Bradford said the project initially appealed to him because it was a Merchant Ivory production. “I had worked with Merchant Ivory before on a movie called 'A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries,' and it was just one of my favorite professional experiences. So when they called my representation, [my reps] called me and said, ‘Merchant Ivory’s basically more or less offering you this role in this movie they’re producing. Glenn Close is going to be in it.’ I think Jimmy [Marsden] and Elizabeth [Banks] were possibilities at the time, but I know that Glenn Close was locked in.
I remember getting the script and opening that first page and just thinking, ‘Man, I hope I love this because everything else is so in place. Unless I’m just repulsed by what I have to do in this movie, in terms of what the character goes through, I want it already.’ And then I finished reading it and thought it was magnificent material. The only other factor was Chris [Terrio] being a first-time director. But he proved to me very fast that though he was a first time director, he was clearly going to do a good job.”
The Trick to Working with a Big Ensemble Cast: “I think the same way you try to make life your own, which is by not thinking so much about what someone else is doing. I don’t want to say by not thinking about the bigger picture, but you can really only ever think about the bigger picture as it relates to you specifically. And so for me playing that character to start thinking about what Glenn’s character’s going through or what Jimmy’s character is going through – you can really only do it as filtered through how your character comes into contact with these people, and what your character knows about what they go through.
‘Alec’ doesn’t know that Diana Lee [Close’s character] is being cheated on by her husband, but I know it because I read the script. So you don’t really think about that. You show up and do your job and try and be as present in that moment as possible, knowing what you believe your character knows and applying it to what’s happening to you. Hopefully it comes off right.”
Jesse Bradford’s Take on His Character: “Alec is a struggling actor in New York who’s got some chops but hasn’t been afforded the opportunity to really prove it to anybody yet. He’s given this weird opportunity to maybe rise up to a new level through his association with this huge movie star that has taken a shine to him. I think that puts him in a very awkward position, especially when you add in the other elements. The sort of strange incestuous ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ elements that come into it when you slowly learn more about Alec’s personal life.
I think the essence of it is that he’s presented with a choice, a choice I feel I understand pretty well too, which is do you try to let your work speak for itself or do you kind of [grab] onto the cheap, shallow way of achieving success by dating Demi Moore – or in this case, Diana Lee?”
The Challenges of Playing This Role [Spoiler-Free]: “If you claim to be an artist and you’re not trying to challenge yourself at all, then what you’re really doing is just churning out a product. And that was a challenge. It was something I was kind of scared to do and really not looking forward to. And as the day approached it was more and more like, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do that. It’s going to be a reality soon.’ I just feel good that I had the balls to do it.”
Jesse Bradford on Working With Glenn Close: “She has this magnetism when she’s working. When she’s not working she’s really down to earth and normal and not sort of actory the way that some actors are. And just pleasant and unassuming and lovely. And then when she is working it’s like this little switch on the back of her head that she switches on and this energy just shoots out of her eyeballs. It’s like laser beams and you just get sucked into what she’s doing. Fortunately for me, that’s pretty much exactly what my character goes through. He’s slightly overwhelmed and sucked in by this woman’s aura, because she’s a huge celebrity. Not only as Glenn Close but as this character in the movie. And so it was a luxury for me to kind of just give into that, instead of having to fight against it.”
PAGE 2: Jesse Bradford on New York and Ismail Merchant
