Travis Fine recently spoke to me about his Any Day Now, delving into the film’s casting and production after initially explaining his personal reasons behind why he gave up writing, directing and acting for many years.
Travis, is it true that you didn’t work in movies for quite some time after being profoundly moved by the events of September 11, 2001?
Yes. I left the business for the better part of about nine years, the majority of which I spent as a pilot… And I was flying one evening and discussing the events of 9/11 with the Captain, and talking about his perspective, as he was flying that day. And I was still writing a bit while I was working as a pilot – script ideas, short stories – and we were talking about what the airlines call ‘unaccompanied minors’, and what might have happened to them that day, and that became the basis, the leaping-off point, for what became The Space Between [released in 2010].
So Any Day Now is your second film as writer/director then?
No, I did a movie back in 1997 called The Others [not the one with Nicole Kidman!], but I don’t like to talk about it [laughs].
Do you think that Any Day Now should be referred to as a ‘gay movie’ or even ‘queer cinema’ simply as it features a gay relationship? Surely it’s, first and foremost, about love and family…
To be honest with you, and speaking as a straight filmmaker, I look at this story, and I look at Rudy and Paul, and yes, it’s a gay love story, but it’s really mostly just a human love story. It’s about two very unlikely people who just happen to find each other and become a family. I’ve had people tell me that it falls into the quote/unquote standards of gay cinema, but that wasn’t my design: I just wanted to tell a story about love and family.
How long did the production take, from start to finish?
Oh, only about 35 years! [laughs] True story! In the very late ‘70s, George Arthur Bloom, who was the writer of the original screenplay, knew this guy named Rudy in Brooklyn on Atlantic Avenue and he took in this kid, and he was this big flamboyant character that everyone in the district knew, and he provided the idea for the original screenplay. In 1980, and into the early ‘80s, it was almost made with a bunch of well-known actors but, for one reason or another, it never seemed to get off the ground, and it seemed that the studios were never going to make it. And that was the end of it for about 30 years, but then George’s son, who was my music supervisor, knew that I was looking for a screenplay, something that I could direct, and he told me about his Dad’s script. And so I read it, and I was moved by the story and moved by the character of Rudy, and there were things that needed updating, and some things that I wanted to add to make it personal for myself, and George was great and he optioned it for me… He brought in the singing and the Paul character, he changed the character of the kid and he changed the structure and the ending… And that was early 2011, which was when we shot the picture.
How was Alan Cumming cast as Rudy?
Alan works a lot! I’ve known him for three or so years now and he’s always working: on TV’s The Good Wife and he’s going to do a theatrical revival of Cabaret soon… He did a one-man Macbeth too! He works his ass off, and I don’t think he ever sleeps… He just really wanted to do the film.
And what about Garret Dillahunt as Paul? He’s best-known for playing villains, like the main baddie Krug in the remake of Last House On The Left…
He was the very last of the main characters to be cast. He was cast about a week before we started production, and we had talked to and made offers to a lot of different actors, and I wouldn’t say that he was the last actor we considered but, really, I just couldn’t see him in the role. I’d seen him play these sort of scary bad guys, and I’d seen his TV show Raising Hope, and I just didn’t see him in the role, as he always played either really comical or really scary. The casting director kept pushing him and saying, ‘No, no, he’s really great!’, and then a couple of friends of mine said he was an unbelievable actor, and so I watched a few more things and decided that I agreed with them. And now, much as I didn’t think he was right for the role to start with, I now couldn’t think of anyone else in the role… He has such a beautiful restraint, and his performance is really the emotional anchor of the whole film. He goes through such a change, and he doesn’t just come out of the closet: he has the door sort of kicked open for him.
And what about Isaac Leyva in his first film?
He was amazing. It was a difficult role to cast, of course, and while I always thought we were going to find somebody I didn’t think that we’d ever find someone as good as Isaac. He’s really, really intuitive, and really, really smart, and he really listens… I directed him the same as I directed all the other actors, and I did the sort of tricks that I would have done for any first-time actor. He was actually more professional than some of the other actors.
Your film is about the prejudices and injustices that faced gay people in the late ‘70s, but do you think that things have truly changed for the better in the years since?
Two of our executive producers spent four years fighting for the right to adopt two boys, and these were two gentlemen who had fostered 33 special needs children over the years. And then they said that they wanted to adopt two of these kids – and I’d have to say that these were kids that really no one else wanted – and the state of Florida just fought them in court… When I hear a story like that, from 2010, I do think that the film is very contemporary and does have a very political aspect… And I also hope that there’s a universality about the story that goes beyond gay rights, and an emotional aspect. Like I said, it’s about love and family.
I Wake Up Screening 