Revolution Studios' sexy thriller Perfect Stranger asks the question: How far would you go to keep a secret? When investigative reporter Rowena Price (Halle Berry) learns that her friend's murder might be connected to powerful ad executive Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), she goes undercover with the help of her associate, Miles Haley (Giovanni Ribisi). Posing as Katherine, a temp at Hill's agency, and Veronica, a girl Hill flirts with online, Rowena surrounds her prey from all sides, only to discover that she isn't the only one changing identities. The closer we get to learning the truth, the more we understand how far people will go to protect it.
Revolution Studios presents Perfect Stranger. Directed by James Foley and produced by Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, the screenplay is by Todd Komarnicki from a story by Jon Bokenkamp. Executive producers are Ron Bozman, Deborah Schindler, and Charles Newirth. Director of photography is Anastas Michos, ASC. Production designer is Bill Groom. The film is edited by Christopher Tellefsen, A.C.E. Costume designer is Renée Ehrlich Kalfus. Music by Antonio Pinto.
Perfect Stranger is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for Sexual Content, Nudity, Some Disturbing Violent Images and Language. The film will be released in theaters nationwide on April 13, 2007. These credits are not final and subject to change.
ABOUT THE STORY
This is a movie about secrets. Those we have. Those we share. And those we'll do anything to protect.
Rowena Price (HALLE BERRY) is an investigative reporter who has perfected the art of exposing other people's secrets. So when childhood friend Grace Clayton, who was having an affair with married advertising executive Harrison Hill (BRUCE WILLIS), turns up murdered, Rowena is determined to find the truth. Thanks to her associate, tech-savvy Miles Haley (GIOVANNI RIBISI), Rowena gains access to Grace's e-mail and learns that Grace was threatening to go to Hill's wife. Armed with that knowledge, Rowena goes undercover and becomes the perfect stranger - first as a temp, Katherine, in Hill's advertising agency, and then as Rocketgirl aka Veronica, another one of his online paramours. She watches the unsuspecting Hill from all sides, taking note of his wife doing the same. This is a man with an appetite for power, a weakness for women, and a wife on alert.
But in exposing Hill's secrets Ro unwittingly discovers a connection between Grace and two significant people in her life; her boyfriend, Cameron (GARY DOURDAN) and her best friend, Miles, leaving her feeling confused, betrayed, and with no one to trust on this journey.
The closer Ro gets to the truth, the more we begin to ask: What was this secret Grace had? And why would someone kill to protect it?
In a film about secrets and advertising, not everything is as it seems.
ABOUT THE FILM
"To a certain extent, everybody lives a double life," says Academy Award®-winner Halle Berry, star of Revolution Studios' sexy new thriller, Perfect Stranger. "We're all complicated beings; we're different people all the time - for example, a woman might act differently at work than she does at home. We all hide something, even from our best friends. This movie highlights that and takes it to the next level, showing what we're capable of when we're forced to come to terms with it."
For director James Foley, who has previously explored such territory in the psychological thrillers At Close Range, Fear, and Glengarry Glen Ross, the idea goes even further. "Everybody lies; it just depends on how big the lie is and what the consequences of the lie are," says the director. "I'm fascinated by the idea that people sometimes act in ways that they don't realize what they're doing - the audience understands the character's behavior, but the character himself does not. In addition, a character's double life lends itself to something that the cinema is uniquely designed to do: you can see and hear a character saying or doing something and realize that they're thinking something completely different."
"We live in a world in which nothing is as it seems," says producer Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas. "We believe things at face value, but we are living in an age in which we ought to be more cautious. We should ask questions about the world around us, whether we're receiving a diagnosis from a doctor or buying a product at the supermarket or meeting a person online.
"It's not coincidental that this film is set in an advertising agency," Goldsmith-Thomas continues. "Things are packaged as the perfect product, but we know that nothing is perfect, most especially strangers, who can present one face but can hide so many others."
According to Goldsmith-Thomas, the idea for Perfect Stranger came out of a conversation with her husband, co-producer Daniel A. Thomas. "We thought that the idea of online anonymity where anyone can be anyone was a provocative theme to explore. It's a dangerous gamble to presume that the person we're speaking to online is who they say they are. So, we started kicking around stories about what would happen when a person's virtual world collides with his real world. And Perfect Stranger was born."
From the early stages, Berry saw the possibilities in Perfect Stranger and jumped on board. "We couldn't imagine anyone else in this role," says Goldsmith-Thomas. "She loved what we wanted to do, where we wanted to take it. Knowing that she was playing a character who was playing a character, she looked at scenes from every angle to make sure there were no loose ends. We were blessed to have her as our partner."
Berry found herself attracted to the character, which, she says, is unlike any she's ever played before - except for one common thread. "I love playing tortured characters," says the Academy Award®-winning actress. "I don't know what that says about me, but I really love getting into the mind of someone who's a bit buffeted, a bit battered. This character is very vulnerable, but she's also very alive, and she finds her power little by little throughout the course of the movie. That's something wonderful to play."
"You can't fully appreciate the complexity of Halle's performance," says Goldsmith-Thomas, "until you go back and watch the film a second time. When you do, you realize that there were clues all along and reactions you might have missed the first go round. Essentially, she had to play this character on three different levels: one as Rowena Price, one as Katherine Pogue, and another as Veronica. We would watch her alter each performance based on which mask she was putting on. It was nothing short of remarkable."
"I think Ro is a really good actress," Berry continues. "Because of her job as an investigative reporter, Ro has become very good at pretending, wearing different faces, chameleon-like. For her, it's a way to survive; she's a woman on a mission."
As a result, Berry feels that, in a way, she is playing three different characters in the film. "There's the Ro she is when she's with Miles, her 'guy Friday,' which is really an act. Miles has a crush on her that she doesn't return, but she knows how to work it to get what she wants. Second, there's Katherine - the temp she poses as at Harrison Hill's advertising agency; she dresses differently, talks differently, has a whole different feeling to her. Finally, there's the real Ro - the Ro she rarely shows, who's in maybe five scenes in the movie."
Foley praises Berry's ability to portray the character's double (or triple) life. "Halle is playing a character, and the character is acting," he points out. "We have to believe the character's performance as well as Halle's performance as the character. The way she was able to flip back and forth between the different aspects of her character amazed me."
Then, of course, there's the Ro that she is with Harrison Hill - the Ro that is trying to prove that the advertising exec killed her friend. "Harrison Hill will do anything to succeed," Berry says, "and Ro will do anything to survive. The needs of one are based purely on ambition, and the needs of the other are based on our primal need to stay alive."
Berry says that working with Bruce Willis, who plays Hill, was an inspiring experience. "Bruce likes to improvise a lot - flying by the seat of his pants," she says. "That was a new element for me, but really great. He had a real handle on who this guy is and what motivates him."
"Bruce is not only an international movie star, he's also a great actor," says Goldsmith-Thomas. "He grounds our movie by layering his performance with humanity. On the surface, Hill's an operator," she says, "a bully, a womanizer, but Bruce plays this character with such integrity and honesty that Hill becomes the one you root for. We admire the fact that he lives out loud, unapologetic with his passions and emotions."
"There's a complex contradiction to this character that appeals to me," says Goldsmith-Thomas. "Hill's an ad man, adept at glossy packaging and persuasive spin, and yet, ironically, he accepts people at face value, and is shocked when their image differs from reality. So when his colleague betrays him, or when he discovers Katherine's (Ro's) ulterior motive, he is morally hurt, never realizing the hypocrisy. There is such an honesty to his reaction that we quickly forgive him his own lies and instead share his outrage. That is what makes Bruce's performance so brilliant."
Although Willis is probably best-known as an action star, Foley says he has always had an affinity for the actor's work in thrillers. "When Bruce is doing straight dramatic acting, he's very effective," says Foley. "He came in, put on the right clothes, and became this character - the powerful, arrogant, lustful head of an ad agency."
"I don't think any guy ever thinks of himself as a womanizer," says Willis. "I think he loves women, he's at the height of his career as a captain of the advertising industry, and he doesn't judge himself. I'm in my own middle age now, and I still get a big kick out of life; I think Harrison Hill also gets a big kick out of his life."
Part of that kick was the chance to work alongside Halle Berry. "I seldom get parts where I get to flirt so unabashedly," laughs Willis. "Not a hard day at the office - go to work and flirt with Halle Berry."
"I think it's easy to come into this movie and say, 'This character's a womanizer, this character's a sycophant, this character's an upwardly mobile young woman.' But everybody has something to hide," concludes Willis.
"Bruce Willis is seductive and charming as Harrison Hill," says Goldsmith-Thomas.
Rounding out the cast is Giovanni Ribisi, who plays Rowena's techie Man Friday, Miles, who clearly has a crush on his boss - one that Ro is all too happy to exploit. "The way Giovanni plays the character, he's just happy to be in Halle's presence," says Foley. "I can understand that - I'd be Halle's intern, too."
Ribisi considers Miles, like the other characters in Perfect Stranger, to be living a double life - or, at least, wearing a mask. "He's the Iago character - he's titillated by being manipulative," says the actor. "Like Halle's and Bruce's characters, there's a dark underside to him, and I think that's universal; I don't think that's to be criticized."
"Every character in this film has a secret and a different motivation that drives them to find truth," says Goldsmith-Thomas. "Miles is a puzzler - he won't stop until all the pieces fit. Interestingly enough, Giovanni is the same way. He worked on his character tirelessly, adding dimension, humanity, and pathos. I loved watching him become Miles. I loved working with him."
Ribisi was attracted to the role by the screenplay's morally ambiguous storyline. "In movies," Ribisi says, "we've historically tended to focus on what's good and what's evil, but that becomes so black and white. In the rehearsal process for this film, we were talking about the fact that we're trying to get away from that -people are more complicated. Everybody has their demons."
"Giovanni's character, in a way, is the everyman," says Goldsmith-Thomas. "He wouldn't say he has secrets, he would say he has fantasies. In some ways, this movie is about the justification we give ourselves that our actions are acceptable. It's about how we go about our lives without being appalled by our own actions," says Goldsmith-Thomas.
For screenwriter Todd Komarnicki, that disquieting subject matter formed the backbone of Perfect Stranger. "Someone once said," he explains, "that the beauty of honesty is that you don't have to remember what you said - if you've told the truth, you don't remember your cover. I don't think people are afraid enough of the cost of dishonesty. This movie is an immorality tale; it's about the cost of these little compromises we make with ourselves that we don't think about, but add up to an ultimate punishment."
According to Goldsmith-Thomas, director James Foley was the perfect choice to bring the film to the screen. "He understands the intricacy of the world of shadows," she says. "He gets that we all present only a certain face to the world. This is a movie about duality - the face we present and the face we keep hidden."
"This movie tries to explore the limits of human behavior - the lengths that people will go to keep the truth hidden," says Foley. "The French filmmaker Robert Bresson once said something like, 'The director's job is to make visible that which you might never have seen.' That's always stuck with me - each human being has an insight into what it is to be human that other human beings don't. To make a film is to reveal what it is to be human. When somebody else gets it and thinks about that in a new way - that's the ultimate thrill for me."
"The great thing about James Foley, from an actor's perspective, is that he's so intuitive about when a performance is working," says Berry. "When you do something real, something good, something organic, he has a real, good, organic response. That's inspiring - it makes you feel like you'll go wherever he wants to go because he's so enthusiastic about it. When it's not right, he doesn't have that reaction - he'll say, 'Okay, that was good. But let's do it again,' and you'll know."
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
"New York is very much a character in Perfect Stranger, and it lends itself perfectly to the voyeuristic themes of the movie," says Goldsmith-Thomas. "The film is about what we see and what we oversee - and what better place to do that than a city where you live on top of each other. In many instances, people's lives become your view."
Goldsmith-Thomas continues, "Harrison Hill's ad agency, H2A, is above it all - it looks down on the city and wants everyone to look up at it. Ro's apartment is in the middle of the world - as she looks out, others look in. Miles's apartment is underground - it's the place you bury your secrets."
According to co-producer Daniel A. Thomas, "We came to a place of such energy and that energy comes through in the film. New York is a place where anything goes, where almost anything is believable. The city has its own eroticism that's palpable in its look, its feel, its light."
Director James Foley found filming in New York to be "blissful. I was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Staten Island, and twenty years ago I thought I'd be going to NYU Film School but instead I went to U.S.C. and I stayed in California. But the whole time I was growing up in Staten Island, although I didn't know I was going to be a filmmaker, I knew I would leave the island, and that I'd move into the city to do something. It was unexpectedly thrilling to spend a year in New York shooting and editing this movie. I felt more 'me' as a director than I ever have because I was born there and my siblings were there; they'd come to the set and see me filming, not some guy who'd grown up in California."
Foley even enjoyed the crowds of paparazzi who flocked to the set for outdoor scenes. During a sequence taking place in front of the venerable Ansonia Hotel apartments, where Halle Berry's character lives, he exited the building and saw a swarm of paparazzi. Wondering what celebrity was in the immediate vicinity, he suddenly realized-it was the star of his movie they had shown up for.
Hill's spare, cutting-edge offices are mirrored in the chic restaurants where he and Ro meet, which include the stylish Manhattan watering holes Asia de Cuba and Sapa. Ro's sphere is an earthier one, as seen in her older, rambling Upper West Side apartment, the cluttered newspaper office where she works, and the neighborhood bars and cafés where she hangs out with Miles and her editor. Meanwhile, Miles occupies another world entirely: a seedy, cramped West Village apartment in chaotic disarray.
Production designer Bill Groom wanted to depict Miles's surroundings as seen through Ro's eyes when she visits him. "You start with the script," says Groom. "For me, it's really sort of imagining the journey that Ro makes from the top of the stairs into the common hallway, into Miles's apartment - all the way to the back. I tried to divide that look into three looks: first, the sort of landlord look, the area that the landlord decorated and painted, or didn't paint, as the case may be; then the area that Miles creates where he might have friends over, and then the more private areas where he works on his computer and keeps to himself. So each area has a different look and reveals itself as Ro walks through the apartment."
The most striking location of all was surely the newly-completed 7 World Trade Center, the company's home base for three weeks as the site of Harrison Hill's offices. Designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill and developed and owned by Silverstein Properties, it is the first of the new buildings on the former World Trade Center site to have been be completed. In fact, it was only barely finished by the time the Perfect Stranger production moved in to take over its 25th floor. The site's wraparound views of Lower Manhattan, the Hudson River, and New Jersey, all of which are visible in the finished film, were stunning. In addition, Groom created an opulent, angular, highly contemporary look for the offices and their furnishings.
"This beautiful new building, with its highly refined character, seemed to us to be just right for Harrison Hill," says the production designer. "The original décor on that floor was kind of slick, white, with almost futuristic detailing to it. We added contrasting textures which I would certainly describe as industrial chic - found objects, old factory objects, very raw and natural material like steel and concrete. And, in fact, we exposed some of the existing surfaces in the building, surfaces that will eventually be covered over once more. We had visited a lot of advertising agencies, and we took elements from all of those ideas that we found in all of those places. We tried to create something that was very much an open office plan, something that would encourage free-flowing creative ideas. And you see that in a lot of the ad agencies today."
Ro's own apartment, filmed on a huge sound stage at Hollywood East studios in Brooklyn, was another matter entirely. Spacious and grand, it was nonetheless dark and many-layered, typifying the kind of elegant, 1900's-era living spaces within the landmark Ansonia Hotel that served as its exterior. "Ro's apartment stands in stark contrast to Harrison Hill's offices," says Groom, "which is something James Foley wanted to emphasize right from the start."
Among the many New York City locations used in Perfect Stranger were the ornate Cipriani catering space on 42nd St. across from Grand Central Station (originally a huge 1920s bank), the Hotel Gansevoort in the trendy Meatpacking District, the historic bar Chumley's in Greenwich Village; Riverside Park, Queens Supreme Civil Court, Coler-Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island, and the massive meeting rooms and corridors of such downtown municipal buildings as One Centre Street and the original U.S. Customs House (now the Museum of the American Indian). For Ro's newspaper offices, an entire floor of New York's Spanish-language daily El Diario was utilized.
For Halle Berry, one key contributor was costume designer Renée Kalfus, who had the challenge of creating looks for the three facets of Ro's character: her public persona, her private self, and the invented facade of Katherine, the temp assistant she claims to be when working in Harrison Hill's agency. "We chose her clothes to reflect those different layers of character," says Kalfus. "We wanted to illuminate those heightened levels of reality, but we also wanted Halle to look good-we want people to look at this film decades from now and still think she looks great in her costumes, the way you feel when you see Audrey Hepburn in Charade or Eva Marie Saint in Hitchcock's North by Northwest."
"The clothes that Renée came up with really were the staples," says Halle Berry. "They helped me keep it clear in my mind who I was at what point in the story, and if ever I got confused, all I had to do was just look down and see what I had on and that would tell me. Clothes are such an important tool for me, always. I don't feel like my character until I arrive on the set in the morning and put the clothes on."
In addition to the city of New York, of course, there is another world that provides a setting for Perfect Stranger - the online world of chat rooms in which everyone can be anyone. "Perfect Stranger is about what I think is becoming a near-crisis of how human beings interact with each other," says Foley. "Essentially, we've become strangers to each other. Families have broken up; they don't talk to each other; members move away to other parts of the country. So people don't have much of a support group around them. The internet has become a potential connecting thread for strangers to meet each other. It's very attractive in that way; it's much easier to meet someone by typing on a computer than to do it face to face. That need to connect is what really fuels Perfect Stranger's story all the way through. The inherent danger and drama of it all is that these are real strangers. You don't know who anybody really is on the Net, and they may turn out to be someone you didn't suspect."
According to Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, "The anonymity of the Internet is a very seductive narcotic. The rules are different online. Truth is different online. And 'normal' behavior is redefined. The more we interconnect the world, the more disconnected we become. And sometimes, when our real world intersects with our virtual world, the result can be dangerous."
ABOUT THE CAST
HALLE BERRY (Rowena Price), the first African-American to win an Oscar® as Best Actress, continues to break down barriers. Most recently, she received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her acting work in the Oprah Winfrey-produced movie Their Eyes Were Watching God and as executive producer for the HBO telefilm Lackawanna Blues.
Previously, Berry was heard as the character of Cappy in the animated feature Robots. She heated up theaters across the country with her star turn in Warner Bros.' Catwoman. She also headlined the psychological thriller Gothika, confirming her status as a box office draw. In the summer of 2003, she reprised her role as 'Storm' in X2: X-Men United, the sequel to the action hit X-Men, and most recently starred in X-Men: The Last Stand. In 2002, Berry starred as Jinx in the James Bond feature Die Another Day with Pierce Brosnan.
For her memorable performance in Marc Forster's Monster's Ball, she won an Oscar®, a SAG Award, and the Berlin Silver Bear Award and was named Best Actress by the National Board of Review.
Berry also earned the Emmy, Golden Globe, SAG, and NAACP Image Award for her performance in HBO's telefilm, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, which she also produced.
Critics and filmgoers took notice of Berry in her feature-film debut, Spike Lee's Jungle Fever. She went on to star opposite Warren Beatty in the socio-political comedy Bulworth. Other film credits include Losing Isaiah, opposite Jessica Lange, Executive Decision (for which she won a Blockbuster Award for Best Actress in an Action Drama), the live-action version of The Flintstones, The Last Boy Scout, Strictly Business, Reginald Hudlin's Boomerang opposite Eddie Murphy, and Swordfish with John Travolta and Hugh Jackman.
Other television credits include the highly-rated ABC mini-series, "Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding," directed by Charles Burnett, and the title role in Alex Haley's mini-series "Queen." The highest-rated sequel in television history, the performance earned Berry her first NAACP Image Award for Best Actress, as well as Best Newcomer Award from the Hollywood Women's Press Club. She also starred opposite Jimmy Smits in Showtime's original telefilm, Solomon and Sheba.
In recognition for her achievements as an actress, the Harvard Foundation at Harvard University honored Berry as Cultural Artist of the Year. Currently, she serves as an International Spokesperson for Revlon.
BRUCE WILLIS (Harrison Hill) has demonstrated remarkable versatility in a career that has included such diverse roles as the prizefighter in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, the philandering contractor in Robert Benton's Nobody's Fool, the heroic time traveler in Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys, his Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of the traumatized Vietnam veteran in Norman Jewison's In Country, the compassionate child psychologist in M. Night Shyamalan's Oscar®-nominated The Sixth Sense, for which Willis won the People's Choice Award, and what could be considered his signature role: detective John McClane in the blockbuster Die Hard films.
Willis most recently starred in Lucky Number Slevin, Richard Donner's 16 Blocks, Nick Cassavetes' Alpha Dog, and the animated feature Over the Hedge. This summer, Willis will bring John McClane back to the big screen in Live Free, Die Hard, the much-anticipated fourth installment of the Die Hard franchise.
His wide array of film credits also includes Sin City, directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez; Antoine Fuqua's Tears of the Sun; Barry Levinson's Bandits; Unbreakable, which reunited him with director M. Night Shyamalan; Jon Turteltaub's The Kid; Jonathan Lyn's The Whole Nine Yards; Rob Reiner's The Story of Us; Breakfast of Champions and Mortal Thoughts, both for director Alan Rudolph; Edward Zwick's The Siege; Luc Besson's The Fifth Element; Walter Hill's Last Man Standing; Robert Zemeckis' Death Becomes Her; and Blake Edwards' Blind Date, which marked his feature-film debut. In addition, Willis provided the voice of the wise-cracking baby, Mikey, in Look Who's Talking and Look Who's Talking Too, and more recently lent his voice to the character of Spike in the animated film Rugrats Go Wild!
Willis first achieved international stardom when he won the starring role of irreverent private eye David Addison on the groundbreaking hit television series "Moonlighting." His work on the show brought him several acting honors, including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award. In 2000, Willis won another Emmy Award for his guest appearance on "Friends."
A native of New Jersey, Willis studied with Montclair State College's prestigious theater program and began his career on the stage. His first major leading role came in the 1984 Off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love," which ran for 100 performances. Still maintaining a hand in the theater, Willis co-founded A Company of Fools, a non-profit troupe committed to developing and sustaining stage work in the Wood River Valley of Idaho and throughout the U.S. He also starred in and directed a staging of Sam Shepard's dark comedy "True West" at the Liberty Theater in Hailey, Idaho. The play, which depicts the troubled relationship between two brothers, was aired on Showtime and is dedicated to Willis' late brother, Robert.
An accomplished musician, Willis recorded the 1986 Motown album The Return of Bruno, which went platinum and contained the #5 Billboard hit "Respect Yourself." Three years later, he recorded a second album titled If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger. In 2004, he launched a U.S. club tour with his musical group, The Accelerators.
Winner of the ShoWest Newcomer of the Year award in 1999, GIOVANNI RIBISI (Miles Haley) has since established himself as a popular screen presence capable of playing a wide variety of roles.
Ribisi was recently seen in The Dead Girl for director Karen Moncrieff. The Dead Girl, which was nominated for Best Feature at the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards, is a quintet of stories about seemingly unrelated people whose lives converge around the murder of a young woman. Ribisi plays the mysterious Rudy, who forms an unlikely bond with Tarlow (Toni Collette), the woman who finds the body. His upcoming projects include the independent films The Dog Problem and Gardener of Eden.
Among his best-known films are Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain, and David Lynch's Lost Highway. Other credits include Flight of the Phoenix, Boiler Room, Gone in Sixty Seconds, The Other Sister, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Suburbia, Heaven, First Love Last Rites, That Thing You Do, The Mod Squad, Masked and Anonymous, and The Big White. He received an Independent Spirit nomination for his performance in Sam Raimi's The Gift.
In addition to his numerous film credits, Ribisi, who began his acting career at the age of nine, also has an impressive list of television guest starring roles on his résumé, from "Highway to Heaven," "My Two Dads," and "The Wonder Years," to more recent roles in "Chicago Hope," "The X-Files," "Friends," and "My Name is Earl."
Ribisi and his twin sister, Marissa, were born and raised in Los Angeles, where he still currently resides. He studied there under the prestigious acting coach Milton Katselas.
GARY DOURDAN (Cameron) is best known as cool, smooth-talking Warrick Brown of the hit series "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," currently in its seventh season. His performance on the show has led to five NAACP Image Award nominations and two wins for best supporting actor in a drama series.
A Philadelphia native, Dourdan's career escalated after a string of successful regional and New York stage appearances. In 1992, he was cast in "The Cosby Show" spin-off, "A Different World," as con-artist Shazza Lulu. Television appearances quickly followed, including recurring roles in two Showtime television series, "Soul Food" and "Beggars and Choosers." Among Dourdan's feature-film credits are Playing God, Alien: Resurrection, and Imposter. He recently wrapped production on the independent feature Black August.
An accomplished musician and singer, Dourdan plays guitar, bass, drums, and sax. In July 2005, he performed as part of DMC's "Guests at the LIVE 8" concert in Barrie, Ontario.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
Time and again, with films like Glengarry Glen Ross, At Close Range, and After Dark, My Sweet, JAMES FOLEY (Director) has received acclaim for his stylish, insightful exploration of human fallibility and incipient evil.
Born in Brooklyn and raised on Staten Island, Foley originally intended to pursue medical studies. Instead, he became a student at the prestigious USC School of Cinema-Television, where his two short films Silent Night and November brought him to the attention of Hollywood. Director Hal Ashby helped him get his debut feature-directing assignment, Reckless, starring Darryl Hannah and Aidan Quinn. He followed that with the fact-based drama At Close Range starring Christopher Walken and Sean Penn, which was nominated for a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Following his next film, Who's That Girl? starring Madonna, he won great praise for After Dark, My Sweet. That film, an adaptation of a Jim Thompson novel, was directed and co-written by Foley. It starred Jason Patric and Rachel Ward, and seemed to effortlessly usher film noir esthetics into a contemporary setting. It led to Foley's memorable filming of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross, which starred Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, and Alec Baldwin. For that film, he received a Critics' Award nomination at the Deauville Film Festival.
Foley's films since then have included Fear, The Chamber, The Corruptor, and Confidence. For television, he was one of the directors of the Robert Altman series Gun. Next up for Foley is another thriller, Man and Wife, based on the novel by Andrew Klavan.
TODD KOMARNICKI (Screenwriter) is a prolific writer for film and television. In addition, he is an accomplished novelist. His first novel, Free, was published by Doubleday in 1993 and his second novel, Famine (Arcade 1997), received tremendous reviews and was translated into French, Italian, and German. His third novel, War, will be published in 2008.
Komarnicki's screenplays include adaptations of the international bestseller The Professor and the Madman for Paramount and a remake of Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief for Paramount. In the past five years, he has sold pilots to ABC, NBC, CBS, and USA, and he currently has a deal with 20th Century Fox TV.
Resistance, starring Julia Ormond and Bill Paxton, which Komarnicki adapted from an Anita Shreve novel, marked his feature-film directorial debut. This World War II epic love story is out on DVD worldwide from Paramount.
Komarnicki is the principal partner in the bi-coastal production/management company Guy Walks Into A Bar, which has several projects set up at various studios. Komarnicki and Guy partner Jon Berg produced the Christmas blockbuster Elf, starring Will Ferrell and directed by Jon Favreau. Other films on the company's slate include Starship Dave, starring Eddie Murphy and directed by Brian Robbins at 20th Century Fox, and Number One Girl with Chronicles of Narnia producer Mark Johnson.
Komarnicki is currently adapting A Christmas Carol for Universal and director Lasse Hallstrom, which he will be producing with Berg.
He makes his home in New York City.
JON BOKENKAMP (Story by) grew up in Nebraska before graduating with honors from the prestigious USC School of Cinema-Television.
Fresh out of school, Bokenkamp wrote and directed the documentary After Sunset: The Life and Times of the Drive-In Theater, which was hailed by Leonard Maltin as "a wonderful evocation of a distinct piece of Americana!" The film, which features John Carpenter and legendary movie mogul Samuel Z. Arkoff, played film festivals across the country before being released by American Movie Classics, where it currently airs on a rotating basis.
Bokenkamp followed his directorial debut with the screenplay to the psychological thriller Preston Tylk (a.k.a. Bad Seed). The effort quickly caught the attention of Academy Award®-wining director William Friedkin, who hand-picked Bokenkamp to collaborate on a horror film titled Thirty Pieces.
Two years later, Bokenkamp stepped behind the camera again, this time to direct his screenplay Preston Tylk. The film, which stars Luke Wilson, Norman Reedus, and Dennis Farina marked Bokenkamp's feature directorial debut and was released in the fall of 2000.
In 2004, he adapted Michael Pye's novel Taking Lives into a feature film for Warner Bros. starring Angelina Jolie, Ethan Hawke, and Kiefer Sutherland.
Most recently, Bokenkamp adapted Ken Kalfus's short story Night And Day You Are The One for Universal Pictures and reworked the adaptation of Lawrence David's novel Need, which is set to star Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts.
Bokenkamp lives in Los Angeles and rural Nebraska with his wife, Kathy, and their two children, Jackson and Ella.
ELAINE GOLDSMITH-THOMAS (Producer) has been a partner at Revolution Studios for the last seven years. While at Revolution, Goldsmith-Thomas developed and produced an impressive slate of films, including Maid in Manhattan (directed by Wayne Wang), which starred Jennifer Lopez, Ralph Fiennes, Bob Hoskins, and Stanley Tucci; Mona Lisa Smile (directed by Mike Newell), which starred Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Marcia Gay Harden; and Little Black Book (directed by Nick Hurran), which starred Brittany Murphy, Holly Hunter, Kathy Bates, and Ron Livingston.
Additionally, Goldsmith-Thomas has produced a number of award-winning television movies based on the American Girl dolls, and has recently inked a multi-year deal with HBO in association with Picturehouse to produce theatrical films, television movies, direct to video, and television series for the American Girl brand, utilizing the multiple platforms of distribution available through those two companies. Along with her longtime associate Julia Roberts, Goldsmith-Thomas is currently in pre-production on the theatrical film Kit. Based on the beloved American Girl character Kit Kittridge, this film, set in 1934, centers around a young girl's experience living in a boarding house during the Depression. This will be the first film that Goldsmith-Thomas produces under her own banner, Goldsmith-Thomas Productions.
Under that banner, Goldsmith-Thomas already has several features and television series in development with several different studios. A few of the higher profile projects are HBO's "Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl," a half-hour television series to be written and directed by Darren Starr; "Possible Side Effects," a one-hour television series for Showtime that will be a satirical look into the pharmaceutical industry, to be written and directed by Tim Robbins; the feature film Will, for Walden Media, a coming-of-age story with music and death, to be directed by Todd Graff; and Class Act, a true story about a teacher who runs for Congress on the condition that her students agree to run the campaign, to be written and directed by Doug Atchison ("Akeelah And The Bee"), and to star Halle Berry, who will produce along with Goldsmith-Thomas.
Prior to joining Revolution Studios, Goldsmith-Thomas was a senior vice president at International Creative Management, a position she held since joining the company in 1991. At International Creative Management, Goldsmith-Thomas represented such talents as Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Connelly, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Darren Star, Rupert Everett, Matt Dillon, Spike Lee, Roger Michell, and Jonathan Lynn. She began her career as a secretary at the William Morris Agency, where she was promoted to agent in 1985.
RON BOZMAN (Executive Producer) began his producing career and longtime association with Jonathan Demme as associate producer of Something Wild and Married to the Mob and executive producer of Beloved and the Academy Award®-winning Philadelphia. He was a producer of The Silence of the Lambs, for which he won the 1991 Best Picture Oscar®. He is currently serving as executive producer of Demme's Carter.
Bozman was also Executive Producer of Autumn in New York, Eddie, The Ref, and For Love of the Game. With Ed Pressman, he produced Waiting for the Light, starring Shirley MacLaine. Among his most recent credits are Changing Lanes, The Human Stain, The Stepford Wives, and Failure to Launch.
DEBORAH SCHINDLER (Executive Producer) joined Columbia Pictures in February 2005 to oversee the studio's East Coast operations as an Executive Production Consultant.
Based at the studio's corporate headquarters in Manhattan, Schindler is Columbia's principal liaison in New York, serving as a fully integrated member of the Los Angeles production and development team. Because of her longstanding relationships with talent, filmmakers, writers, managers and agents, she is overseeing the development of an assortment of projects as well as supervising the studio's East Coast-based productions. Since Deborah's arrival at the studio, she has been pivotal in securing motion picture remake rights to Dan Klores' acclaimed documentary Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story as well as the film rights to Terry McMillan's new best-selling novel, The Interruption of Everything.
Schindler was most recently head of the New York-based Red Om Films and Julia Roberts' producing partner. Red Om Films is based at Revolution Studios East where Roberts and Schindler worked in association with Revolution Studios partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, producing three feature films; Maid in Manhattan, Mona Lisa Smile and Little Black Book, as well as the TV movies "Samantha: An American Girl Holiday" and "Felicity: An American Girl Adventure."
Schindler's producing credits also include How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting to Exhale, both of which were adapted from best-selling novels by Terry McMillan.
Prior to joining Red Om Films, Schindler enjoyed a ten-year relationship with 20th Century Fox that began in 1990 when Joe Roth, then president of the studio, made an overall deal with her.
Schindler's filmmaking experience has been extensive and varied. She served as Vice President of Creative Affairs, East Coast, for Columbia Pictures under David Puttnam. She was also associate producer on Prelude to a Kiss, starring Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan.
Schindler began her film career as an assistant to Martin Scorsese, with whom she worked on Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, The Last Temptation of Christ and The Color of Money. She served as associate producer on Scorsese's After Hours.
CHARLES NEWIRTH (Executive Producer) joined Revolution Studios in May 2000, and is responsible for the physical production of all of Revolution Studios' motion pictures. Now in its seventh year of operation, Revolution Studios has released 40 films, including America's Sweethearts, Black Hawk Down, xXx, Anger Management, Daddy Day Care, Hellboy, 13 Going On 30, Click, Are We There Yet? and Rocky Balboa. At Revolution Studios, Newirth served as executive producer on Maid in Manhattan, The One, America's Sweethearts, Christmas with the Kranks and Freedomland. He also served as executive producer of the upcoming Across the Universe.
Prior to joining Revolution Studios, Newirth produced 1999's sleeper hit Galaxy Quest. He also produced the popular Robin Williams hit Patch Adams and Home Fries starring Drew Barrymore.
Newirth's other credits as an executive producer include Brad Silberling's City of Angels starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan; Rob Reiner's true-life drama Ghosts of Mississippi with Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, and James Woods; The American President, also for director Rob Reiner, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening; and Jon Turteltaub's Phenomenon starring John Travolta. In addition, Newirth co-produced Robert Zemeckis' Academy Award®-winning blockbuster Forrest Gump. He also served as a co-producer on the Barry Levinson films Toys and Bugsy, and as an associate producer on Levinson's Avalon.
A native New Yorker, Newirth broke into the film industry as a location manager on such films as Flashdance, Pretty in Pink, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He later moved up to production manager on Throw Momma From the Train and RoboCop before getting his first producing credit as an associate producer on Andrew Davis' The Package.
ANASTAS MICHOS, ASC (Director of Photography) most recently served as cinematographer on Freedomland (with Sam Jackson and Julianne Moore) and The Forgotten (again with Julianne Moore), both thrillers for Revolution Studios. He was also director of photography on Mona Lisa Smile, directed by Mike Newell and starring Julia Roberts, also for Revolution.
His work will next be seen in Untraceable, a thriller starring Diane Lane. He rounded out his year by photographing the short film Raving, which marked Julia Stiles' debut as writer-director, and also joined fellow DPs in operating the Rolling Stones documentary for Martin Scorsese.
Michos received his first cinematography assignment from producer Jake Eberts on The Education of Little Tree. His next film was Man on the Moon, directed by Milos Forman and starring Jim Carrey as the late comedian Andy Kaufman. He followed Man on the Moon with the independent feature The Big Kahuna starring Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito, then served as cinematographer on Edward Norton's directorial debut, Keeping the Faith starring Norton, Ben Stiller, and Jenna Elfman. His other films have included Death to Smoochy and Duplex.
Michos is an active member of the American Society of Cinematographers, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.
BILL GROOM (Production Designer) spent six seasons as an art director on "Saturday Night Live" before moving into films as an art director on such films as The Indian Runner, Cookie, Pickup Artist, and Awakenings. His credits as a production designer include Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own, The Preacher's Wife, and Riding in Cars With Boys, Joseph Ruben's The Forgotten, Return to Paradise, Money Train, and The Good Son, and many others, among them Game 6, Life or Something Like It, It Could Happen To You, Mixed Nuts, The Pledge, and Rocket Gibraltar.
CHRISTOPHER TELLEFSEN, A.C.E. (Film Editor) began his career as an assistant on Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money. One of his first credits as editor was on Whit Stillman's Metropolitan. Among his other films are Barcelona, Smoke, Kids, Blue in the Face, Flirting with Disaster, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Gummo, Chinese Box, Birthday Girl, Changing Lanes, The Human Stain, The Village, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, and last year's Academy Award® winner, Capote. In 2000, he received double Eddie Awards nominations for his work on Analyze This and Man on the Moon. Christopher is currently on location in New Orleans editing The Yellow Handkerchief.
RENÉE EHRLICH KALFUS (Costume Designer) has maintained a particularly strong association with director Lasse Hallstrom, and has designed many of his films since Once Around (1991), including What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, and The Shipping News.
Her other films include Game 6, Ladder 49, The Life of David Gale, Pay It Forward, Snow Falling on Cedars, Addicted to Love, The Evening Star, Dead Man Walking, Let It Be Me, Safe Passage, With Honors, and the TV film Crazy in Love. Her work will next be seen in The Feast of Love. She is currently working on Six Bullets from Now.
ANTONIO PINTO's (Music) many credits as composer include the motion pictures Lord of War, Collateral, City of God, Behind the Sun, News from a Personal War, and Central Station.
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