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A simple story spanning decades: that could also describe the making of She's So Lovely. John Cassavetes, the actor (Rosemary's Baby) and director revered for his gritty parables of lost love, wrote the script in the late '70s as a vehicle for himself and his wife Gena Rowlands. Just before he died in 1989, he rewrote the script for Penn. Later Penn planned to direct it, in black and white. Then Nick Cassavetes signed on. Consider the symmetry: a Cassavetes directing a beautiful blond with serious acting chops (not Rowlands but Wright) and her gifted, "difficult" actor-director husband (not John but Sean).
The coup was getting Travolta, who typically receives more as a star ($20 million) than this film cost ($18 million). He jumped at the chance. "To me," he says, "Joey was a tribute to all the male characters in Cassavetes films. I was Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk and [Cassavetes] all wrapped into one." The role did offer Travolta a snappy showcase. "John is a sure shot for a Best Supporting Actor," says Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax, the film's distributor. "I'll resign my Academy membership if he doesn't get nominated."
John Cassavetes' filmmaking obsession was contagious, at least within his family. "My bedroom was his editing room," Nick says. "I would wake up in the middle of the night and find a piece of film in my bed that showed my mother scratching her nose." Nick's directing strategy is like Dad's: "It's to put actors into a situation, talk to them about what you feel until they're ready to scream, then turn on the camera." Nick was especially effective in guiding the scene in which Maureen is raped. Harrowing work, says Wright: "You rip your soul apart and lay it on the table. Then you go home and be a mom."
After filming ended, the struggle continued. Penn declined to shoot extra scenes, apparently fiddled with the director's cut and put different music on the sound track. "Here's Sean's method of negotiating," observes Weinstein. "He says, 'My way.' He can be a rascal, but then who isn't?" Even for a kinder, gentler Penn, what he refers to as "the law of the self" still applies.
The wrangling hasn't stopped yet. Hachette Premiere & Cie, the film's French producer, last week attempted to stop the U.S. opening, charging Miramax with not paying its $8 million advance for international rights. Miramax says it will send the check when Hachette provides music licenses for songs used in the film. "They just have to do their paperwork," says Weinstein. "The dispute will be easily resolved with no animosity."
Sounds like a Cassavetes film: arguing is just love with the volume turned up. And love, to John Cassavetes, was all he knew, and all he wanted to put in his films. "Where and how can I love?" he asked in 1984. "Can I be in love, in that I can live with some degree of peace?"
Penn is wary of trying to define love. "It's a simple, pure thing that's been made unsimple by philosophies," he says." I think you have to trust love on its own, and not make the way it manifests itself redefine what the love was. That's what makes people crazy. Love is a wild animal that you try to control--but you have to feel it first. If you're looking for evidence of it, you're not a lover, you're a cop."