Professional cast makes solid movie

By Nicole Rodriguez

It's rare to have three such distinguished talents come together for one film, much less to gather onstage in San Francisco's Kabuki Theater to host a question and answer session with their fans. Flanked by a team of cameramen from Access Hollywood as well as a large gathering of publicists and assistants, actors Laura Linney and Kevin Spacey and director Alan Parker settle themselves into director's chairs to discuss their combined effort: this month's death row drama "The Life of David Gale."

As the actors seat themselves onstage, one cannot help but marvel that, between the three of them, they pool five Academy Award nominations and two wins. Of course, the moment someone makes a comment about this, Spacey begins laughing.

"Have you been drinking?" he jokes light-heartedly as he sits down. It's obvious that, despite his many accomplishments, Spacey has not lost his easy-going demeanor.

After instructing audience members to call him Kevin and making sure the audience members in the balcony have access to microphones for questions, he continues to joke around and do Johnny Carson impressions with the over three hundred onlookers as though he were simply hanging out with a bunch of his friends.

When asked how he prepared for his role as a downward-spiraling college professor, Spacey begins to laugh again: "I just got really f---ed up a lot."

His co-star, however, states another opinion on the matter.

"I fantasize for weeks about the person and try to learn has much as I can about the person," Linney explains of her preparation for the role of death row abolitionist Constance Halloway. "Particularly with this, I saw that this woman was this committed to this issue, how does that affect someone's life, personality, and everything around them."

The role of Constance Halloway did, however, call for scenes of full nudity in which her character is bound, raped, and then suffocated on her kitchen floor.

"Any scene that deals with nudity or any of those kinds of issues, for me I have to feel and honestly believe that it has an authentic purpose, that it has an impact that could not be achieved any other way," reveals Linney, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2000 for "You Can Count on Me."

"She's the bravest actress in America," Spacey raves, serious for the first point during the interview. "For me, probably the most satisfying part of the process [of making 'Gale'] was the really extraordinary experience of working with Laura and developing a relationship that was incredibly complex."

As for the story itself, all three say they found screenwriter Charles Randolph's first script to be incredibly moving and complex.

"I'm attracted to incredible stories and good writing," says Spacey, who is currently preparing for his role in a as of yet untitled Bobby Darrin biopic.

"Gale" also marks the directorial return of Alan Parker, who has been researching the film since the release of his last effort, 1999's "Angela's Ashes."

Not that he was ever bored with all the time he spent on the film. According to Parker, there is no way to get tired of a project you truly believe in.

"A lot of people [go into filmmaking] for the wrong reasons," Parker says.

"From my point of view, you really should only be a director or filmmaker if you have something you want to say. And that's kind of gotten lost in recent years with the success of certain kinds of films."

However Parker, who is strongly against the death penalty, feels that his latest work has a very clear message he hopes the audience will understand.

"It's a controversial issue," Parker says. "From my point of view as the director of the film, the main motive is to get people to discuss it, to debate about the subject.

"If you discuss it afterwards and think about it, then I've done my job."