Robert appeared to be the mayor of the joint. It felt like a small town coffee shop, where people come over to the table for a few minutes, good morning, how you doing, ask about the family, and then move on. We were in the heart of Hollywood, the capital of arrogance and rudeness, the land of inflated self-importance and distinction, but in here, there was none.
Robert was a bridge to the golden days. He told us about his first role. John Huston was the director. Robert was terrified, kept asking Mr. Huston when they were going to rehearse. Mr. Huston kept saying “soon.”
Finally the day came for Robert to act. Still no rehearsal. He’d been going nuts in a Manhattan hotel room for weeks. He figured now Mr. Huston would surely take the time to instruct him, rehearse a bit. So Mr. Huston calls Robert over to the camera, tells Robert to look through the lens at the shot they are about to film. Robert looks through the lens, and Mr. Huston says, “Now…what do you think you need to do, Bobby?”
And that was it. He pushed Robert into the scene.
We talked for three hours, finished breakfast after lunch. Robert Forster was our guy.
BRAD DOURIF AND STARBUCKS
Next up was Brad Dourif. He told us to meet him at a Starbucks in Tarzana. We drove out there, our car packed for the top secret money-raising mission in Northern California. (Everyone, Ed, Robert, and Brad, and all their representatives assumed we had the money. Nobody, at least no rational human being, would take these steps without it.)
We walked into Starbucks and looked around, no sign of Brad Dourif—so far as we could tell. But there was a guy in the corner with a brown fedora pulled low, the line of customers forming a broken wall between us and him. He had a long ponytail and hair bushing out the sides.
We grabbed a table and sat down. A few minutes went by.
The guy in the corner with the fedora pulled low was studying us, sipping his venti coffee.
“Do you think that guy in the hat is Brad Dourif?”
“I don’t think so…I told him to look out for the twins. If it was him, he would’ve come over by now.”
Another couple minutes went by. And the guy with the fedora kept staring. At first, his staring wasn’t that unusual. We’re twins, a freak show, people always stare. But he was now crossing the line.
“That’s gotta be him, that’s gotta be Brad Dourif. If it’s not him, I’m gonna ask the damn guy what his problem is.”
We stood and walked over.
“You must be the twins?” the guy in the fedora said.
“Actually, we’re cousins.”
“And I’m Ed Harris.”
Even the president of the Brad Dourif Fan Club would’ve had trouble picking him out of a lineup that day.
We sat down and Brad went cold, leery, suspicious of us. And he had good reason to be. Brad is an Academy Award nominee, taught acting at Columbia University, an astute and searching mind. A veteran of over a hundred movies from big-budget blockbusters to B-movie horror flicks, he’s worked with every stripe of director—Academy Award winners, dictators, thinkers, screamers, monitor jockeys, and first-timers. He wasn’t about to jump on some miserable caravan across the Sahara with no water. He’d read the script and his agent said he wanted the role. But “wanting” is only the first step. “Wanting” is still a long ways from committing, which is an even longer road from a fully executed contract, which are still marathons away from showing up on set and putting their face in front of your camera. The meeting today was to decide if we were moving beyond the “wanting” stage.
We showed Brad the trailer. Like Ed, Brad understood the amount of work required to put beautiful images on screen. It gave us credibility, and he warmed to us. We weren’t just two guys running around with a good script.
“Ed told us he’s a huge fan of your work,” Noah said.
This melted the last iceberg. Brad took off his hat, sighed, color rushed into his face. He rolled his eyes and ran his hands through his hair, feeling the pressure. “I gotta get my head out of the house…I gotta get to work…Ed Harris, shit…The guy’s amazing.”
“Yep, he’s a big fan.”
This wasn’t some rinky-dink movie. Serious actors were on board. Brad would have to prepare, bring his A-game.
“I’m thinking that Clyde should be subtle, nothing over-thetop,” Brad said.
“He’s not a retard, and he’s not Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot either,” Logan said.
“He’s a poet,” Brad replied.
“It’s gotta be subtle, Brad.”
“We’ll rehearse as often as you like,” Logan said.
“Good, ’cause I’m going to need it. I’m cutting my hair off for the role. Deadwood is over. I think Clyde would have short hair.”
“He does. Good call.”
Nuanced, eccentric, penetrating, that’s Brad, a cross between a wizard and a vagabond. An avid astronomer, he’s probably got an IQ of 180. He can shift effortlessly from an exhaustive commentary on nuclear physics and jet propulsion to the micronutrient properties of goat’s milk. And he just might be able to read your thoughts.
We discussed his approach to acting, how he likes to observe and study people, find a subject, and assume its characteristics. While preparing for Billy Bibbit in Cuckoo’s Nest, he hung out in mental hospitals and worked with an expert on speech impediments.
“I’m working on a few things with Clyde’s speech, rolling of the tongue, lazy tongue, common with these types of brain injuries…I’m thinking he should also have some physical disability—subtle guys, don’t worry.”
“We gotta watch out for you actors,” Noah said with a smile. “Make sure you don’t act too much.”
“I’m thinking that one of his hands should be impaired, doesn’t fully function…Where’s the real Clyde?”
“Don’t know where he is…,” Noah said. We hadn’t seen our uncle in several years. “When you’re developing Clyde, keep this in mind: the audience needs to immediately discern that something is off with Clyde, but subtly. We don’t want to bash them over the head. And that’s difficult, hard to pull off. The risk of being too subtle is that the audience will think Clyde is just a deadbeat, some lazy artist. On the other hand, the risk of going too big is that they won’t be able to understand what Clyde is saying, the wisdom behind his dialogue will be lost…We’ve gotta be somewhere between these polarities.”
“You guys are also acting in it, right?” Brad asked.
“Yep.”
“Shit.” He grinned. “You guys are nuts.”
HEAD NORTH, SON
WE DROVE NORTH in search of gold. The mission had to remain top secret, and nothing remains secret in Hollywood. It’s one big mouth. So we didn’t tell anybody why we went home. Only that we went. If Ed’s agents or attorneys found out that we had no money—that we were living with our mom, searching for cash—our moviemaking charade would be over.
But as the winds of fortune would have it, Ed’s people ignored us for several months. And we happily ignored them. If they had talked to us about Ed’s contract early on, it would have been nearly impossible to prevent them from finding out that we were broke. One of their first demands would have been for us to escrow Ed’s salary, a standard practice when dealing with unknown producers. And guess what? We wouldn’t have been able to do it. Our bluff would have been called.
Yes, Ed gave us his word. But realize how theoretically flimsy this guarantee is in the movie business. At this point, we didn’t know Ed, and he didn’t know us. What if he was offered several million dollars to star in a movie in December, the same time we were going to film? Totally possible. In fact, highly likely. The pressure exerted upon him from his agents, attorneys, advisors, not to mention family and friends, would have been severe. Thinking about this scenario—and many others—made us neurotic.
Ed was the linchpin, the only reason our movie would make sense to a prospective investor. No Ed, no money. And no money, no movie. And we were all too aware of this terrifying fact. The devastating potential of Ed leaving our movie pressed against us constantly.
Constantly.
Three Academy Award–nominated actors were on board, with dates penciled into their calendars, and still we had no money.
We had no backup plan, no contingency, no “if this happens, we’ll do this, and when that happens, we’ll do that.” We couldn’t operate on contingencies. Life has never worked out that way for us. Our world never travels from A to B to C. It only works like that in business school models and self-help books. Our path has always been more pinball than bullet train. Know your end point and drive toward it. If you get knocked off course, tack your way back.
Like Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.”
Presumably, any savvy investor would want to see a signed contract from Ed before putting money into our movie. Problem was we couldn’t get a signed contract from Ed until we paid him; his people would never allow that ink to touch that paper. It was an excruciating catch-22.