Digging Deep in the Mailbox

This week, we thought we'd dig deep and answer some of those questions that have been sitting in the mail box for a while. So here ya go:

WC Fields advised film-makers to never work with animals or children, but Ten Inch Hero has both! How was that?

Director David Mackay answers:

The reason WC Fields said that is because it's time-consuming and can be frustrating, trying to give direction to things that typically don't take direction!

Fortunately, we had no problems, with either the children OR the pets.

Adair Tishler (Julia), who was 9 years old at the time (but was playing 8), was GREAT! She goes to a performing arts school and is trained as an actress. She is VERY good at learning her lines and understanding the blocking. She also takes direction very well.

I am so proud of Adair's performance...she did all this and had to study for school between scenes!

We were very lucky in the animal department. Lucille (Judith Drake) carries a chihuahua in her bag, called Bam-Bam, in the movie. The pup was very well behaved, and would even yelp on cue.

The dog came with his own wardrobe! We changed his outfit every day too, but for some reason no one noticed it quite the same way they noticed Priestly's ever-changing assortment of t-shirts. Our big regret is that we forgot to put Bam-Bam in his little tux for the final scene of the movie.


John Doe...man, I've been listening to him forever. Did he talk about his music on the set?

Sure! John had a CD coming out shortly after filming, so he played cuts from it to entertain the cast and crew.

As for getting him to play on the set, well, David has a funny story about that:

TIH has one scene that takes place at Trucker's (John's Character) pad. So I asked the art department to put a guitar in the living room...thinking that maybe Trucker--a 60's child--would play the guitar.

I was also just hoping that John might pick it up and jam between takes.

So, when I saw John find the guitar and sit down with it, I got excited and anticipated that he might just break out into an X song! So I walked over to him, and he said "You sure I would have this in my house?" I asked why, and he replied "Well, it's the kind of guitar you'd give your kid."

I wish the art department had been able to find a real Fender!