Every devout cinema goer knows about David O. Russell’s reputation as crazy and difficult. He pretty much cemented that rep on the set of “Three Kings” when he and George Clooney got into a very public punch-out and then sealed the deal when he erupted in a fury on the set of “I ♥ Huckabees,” and the footage landed on YouTube (obviously some editor or camera person wanted some revenge).
There were already some reports about strange behavior on the set of his new financially maligned satire “Nailed,” (James Caan quit over a “cookie” debacle), so people expected more of the same. But in an interview with MTV, “Nailed,” co-stars Jessica Biel and Catherine Keener both said the reportedly-mercurial filmmaker was a joy to work with.
“He’s wonderful,” Catherine Keener cooed. “I love him,” Jessica Biel echoed. “He pulled such a bizarre cool interesting performance out of everyone. It was quite an interesting experience. David was amazing.”
Translation: He’s wacky, but this time it was positive wacky. Apparently all the shut-downs on the film caused solidarity, at least among the cast that took the financial problems as an challenge to face and conquer.
“That was the only really shitty part. The shutdowns were killing us,” Biel said. “This felt like it was happening despite all of the obstacles,” Keener stated. “It felt like us against the man. We were like — you cannot shut us down!”
No word on when “Nailed” will finally rear its head. One presumes it has enough money for editing and that it’ll come out sometime in 2009.