The Beach: Casting 101: Stalking Scheider for "If I Didn't Care"

Casting 101: Stalking Scheider for "If I Didn't Care"
Friday, August 3, 2007

It's Friday morning so we're going to ask some deep questions to get you thinking before you sneak out of the office at lunchtime: At what point does casting a film become stalking? Can you be both stalking and casting at the same time? And if your target agrees to be in the film you're casting, does that negate any stalking that may have occurred prior to the time that they got on board?

Frankly, we don't know. (Or, now that we think about it, care.) We won't go so far as labeling local brothers, Orson and Benjamin Cummings as stalkers—though they are producers, directors, writers and casting directors. The Hamptons version of the Coen brothers have a film called If I Didn't Care opening this weekend here in Sag Harbor and New York and, as a far better critic than us (Rex Reed) wrote: "Don't pass up a nifty little film noir called If I Didn't Care." But we should get back to the whole stalking thing.

While Benjamin and Orson we're working on the casting for the film, Orson happened to wander by the Golden Pear one day and see Roy Scheider having a bite there. Jumping on the opportunity, he pigeonholed the actor and managed to spiel the pertinent details about the film. Scheider, it seems, was amused and suggested Orson send him the script. At which point Orson ran out the door, jumped in his car, grabbed the script and somehow managed to get back to The Golden Pear before Scheider could leave. Technically—at least by legal standards—probably not stalking. Enthusiasm, is probably better... like John Hinckley enthusiastic.

Anyhow, it's a good movie, no one was actually hurt during the filming, it's fun to trainspot all the local spots that the brothers used in the film and it'll show you just how evil real estate brokers really are.

Playing this week at Sag Harbor Cinema and East Village Cinema in the city.
· If I Didn't Care and also here

Filed under Intel: BeachWire,

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