Billy Zane may be best known for his roles as Cal Hockley in “Titanic,” masked avenger Kit Walker in “The Phantom” and Hughie Warriner in “Dead Calm.” But it was his portrayal of Elliott that drew a big crowd during last week’s Sedona International Film Festival.
“Lucid” made its United States premiere at the festival on Saturday, March 2, at the Sedona Performing Arts Center. There, Zane was presented an acting award by SIFF’s Executive Director Patrick Schweiss.
The next morning, Zane and the film’s director and screenwriter, Adam Morse, appeared in the SIFF media room to discuss the film.
The movie’s synopsis describes “Lucid” as, “A lonely boy practices an experimental form of therapy after his enigmatic neighbor offers to help him overcome social anxiety and win the girl of his dreams. Isolated in a big city with no friends, young Zel simultaneously fears and craves intimacy. He has a pitiful obsession with dancer Jasmine and is caught spying on her by eccentric neighbor Elliot [Zane], who offers to help him win her heart. Lust leads Zel on an intense subliminal adventure as Elliot teaches him how lucid dreaming can be used to practice the art of seduction but will Zel be able to charm Jasmine in reality?”
“We only realized last night how fitting a film about lucid dreaming premiering in Sedona was,” Zane said. “It didn’t register until we passed a number of healing centers and we thought, ‘Ah, this is logical. It was meant to be.’”
A lucid dream is one in which the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. During a lucid dream, the dreamer may gain some amount of control over the dream characters, narrative and environment; however, this is not actually necessary for a dream to be described as lucid.
“It’s a movie you can see over and over,” Morse said. “You can enjoy it each time while picking up on the little nuances and the signals of when he is in a dream and when he’s not. Ultimately for me, it’s not about telling the audience this is real life or in the dream. It’s up to you guys to decide.”
In regard to the audience knowing if the character is having a dream or not, Zane chimed in and said, “I think it’s clear. When I first saw it, I felt it was as complex as our dreams. Sometimes you have a nightmare, sometimes you have a lovely dream and sometimes you have a flying dream. Are all your dreams consistent? No, they’re inconsistent.”
Morse admitted that the film is based upon his own experiences of young love. He also discussed freely the fact that he suffers from a rare disease and is legally blind. He joked that a large television set which he sat by during the interview was about the same size as his monitor on set.
“It’s actually been a blessing,” the 29-year-old said. “It’s given me an expansion of other mental capacities, like my memory and the ability to be more sensitive to energy and people. I think it’s given me an advantage over other directors. I’m working on an instinctive level of how I feel about a shot.”
He added that while on the set he relies upon his crew and the actors to help be his eyes when needed. But Zane said he was not aware of Morse’s condition when he accepted the part.
“He didn’t tell anyone,” Zane said. “He couldn’t have funded his movie if he told people he was blind — a blind director’s first movie. It’s hard enough getting a movie made without saying you’re blind. However, when the monitor appeared on set and was
literally that big [pointing to the television] and he was inches from it, I realized something was afoot.”
To lighten the moment a bit, which received a laugh from those in the room, Morse said, “On day one I could hear my makeup designer say, ‘Look how close he gets, he really cares, doesn’t he?’ Of course I care, that’s not the reason I have to be so close. And then one of our investors came to me and said, ‘You have a great attention to detail. I see how close you get to the screen.’” It’s just the way I have to work and to be honest, I wouldn’t change it.”
