Peter Gallagher<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe writer-director of Adam is Max Mayer, a veteran theater director, who tackles his second feature film (following 1998\u2019s Better Living with Olympia Dukakis) after helming episodes of such TV shows as The West Wing and Alias.<\/p>\n
Mayer\u2019s inspiration for writing Adam arrived to him in an unusual way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came in on an interview on NPR in Los Angeles where a man with Asperger\u2019s was being interviewed and talked about how the world seemed to him,\u201d says Mayer, 54, during a recent stop in Philadelphia with Dancy and Byrne.\u00a0 \u201cHe tried to figure out how people knew when to smile and talk and when to stop talking. That was the microcosm of what he was talking about.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was five or six years ago. I sort of did research. The Asperger\u2019s seemed like a metaphor for human relations in general, where we live in this paradoxical condition of desire and connection to other people, and we want intimacy. But we\u2019re all wired to be sitting up in our brains, not knowing what to expect by rapport, who the other person was and what their landscape is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dancy didn\u2019t know about Asperger\u2019s until he read the script. \u201cI did plenty of research,\u201d says the 34-year-old British actor. \u201cI was drawn to the script because I was trying to figure out what was happening with the character for the first 25 pages or so, and then discovering what\u2019s going on with the character. I had about five weeks or so and did as much research as I possibly could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dancy, engaged to actress Claire Danes, said the script was something of a puzzle he had to solve. \u201cMy sense of a challenge grew and my understanding grew. Max gave me an inkling of that when we first talked, but he reserved 80% of it, so I didn\u2019t know how tough it was going to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the most important thing was to be as specific as possible and move past the general condition and symptoms and hone it down so Adam was a rounded human being,\u201d adds Dancy. \u201cI read books and met people, but it was the script that supported all of that. You look for a good skeleton to hang your understanding on and put your take on it, and that\u2019s what Max provided.\u201d<\/p>\n
Byrne, the Australian actress seen currently on cable TV\u2019s Damages and who has appeared in such films as Knowing, Sunshine and Troy, has her own take on the film and the disease\u2019s role in the film\u2019s plot.\u00a0 \u201cAsperger\u2019s is an obstacle to romance between two people,\u201d she says. \u201cThe film assumes more reverberation for people who are on the spectrum (of having Asperger\u2019s) or families of people who live with people with Asperger\u2019s. Hugh and I wanted to make it accurate and represent the people with this syndrome, and people have responded. Not only for the sake of the condition, but make a real character and tell a truthful story. \u201c<\/p>\n
The film\u2019s exemplary acting from the leads\u2014accented in real life, but flawlessly American on film\u2014certainly helps make the romance between the characters believable.<\/p>\n
Dancy, meanwhile, found portraying Adam \u201cliberating\u201d because of the limits it put on him. \u201cThings you rely on everyday as an actor, like eye contact and responding to people\u2014acting is, after all, 90% reacting, and emoting and empathy were removed\u2014so I had to be a bit purer about what I was doing. It was difficult, but eventually it was very rich.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEddie Murphy was chasing this role,\u201d jokes Dancy.<\/p>\n
So why did Mayer choose Dancy and Byrne for the leads in his indie film that was shot on a low budget in less than a month in New York City?<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin the reach of our casting directors and producers, I was entirely concerned with finding the two best people for the role,\u201d he says. \u201cI wasn\u2019t concerned with their previous work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Eddie Murphy had too much of an imprint from Daddy Day Care,\u201d jests Mayer.<\/p>\n
Both Dancy and Byrne seem to shuffle around in the acting world, moving freely from Hollywood studio projects to indie films, theater work to TV assignments. One wonders if this is intentional, or simply coincidental?<\/p>\n
\u201cQuality is the main factor,\u201d says Dancy. \u201cAnd looking for something that\u2019s interesting and that can fall in any of those categories (film, TV, theater). It\u2019s less planned out than you think, and the key is not shutting out to other things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great to do all that, but a lot depends on schedules,\u201d adds Byrne. \u201cYou do something like this and you wonder if anyone will ever see it. So it\u2019s great when it takes on a life all its own.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the tight 20-day schedule and microscopic budget, Byrne recalls the experiences as being \u201crough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was less time and everyone was doing it on a wing and a prayer. I was coming from a TV show, so I was used to the pace. We were holed up in a church and rats ran past me. But the material was so rich that it was all worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam started to get buzz when it premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, where it picked up the coveted Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize (which it lost to Push: Based on a Novel by Sapphire). Mayer was delighted even more when Fox Searchlight, the company behind Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, and Slumdog Millionaire, picked it up for distribution.<\/p>\n
Still, there was the concern about the film\u2019s ending. After all, it wasn\u2019t a typical coda for a romance, especially by Hollywood standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt (the ending) became an issue when I began showing it to people,\u201d explains Mayer. \u201cI didn\u2019t concern myself with genre, but I wanted to keep the film small enough so I can direct it and get it financed and be able to be shot on a budget. But the ending\u2014the first draft was bleaker, and people said you have to get them back together. And I didn\u2019t realize how important that was to me. I wrote a different version. I didn\u2019t like it, but I didn\u2019t realize how much I didn\u2019t like it completely until I showed it to my neighbor (director) Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (21 Grams, Babel).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe read it and said, \u2018It\u2019s wonderful but you can\u2019t end it like that.\u2019 It was in that happy ending period, and he said, \u2018It betrays the entire story.\u2019\u00a0 And then I get on the high horse and go back to the producers, and they actually agreed with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I was relieved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although the movie is called Adam, it is not a film about the first man on earth. Rather, the film is focused on a man with Asperger\u2019s syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. Further, it\u2019s a romantic dramedy to boot….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":2853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[5595],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-staff-notes","tag-movie-directors"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n