Ceremony
“He’s the love of her life. She just doesn’t know it yet.“
Lee Pace as Whit Coutell
Directed by Max Winkler
Written by Max Winkler
Release Date: June 16, 2010
Also starring: Michael Angarano, Uma Thurman, Reece Thompson
Genre: Comedy | Romance
MPAA Rating: R
Synopsis
Two friends are off on a weekend outing. Marshall thinks the trip is to re-establish their friendship, but Sam has ulterior motives in mind as he crashes the wedding of a woman he still loves.
Trivia & Facts
• Steven Spielberg decided to offer Lee Pace the part of Fernando Wood in Lincoln, after seeing his performance in this film.
• “Who is that woman?” “That’s my wife,” was improvised. They were saying funny stuff and Max (director) came up to Lee and said, “Ask, “Who is that woman?”. Lee had no idea that he was going to say, “That’s my wife.”
Memorable Quotes
Whit Coutell: I guess I just don’t feel the need to chase girls around the school-yard anymore.
Quotes About The Film
“I had fun working with these guys! My memory of the movie is just living in that house together, the cast spent a lot of time together. I just remember messing around and then to see the movie cut together, I’m really proud to be a part of it.”
“To be honest, I’m basically just making fun of with my friends.” (On British accent.)
“My agent sent me the script and said, “This is a really fun character,” and I said, “I totally agree. What do I have to do?” I was off in Vancouver shooting another movie. I forget how it all went down, but there was a point where I was out camping—I had found this island off the coast of Maine and I was camping there. I didn’t have any cell phone reception, and I get [a signal], and I had all these messages saying, “You need to come to New York to read for this!” [My agent] was like, “You need to come fight for it!” I got on a plane the next day—I was in the middle of nowhere, Maine. I came to New York, read for it, and got it, basically.” (On how he got involved.)
“I came to set and I had my shirt unbuttoned really low for the costume, and it looked pompous and sleazy. But it was freezing that night, absolutely freezing—there were heat lamps everywhere. Uma was wearing that shawl. She said, “No, you need to wear this.” She stuffed it on me, and that’s what I wore in that scene. She was totally right—it looked perfect for the character… That’s totally Uma—she’s got style. It was totally cute and soft, too.”
“I wanted to play this guy. There’s a lot on the page and I know guys like Wit, so I thought there was a lot of personal stuff I could bring to him. And by personal stuff, I mean, people I know that I can make fun of [laughs].” (On what made him want to get this role.)
“I think Whit is a pretty awesome guy, like a really cool guy.”
“I think there’s a way to play him that could have been straight up douchey but he’s not. I saw him as the kind of guy who sailed around the world at 13 and has just been doing incredible things since then. He found an incredible woman to share his life with and he’s dated a lot of girls, a lot of pretty incredible girls, and he sees Zoe for what she is and thinks she’s worth fighting for.”
“I was terrified about [the dancing]. For an entire week I wouldn’t stop asking questions – how are you shooting it? what music will it be? What am I supposed to do? This is where Max [Winkler, writer/director] can be a bit of a sadist because he’s very open and part of that is letting the actors deliver a performance. He doesn’t get in your business, so it’s up to you to come up with the character. But I am too tall. Tall people don’t dance. It’s just not right. Luckily they shot it from very far away and across the room because if it was up close, it would have been funny for all the wrong reasons.” (About the dancing scenes.)
“I hadn’t read anything like this before. I just thought it was cool and interesting. The story changes in such an interesting way, from beginning to end, and I just loved the character. I thought the character was a lot of fun and would be fun to play. There’s a lot of creative life you can build around a character like that.”
“I worked with Kate Wilson, who does a lot of my dialect stuff. I worked with her at Julliard, she was one of my teachers there, and I’m confident in my British accent. I did a play where I was British and I did a movie called Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day where I was British. I’m pretty confident in my accent, but you always need another set of ears, to keep you from going off the rails. Also, he’s a Brit who lives in America. I don’t know if you know any Brit’s who live in America, but their accents tend to get even more pronounced. English people who live here, become ten times English.” (On his British accent in the film.)
“It was all about having a good time with it, being open and free. I totally trusted Max to make the movie cool and I felt like I could play with the lines and make a fun character with it.”
