Fay Grim is a real anomaly in the world of independent films. The latest movie from writer/director Hal Hartley is a sequel to his 1998 film Henry Fool, and that's something that just doesn't happen with indie films. However Hartley wasn’t ready to say good-bye to Parker Posey’s character, Fay, from Henry Fool and neither was Posey. Even back during production on Henry Fool the idea of doing subsequent films involving some of the same characters was being kicked around.
Fast-forward a dozen years and Fay Grim picks up with Fay (Posey) worrying her 14-year-old son Ned (Liam Aiken) will wind up like his father Henry. And speaking of Henry, Fay’s brother Simon believes that man isn’t who he appears to be. Simon’s fears turn out to be justified when Fay is approached by the CIA and sent on a mission to retrieve Henry’s property.
Hal Hartley on the Henry Fool Sequel: “I used to joke about it even when I was writing the script, and like most jokes it was half serious. I think by the time we were shooting I thought about it more. And then when we finished it, I thought about it more. There were a couple of years there from 1998 to 2000-2001 where I’d often be found after supper trying out different scenarios verbally trying to entertain people.
At a certain point I did that one too many times and James Urbaniak who plays Simon said, ‘You know what? I don’t believe you anymore. This is not just a joke. You’re serious about this. You’re going to do a number 2.’ That just irked me—kind of pushed me. I called Parker in April 2002 and said, ‘Do you want to do this?’ Because I think by that point I actually had the story in my head that I liked. I wasn’t going to write it down if she wasn’t interested.”
The Evolution of the Story: “…All of my films ever since the beginning have always been very important for me to have my films, regardless of what they’re about, to be reflective of the time and place that I’m living in,” explained Hartley. “It doesn’t have to be right up front and center, but it should be there. I used a similar technique or it’s not really a technique—it’s a similar discipline, when I was writing Henry Fool. I was reading the newspapers, reading magazines and watching the news, just trying to get concrete examples of representative things in that time. Everybody in that time was a swing to the right in Congress and Senate and a more right wing politics, and also all this stuff about censorship of the Internet and the real heated debate going on about how it should be controlled. Should the government control it? So those things found themselves into the core of the story.
I took the same approach here with Fay. I knew it was going to be some sort of espionage thing. It kind of lent itself to that, in terms of comedy and in terms of where we left off with Henry Fool. The question: Did he get on the plane or did he not get on the plane? So I did the same thing. I kept a folder and clippings and I was surprised to find how many in the daily newspapers, how many little stories there are about really about what we used to call espionage — spy stuff. You read this and say, ‘This sounds like a James Bond movie,’ you know? I collected them and tried to put them all in there. Almost all that stuff they referred to is real. It comes from a real source. The Americans had satellites spying on Britain and Israel during a period of time when they were allies about something, and that would piss everybody off. I was just really intrigued by that.”
Preparing to Play Fay Grim One More Time: Parker says that way back when they were filming Henry Fool she knew she’d be meeting up with this character again. “Certain stories can carry a second movie,” explained Parker. “This was kind of like very archetypal. You can see these characters are very rich. It’s Hal’s An American Family, the Grim family, Fay… Henry Fool comes to town and shakes up the town. Fay falls in love with him. She gets proposed to as he’s on the toilet. She should have known better; she can’t help herself.
Where his talent lies is in this kind of writing and this kind of storytelling so to be able to be an actor and to work for him, saying these lines and moving in these ways, is really a lot of fun. All actors love Hal because if they can, they get to utilize themselves and how they move and how they speak and being someone like Henry Fool, Agent Fulbright, there’s just this kind of world, so we were all talking about it. ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we did that?’ And then it all came together. It was right after Superman that they got some money. I said, ‘Don’t do it now because I have to do For Your Consideration.’ They’re like, ‘I don’t know if we can do it, we’re going to have to do it now,’ and then it all works out in the end which I knew it would. We found ourselves in Berlin in January and February of 2006, and Istanbul and Paris.”
Ideas for Number 3 are Floating Around: Hartley already has an idea on where a third film might go. “We’ve talked about it a little bit amongst ourselves.” And which character would a third film of the series be based on? “The son, Ned,” answered Hartley.
Liam Aiken played Ned in Fay Grim and according to Parker her young co-star's presence in the film made sense because he’s a musician and Hartley’s movies are so musical. “Liam Aiken’s got a band and he’s a very gifted guitarist as well,” added Hartley. “That’s why I asked him at the Toronto Film Festival when we premiered this, I asked him… Point-blank I said, ‘You’re not going to become like a rock star or something are you and get out of the business? Because I had this part 3 in mind…’”
The Release of Fay Grim in Multiple Platforms: Hartley's happy with how Fay Grim is being released. “I’m very excited about this approach that the film will be out on movie screens in 25 cities and on the same day it will be available to be viewed on HD Net films TV, and then apparently like a couple of days later you can get in on DVD anywhere in the states. What excites me about that is the whole idea of the whole nation can all at once see the film."
