My Profile
Director/Writer of CHOKE...
My Favorites
Favorite Films Cuckoo's Nest, Grand Illusion, Breaking The Waves, amores perros, Holiday, The Last Detail, L'Atalante, Fargo, Chinatown, Being There
Favorite Actors Jennifer Grey, Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly Macdonald, Brad Henke
Favorite Directors Hal Ashby, Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges, Paul Thomas Anderson, Lars Von Trier, Mike leigh, David Mamet, John Ford, Akira Kurosawa
Farewell to Mr. Paul Newman, mensch...
Oct 2, 2008
The first tiny film role I ever got was in 1988 in a movie about the Manhattan Project called "Fat Man and Little Boy" with John Cusack, Paul Newman, Laura Dern and others. I played Doug Panton, an attache to Paul Newman's character, General Leslie Groves, the man in charge of the Manhattan Project. I had done a mess of plays for free and one where I actually got paid, but I had never even been on a movie set, so I was excited, but also nervous as hell.
I was visiting LA for the very first time, networking in advance of what would surely be the start of big things, when I got a desperate call from my agent saying that they had decided to bump my first shoot day up and that I was needed in Mexico that night. An hour later I was racing to LAX and getting on a plane to Mexico. By midnight I was being driven deep into the desert to the area where the scene was being staged. I went into my small freezing trailer, changed into my WWII era army uniform and then went to the set. You call it a set even if (like this one) it's a fenced-in outdoor compound in the desert where a fake atom bomb is about to be test exploded.
Next thing I knew I was standing around with a lot of tense people in the wilderness in Mexico in the middle of the night. I shook hands with the director, Roland Joffe, whom I had met and then I was introduced to Paul Newman. Ohmigod, those eyes. In the scene, Newman's character, General Groves, was to drive up, get out of his staff car, notice the lack of security personnel and then call out for me by saying, "Panton!" Then I would run up and do a lot of "Yessir, nossir" and we would play the brief scene on the move in a driving fake rain storm.
"Holy crap," I thought. Paul Newman was going to introduce my character. He would say my character's name the only time you heard it in the movie. So Paul (Mr. Newman to me) got in the car and they backed it up about 600 yards to do a rehearsal. The vintage staff car raced in, skidded to a stop, and Mr. Newman got out of the car and yelled out, "Security!" I ran up, eyes wide and played the scene. Afterwards, everyone went over what had gone right and what had gone wrong, but nobody mentioned the omission of my character's name.
A few minutes later I realized that Paul Newman was standing next to me, in the desert at night, waiting around (which is mostly what you do on a movie) for the final preparations to be completed at which point the cameras would roll and we would commit the scene to film. I looked at him. Maybe he was tired, but I had barely heard him speak a word. Finally, he looked up at me. This was my chance and I knew it, but I hesitated and he looked away. With my stomach twisted in knots I somehow summoned the courage to say, "Mr. Newman..." He looked up again. "Yeah?" I said, "Um, in the script, you know, if you care, I mean, you can do it however, but in the script you call me Panton. So you know."
Then Paul 'Butch Cassidy, Hud, Cool Hand Luke' Newman gave me a look with those eyes like, "You have got to be freakin' kidding me." Then the 1st AD called his name and Paul Newman walked off without a word and got into his staff car.
"Nice work," I thought to myself, "you have just insulted a legend and assured yourself the shortest film career in history." My self-loathing was interrupted by a sudden torrent from the massive sprinkler cranes. A megaphoned voice cried out, "Rolling!" I watched from my spot as the staff car barreled onto its mark. The car door swung open and Paul Newman stepped out, looked around, then yelled out clear as a bell, "Panton!" And I swear if you rent the movie you can see something approaching perfect love in my eyes as I run up and bark, "Sir!"
Rest in peace, sir. And the rest of you...GO SEE CHOKE.
A journey of a thousand miles end with but a single faceplant
Sep 26, 2008
Opening day of Choke. Nationwide. I'm in a dark hotel room in Boston. My face looks like a cabbage patch doll because I passed out face-down in my clothes, drooling into the hotel bedspread after the final grueling day of a 5 week press tour. Woke up at 6am, to an email from my close friend and the film's producer, Beau Flynn. I first read the book in 2001 and I took it to Beau who had voiced a desire to produce whatever I finally decided to direct. I brought him a copy of "Choke" and said, "Here. This one. It's about a sex-addicted colonial theme park worker." He took the book and bought the option the next day. I asked him a few days later what he thought of the book and he admitted that he hadn't even had a chance to read it yet. He just bought it because I believed it could make a great movie. Through the entire seven years he has stood by my side and fought for me and the movie as if it was the only one he ever made. It's not. It's just the only one he did for free. The email he sent me this morning contained a terrific review in the NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/movies/26chok.html?ref=movies. Now I don't generally read reviews, after all, they're written by critics. But they're good for business and producers really love it when you get a good one, even cool, ballsy cowboy producers like Beau. So I truly enjoyed receiving this one from my brilliant, hard-scrapping homeboy. Thanks Beau. For keeping me focused and telling me hard truths when I needed to hear them, for carrying the ball when I couldn't take another step, for directing me so well when I was playing the Lord High Jackass and most of all, for fighting seven years to get my movie of Chuck's brilliant book up on all those screens. As a thanks I won't tell anyone about the special friend who lived in your hotel room with you during the Colonial Dunsboro shoot. I guess I don't have to. Because a picture's worth a thousand words. Oh, and and for fucksake, people, GO SEE CHOKE THIS WEEKEND! Thanks for reading.
We'll Always Have Paris...
Sep 17, 2008
The never ending press tour continues with me always moving, thumping myriad media tubs, trying to get the word out prior to Choke's nationwide release 9/26. Last week at some media event for the VMA's I was dragged into a nearly empty waiting room where a nice older guy laid out sandwiches and fruit on a table beside a lone canvas chair and a make-up mirror. On the other side of the room a couple of bored, aging LA hipster chicks were seated by a table of swag. The table was literally dripping with "new stuff" trendy T-shirts, Japanese PDA's, weird cherry red euro-Pumas, giant chrome blow dryers - free crap for the various rockers and rappers who would be coming through. The rock guy or chick takes a picture with the camera or shoes and a little ad man somewhere has an orgasm. The main bottle-blonde hipster chick glanced up from her Treo, gave me an appraising up-down, decided I was not hip enough to sell any Pumas and too bald to need a blow dryer (true) and went back to thumbing off. I headed for the spread to whip up a quick sandwich.
Just then I heard a gruff voice from behind and above me, "Step aside...:" I was brushed out of the way by a seething wave of bodies. I quickly moved to a nearby couch as a tight throng of broad shouldered dudes bristled past. From inside the moving huddle I heard soft whiny voices chattering back and forth. The tiny mob converged on the make-up mirror. I tried to peer through the cracks to discern the nature of the emergency. Was it Axl Rose in mid overdose? Blake Lively bloodied from a cat fight?
Suddenly, the circle of bodies parted and an impossibly tiny hairdresser hissed, "Voila!" then stepped to one side and there she was...the legend herself, the soulful feminine embodiment of all that's wise and noble in modern civilization! PARIS! I grabbed my iphone and fumbled for the photo feature, but as you can see my hands were shaking like a leaf. Still I managed to snap one quick picture as she darted back out to be interviewed about the videos and music that she has yet to create.
Inflate-a-palooza
Sep 7, 2008
I forgot to post this from last week's trip in NY. At an event at the Strand bookstore after being interviewed by the brilliant writer, Amy Hempel, Chuck passed out literally dozens of extremely cheap inflatable sex dolls. They were so cheap that they came with only painted on genitals, a real drawback when it comes to functionality. The mouths looked viable though, if an inanimate rubber mouth is your idea of a good time. Then at a signal the huffing and puffing began and the proud owner of the first taut, fully inflated male and fully inflated female doll received bitchin' swag, signed copies of "Knockemstiff" by Chuck fave Donald Ray Pollock and the like. The place went nuts and Chuck was passing out gifts like an anarchist Santa Claus. Later, as I was walking out, I heard a strange soft hissing from all directions and I realized it was dozens of lifeless, genitally deprived sex dolls sadly surrendering their borrowed breath.
The Road
Sep 6, 2008
Three weeks left, so the Choke press tour is in full, relentless swing. San Diego on Wednesday, flew to Austin Friday night for a raucous screening at the U of T. I was fading fast before the Q&A so we found a chinese coffee and tea bar across the street called the Tapioca House or something. Hooked up to some insane iced cap with tapioca balls that I inhaled so fast I almost needed the Heimlich. I love the movie, but I'm not ready to give my life for a cheap but probably effective promotional stunt. In any case, I think someone would have saved me cause they had a bitchin chart on the wall (see photo) with bilingual instructions that should have insured that somebody in the joint would have been able to squeeze the glob of tapiocas out of my system. That damn drink kept me up until 3am watching hotel TV. No porn. OK, a little. Next stop, our nation's capitol. Think I'd be able to find any sex addicts there?
Radar screening in NY 8/29
Aug 29, 2008
A full day of interviews at the New York junket for Choke with Chuck Palahniuk and Sam Rockwell. Five straight hours of interviews. I never want to hear myself say another word. And that's saying something because I have an extremely high tolerance for my own sarcastic bullshit. Later we met up downtown for a screening of the film put on by the symbiotically sarcastic Radar Magazine. We did a Q&A afterwards. Some highlights included Chuck explaining that all the secret PA codes in the book ("Doctor Blue is paged in a hospital. That means somebody stopped breathing.") are real and that many of them were learned when he was a Candy Striper in a Catholic hospital. Now there's an image I love. Sam responded to a question about working with Anjelica Huston by saying that she is "all that and a bag of chips." When Chuck advised people to check out something called Colorectal Impaction by Foreign Body Management I was surprised because I am pretty certain that I was represented by them in the 90's. Turns out I was, but they dumped me. We went to a party afterwards. Something about being offered tuna tartare in a seedy basement bar makes me a little nervous. So I only had three.
Here goes nothing...
Aug 27, 2008
Welcome to the Choke director's blog. I'll admit it. I'm non-native. The only computer in my high school was the size of a Buick and used weird punch cards. Didn't stop me from sending my hot teacher a computer card message that nearly got me expelled. But here I am, blogging. Today, in fact, I'm blogging from the stratosphere. On an American flight equipped with Wi-Fi headed to NY for some screenings and press in advance of Choke's September 26th opening. So far the film has screened at a few festivals, Sundance, Los Angeles Film Fest, South by Southwest, and more. I even flew to Switzerland a few weeks ago to meet up with Chuck Palahniuk for a midnight outdoor screening for 8000 at the Locarno Film Festival. I have posted the movie's Italian language poster here because it's brilliant. "Soffocare." Running low on juice. In the words of my governator, "I'll be back."
