August 19, 2001

FILM They’re Beginning at the Beginning

By MARJORIE ROSEN

A F E W y ea r s a n d d o z e n s o f play an android, and this dramatic re-enactment and had so much heart, I became interested in heard about this guy who used to carry around auditions ago, a couple of struggling young ac- about a dog, which we actually used in the film. producing it.’’ In short order, Dolly Hall, who Edgar Bergen’s dummies in a suitcase,’’ Mr. tors, in their desperation to lure an agent, decid- And a friend of mine looked at the reel and had produced ‘’High Art,’’ and GreeneStreet Dunne says, ‘’and I thought, ‘I’ve got to see ed to create a video calling card about a couple said, ‘You can’t show this to anyone.’ I was just Films, a production company, also committed him.’ The thing in the suitcase is more impor- of struggling young actors. For inspiration, crushed.’’ Even so, on returning to New York, to the project. tant than the guy who’s carrying it.’’ they looked no further than, well, themselves, Ms. Kirk decided to recycle her embarrassment Then someone came up with a brainstorm: Mr. Dunne came to the picture with a dis- plumbing their own humiliations and failures to into performance art by ‘’just taking the reel for an actor-director to both play the role of the tinctive perspective on celebrity. His father come up with the right stuff. and talking about it, like ‘I’m serious about this documentarian and to direct the film. ‘’I be- is the author Dominick Dunne, who, he says, Soon their idea took off: the calling card work.’ And I told Nat about it.’’ lieve it was my idea, I’m not sure,’’ Ms. Sorvi- ‘’was obsessed with fame and worshipped fa- ballooned into the feature film ‘’Lisa Picard Is Mr. DeWolf spent his childhood in Weston, no says by telephone from Nova Scotia, where mous people.’’ ‘Famous,’ ‘’ which opens for a two-week run at Mass., outside Boston, mucking out the family she is on location for the movie ‘’Wise Girls.’’ ‘’Before he ended up writing about them, he Film Forum on Wednesday. Billed as a ‘’moc- stables and dreaming of playing Maria in ‘’The ‘’But it made it a film within a film within a was a slave to them,’’ the younger Mr. Dunne kumentary’’ about an actress whose imminent Sound of Music.’’ He attended the Boston film. And then the director would actually says. ‘’It created a lot of mixed feelings in me breakthrough is being relentlessly captured by Conservatory and studied musical about fame -- my own and other people’s.’’ a pesky documentary filmmaker, the movie, theater before heading to Manhat- While ‘’Lisa Picard Is ‘Famous’ ‘’ is, in directed by Griffin Dunne, who also plays the tan and signing up for Wynn Hand- part, Mr. Dunne’s loopy musing on the sub- filmmaker, offers up a constellation of celeb- man’s acting class. It was there that ject, it is also about striving, disappointment rities like Buck Henry, Carrie Fisher, Charlie he met Ms. Kirk, when they were and such a sufficiency of other things that, Sheen and Sandra Bullock. But its true stars assigned to play a love scene from in the end, Mr. Dunne videotapes himself in are those fresh-faced young New York actors, Jean Anouilh’s play ‘’Thieves’ Car- the editing room wondering aloud what the Laura Kirk and Nat DeWolf, who not only wrote nival.’’ (‘’We cracked up through movie is about. ‘’That’s when we came up the movie but play two fictional New York ac- the whole thing,’’ he says. ‘’But we with the Heisenberg theory that I’m effecting tors named Lisa Picard and Tate Kelley. just sort of hit it off.’’) After hearing change on the very people I’m filming,’’ he Arriving at a theater district restaurant re- Ms. Kirk’s notion of using her reel as an ironic shape the experience of the documentarian’s says. ‘’I’m supposed to be filming them and cently, Ms. Kirk appears soft-spoken, self- commentary on her career, Mr.DeWolf had a view of Lisa.’’ their career, but in fact I’m affecting their ca- contained and youthfully elegant; Mr. DeWolf, few ideas of his own. ‘’In grad school, I used Enter Griffin Dunne, best known as the star reer by filming them.’’ with inline skates flung over his shoulder, has a to joke about how, when I went back to New of Martin Scorsese’s quirky, paranoid 1985 And how have Ms. Kirk and Mr. DeWolf more windblown, even disheveled look. Nei- York, I was going to do a one-man show about fantasy, ‘’After Hours’’ (which Mr. Dunne also been affected by the ride? They briefly tasted ther appears to be over 30, although in actorly homophobia,’’ he says. ‘’That would be my produced). His last directorial effort had been fame in May 2000 when they took the film to fashion they decline to divulge their ages. ticket to fame.’’ the special-effects-heavy ‘’Practical Magic’’ the Cannes International Film Festival. Ms. When ordering, the two collaborators turn The two began mapping out a story about (1998), with Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bull- Kirk recalls a sea of perhaps 100 photogra- into a Broadway-baby version of the Bicker- what Mr. DeWolf calls ‘’two delusional ac- ock playing witches. By contrast, this script had phers whistling and screaming her name -- sons. She doesn’t want anything. He’s thinking tors,’’ best friends, who in their desperate a budget of less than $1 million and was to be ‘’Laura! Laura!’’ -- as they walked into the au- of a quesadilla. She weighs in on his order; he search not just for fame but for an acting job as shot on digital video. Figuring it would allow for ditorium on opening night. ‘’I had absolutely weighs in on her opinion of his order. ‘’We’re well -- any kind of acting job -- also test their more spontaneity, Mr. Dunne signed on. no idea what was happening,’’ she says. ‘’I not a good combination in restaurants,’’ offers friendship. At first, the collaborators thought Disorienting Ms. Kirk and Mr. DeWolf was felt shocked. And I was grateful that Nat was Mr. DeWolf. Ms. Kirk adds, ‘’And we’ve spent small, intending to write a 20-minute film in the one of the tactics Mr. Dunne’s character used there. At least we had each other to go, ‘Oh, a lot of time in restaurants,’’ explaining that they hope of attracting an agent; they put together whenever he ‘’interviewed’’ them on camera. my God!’ ‘’ wrote much of their script in longhand at K- 27 pages. But the actress Mira Sorvino, a friend ‘’I’d find that little dumb guy in me and de- Real fame has been elusive, however. Since Mart’s K Cafe on Astor Place, where, she says, of Ms. Kirk’s, liked the script so much that she liberately act like I wasn’t understanding what finishing ‘’Lisa Picard Is ‘Famous’ ‘’ almost ‘’you don’t even have to order anything.’’ persuaded them to expand it into a feature. they had to say,’’ he says. His goal? To repli- two years ago, Ms. Kirk and Mr. DeWolf have Ms. Kirk, who grew up on a farm in Kansas So Ms. Kirk and Mr. DeWolf began work- cate ‘’that look that documentary subjects have both signed with agents, landed an occasional and became starstruck after watching -- what ing on their story. Occasionally, Ms. Sorvino when they don’t know what’s coming next.’’ acting job and finished two scripts. There’s talk else? -- ‘’The Wizard of Oz,’’ begins to explain would hold readings at home, inviting actor- He added, ‘’That anticipation is always one of of a sitcom based on their movie. But mostly, how ‘’Lisa Picard Is ‘Famous’ ‘’ came to be: ‘’I friends to come over, take part, listen and -- to the hardest things for actors to bury.’’ Ms. Kirk and Mr. DeWolf are still temping, au- had gone to Los Angeles and put all my temping paraphrase ‘’Othello’’ -- be nothing if not criti- He also decided to open up the movie by ditioning and hoping. money into creating my actor’s reel. But when cal. For well over two years, they held these asking celebrities to contemplate fame. These Perhaps Mr. DeWolf sums it up best: ‘’I bought I was finished, all I had was a Diet Dr Pepper informal workshops until finally, in 1999, included some of the usual suspects -- and a tuxedo to wear at Cannes, and I wore it all commercial, some inexplicable thing where I Ms. Sorvino says, ‘’The script was so good some unusual ones, like George Hall. ‘’I’d year. Catering.’’ n