I’ll never forget when Nelson George (writer/director of films like Sundance ’07 / HBO’s Life Support, Variety’s Top 10 Directors to Watch), gave me a call in Los Angeles. I’d just moved there from the gritty streets of Manhattan a mere week before, and was seated at a local Starbucks… sipping a Mocha-something… wondering if I needed hair extensions and veneers to fit into the Hollywood “20 something chick” scene after all.
“Ashley!” the director piped in his telltale low baritone, “I’m in Los Angeles. I have a project I’d like to talk to you about.”
As a writer (/actor)… there are very few phonecalls that could render more excitement. The President calling, for example. Scorsese dialing you after finding your obscure, slightly cynical blog and expressing his desire to turn it into the next Grace of My Heart. The local to-go sushi place delivering early.
… you get my gist.
I drummed my fingers against the recycled cardboard of my S’bucks cup. What could Nelson George, the director I’d (literally) tripped into at Sundance ’07 at a (very) big mountain-top party I was (definitely) not supposed to be at — want by calling me?
Back in ’07, where George was being honored at the Sundance Variety party I had snuck into… we’d shared a brief, scintillating conversation about music, French Film, how hard it is to climb up a snow-capped mountain and past security guards in heels… et cetera.
A few years later… here he was, calling me about a coffee meeting.
We met at Picos’ Tacos that very afternoon, the little Hollywood ‘fish joint’, underneath the shadow of Chateau Marmont — and borderline the most unpretentious spot in L.A., ever. Grabbing a few Iced Something-Or-Others we chatted, and eventually he pulled out a spiral, battered, entirely hand written notebook.
Inside it were the beginnings of a film he was toying with about a group of women who come together via a social networking platform… a film that he would eventually call Left Unsaid.
Ashley Avis in Nelson George's Left Unsaid
He asked me to listen. Then he asked me to read. Three months later, right after I’d moved my entire life to Los Angeles — I was packing my bags again to go shoot for two months on the East Coast.
The summer of ’09 served to be rather incredible. Working with such an eclectic group of women was fascinating — we shot over eight weeks with a limited (but very talented, creative) crew in true guerilla-indie webisode format. And that’s what the project turned into — half feature film, hitting the festival circuit this year — half ‘webisode’ project, which has recently premiered online.
Our cast was as diverse as Manhattan touts itself to be… we were all from countless backgrounds and skin tones, accents and life views, and (for the most part!) everyone got along like… oh, I don’t know… insert food-based analogy here. It was a blast.
Nelson cast from a variety of ‘areas’, so to speak, for this project. A few of the women weren’t even actors… they were just highly interesting individuals that, frankly, brought a very ‘real’, raw Manhattan quality to the film that Nelson’s projects are known to be painted with.
Wonderfully talented non-actors aside, the individual I enjoyed working with the most was actress Bridget Barkan (Sherrybaby, Everyday People). Nelson paired us knowing we’d have an interesting/bantering improv dynamic, I think. Due to scheduling, we hadn’t been able to meet, much less run lines, before the first day of shooting. I remember trotting to set day one with my massive coffee in one hand — script in the other — wondering what she’d be like.
I sat on the floor while she was in makeup. We began reading. Halfway through, she grinned at me. “This is gonna be awesome,” she noted, winking at me. I smiled in return, totally at ease — Bridget was a pro, and she was so good — I couldn’t wait to get to work with her on-camera. An actor who can act… really, really act… is a refreshing treasure to find.
Overall, it was a blast to return to Manhattan for one final ‘go’ before total immersion into the [fabulous] beast that is Los Angeles. Nelson is a great director, always off the cuff and tells it like it is… co-star Chyna Layne (Cadillac Records, Precious) is an absolute riot, probably one of the most downright hilarious people I’ve met in a long time… the crew was fun to work with, and Fort Greene, the primarily location we shot in, was flabbergastingly mid-Summer beautiful.
I hope the project bounces around the festivals and continues to spark some interest online — but further, I look forward to collaborating with ‘Nelson and the gang’ in the very near future. He’s a director that doesn’t shy away from issues or controversy… and since I generally like to run into both concepts headfirst… I look forward to additional afternoons at Picos Tacos reading lines from a notebook. It all seems so… blissfully… creatively… organic.
Ashley Avis
Actress, Left Unsaid
For more of Left Unsaid, visit DCTV’s listing here.
