Meet Blair Wingo

While I enjoy talking about the casting process, for Blair I don't really remember how it happened; probably because I really didn't know what it was I was looking for. This was one of those roles where I would know the person when I found her. In the end it came down to Blair and another woman, but whatever it was about Blair we certainly made the right choice.

I'm no actor and don't profess to know anything about the art of it. Acting is witchcraft to me. It's a supernatural gift I can't imagine having. And I'm too inexperienced as a director to call myself a director, but I doubt if even real directors understand acting anymore than I do. Spouting adjectives is one thing. Bringing those adjectives to life a complete other. But from my outsider's eye I think Blair had the toughest role in the picture. It was a role that required her to pretty much be two different people and play highly charged scenes that could've been one-note with emotion and subtlety. No easy thing.

Now, before you get all worried thinking she plays twins or a schizo or some other lame-o plot device that kills pictures before they even begin -- she doesn't. Unfortunately, I can't guarantee that what I do have her doing isn't another kind of lame-o plot device that kills the picture, but I can gurantee it will at least be an original lame-o plot device killing the picture. That being said, Blair's marvelous in the role.

I think this is one of her first acting jobs, and she pulled it off perfectly. In her two key scenes her range of emotion and sheer presence do so much more with that role than I had hoped. Both of these scenes are with powerhouse Keith David and Blair stayed with him the whole time.