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Floydian Trip:
So Busey is an ass in real life too eh? I never did like him much. |
yeah. there were lots of horror stories about Busey.
1. Rick had to fly select cast and crew to California to shoot Busey's scenes there. The reason was that Busey wanted first class plane tickets for him, his girlfriend, his agent and select friends, the best rooms in the most expensive hotel in town and limo service for everyone involved (girlfriend, agent, etc.) It ended up being cheaper to fly people to California. Of course, this meant shooting Busey's scenes in a different location than the other cast members and editing it together.
2. Busey waited until Rick was in California with the cast and crew to tell him that he wanted to be paid in cash, half up front, or he would walk. Rick did not bring $10,000 in cash with him. If you have ever tried to cash a check for a large amount, you will know the trouble Rick had to go through. He had to go to a large number of check cashing places, writing checks for their maximum amounts, and then being late for the shoot because Busey waited till the last minute to spring this on him. Busey wanted only cash, and that was that. Rick was warned not to pay him all of it in cash up front, or Busey would "snort it all away and be worthless the entire shoot." This was warning from the talent agent who lined Busey up. Nice.
3. Speaking of that, Busey would dissapear for periods of time into the bathroom. When he would xome back out he would be almost crazed, bouncing off walls. Not much imagination to know WHAT he was doing in there.
4. Here is something to watch out for. The old school actors (Busey, Donald Sutherland and others) have a knack of wanting as many close ups as they can have. To accomplish this, they would mess up the scenes that are two shots to force the close ups to be used. Busey tried this a few times. Because Ryan Brown could not make the trip to California, Busey was told where Brown would be and then Busey would proceed to place his arm where Brown should be, which would screw everything up. They were then forced to use close ups in editing. Another time, he was in a scene with a very talented local actress named Verna Vaughan. When they were filming the two shot of them, he would proceed to tip the table, causing things to fall. Rick had an $85,000 budget and only had so much film he could use. Luckily, Vaughan saw what he was doing and on one take, when he bumped the table, she caught the ashtray and cigarette, took a puff and continued her line without pause. They used that take. Brilliant.
Even with a soap opera star, Rick could not get the full financing because money people know you need a "name" star to sell it for enough to make the money back. Rick needed Busey, so he had to bite his lip and work through it. Too bad, because Busey was the lesser talent of the group.
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