Liars and Lunatics :: Film Blog

A year ago, we were all sitting around a large table. The finalized scripts of Liars and Lunatics were in our hands. Yes, this was the first time the cast and crew were to meet each other…

Except for one exception. The one actor who was missing was Karen Lynn Gorney (who played the Judge). She couldn’t make the date we chose due to jury duty!

Can’t remember who read for the Judge. It probably was Kim Wiley, our production designer.

Besides a read-thru of the script, we took advantage of everyone being there to do some costume fittings. Being an indie film, most costumes were to be provided by the actors. So our costume supervisor Blaze talked to each actor about what they needed. For those actors who brought some clothing possibilities in, we even did some camera tests.

{{ photo :: Blaze Kelly Coyle with her trusty ironing board. }}

It’s been a year to the date since we had our first meeting with Karen Lynn Gorney (John Travolta’s co-star in Saturday Night Fever). Yes, a year ago, we were hoping to secure her for our feature film Liars and Lunatics.

After our initial contact, we began to email back and forth for some days. We had forwarded a copy of the script. In fact, we had just written a new opening voice-over which was intended for her character to read.

At the time, she was performing in an Off-Broadway show, so we had to work the interview around her performance schedule. Finally, we settled on Friday afternoon on June 16, 2006.

It was a hot June day. We arranged to meet in the Regency Room on the 2nd floor of the Salisbury Hotel in Manhattan. However, when we got there, we discovered that the Numismatic Society (they collect old coins) had already booked that exact same room!

Fortunately, we were able to get another meeting room on the 5th floor. But there was still one problem, we had no way to contact Karen Lynn Gorney about the change…

Well, we dealt with the situation by stationing one of one of our people (our Production Coordinator, Maria) at the elevators to meet Karen and bring her to the new meeting location. When she stepped off the elevators, Maria had to explain the mix-up. And by that time, the elevator doors had already closed again. They waited and waited for another elevator to come. None came. Finally, Karen said, “Aren’t there some stairs in this place?”

And so the two of them walked up to the 5th floor.

Introductions were made with Roberto Munoz and our casting director, Michael Kricfalusi. We discussed the script. We discussed the role of the Judge. We also discussed the new voice-over which we wanted her to read.

The voice-over which retells the struggle of Jacob wrestling with an angel (nothing literally to do with the movie’s actual plot, but full of symbolism, symbolism, symbolism). Karen mentioned having a painting on her wall of this very scene of Jacob wrestling with the angel. So we discussed that, too. (Funny. We’re actually now working on a new screenplay right now about a character named Jakob.)

As for the end of the meeting? Well, the rest is history…