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THE SECRET LIFE OF SECRET LIVES
In an odd parallel to the story, The Secret Lives of Dentists was made because its star and producer, Campbell Scott fell in love with the script in 1989, remained committed to it for over a decade, and with quiet persistence, finally brought it to light.
Craig Lucas was first commissioned by producer Robert Greenwald to write the screenplay in 1988. It was a daunting assignment. "The Age of Grief," hailed by The New York Times as "a triumph of the craft of narrative," is an interior monologue -- a meditation on love and relationships from the perspective of a taciturn dentist. The transition from page to screen was not exactly obvious.
Lucas remembers wondering, "My God, how am I going to do this? Things that are perfect should be left alone." But, he says, "I'd never been asked to adapt anything before, and I thought it would be really hard and worth exploring. Also, I don't think I'd ever seen a story about middle class Americans where the husband fought for the marriage, and I found it very moving that this woman was in a place in which,
prototypically, men get caught.
He was also intrigued by the central character's strategy. "Dave does this dark, underground thing, which is 'Don't talk to me.' It's counter-intuitive. We've all been told that we have to express our feelings, to communicate, and I thought it was interesting that this denial route he takes actually works. That's post-war American men as I've experienced them: no one has ever told them what to do with their feelings. They
are lost."
While remaining remarkably true to the source material, Lucas made one key dramatic alteration, when he expanded the fantasy version of Slater from a "tiny glimmer in the novella" to a major character, thus transforming Dave's internal monolog into an acidly funny dialog. "I think we all have a Slater in us, a really mean, bad us. But without that part of our psyche, we're in real trouble. It's what saves us
from killing our spouses, our parents or our children," explains the writer, adding "Dave would have been so hateful without a place to give voice to him."
In 1989, the film was set to go with director Norman René. Campbell Scott was cast in the lead, after his breakthrough performance that same year in René and Lucas' acclaimed collaboration, Longtime Companion. But then, tragically, Norman René died, and along with him went the project.
In ensuing years, Campbell Scott's career flourished, yet he maintained his interest in the role and the script, and kept looking for financing. Finally, he called Lucas to say, "I've got the money."
Several years ago, Scott had seized on the chance offered by a television interview to made an on-air plea for money to produce a movie. At the time, Holedigger Films' George van Buskirk and David Newman were friends with backgrounds in finance who wanted to move into the film business. They saw the interview, and contacted Scott. In August of 2001, they got the scripts for Roger Dodger and The Secret Lives of Dentists. That
October, Roger Dodger went into production. By February of 2002, Alan Rudolph was rolling camera.
THE CAST
CAMPBEL SCOTT
(David Hurst)
It is perhaps testament to the ease with which Campbell Scott inhabits his characters, or to his renowned reluctance to promote himself as a star, that with each successive role in his impressive acting career, critics seem to "discover" him anew.
He has garnered consistent praise for a body of work that includes 25 feature films, as well as considerable work on stage and television. But now, his back-to-back star performances in Dylan Kidd's Rodger Dodger and The Secret Lives of Dentists, have gelled his reputation as one of America's best actors.
Time Out New York recently wrote, "It's time that people sat up and took notice [of Campbell Scott]… I was unprepared for the depth and nuance of his work in Alan Rudolph's terrific The Secret Lives of Dentists." The New York Times lauded Scott as a "brilliant" and "soulful" actor for his "coup" in portraying the sleezy lothario in Roger Dodger, for which he won the National Board
of Review's Best Actor Award for 2002. Likewise, Entertainment Weekly hailed him for "one of the year's great performances." The film also won a slew of prestigious accolades, an award for Best First Film conferred by the New York Critics Circle, and three awards at the Venice Film Festival, among others. In addition, Roger Dodger has been nominated for three Independent Spirit Awards.
Scott was named one of the "Promising New Actors of 1990" for his first major screen role, in the groundbreaking AIDs drama Longtime Companion (written by Craig Lucas, who also adapted The Secret Lives of Dentists). Among his subsequent films are Bernardo Bertolucci's The Sheltering Sky and Kenneth Branaugh's Dead Again. He co-starred with Julia Roberts in Joel Schumaker's Dying Young; with Matt Dillon and Bridget
Fonda in Cameron Crowe's Singles; with Anthony Hopkins and Isabella Rossellini in John Schlesinger's The Innocent, and with Steve Martin in David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner.
Additional films include Hi-Life, Top of the Food Chain, Let It Be Me, The Imposters, Spring Forward, Other Voices, Lush, Delivering Milo, Big Night, which Scott co-directed with Stanley Tucci, and The Daytrippers which he executive produced and which represented his first collaboration with the film's star, Hope Davis.
In addition to starring in The Secret Lives of Dentists, Scott is one of its principal producers, and it was he who approached Alan Rudolph with the script. Scott first worked with the director when he starred as humorist Robert Benchley, opposite Jennifer Jason Leigh, in 1994's acclaimed Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.
The son of acting greats George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst, Campbell Scott began acting in college. He later studied with Stella Adler and Geraldine Page, and got his first break playing Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet in summer stock in New England. Following that, he understudied in the Broadway production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, starring Jeremy Irons and later, Nicol Williamson.
Since then, Scott has amassed substantial theater credits, both as actor and director. He appeared on Broadway in an acclaimed production of Long Day's Journey Into Night with Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst, Ah! Wilderness, Hay Fever and The Queen and the Rebels. Off-Broadway, he has appeared in The Last Outpost, Copperhead, A Man for All Seasons and On the Bum.
He has successfully taken on major Shakespearean roles, including Angelo in Measure for Measure at Lincoln Center in New York, the title role of Pericles at the New York Shakespeare Festival, and Iago in Othello at the Philadelphia Drama Guild. Scott received high praise for his performance as Hamlet at the Old Globe in San Diego, and reprised the role at Boston's Huntington Theatre. He subsequently starred in, co-directed
and produced the play for television's Odyssey Network. Directorial efforts for the stage have included Miss Julie, Snake pit and Recruiting officer.
For television, he starred as Joseph Kennedy, Jr. in The Kennedys of Massachusetts, co-starred with Ben Kingsley and Joanna Lumley in Sweeney Todd for Showtime, and co-starred with Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Love Letter for Hallmark Hall of Fame, The Pilot's Wife, co-starring with Christine Lahti and John Heard, as well as Follow the stars Home for Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Campbell Scott has also directed for the screen. In addition to co-directing Big Night, and his television production of Hamlet, he directed Final, starring Hope Davis and Denis Leary, and released in 2001. His current feature, Off the Map, "excels as a subtly observed study of how the dynamics of a close-knit family can shift over time," according to Variety. The film stars Joan Allen, Amy Brenneman and Sam Elliot
and premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival. It was selected as the opening film for the prestigious Semaine Internationale de la Critique at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival.
HOPE DAVIS
(Dana Hurst)
"Botticellian beauty," "lithe…with an edge that is at once sarcastic and sexy," "a crisp brand of intelligence," "patrician," and "swan-like" are just some of the terms critics have used to describe the impact Hope Davis has on screen.
But beyond the physical, Davis has been noted for the precision she brings to her performances. Her work in the current hit film, About Schmidt, was called "pitch perfect" by Newsweek. Co-star Campbell Scott, a long-time colleague who also directed her in his feature Final, was quoted as saying that "she's engaging even if she's doing nothing." Director Alan Rudolph describes the quality simply as "truth."
A graduate of Vassar college, Davis has had a life-long interest in acting. Her first professional break came in 1988, when Joel Schumacher cast her in the Chicago production of David Mamet's play, Speed the Plow, in the role originated by Madonna on Broadway. The Chicago Tribune heaped praise on her "honed characterization."
She broke into film with small roles in Flatliners, Home Alone and Kiss of Death. Her first lead came in 1996 The Daytrippers, when a young director, Greg Mottola, tailored the central role to Davis. The micro-budget film - executive produced by Campbell Scott -- co-starred Liev Schrieber, Parker Posey, Anne Meara and Stanley Tucci. It won the grand prize at Slamdance, as well as critical and commercial success, and was one
of the Cinderella stories of the 1990s. Another indie-hit, Bart Freundlich's The Myth of Fingerprints followed soon thereafter.
Since then, Davis has starred opposite Anthony Hopkins in Scott Hicks' film version of the Stephen King novel Heart in Atlantis, opposite Denis Leary in Final, for director Campbell Scott and in USA Films Joe Gould's Secret, directed by Stanley Tucci.
Other films include the political thriller Arlington Road, opposite Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack; Lawrence Kasdan's Mumford; the comedy Mr. Wrong, starring Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Pullman, and Brad Anderson's critically acclaimed Next Stop Wonderland, a Grand Jury Prize nominee at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. She was also seen in Stanley Tucci's The Impostors.
In addition to The Secret Lives of Dentists, at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival Davis will been seen opposite Paul Giamatti in American Splendor, for HBO. The movie is based on Harvey Pekar's long-running, autobiographical American Splendor comic-book series.
Davis's long list of theater credits including the lead in Rebecca Gilman's Spinning into Butter at Lincoln Center Theater, Ivanov opposite Kevin Kline, Two Shakespearean Actors at the Lincoln Center Theater and Camino Real at the famed Williamstown Theater Festival. Davis has appeared in numerous Off-Broadway productions, including Pterodactyls, The Food Chain and The Icemen Cometh.
DENIS LEARY
(Slater)
"Botticellian beauty," "lithe…with an edge that is at once sarcastic and sexy," "a crisp brand of intelligence," "patrician," and "swan-like" are just some of the terms critics have used to describe the impact Hope Davis has on screen.
But beyond the physical, Davis has been noted for the precision she brings to her performances. Her work in the current hit film, About Schmidt, was called "pitch perfect" by Newsweek. Co-star Campbell Scott, a long-time colleague who also directed her in his feature Final, was quoted as saying that "she's engaging even if she's doing nothing." Director Alan Rudolph describes the quality simply as "truth."
A graduate of Vassar college, Davis has had a life-long interest in acting. Her first professional break came in 1988, when Joel Schumacher cast her in the Chicago production of David Mamet's play, Speed the Plow, in the role originated by Madonna on Broadway. The Chicago Tribune heaped praise on her "honed characterization."
She broke into film with small roles in Flatliners, Home Alone and Kiss of Death. Her first lead came in 1996 The Daytrippers, when a young director, Greg Mottola, tailored the central role to Davis. The micro-budget film - executive produced by Campbell Scott -- co-starred Liev Schrieber, Parker Posey, Anne Meara and Stanley Tucci. It won the grand prize at Slamdance, as well as critical and commercial success, and was one
of the Cinderella stories of the 1990s. Another indie-hit, Bart Freundlich's The Myth of Fingerprints followed soon thereafter.
Since then, Davis has starred opposite Anthony Hopkins in Scott Hicks' film version of the Stephen King novel Heart in Atlantis, opposite Denis Leary in Final, for director Campbell Scott and in USA Films Joe Gould's Secret, directed by Stanley Tucci.
Other films include the political thriller Arlington Road, opposite Jeff Bridges, Tim Robbins and Joan Cusack; Lawrence Kasdan's Mumford; the comedy Mr. Wrong, starring Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Pullman, and Brad Anderson's critically acclaimed Next Stop Wonderland, a Grand Jury Prize nominee at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. She was also seen in Stanley Tucci's The Impostors.
In addition to The Secret Lives of Dentists, at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival Davis will been seen opposite Paul Giamatti in American Splendor, for HBO. The movie is based on Harvey Pekar's long-running, autobiographical American Splendor comic-book series.
Davis's long list of theater credits including the lead in Rebecca Gilman's Spinning into Butter at Lincoln Center Theater, Ivanov opposite Kevin Kline, Two Shakespearean Actors at the Lincoln Center Theater and Camino Real at the famed Williamstown Theater Festival. Davis has appeared in numerous Off-Broadway productions, including Pterodactyls, The Food Chain and The Icemen Cometh.
ROBIN TUNNEY
(Laura)
Singled out as an up-and-comer in Entertainment Weekly's 2003 "It List" issue, Robin Tunney has been building an award-winning career that has alternated big-budget studio fare with roles in independently-produced films that showcase her range.
Tunney's recent pictures have included a critically praised star turn in Cherish, opposite Jason Priestly, as well as the actioner Vertical Limit, co-starring Chris O'Donnell. In 1999, Tunney starred with Arnold Schwartzeneger and Gabriel Byrne in the apocalyptic thriller End of Days.
The Secret Lives of Dentists is the second time Tunney has worked with director Alan Rudolph, having starred opposite Nick Nolte and Neve Campbell in Investigating Sex.
Tunney's breakout role was that of Marcy, a young woman with Tourette Syndrome in Bob Gosse's critically acclaimed Niagara, Niagara. Her performance, called an "uncompromising tour de force" by The New York Times, earned her the award for Best Actress-Cuppa Volpe at the Venice Film Festival, as well as an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead.
Among other credits are Encino Man, opposite Brenda Fraser, and Julian Po, opposite Christian Slater. For television, Tunney starred in the mini-series JFK: Reckless Youth, opposite Patrick Dempsey, and Riders of the Purple Sage, opposite Ed Harris and Amy Madigan. She also co-starred with Kyra Sedgwick and Stanley Tucci in Montana.
This coming Memorial Day will see Tunney in the comedy The Wedding Party, co-starring with Albert Brooks, Michael Douglas, Candice Bergen and David Suchet. The film is directed by Andrew Fleming, who earlier cast Tunney in the box-office teen hit, The Craft. That film won the young actress an MTV Movie Award, shared with co-star Fairuza Balk.
She recently completed production on George Hickenlooper's A Whale in Montana, starring with Susan Sarandon and Leelee Sobieski, and she is scheduled to begin production this spring on Fever, co-starring Matthew Perry. The film is the directorial debut of The Wedding Party editor, Mia Goldman and is produced by Lasse Halstrom.
A native of Chicago, Tunney studied at that city's Academy for the Performing Arts.
ALAN RUDOLPH
Director
Alan Rudolph, one of America's most distinct cinematic voices, is a writer-director whose hallmarks are visual richness, memorable and emotionally nuanced characters, and a quirky sense of humor.
Rudolph has made 19 films. He is known as a director who gives performers the leeway to explore their roles, and has attracted an astonishing list of top-of-the-line actors. He wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for thirteen of his own films, as well as for Robert Altman's Buffalo Bill and the Indians, which won the Golden Bear at the 1976 Berlin Film Festival.
His filmed subjects have included art forgery in 1920's Paris (The Moderns), murderous New Jersey households (Mortal Thoughts), a language-impaired private eye (Trixie), an adaptation of Kurk Vonnegut's contemporary literary classic, Breakfast of Champions, and an Oscar Wilde-like comedy of manners, Investigating Sex, starring frequent collaborator Nick Nolte, Neve Campbell, Dermot Mulroney, Robin Tunney, Alan Cumming and Tuesday
Weld.
Critic Jami Bernard once wrote that "Alan Rudolph is entranced by the way people connect (or don't) in a space somewhere beyond the actual words they utter." That is certainly the case with The Secret Lives of Dentists, where he mines emotional depth from the minutiae of marriage and parenthood.
The Secret Lives of Dentists centers on the question, "Where does love really reside?" It's a theme Rudolph has explored in previous movies such as Choose Me, winner of the 1984 International Critic's Prize at the Toronto Film Festival, and Afterglow, which earned Julie Christie an Oscar® nomination and Best Actress Award from the New York Film Critics Circle. In this film, he posits that "marriage is in
layers and layers of details."
"It was a hard script to shoot," he says. "It's a story about invisible things, where the truth is in what's unsaid. The scenes are behavorial. What's going on in front of the camera are every day occurrences, as if we happen to lift the roof of their house in a moment of crisis."
Director Filmography
1972 - Premonition
1976 - Welcome to LA
1978 - Remember My Name
1980 - Roadie
1982 - Endangered Species
1983 - Return Engagement
1984 - Choose Me
1984 - Songwriter
1985 - Trouble in Mind
1987 - Made in Heaven
1988 - The Moderns
1990 - Love at Large
1991 - Mortal Thoughts
1992 - Equinox
1994 - Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
1997 - Afterglow
1999 - Breakfast of Champions
2000 - Trixie
2001 - Investigating Sex
THE CREW
AFLORIAN BALLHAUS
(Cinematographer)
The Secret Lives of Dentists is the second collaboration with Alan Rudolph for Florian Ballhaus, who also shot the director's Investigating Sex.
Ballhaus trained at the side of his father Michael Ballhaus, the Academy Award-nominated cinematographer of some 90 motion pictures, including six for director Martin Scorsese, along with a who's who of America's top directors. At age 16, Florian Ballhaus started work as a camera loader, and worked his way up to assistant and operator both for his father and others, on a wide array films including Godzilla, Object of My Desire,
Men in Black, Outbreak, and Quiz Show, among many others.
In recent years, the senior Ballhaus has called on his son to handle second unit cinematography on such projects as Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese), The Legend of Bagger Vance (Robert Redford), Primary Colors (Mike Nichols), and What Planet Are You From?(Mike Nichols). He was also second unit DP for Men in Black II.
To broaden his horizons, starting in 1995, Ballhaus decided to work as a cinematographer in his native Germany, where he could balance his Hollywood experience with intimate, innovative filmmaking. Going back and forth between both worlds since then, he has shot eight films there, both for theatrical release and for the country's two national television networks, ZDF and ARD. Most recently, he completed Daddy, a French-Italian-English-German
co-production starring Klaus Maria Brandauer.
DAVID NEWMAN
(Executive Producer)
David Newman co-founded Holedigger Films in 1998. After graduating from Rutgers University in 1993 with a degree in Economics with an Accounting detail, Newman began a nine-year career on Wall Street as a margin analyst for Bear Stearns and Spear Leeds, and as a Vice President and Manager in the Prime Brokerage department for such firms as Bank of America and ING Furman Selz, servicing Hedge Fund clients. It was while working
for one such hedge fund that he formed Holedigger Films with George Van Buskirk.
In addition to The Secret Lives of Dentists, Newman and his partners have produced Off the Map, directed by Campbell Scott, and starring Joan Allen, Amy Brenneman, Valetina de Angelis, Sam Elliot, Jim True-Frost and J.K. Simmons. Newman had worked previously with Scott in their production of Dylan Kidd's critically acclaimed Roger Dodger. Rounding out the company's list of projects, Holedigger has also produced Virginia's Run,
directed by Peter Markle and starring Gabriel Byrne and Joanne Whalley, and Blizzard, directed by LeVar Burton, starring Brenda Blethyn, Whoopi Goldberg and Christopher Plummer.
GEORGE VAN BUSKIRK
Producer
George Van Buskirk co-founded Holedigger Films. At the age of 18, Van Buskirk began working with companies such as CA, Symbol Technologies, Network Peripherals, GE, Samsung, and Accton Technologies while working for a New Jersey-based consulting firm. Initially, most of the focus was on Industrial Design. Eventually, the relationships developed into full service manufacturing solutions, with a focus on manufacturing in the
Far East. Van Buskirk assisted the CEO's of all of the companies listed, in forming joint ventures, mergers, and also negotiating all contracts and agreements. In 1996, George began his foray into the entertainment business while working with JOHO Development, where projects he helped produce were picked up for production.
In addition to The Secret Lives of Dentists, George and his partners have produced Off the Map, directed by Campbell Scott, and starring Joan Allen, Amy Brenneman, Valetina de Angelis, Sam Elliot, Jim True-Frost and J.K. Simmons. George had worked previously with Scott in their production of Dylan Kidd's critically acclaimed Roger Dodger. Rounding out the company's list of projects, Holedigger has also produced Virginia's Run,
directed by Peter Markle and starring Gabriel Byrne and Joanne Whalley, and Blizzard, directed by LeVar Burton, starring Brenda Blethyn, Whoopi Goldberg and Christopher Plummer.
ANDY KEIR
Editor
Andy Keir has collaborated several times with Campbell Scott. In addition to The Secret Lives of Dentists, he worked on the award-winning Roger Dodger (Best First Film, New York Film Critics Circle), produced by and starring Scott; a television production of Hamlet, in which Scott starred and co-directed; and Final, Scott's feature directorial debut, which also starred Hope Davis and Denis Leary.
Among Keir's other notable projects are Myles Connell's The Opportunists, starring Christopher Walken and Cyndi Lauper; and the critically acclaimed Beloved, directed by Jonathan Demme, which Keir co-edited with Carol Littleton. Keir also worked with Demme on documentary projects including the Academy Award-nominated Mandela, and Courage and Pain, a harrowing examination of political injustice in Haiti.
Keir served as supervising editor of the HBO anthology film, Subway Stories, which featured the work of ten directors including Abel Ferrara, Bob Balaban, Ted Demme and Alison Maclean. His other projects include "Neil Young: The Complex Sessions," a long-form music video, and Storefront Hitchcock, a concert film, both directed by Jonathan Demme. Keir is currently working on Campbell Scott's latest directorial effort,
Off The Map, starring Joan Allen and Sam Elliott. |
