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| June 21st Orlando almost misses the plane. The airport is crowded, and the plane is overbooked and fans cause a stir. He doesn't travel with an entourage, or a bodyguard, though this situation may have to change. Working recently in Spain, there had been near riots. They sneak him on anyway, just before the plane starts to taxi. We sit together and rehearse the whole way. Midway through, the stewardess approaches us to point out that a tour group has recognized him - they are clogging the aisles of the plane, holding cameras. Bloom smiles and waves to them. Privately, I worry about the many scenes we have on the streets of Kentucky. July 19th The day begins with some of Orlando’s most compelling stuff, a scene facing his dead father’s body in a casket at Clark Funeral Home in Versailles, Kentucky. It’s one of the first sequences I wrote for "Elizabethtown," a scene in which a guy who’d never seen a dead body before deals with being left alone in a room with the deceased father he never knew and never really fell in love with in life. Orlando digs deep and we’re done with the scene before ten in the morning. August 3rd We need to film Drew dancing alone here (Beaver Bridge). When we get here, there are many tourists and locals waiting. This was a location that was widely published on the internet, and the “embarrassing dance” will actually be seen by many. Orlando worries a little bit about it, but only for a moment. He quickly puts the shrieks of nearby fans out of his mind, and I try out a piece of music. He’s going to do the dance in a hall of trees just by the bridge, and then afterwards we’ll move onto the bridge itself. Something happens in that hall of trees. Call it the music, or just the growing internal life of Orlando as Drew, but in one take this young actor’s whole working life seems to take a leap. It’s one of those breathtaking moments you dream of in a movie – and I hope I’m not jinxing it by writing this – but watching it, a whole raft of feelings start to well up. I can feel my dad, my own family, all the intentions of the script, start to come together. And when the take is over, Orlando bounds back with a soul full of oxygen and excitement and pride. He knows it, too. It’s a truly great moment, and we move onto the bridge. More greatness follows. I can’t help it, some tears squirt out as I watch Orlando walk proudly back down the bridge. Looking around, I’m not the only one dabbing tears. August 7th Scottsbluff, Nebraska. This is the sequence we’ve nicknamed Drivin' and Cryin'. It involves Orlando as Drew being hit by a wave of emotion he didn’t expect. Here on the Nebraska flatlands, the emotion catches up with him. He laughs and cries, and in the middle of nowhere, he gets hit by a freight train of feelings. In one of my conversations with Orlando when he was making the Ridley Scott movie he’d mentioned casually, “I’m not sure I can cry on demand.” I put it out of my mind at the time. Today, I’m wondering if it will be a problem, or at least something that we spend a lot of time working out under that huge sweltering sky. August 16th *Filming multiple phone calls sequence** And then Orlando does something truly unbelievable. We set up to shoot the “master”—which is the wide shot of the entire scene, in which Drew roams the hotel room—and we’re fully expecting our leading man to tackle in it in pieces… but as we start to rehearse the scene, Bloom does the entire scene. The entire scene. Pages and pages of dialogue. And he does it with relish. This is what you call dedication to craft, and a love of the part. He’s a remarkable actor. And watching him today, I keep thinking—he’s just getting started. October 26th We move to SOKA University, a Buddhist-based college in Orange County. It's a full day of shooting here in Phil's office, the former school library. Fans from the college have left notes on the office desk for Orlando. One expresses goodwill, another expresses goodwill and also asks for a large-flat-screen television. Orlando's mom is also on the set, and she's a wonderful presence, a real supporter of her son. She sits next to her son in massage chairs that have randomly been moved from the outer room into a side room where we watch the monitors. The two of them together are hilarious, and for a moment it feels like a glimpse of what the Bloom living room looked like in his childhood. |