When Jack Be Nimble screens February 20th in York, Pennsylvania, it will mark the end of a very unusual road for writer-director Steve Woollett.
In the space of just a few days at the very beginning of 2020, Woollett's health food store burned down and his wife, checked into the hospital, was declared brain dead. She died soon thereafter, of what very well may have been COVID. On top of all this, the couple's family dog had passed away during the 2019 Christmas holidays.
After a period of alcohol and drug-fueled grief, Woollett miraculously picked himself up by the bootstraps and wrote a film script in three weeks. Jack Be Nimble, set in assisted living home, is about a group of aged former role-play gamers; one of them, Jack, becomes convinced that a nurse is trying to kill him.
The nurse is played by Bai Ling, who Woollett ran into by chance one day in the elevator of a New York hotel. From an article in the York Daily Record:
"We got to talking and she introduced herself, and I thought: Bai Ling, weren't you in The Crow? He asked if she would be interested in reading the script for his movie, and she agreed.
"I ran to my room, grabbed a copy of the script and handed it to her and figured I'd never hear from her again," he said. Within 24 hours, Woollett received a phone call from Ling, who loved the script and insisted that he put her in the film.
Starring as Jack is Vernon Wells, whose famously played Wez in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Everything seemed to line up for Jack Be Nimble, including the nursing facility location, which was provided by a longtime friend who was in the midst of renovating and had a vacant floor to provide for the 11-day shoot.
[Jack Be Nimble Facebook page]
No comments:
Post a Comment