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Then the neighbourhood embraced them. They embraced it. The fence is coming down. The story has a happy ending.
Which could be a metaphor for the way things turned out on Say Nothing, the project that brought the Canadian-born filmmaker back here this spring.
The made-for-HBO movie that wrapped last week came at a tricky time in the Toronto film and TV industry. The possibility of an industry-paralyzing U.S. actors strike has productions scrambling to get things safely finished before the June 30 deadline. (At press time, negotiations were still under way.)
So Say Nothing started out pressed for time, pressed for money, after cast juggling, with a crew hired only a few days before and a director pressed into service with little time to spare or prepare.
Two-thirds of the way through, then, why would Moyle still be smiling?
The movie that all involved agreed could have gone very wrong had not.
"You would think that would be a recipe for disaster," Moyle was saying of the circumstances two Saturday afternoons ago. "It was wait, wait, wait and then fly into production. We did it so quickly, there was no time to get nervous. Or do it correctly or the traditional way. And thank God, it's been fun. In a weird way, we're stumbling upward."
Although it was officially a day off, Moyle had already finished a meeting with screenwriter Madeline Sunshine and was on his way to rehearse with one of his stars, Nastassja Kinski.
In the gender-reversed Fatal Attraction, Kinski plays Grace, a woman whose one-night dalliance with Julian (William Baldwin) imperils her marriage and possibly her life. Hart Bochner co-stars as Grace's husband, Matt.
Moyle established his professional reputation with such films as Pump Up the Volume and Empire Records, movies that captured the pop-culture undercurrent of their times. Two years ago, he came back to Canada to make the fond and funny coming-of-age story New Waterford Girl. His reputation is that of a sweet-souled eccentric with acutely sensitive emotional antennae.
Currently, he's working through a theory about Toronto being a centre of spiritual energy specifically, and happiness being the best tool for getting a job done generally.
"I wish I could explain to you how it works, but I'm currently in the thrall of this idea that being happy is a productive idea as a way of making a movie as opposed to being smart or being prepared or as opposed to being all the other things that you would imagine are the right attitudes and are so hard to do. Because this movie is what it is, it's got a short schedule, it's got a few strikes against it to begin with, it's actually a joyous event. Ironically," said Moyle, who was born 54 years ago in Shawinigan, Que.
Two days later, on the terrace of the Old Mill restaurant next to the Humber River, the event continued on its 13th of 18 shooting days.
For executive producer Donald Zuckerman, it was the shortest schedule he'd had on any of his eight films and the first time he hadn't been in on a project from the beginning. After Moyle replaced director Arthur Hiller on the project, he asked that Zuckerman be brought aboard. Hired in L.A. on May 4, Zuckerman was in Toronto doing preproduction by May 6.
"It could have gone really poorly and it hasn't and I attribute a lot of that to Allan's leadership. He's popular with the crew and he's very directed," Zuckerman said. "I've known Allan for 10 years. He's not your average person. Allan is a real spiritual guy, very intellectually curious."
Moyle is known as a director with a particular affinity for actors, perhaps because, early on, he was one. After posing for a Sun photographer, he thanked the lensman for reminding him of the "psychic energy" actors need to be in front of a camera.
"Now I'll be less hateful on the set," joked Moyle, a man whose considerate manner brings the word "courtly" to mind.
He obviously has a special affinity for writers, too, perhaps because he still is one (he's written several of his own movies, including Pump Up The Volume, and contributed to who knows how many more as an uncredited Hollywood script doctor). Unusual in the business, Moyle had writer Sunshine on the set, collaborating every day. On most movies, she said, the writer "can't bring danish to the set, you know what I mean?"
Both Baldwin and Bochner rode out the project's long, off-again, on-again status.
"This has had many incarnations," said Bochner, 44, who was born in Toronto but moved to L.A. at age three with his actor father Lloyd Bochner. "It was an independent feature, it was co-financed by HBO. What is it now? ... I never believed it was going to happen. Originally, it was other people in the cast. Originally, we were shooting in Newfoundland, then Nova Scotia, then it was dead."
Baldwin is friends with Sunshine and her husband, TV producer Steve Sunshine, and has worked with the couple in The Creative Coalition, the political lobby group for which Baldwin currently serves as president.
"He's my favourite Baldwin brother," Sunshine said, smiling, as the actor passed by.
"I'm glad you didn't say I'm your fourth-favourite Baldwin brother or I would have known where I stand," said the 38-year-old, who wasn't sure whether to take as a compliment the fact that Sunshine wrote Say Nothing's obsessive villain with him in mind.
"I don't know whether knowing me made her think of this incredibly unappealing character Julian, or when she wrote Julian she thought it would be great if Billy could play Julian. I'm not quite sure. I didn't ask for the answer. I didn't want to know," he said lightly.
As for Moyle, he adopted Sunshine's "Let go, let God" mantra when it came to predicting Say Nothing's chances of success when it premieres on HBO in the U.S. and The Movie Network here next season.
"Look, who knows what elements come together to make a good movie or a successful movie. Do you know? It's a big mystery to me. So having decided that, I've decided to have more fun and work with people I know and let whether the movie's going to be good or not fall into another category called You Can't Control It," he said. "As a result, I'm having a lot more fun. I'm trying less hard and I'm doing better work. Does that make any sense?"