Screenwriter Mitch Glazer has forged an impressive career. Like most writers, though, Mitch Glazer has also wanted to direct, and he finally makes his directorial debut with the drama Passion Play, a project which has been in the making for the past 20 years.
Mitch Glazer originally wanted his wife Kelly Lynch to star as Lily, a circus performer who has large bird wings growing out of her back, along with his lifelong friend Mickey Rourke. When the studios wanted a different take on the script, Mitch Glazer didn’t give into their demands and stowed it away for years until the time was right for him to make his directorial debut.
Brian Gallagher recently had the chance to speak with writer-director Mitch Glazer over the phone about Passion Play. Here’s what he had to say below.
I talked to Kelly earlier and it was interesting hearing about the inception of this story, 20 years in the making.
Mitch Glazer: It went quickly. It didn’t feel like this arduous thing. Everyone was doing other things, I was writing a lot of movies and every few years, I would always go back to it as this little jewel for me, a movie I always had near and dear to my heart. It evolved some, but it’s generally the same movie I wrote that long ago. When I showed up on set with Megan Fox, I said ‘I wrote this movie when you were three years old,’ which freaked us both out, actually. Yeah, it was awhile in the making to get it made, but the story is still what it is.
You have been good friends with Mickey for years and your wife Kelly is in this as well. Can you talk about discovering Megan for this role and the things you brought out of her in this performance?
Mitch Glazer: Absolutely. I had never seen the Transformers films. When it first saw her pictures, I just went, ‘My God. That’s her!’ The director of Jennifer’s Body had shown me a few cut scenes together, because the movie hadn’t come out yet, just so I could see what she looked like on screen. That was it, really. We had a lunch, she and I, and she read the script three or four times and was really connected to it already. There was a vulnerability to her aside from her beauty. It was a neighborhood restaurant that we eat at a lot and I’ve never seen paparazzi there. This poor woman, they followed her there, as a pack. We’re eating and I look through the glass window and there are all these big guys out there taking photos of her. I realized that Megan’s real life had prepared her for the role of a woman who is paid money for men to look at her in a glass box. She’s already there, because of her beauty and celebrity, she was already an object, as Lily is. She was connected to the script in a lot of ways. She showed up, literally, fully formed. I don’t even know if I know who Megan Fox is. I know Lily. She wrote me an email, days after leaving the set, saying, ‘I miss Lily.’ That’s all she wrote, and I believed she did. It was a perfect fit between actress and part. I love her performance in it. I think it’s really subtle and controlled and beautiful.
Read the full interview with Mitch Glazer here
