Tom Cavanagh (Ed) and Heather Graham star as siblings who fall for the same beautiful woman (Bridget Moynahan) in Gray Matters, writer-director Sue Kramer's homage to romantic comedies from the '40s.
The Appeal of Gray Matters: “First off, the director, Sue Kramer, was nice enough to ask me to read the script. [She] and I we both live in NY and we met for a coffee and talked about it. She asked me to do it, which was very...I'm grateful she did. I had a great time doing this movie.There's been a bunch of movies coming out, or not a bunch. I shouldn't say [that], you'd know more than me. But you know Chicago, the musicals are getting some attention. But truthfully those things are not remakes, but remakes of existing musicals whereas this thing is... You know they did this movie recently called Down with Love or fairly recently, which is a homage to those movies by essentially repetition. Whereas this thing is kind of a tip of a hat and making homage to the musical romantic comedies of the ‘40s, but set in modern day. I don't know if we necessarily achieved it but I think that was a concept you don't run across every day. That was probably for the actors the most tempting thing abut the movie.”
The Origin of His Character and the Gray Matters Story: “I think the movie is semi-autobiographical [for writer/director Kramer]. I think certainly the gay themes it touches on are stuff she's familiar with because when her sister came out of the closet, there was something that she wanted to do to serve her sister and serve her sister's story. A lot of that is in this movie. I think she wrote the character to try to tell that story.
I don't think she had people in mind, but I know the minute she met Heather [Graham] - and this movie was 6 years in the making - but I know the minute she met Heather she felt, ‘Oh my God, this is the woman who has to play Gray.’ It worked out well because Heather is bankable and hopefully the kind of person who can get a movie made and put people in the seats. I think that was the first big step. Once they had Heather they could make a movie, you know? Then it was just a matter of plugging in the pieces. Which, by the way, she did. You look at the cast of this movie the fact that you have Alan Cumming, Sissy Spacek, and Molly Shannon and Bridget Moynahan. The cast of this movie…for when we made it, a small independent, is a pretty nice cast that she put together.”
Sue Kramer and her sister were very open and available in talking to the actors about the story. “Her sister Carolyn, she'd be on set a lot of the time. She's been a huge supporter of the movie. I think she's extremely proud and happy for Sue. This is a small movie but any movie that gets made, any script that gets written, is an accomplishment. Any movie that gets made and ends up in a position where people are coming to talk about it, it's not a small thing. Whether the movie does anything in terms of viewership is almost beside the point. It's an accomplishment already. Carolyn is extremely proud of Sue and Sue is extremely proud of Carolyn, and the end of our last shooting day there was a lot of tears and a lot of raising of glasses to the two of them.”
Bonding with Heather Graham on the Set of Gray Matters: “Basically for us it was like it was her beating me up. Very early on in our time together she started slugging me during scenes. The first time she was like, ‘I'm so sorry.’ I was like, ‘Girl, you can't hurt me.’ Then it all became a thing whether she could actually, you know, lay the beating on the boy. So a lot of our scenes and a lot of the more violent stuff actually didn't end up on camera because they're like, ‘Can you tone it down a bit because this isn't like Ultimate Fighting?’ We had a lot of that going on and ultimately that contributes to the brother/sister relationship a little bit. Makes it seem a little more real on screen, I think. She loved it, I can tell you that much, so it was fun.”
Graham never did hurt Cavanagh. “You know it was funny, she's a strong girl and in good shape but that must have been like the fact we had the scene going so I wasn't paying too much attention. I was more concentrating on getting the lines right. But for all her wailing away, I can't say I walked away with too many permanent injuries.”
Heather Graham Says Cavanagh Can Really Dance: Informed of Graham’s compliments, Cavanagh said, “I think that's a generous way of looking at it. ...That's a nice thing for her to say. She’s great. She's danced before, she's good. A woman who's light on her feet is always going to make the guy on her arm look better. I don't know necessarily that we look good, but we're trying to. This movie for Sue, this movie is a tip of the hat to the ‘40s musical and when you lead with the song Cheek to Cheek, you want to do that idea a service. It was a fun thing to do, notwithstanding the fact that all my guy friends were like, ‘Oh, what another 4 hours of dance rehearsal with Heather Graham? Oh, that's really tough.’”
Putting Himself in His Character’s Place: Could he forgive someone who made out with the person you loved the night before you were marrying them? Cavanagh responded, “Well, heck. I think that depends on the individual and the sequence and all that stuff.” That response in mind, was it a hard place to get to for this character? “You know, I think that's a good question first off. It's a focal point for the movie and I think no matter who you are, you're stung a little bit when the idea of infidelity is raised, be it like something frivolous like this - a drunken moment that the person doesn’t even remember. But I think peoples' initial instincts are to protect themselves. I think in this movie that's where we go. The first instinct is like, ‘What, with who?’ I think that's Sam's first instinct is to protect himself then better emotions or reasoning takes over after a while. He realizes that this woman is his best friend, not to mention she's his sister, and there's probably another way of looking at it. Do you know what I mean? To answer your first question that would be dependant on who you are and the individual you'd have to be in that situation, which hopefully none of you ever are. Unless of course it's two women and...”
