The Movie Star
How do you describe a talented, handsome man brimming with creative energy in the context of a film about sadness, loss, and magic-realist sociopathology?
Terrance Tierney is the sole actor in the film. He plays two roles, a grown up named Martin and the shadow of himself as a 7-year-old boy. That wasn't always how it was to be. The original screenplay required two actors to play Martin: Terry as the adult, and a real (not digitally enhanced) 7-year-old. There was to be yet a third actor, Martin's mother. Circumstances prevented me from working with the mother and young son, so I asked Terry to play his younger self and we transformed the mother into a series of bodiless manifestations.
I don't think Terry had any idea I was going to ask him to play the shadow of a 7-year-old, throw himself out of a car onto gravel, or hurl himself from a chair during an earthquake. But he did all these things, eagerly and with invention.
Terry is 7.1's soul. Without him, I'd have shelved the project and moved on to something else. I knew he could inhabit an entire short, with practically nothing to say, appearing in nearly every scene, and consequently anchor the film's dream qualities in something you could touch. He's eminently photographable and, in the film, always seems to be someone else, somewhere else...instead of a guy on his days off doing odd stuff in an experimental short.
Terrance Tierney is the sole actor in the film. He plays two roles, a grown up named Martin and the shadow of himself as a 7-year-old boy. That wasn't always how it was to be. The original screenplay required two actors to play Martin: Terry as the adult, and a real (not digitally enhanced) 7-year-old. There was to be yet a third actor, Martin's mother. Circumstances prevented me from working with the mother and young son, so I asked Terry to play his younger self and we transformed the mother into a series of bodiless manifestations.
I don't think Terry had any idea I was going to ask him to play the shadow of a 7-year-old, throw himself out of a car onto gravel, or hurl himself from a chair during an earthquake. But he did all these things, eagerly and with invention.
Terry is 7.1's soul. Without him, I'd have shelved the project and moved on to something else. I knew he could inhabit an entire short, with practically nothing to say, appearing in nearly every scene, and consequently anchor the film's dream qualities in something you could touch. He's eminently photographable and, in the film, always seems to be someone else, somewhere else...instead of a guy on his days off doing odd stuff in an experimental short.
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