DVD extras: "The Making of ..."

Fade to shot of director sitting in chair, behind him a book shelf filled with magazines, books, objects, in disarray. Interviewer’s questions have been cut out, so the viewer sees only the director talking.
“When they brought this idea to me, I was like, yeah, I can really do something with this. The idea was really terrific. A romance-comedy, sex-crime-thriller, political-suspense drama. You know, never been done before. How far could we push the envelope? Now, each one of these genres has been done ad infinitum individually, but never all together, except for “January Man”, a film I am sure even Kevin Kline deeply regrets ever having appeared in. So I fluffed out the idea and took it to them. And boy howdy, I tell you. If that was not one humdinger of a script. You shouldda seen the looks on their faces when they finished reading that sucker. I could hardly stop laughing. After we had all gone out to lunch at Snarky’s and I had ordered the bass in the uni-sauce, with wasabi. Nothing like that uni-wasabi sauce. Anyhow, they offered to buy the script for a whole lot of money and you know what I said to them? Do you? After I sat back and ordered an espresso and waited for them to bring it just to leave them to wonder a bit, then I said to them, here is the deal. I get to direct. And the rest, as they say, is water under the bridge. So here I am today talking to you.
So, why Budapest, you ask. Well, its like this, we needed a metropolitan setting, and frankly, after Hurricane Katrina, there wasn’t any city in America that could support the kind of story line we had in mind. Hell, let’s face it. America has become just urban sprawl. It’s a mess. I needed something that did not involve sitting in a car all day staring as the used car lots roll by. Besides, the under world is much more accessible in Hungary anyway. Admittedly, it was a little difficult making it look like an American city, but I think we pretty much pulled it off. We tried to avoid any shots with old stone buildings in it. So we pretty much did have to stay indoors. But you don’t really need to go outside for a romance-comedy-sex-crime-thriller-political-suspense-drama anyway. Some people say it was over cast. I will tell right up front that I did not get all the names I wanted in this film. Costner was busy. Hanks was busy. Willis was busy. But I think you will appreciate some of the new talents that I discovered for this film. Oscar Tilmet is a really very, very subtle actor. And mature. A real talent. When he was on the set and doing that scene with Josh about his daughter on the stairs, the set crew just stopped. Literally just stopped. They were spell bound. I think. Yeah. I am pretty sure they were spell bound. I mean, it just became very quiet. Of course, we were filming so it was supposed to be quiet, but I mean, in the practice takes as well. Really. I could hear Fred the sound guy taking the cellophane off of his baloney and cheese it was so quiet.

Copyright 2010 Peter Swanger