Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Mail: About Clea!

Lots of nice mail today...thanks for all your kind thoughts. We promise, we'll get to it all (maybe, eventually, even Shellz's questions about Priestly pictures!)

How did Clea DuVall come on board? She seems to be everywhere, and yet is still under everyone's radar.

Director David Mackay answers:

Several very good actresses read for the role of JEN before Clea. Though Clea had been in my mind for the part for a long time, I didn't expect her to audition. Her body of work puts her in a class of actors that no longer have to audition for a part. Those actors are referred to as "offer only" because we, as producers, offer them the part without an audition.

Anyway, Clea didn't think she was right for the part. After she read the script the first time, she passed.

But I told our casting director how much I liked Clea, and how perfect I thought she would be, and the next thing I knew, she was in the room, reading the part. She wanted to read in front of me, and talk about it, and hear why I thought she was right for it. Actually, I think she was auditioning ME!

From that moment on, she was the first one we cast in the movie, in our minds. We wanted to see who else was falling into place for the other two female roles, so we "put a pin in her" as her agent called it. Once we were close to selecting the other leads, we put everyone's picture on the wall and made groupings of the three girls. Clea fit easily into every combination.

We were so lucky to have her. She was great to work with and she has an awesome sense of humor. And she is the emotional center of the whole movie!

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