The Cast

The cast is going to be announced this week and I thought I'd chime in with a few thoughts. First and foremost- you are not going to recognize these actors. In fact, unless you watch a certain girly show religiously, I'm going to guarantee you will not recognize the guy who plays Tucker. The same goes for the female parts (although these girls are SMOKING hot).

This is an interesting dynamic because conventional Hollywood wisdom is to get a bankable star, get him or her attached to the script and work from there. Luckily for Tucker, the script was bankable, his brand is bankable and his determination NOT to sell to a major studio has ensured that he has complete creative control over his project.

For instance, two days ago the costume designer came in with ideas for Tucker. One of her thoughts was to have Tucker in a suit jacket, looking sort of pseudo-intellectual. WRONG. Tucker was there to point out that never in his life has he worn a suit jacket out to the bars and when he can, he usually dresses down. There is a VERY good reason for this- when Tucker goes out he is the "show." He has no need nor no desire to wear flashy jewelry or clothing that might distract/detract from him and his personality. Most of the douchebag guys you see at a bar are more concerned with what they are wearing, what car they drive, how much their watch cost etc. For Tucker- anything that distracts from him and his "show" is stupid. (As an aside she also wanted the character of Slingblade to be wearing a black trenchcoat... Not a positive response from Tucker)

To meander back to my point: by turning down multi-million dollar offers from studios for rights to his script, Tucker ensured that he could be there to stop ideas that deviated from his vision and from his script. This extends to casting. If this were a studio movie, Justin Timberlake or someone very akin to Justin Timberlake, would be starring as Tucker. In fact, Justin Timberlake was discussed early on as an option for the character of Tucker by the producers. Tucker shot that down. Why?

For a character as well defined and unique as Tucker Max, the character must be utterly believable. People already have pre-defined views of who Justin Timberlake is. Who doesn't know Justin Timberlake was in N'sync? Who doesn't know he dated Britney Spears? I'm not going to say if he is a bad actor or not, who knows- maybe he could have pulled off a good performance. What I do know is that the goal for EVERY cast member was to find the very best person for the part, in the hopes that they would BECOME that character.

You can see this sort of mentality up and down our crew and cast list. Look at Bob Gosse our director, look at our production company (Darko Studios), look at me- who hires a guy fresh out of film school to do behind the scenes stills and video?

Luckily for me Tucker is not averse to taking a chance on people who he believes in, people who are dedicated to their position and people who are committed to getting the job done.

Unfortunately for Justin Timberlake, his baggage precluded him from being part of a superb project.


P.S. Heard this story from our location manager. One "name" actor who came through Shreveport had in his contract that at every location a NBA regulation size court had to be arranged and painted for him. Our poor location manager had to do this 19 times and this asshole only used it 2 or 3 times. I certainly won't miss that sort of crap.

At Top: Our soon to be announced male leads.