Upon first meeting Nathan in September 2008, I didn't quite know what to think. He's an incredible goofball, startlingly friendly, and sometimes hard to keep up with - I get the feeling his mind sometimes runs ahead of his mouth. Yet he is also an incredible intellectual, a classically trained singer and actor, and eager to help with almost anything (at least with the film club.)
I first worked with Nathan the month I met him filming "Clocks," a short comedy about Coldplay that I originally wrote for SpoonBank but which, through the creative process, became something else entirely that was just as funny. The original version that I wrote was going to be our inaugural film of the new semester, and originally I chose Nathan for two reasons: 1) his enthusiasm and 2) his KILLER British accent. I honestly had no idea how it was going to turn out.
I quickly found something out: Nathan comes alive on camera.
I italicize that text for a very good reason: Nathan has an incredible, almost youthful radiance. His performance in Clocks was absolutely flawless; he added new facets to the character on the fly, without anyone else's urging, and they fit perfectly. The script allowed lots of room for improv and Nathan kept spitting it out at lightspeed, so much that I'm sure the other actors had trouble matching it. I know as the one behind the camera, not only was it a struggle to not burst into laughter, but it was also an absolute joy to have this guy meld himself so perfectly to every scene.
"Clocks," in its original form, needed a lot of work due to my inexperience as an editor. However, in March 2009, the much-improved director's cut made its debut at the 2009 Open APPerture Film Festival to a rave reception from a small audience. Many of the biggest laughs came from Nathan and his dry, blissfully unaware delivery of the strangest lines imaginable.
Nathan attends Appalachian State University as well, and is perhaps the only skilled actor I have ever met that is majoring in Pre-Professional Biology. Like Lily, has been acting for a long time. Also like Lily, he has been primarily involved with the stage. Nathan has been in ten different plays for either school or community theater; his favorite role was that of Tevye in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" (that's not a Stalin and Hitler gag...really, he played Tevye.) Unlike his eccentric personality, but perhaps meshing very well with it, Nathan's approach to acting is very straight-up: he loves to entertain.
Besides "Clocks," Nathan may be familiar to some of you. He has frequently worked with No Budget and the Broumvirate on numerous other projects in some form or another, including "No Budget Productions Gets a Movie Deal." However, his most prominent role by far was playing Winston Churchill in our beloved "Stalin and Hitler: The Motion Picture," a role which also had huge screen presence and a character which Nathan again made his own.
He will be working with us in the future as well. He's actually writing a script for us right now based on a single crazy college night called "Fear and Loathing in Boone" that looks to have a much wilder edge than even Stalin and Hitler does. He says he's working on a sci-fi sort of thing too called "'The Continuous Mysterious Dealings of Commander 113." He is also going to be working on another mockumentary we have planned for the far future about Nickelback called "Something In Our Mouths."
And of course, there's the always awesome British accent, which I'm sure will come to use again at some point.
I will admit that despite Nathan being very interested in "Our Story" from the very beginning, he was not my first casting choice. However, this was really my fault, not his: I simply didn't understand his range because, quite frankly, he's been a bit typecast in most of the stuff he's helped us with so far. I certainly thought his apperance, what with the glasses and shaggy hair, seemed to lend itself to the vulnerability required of the Boy...but I was very worried his energy would be tough to contain for the many quiet moments in the script.
However, Nathan displayed a keen understanding of the script and, in a rare melancholy moment, said he related to it very well due to his experiences with a previous relationship. So, I set up a readthrough with he and Lily.
Everyone always attaches a sort of negative stigma to surprises; this one was completely sweet.
Nathan again proved something to me: despite his crazy personality, he melds to anything. With almost no effort, he and Lily got along famously during readthroughs and established a great chemistry. When reading the more upbeat parts of the script he also added a bit of himself into the character: he read the part with a confidence I had not imagined before, a much more positive energy...which helped contrast the two separate versions of Nathan's character. I unfortunately can't explain much more about what those two sides are without severely spoiling the plot, but just rest assured: you'll eventually see what I'm saying.
Yet what was more astonishing is that Nathan read the quiet parts well too. I realized that I had severely misjudged him as an actor; I had always known he was talented, but I was not aware of the emotional range he was capable of. All the bitterness, desperation, and hopelessness of his character was encapsulated perfectly; he responded well to my direction and even gave me tips.
Nathan's performance, along with Lily's, helped boost my interest again in "Our Story" when it had sunken under the weight of finals, my job, and various other stressors. If it was this good behind closed doors, I can't wait to see him "come to life" again, but this time on camera.
I just realized how gross that sounded. Oh dear.
-JD
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