We are now in Sundance for the long awaited premiere of Willy's first movie! Getting tickets to actually get to see the movie was a bit like robbing Fort Knox, but alas, our manager, Sue, pulled it off and got three tickets for us to the premiere. The premeiere was this past Sunday, Jan. 23 at the Eccles theater at Park City High School. It is a 1,500 seat theater and was completely sold out. My oldest childhood friend, flew in from Ft. Lauderdale that morning, so I went to the waitlist line to try to score a ticket for her. Fortunately, I got there pretty early and was number 11 in line. They gave out 200 waitlist numbers and the first 40 got in for the show.
Willy walked in with the cast for the red carpet press session and we have a few great photos of him with some of the stars. He then went in to the theater with the cast and sat in a special section with all of them for the showing. Rick, Dana and I had great seats center section and waiting anxiously for the lights to go down.
The movie is full of some great laughs and moved me to tears several times as well. The performances by Ellen Barkin, Ezra Miller and Ellen Burstyn were stellar. Many in the audience were commenting that they were oscar worthy performances. The movie was emotionally intense and truly shows how destructive and hurtful families can be to their own members.
Willy had a few of his scenes cut, but was still quite visible throughout the film and had four or five scenes with his lines intact. As a mom, I was actually somewhat relieved that some of his racier lines had been removed as had the make out scene with a 24 year old, although I do feel badly for the 24 year old as that was her only scene. Several of the cast from Michigan made the trip out and Willy was very happy to reconnect with his fellow cast members.
He also thoroughly enjoyed the after parties thrown by Mandalay and went without his parents. He was busy meeting producers and directors and handing out his business cards. He got in at 2 AM the first night and we gave him a curfew of 1:00 am last night. We also had a fellow Michigander and castmate looking after him so he had some supervision and an escort to see him home safely. He also knew he had to come in and give his mom the chance for a "hug and sniff" before he went to bed. It was reassuring to find out that I didn't have anything to worry about as he passed my tests with flying colors!
When we arrived on Friday evening, we received a new audition for a Disney tv movie so we had to prepare and tape that audition while we were here. The movie is called "Geek Charming" and Willy is auditioning for the geek! I'm not sure how'd they'd make him look like a geek. Since we had to tape it away from home, I didn't have the chance to shop for geek accessories! Hopefully they will be able to see past his teen cuteness and see the geek within!
Still no word on distribution plans for the movie. I'm really hoping it might win an audience award here at the festival. It hasn't been one of the most talked about by critics, but I think the audiences were behind it. Only time will tell!
In the meantime, major kudos to Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, Ezra Miller, Kate Bosworth and Demi Moore! Jeffrey DeMunn was a sleeper...he was so dead on funny and I had no idea that was coming! Fantastic performances by all!
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