Real life occasionally intrudes upon the Sundance Film Festival, but rarely as harshly as in the case of Waitress. When the film premiered in Park City, the memory of its writer-director and co-star, Adrienne Shelly, hung heavy over the crowd, watching her work a mere two and half months after Shelly was brutally murdered in her New York City apartment.
Although some details have yet to be confirmed, it appears that Shelly – after complaining about construction noise in her Greenwich Village apartment building – got into an altercation with one of the workers, 19-year-old Ecuadorian born Diego Pillco. Although Pillco rigged the crime scene to look like a bathroom suicide, he was picked up for questioning and charged within a week of the November 1st incident with first-degree murder.
"It sucks," grieves Waitress co-star Jeremy Sisto when speaking to FilmStew about Shelly's festival absence. He first met her when they co-starred in the little seen 2000 indie Dead Dog, and was a fan of the actress - who broke through initially in Hal Hartley's The Unbelievable Truth and Trust - for years before that.
"At the end of the day, it is disappointing, really disappointing," Sisto reveals. "As a film watcher, it is such a loss, because she really was such a genius. I always loved her as an actress and her spirit was always just something I was really impressed by. But seeing the movie and seeing how all of the ideas that she had were so unique and amazing, and it's tragic, because just now she's being taken seriously as a filmmaker.”
“As her friend, knowing how much she would have loved this, how much she wanted this to happen, it's just sad, profoundly sad."
In the movie, Keri Russell's Jenna is a gifted baker with a knack for creating pies that reflect her situation in life, such as "I-Don't-Want-Earl's-Baby Pie" or "I-Hate-My-Husband" pie. That aspect of Shelly's screenplay immediately jumped out at Sisto. "I haven't seen a movie where emotions and foods and flavors have been so directly and metaphorically [linked]," he observes.
The 32-year-old Grass Valley, CA native relished the opportunity to work with Shelly again, although he was surprised during their initial meeting on the project when she asked if he even remembered her. Not only did he find her unforgettable, but he came into the meeting with definite ideas about who ought to play Jenna.
"I was trying to convince her to take Keri's role, which she wrote for herself back in the day, and I'm just such a big fan of hers as an actress."
The flame-haired, petite Shelly stood only 5'2'', but Sisto recalls how she loomed over her set. Waitress marked her third feature film after Sudden Manhattan and I'll Take You There, and she knew what she wanted and how to get it. "She's very vocal," Sisto explains. "She had a real idea, she always had an opinion, whether she liked your ideas or she nixed them, whether she decided to go with the idea she planned or she changed her mind. Whatever it was, it was a decision that was clear, and that's why I say every frame comes from her, it so completely does."
One of the earliest purchases made at this year’s Sundance Film Festival by Fox Searchlight, the studio riding last night’s SAG ensemble winner Little Miss Sunshine, was Waitress. Plunking down $4 million for a movie and trusting that it will be marketable without the help of its major creative force behind it is an act of faith. One that moves Sisto.
"In a way, people went into the movie, I think, with a sense of like, 'We're going to honor this movie,' and that's great,” Sisto suggests. “But also thinking, 'Maybe it got into Sundance, because that happened and we'll watch it and we'll respect it.' I think they were probably a little bit more hesitant to like it enough to pick it up like this, and that's just a testament to how good a movie it is.”
“It really is a fun, funny movie, and it's really poignant as well,” says Sisto. “And I haven't seen anything else like it. There's nobody else that could have made that particular movie. It so came from her, every single frame."
Shelly wrote the movie when she was eight months pregnant with her now three-year-old daughter Sophie. In a way, the movie is a love letter to her, and while tragedy accompanied Waitress' trip to Sundance, Sisto is happy that Shelly got her shot and succeeded.
"It's really nice that the movie's out there, that this was left behind,” he reflects. “For her daughter, there's a real profound legacy." At the film’s Sundance premiere, Shelly’husband Andy Ostroy - who also appears in Waitress - announced the creation of a non-profit foundation in her name to benefit fellow female filmmakers.
Back to WAITRESS
Back to SISTO ACT
All images, graphics, sounds and articles are the property of the photographers, filmmakers, artists, musicians and writers/publishers who created them. No copyright infringement is intended. Anyone who disagrees with the placement of any media on this website is urged to email me. Thank you!
Email
WAITRESS
