Psycomic - 12.08.01
Saturday
The day becomes an epochal one in the Smith household, for it's the day that I'm to meet with David Duchovny.
I'm a fan of the man, going back to The Rapture, in which he gives the most haunting delivery of a single line ever in film. Ever. David plays a swinger who eventually settles down with a Born Again Christian (portrayed by Mimi Rogers), and the scene I'm talking about is the one in which a disgruntled employee David's character recently laid off returns to the workplace with a shotgun. The guy's icing people left and right, and he comes to David's office, wielding his George W. menacingly. David says simply "I have a daughter." Following that, he's blown away. I can't do the delivery justice here in print. Check the flick out for yourself and see what I'm talking about.
Of course, I'm an X-Files fan as well (indeed, I have two Yellow Labrador Retrievers named Scully and Mulder). But there is no greater casual X-Files fan on this planet ("casual" meaning a fan who won't whip him or herself for missing an episode) than my loving wife, Jen. But more than an X-Files fan, she's a Fox Mulder fan. And more than that, she's a Duchovny fan. And when I say fan, I mean she had a little picture of David Duchovny in his tighty-whiteys (that she'd cut out of a magazine many moons prior to meeting me) in her wallet. We were well into the fifth or sixth month of wedded bliss before I'd eventually asked her to remove it, as... you know, we were married and all.
So the wife is going ape-shit about this meeting, which she's going to as well, running around the hotel room practicing her giggle and hair-flip. It's the only thing I've ever accomplished that she's impressed by, and she's all aflutter. What should she wear? Does she tell him about the dogs' names? Should I (meaning me) stay home?
It's quite emasculating, to say the least.
The meeting came suddenly. His agent called our casting mistress - having heard I was in town, doing the rounds - and said that David wanted to meet. Not necessarily to be in the movie, as he was doing an Ivan Reitman flick during the time we were to be shooting Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. He just wanted to meet for the hell of it. They also sent over the episode of the Files he'd directed last season called "Hollywood A.D.", so that I could familiarize myself with his directorial efforts. It was unnecessary, as I'd not only already seen that episode when it aired (in fact, I'd watched it with great interest, due to the fact that an article in Entertainment Weekly made it sound like there were some minor plot similarities to what I was doing in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), but also his directorial debut on the show the year before (the great baseball episode with Jesse Martin; he of Law & Order fame). I'm up - way up - on the Duchovny oeuvre.
The Ivy in Santa Monica was to be the meeting place, and on the ride there, Mosier filled me in on what had went down with the ill-fated Kate Hudson New York meet-and-greet.
If you'll remember, Kate's new agent had suddenly informed us that a meeting we were supposed to have with the Almost Famous starlet was now not going to happen, and we were to, instead, simply offer her the part. I wanted to find out why the sudden shift, when her previous agent had scheduled a meet-and-greet with us a mere few days before. Was it that her new agent felt the white-hot Kate had bigger fish to fry, due to the amount of offers he'd been fielding since Cameron Crowe's flick hit the screens? Or was it something more sinister that accounted for the change of heart?
You see, the agent had read the script already. He's one of the few in town who had, solely because he's Ben's and Matt's agent, and Ben and Matt are in it. Since he's now also Kate's agent, this could mean that he'd judged the project as being beneath her (which, let's be honest, it is; but then, the flick's beneath even Mewes), and he was trying to remove us from Kate's periphery entirely. This irritated me to no end, because even if it's something he doesn't want Kate to do, Kate should be allowed to decide that for herself.
The question was moot, however, as Kate already had decided for herself, without needing to look at the script. Mosier had talked to the agent and was informed that Kate's just not really a fan. She doesn't hate the movies, but she doesn't like them either. She put the kibosh on the meeting.
Fair enough. Shit, she's not alone. There are many cats out there who don't like our flicks. And truth be told, she wasn't the best part of Almost Famous anyway. Jason Lee was (but then, I'm biased), and I've already got him in the picture.
That Kate's out of the running means that Heather Graham's casting has lost another obstacle. But I still want to meet Amy Smart before any offers are made. And beyond those two choices, Shannon Elizabeth remains a front runner (her meeting was
just that good, and we continue to be impressed by her, even five days later)..
But none of that matters right now, because we're almost at the Ivy. Jen's decided she's not going to sit through the whole lunch. She'll shop for an hour and then "drop in" afterwards. Mind you, she's still trying to perfectly fashion her meeting with Duchovny (because that's what it's become: her meeting).
So Jen goes off to shop, and Scooter and I sit down at the Ivy and down some gumbo while we wait for the guy who plays the man who believes the Truth Is Out There. And after ten minutes, the Truth isn't Out There; it's standing in front of
us, smiling, saying, "Hi, I'm David.
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The Tenth Anniversary Column - 12.15.00
The Last Article
The Unholy Tale of Greasy Reese Witherspoon - 12.1.00
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