“When talented people are interesting, it’s amazing. That’s like Tanna.” - Director Henry Jaglom, Hollywood Dreams
In her debut role as Margie Chezik, the effervescent Tanna Frederick manages to create a character who is equally zany and tragic. Margie isn’t just complicated, she’s a full-bodied enigma whose cunning is hardly limited to her interaction with the other characters. By the end of the film Hollywood Dreams, a film about a deceptive, ambitious, but ultimately troubled young actress, the audience knows that it has been taken in by Margie, too. And thanks to Frederick, we enjoy every second of it.
Part II (Read Part I)
FC: Continuing on your relationship with Henry Jaglom, you starred in his play A Safe Place. Did you know him at that time? Was that as early as that relationship started?
TF: What had happened was I was in a play out here and waiting tables and doing extra work on Days of Our Lives. Doing whatever I could to pay the bills and doing rehearsals of this play. It wasn’t A Safe Place. It was a different play written by a dear friend of mine, Lee Simon. This guy came to rehearsals, one of my friends, and said, “I just wrapped a day of filming with Henry Jaglom. He’s the most brilliant independent director.” And I was like, “That’s cool. How did you get that?” He was like, “Well, you know if you write Henry a letter telling him how much you love his films, he’ll call you in and he’ll cast you.” So I wrote a letter about how much I adored Déjà Vu and went and dropped it off at his office. He called me the next day and we had a heated two hour conversation about his work.
FC: But you hadn’t…
TF: I hadn’t met him, and I hadn’t actually seen the film.
FC: And you had a heated two hour conversation about a work you hadn’t seen?
TF: Yeah, yeah. I was in full Hollywood hustle mode. [laughs] I was like, “God, Déjà Vu was so romantic, but so devastating. And what you did in that one scene, wow.” He’s a talker, so I just fed him questions and made him talk about the film, so I didn’t actually have to bring up anything from it. Then he invited me to a screening of Festival in Cannes. And I went and saw it and I met Henry face to face. Festival in Cannes was just amazing. I felt this completely déjà vu-ish sense of, “Wow, this is exactly what I want to do. I feel like I’ve seen this movie a thousand times, and this is exactly how I want to work.” So it was kind of serendipitous and fortuitous that I lied. [laughs] Actually then, he hired me to come to the office and put up window posters for Festival in Cannes. So I went around Los Angeles and hung up these window cards for Festival in Cannes in store windows when the movie was opening. While I was working there making, like, 75 bucks a week, he gave me his play A Safe Place, and he said do it for your acting class if you’re interested. I went one step further and got the play produced. I found a theater company that wanted to produce it and ran it out here for three months. I have to say, it was with the intention that I wanted Henry to see my work, to see that I can really understand and get his films, and I would be really great to work with. He did end up coming to almost every performance in the play and correcting me on every single line of dialogue that was wrong. But we then started planning the next movie and incorporated A Safe Place into (Hollywood Dreams). So that’s how we got started.
All About Tanna continues here.
Read All About Tanna, Part I.
Hollywood Dreams is available on DVD May 6. Pre-order at Amazon.com.
