The Script

The Box was written and directed by Richard Kelly, who is best known for his inaugural film, the cult classic Donnie Darko.  His second feature, Southland Tales, was being released just as principal photography on The Box was commencing.  Now, he was getting to work for Warner Brothers with his biggest budget to date, and he had secured the services of Cameron Diaz to play one of the lead characters.  Expectations were high.

Having been cast in The Box, I obtained a DVD of Donnie Darko to familiarize myself with Kelly's work.  I had heard of the film, but had no idea of what a strange viewing experience awaited me.  I'm not sure now if I first watched the director's cut or the original theatrical version of the film, though it probably took me more than one time through to put all of the pieces of the story together.  I do know that I found it fascinating and that it only made me more excited about the project I was about to begin work on.

The Box is based on the Richard Matheson short story Button, Button.  Look him up - Matheson has provided the source material for an incredible array of science fiction films over the years.  In 1986, the revival of the classic television series The Twilight Zone dramatized Button, Button with Mare Winningham as Norma, Brad Davis as Arthur and Basil Hoffman as Mr. Steward.  Richard Kelly had a fond memory of seeing that episode as a youngster and, years later, obtained the rights to the story and expanded it to create a feature length screenplay.  He even got Basil Hoffman to play the role of the principal of Norma's school.

My copy of the full script arrived about a week before my late November shooting date.  As anyone who has ever seen a full-length screenplay can tell you, the pages are the colors of the rainbow.  All original pages are white, but each subsequent revision is a different color.  By the time I got mine, there were blue, pink and yellow pages to indicate the various revisions it had already undergone.  And, as the process continued, more colors would inevitably be added.

Without giving anything away, I can state that I loved reading it.  It expanded Button, Button in what I felt to be a convincing manner, maintaining the personal repercussions of the original story yet making them part of a struggle for the survival of all mankind.  It doing so it also incorporated many of the themes and ideas that Kelly had begun exploring in Donnie Darko.  And, having just watched that earlier film, I had no trouble putting it all together.

Re-reading that shooting script now, there are long stretches of it that wound up in the finished version of the film.  As is usual with most movies, many other sequences were either shot but later omitted, never shot, or completely rewritten.  It is easy to second guess matters in hindsight, but I prefer quite a few of the original scenes rather than the changes that were made as production progressed.  Conversely, some of the updated and newly written portions were a definite improvement.

My character, NSA Deputy Director Martin Teague, though he is mentioned early on in a press conference scene, did not actually appear until rather late in the script.  He had four scenes, with the one I had read at my callback opposite the character of Mr. Steward being the best.  And I now learned that Mr. Steward was being played by none other than the great Frank Langella.  That scene would not be shot until January, but I got a head start on feeling nervous and insecure.

My first day of work was scheduled for Monday, November 26th, 2007, so I set about prepping myself.  I only had a few lines.  It would be a nice way to ease into the process.  In the interim, I did two days of background in Rhode Island on an indie feature called Tanner Hall.  Some of the other extras there had already worked on The Box during the first few days of production at the Boston Public Library, and they spoke about the fact that it was being shot by new digital cameras instead of on film.  While this was an interesting piece of information, it was actually of no consequence for me as a performer.  Still, hearing about it only whetted my appetite for what was to come.