HJ: So would it be fair to say that this is your first feature length film?

GW: Directorially. It's not my first film producing. I produced a film called Final Solution and one other feature length, but this is my first directorial.

HJ: So what was it like directing someone like Malcolm McDowell? I'm a huge geek and a huge fan of his. I have to imagine that that was interesting.

GW: Well, we didn't have Malcolm in the movie until a week before we were going to shoot. The story goes like this. We had five actors, when I read the book, on my list for who could play Desmond Larochette. Malcolm was one of them, and the other four I won't tell you who they are because it'll end up in print and we'll get in trouble, but they were A-list actors. For reasons of they were too expensive or unavailable, we couldn't get any of them. So I called all of the actors to thank them for doing the movie. I called Tim Ware who plays Thomas Lane in the movie and he called back and said "Do you have a Larochette?" I said, “No. I have a few people I'm thinking about, but I want an actor who could; he's the straw that stirs the drink.” And Tim said "Well, if you don't have anybody…" And I said, “Well, I have somebody I'm thinking about, he's local.” And he [Ware] said "Well I have a buddy." Everybody in this business has a buddy and Tim's the kind of guy that's got lots of buddies. So I said, "Who's your buddy?" and he said, "Malcolm McDowell." I said, "Malcolm McDowell? He's on my list. I can't get to him. He's ICM. His agent will take the script and throw it in the trash." He said, "You want his cell phone number?" So within two hours I was on the phone with Malcolm. I've been a huge Malcolm fan since I was in film school. I saw Time After Time when I was a kid and I loved that movie. I'm on the phone, I've cold-called Malcolm on his cell phone. I said, "Malcolm, this is Gary Wheeler. I'm Tim Ware's—" And he said, "Hold on, hold on, hold on.” He said, "Tim told me you'd call. Send me the script. If I like it we'll go from there." I sent him the script and he said, "I promise I'll call you tomorrow morning." To his word he calls me [the next] morning and says, "I like it. It's an interesting role and I want to do it. Just talk to my agent and work out the deal." So we made an offer and you know you're in trouble when you start out an offer to an agent by apologizing, which is what we did. "I'm sorry but here's our offer." And they said, "No, Malcolm will do the film for a certain amount. He'll cut his rate. He likes the script. He likes you, but this is as far as he's going to go." And so it was a step up from what we had. We prayed about it, felt like we were supposed to do it, took a step of faith, took him in the movie. Two days later somebody came up to us and said, "I'd like to give you some money." It was to the penny what we agreed to pay Malcolm. We saw God at work in that. So day one comes and Malcolm comes in. We're shooting already, we had off that day, but Malcolm was going to start shooting that afternoon. I drive over to the studios so we can eat lunch and establish a rapport. I drive over and pick him up. We drive through Wilmington and I'm sitting there thinking, "Malcolm McDowell [is] in my car." We eat together and immediately hit it off. Very nice guy, he's a good friend. We’ve talked a bunch since then. And really with a guy like Malcolm, the direction is in the screenplay, as a writer. He just takes the words and makes it happen. The cool thing is I spent an hour in his trailer one day just going through the script. He said "I don't want to change anything. I like the script, but I want to take out some lines. I can say that with my face." So he would just mark a couple of sentences and he could. There was only one time I went to him after a scene and said "Malcolm, there's this one shot you know…" And he said "Yeah I need to throw that line away more." I said "Yeah." And that was it, my one claim to fame. He's a joy to work with. You think he'd be intimidating because he's played so many bad guys and villains. I visited him on the Halloween set. He's making a remake. I was in L.A. and he said come to the set. So I hung out on the set and visited him during a key scene. He's agreed to act in my next movie.

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