Alex Kustanovich (6)
ACT VI -->
KUSTANOVICH: Exactly, exactly.
And then . . . the movie got made.
HORTON: And how many months did you work on it . . . the writing?
K: I did the two drafts for them. And then I kind of disappeared. [They] found a director.
And then they set up changes for the director. And that's it.
H: And so it came out in 1993?
K: '93, uh-huh.
H: THE SOFT KILL -- directed by Eli Cohen.
K: That's right.
H: Did it have a theatrical release at all, or did it go straight to cable?
K: It went straight to cable.
H: I believe it was on . . . Showtime?
K: Showtime and HBO as well.
H: Okay. That was Dream Entertainment?
K: That's right.
K: But . . . you still had not gotten an agent at this point? Were you even trying? Were you looking for an agent?
K: I wasn't looking for an agent.
I mean, here's the reason why. Because -- the story credit was by me and one of the producers. And to look for an agent . . . they say: 'Well, y'know, you have to have your own sole credit altogether.'
And [so] I didn't. I figured: 'Okay. Well, now -- I'm gonna write a spec . . . a really good spec . . . that I wanna write.'
And I'd written a script at UCLA called -- THE BLUE LIGHT.
I liked it. And I thought, 'I'll rework [this] and start looking for an agent.'
I did that . . . and unfortunately . . . no bite.
H: And you were still living in L.A. at this time?
K: I was still living in L.A. -- in, like, '93.
H: Okay. But your money had started to run out again because . . .
K: It had started to run out again, that's correct.
H: And so . . . you were specing THE BLUE LIGHT. You had made some money on THE SOFT KILL . . .
K: Right.
H: . . . and then what happened?
K: And then . . . I decided to go to New York . . . stay with my parents -- my parents' house. We live in Brooklyn, New York.
And [I wanted to] write another spec there . . . however long it was going to take me to be there.
[So I wanted to] write another spec, come back to L.A., and try to find an agent for that spec.
So I go to New York. I start writing the spec. [Then] a simple twist of fate . . . brings me to a friend of mine's workplace. And I meet a girl there . . . with whom we click. And I do go back to L.A. eight months later . . . but with no spec . . . because I was too busy . . . [y'know] . . .
H: What got you back to L.A. eight months later without a script?
K: Because I felt guilty that I [was] not advancing my career at all.
H: So you just felt sorta, like, a migration urge to . . .
K: Right. Yeah.
H: You thought you were disconnecting, and you just wanted to be near the source again . . .and be in the game.
K: That's right. Near the mother lode.
H: [laughs]
K: The idea also was to bring her and her child to L.A.
H: Yes.
K: I wanted to go to L.A. -- establish myself . . . bring them [out] here . . . and so . . . continue working.
But things turned out differently because -- her ex-husband put up a fight and refused [to let] the child leave. And so . . . being the romantic that I am . . . I decided that my personal life was more important than my career. And I still think that way . . . but it was just the wrong move in my personal life, too.
And I moved back to New York to be with [this] woman, and [I] continued to write scripts.
H: So how long were you in L.A. during that period of time?
K: Six months.
H: Six months. And so then you went back to New York . . .
K: For that period, yeah.
H: Did you do any writing, any productivity or just . . . you tried and tried . . . and nothing happened.
K: No, I really didn't. My mind was elsewhere.
H: Okay. So you went back to New York . . .
K: I went back to New York. I moved in with her. I lived with her . . . and we lived there . . . and I, unfortunately, did not do any writing because I was too . . . too depressed . . . by this whole situation.
It was just . . .
From 1993 to 1997 -- four years -- I lived with her. And then we had a falling out after four years . . . it was . . . y'know . . .
H: So where did the RED MOON RUN come in?
K: RED MOON RUN came in . . . around that time . . . while I lived with [her].
[The] producer . . . who produced my co-writers on OUT OF THE COLD -- [their] first film . . . had contacted me through him . . .
H: Now, not THE SOFT KILL. OUT OF THE COLD -- [you're talking about]?
K: OUT OF THE COLD. Right.
H: Okay.
K: And he was a president of White Eagle Productions.
H: Okay.
K: And then [he] contacted me, and he wanted me to do a rewrite . . . a page-one rewrite, basically, on a script that he had optioned a year earlier . . . for which I did.
And it was an easy thing also because he basically knew what he wanted to change.
H: But again. This was the low-level money . . . the deal that . . .
K: We're talking about $7000 . . .
H: So -- [this is] enough to generate interest but not enough money to keep you going for very long.
K: Right. It was just a money situation.
H: Right.
K: . . . And then right after that -- when I moved out of [my girlfriend's] place and moved into my parents' . . . trying to see what I'm going to do with my life . . . I got a call from my friend, Alexandra Buravsky [i.e., Sasha] . . . with whom I had written a script while in New York. It was almost like a joke because I thought nothing would happen with it . . .
H: What was the name of that script?
K: The name of the script was originally called THE VIRTUOSO.
H: Oh, yes. Okay. So this was OUT OF THE COLD.
K: OUT OF THE COLD. Correct.
H: So . . . how did you [get the introduction]? Was it through a friend who introduced you to Sasha or . . .
K: No . . . the guy who had hired me to write THE MASTER AND MARGARITA -- Gary . . . the producer that I'd met at the party. He had met Sasah before. He said, 'Well, here's another fellow Russian filmmaker.'
So we had met, and then later . . .
H: Did Sasah go to film school?
K: Sasha went to film school . . . but in Moscow.
H: What was the name of the school?
K: That was the Russian State film school. It's probably one of the most prestigious institutions in the former Soviet Union.
H: Undergraduate or graduate?
K: Undergraduate.
H: So he was probably a film fanatic, and he studied film, and then he came out of . . .
K: He was also a playwright. A famous playwright . . .
H: Oh.
K: . . . when I met him, yeah.
H: How old was he when you met him . . . roughly?
K: Well, he's forty-five now.
H: Okay.
K: I had met him when he was eight years younger.
H: Okay. So . . . the connection was -- that you were very good at English at that point . . .
K: Right.
H: . . . and had some very good credentials . . .
K: Right.
H: . . . and you could do translation both ways . . .
K: That's right.
H: . . . and he really . . .
K: That's how I met him, actually. I translated a play for him. I translated a play for him -- through that guy; I met him through that guy -- and I translated a play for him called THE RED PSYCHIC
H: THE RED PSYCHIC?
K: Yeah.
H: That's nice. I like that.
K: Yeah. And it's a very good play, actually. A very good play.
H: Wow.
K: . . . We thought about turning it into a script . . . but nothing . . . y'know . . .
H: Did he direct it? Did he produce it?
K: He wrote it.
H: Oh, he wrote it. You translated it.
K: I translated it. He wrote it.
H: Okay, at some point in time . . . what year are we talking . . . '97 or . . . ?
K: No, earlier. The year was '96.
H: '96, okay.
K: '96. I'm living in New York.
H: Okay.
K: I get a call from Sasha.
H: Okay.
K: I haven't spoken to him in a long time. And he says, 'Listen. I've written a script . . . a long time ago. And [I have a] draft in Russian of this story.'
And he tells me of OUT OF THE COLD, [i.e.,] VIRTUOSO, right? And he said, 'Would you like to work with me on it because I really don't know what to do with it anymore.'
And I said, 'Why don't you send me the script, and I'll see what we can do?'
He sends me the script. I read it . . . and I say, 'Listen. I love the story . . . but . . . here . . . [and] here . . . are changes that I think need to be made, okay? In order for me to be interested.'
He said, 'Fine.'
H: Now -- at that point he was taking the role of director and co-writer . . .
K: Co-writer and director, right. [He wanted] to direct this movie, but there was no money. And I was living in New York. I wasn't writing. And I was really depressed.
And I said to myself, 'Okay, there's no money, but at least I can get back into writing.'
H: So -- you got into a deal with no money?
K: No money.
H: Wow. I didn't know that.
K: No. No money.
He said, 'If we sell it . . . if we sell it . . . we split the money halfway.'
H: Fifty-fifty.
K: Fifty-fifty.
H: Wow.
K: 'Absolutely. No matter what the money is. No matter what. We'll sell it.'
H: So you were 'really' specing at that point.
K: Absolutely. And a spec that paid off. Absolutely.
He said, 'Listen. I can not afford to offer you any money. I have no money. Here's the script. I think it's a good story. See what you think.'
I spent three months working with him on this [project].
(To read ACT VII --> click on --> "Alex Kustanovich (7)" below.)
< (c) 1999 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
KUSTANOVICH: Exactly, exactly.
And then . . . the movie got made.
HORTON: And how many months did you work on it . . . the writing?
K: I did the two drafts for them. And then I kind of disappeared. [They] found a director.
And then they set up changes for the director. And that's it.
H: And so it came out in 1993?
K: '93, uh-huh.
H: THE SOFT KILL -- directed by Eli Cohen.
K: That's right.
H: Did it have a theatrical release at all, or did it go straight to cable?
K: It went straight to cable.
H: I believe it was on . . . Showtime?
K: Showtime and HBO as well.
H: Okay. That was Dream Entertainment?
K: That's right.
K: But . . . you still had not gotten an agent at this point? Were you even trying? Were you looking for an agent?
K: I wasn't looking for an agent.
I mean, here's the reason why. Because -- the story credit was by me and one of the producers. And to look for an agent . . . they say: 'Well, y'know, you have to have your own sole credit altogether.'
And [so] I didn't. I figured: 'Okay. Well, now -- I'm gonna write a spec . . . a really good spec . . . that I wanna write.'
And I'd written a script at UCLA called -- THE BLUE LIGHT.
I liked it. And I thought, 'I'll rework [this] and start looking for an agent.'
I did that . . . and unfortunately . . . no bite.
H: And you were still living in L.A. at this time?
K: I was still living in L.A. -- in, like, '93.
H: Okay. But your money had started to run out again because . . .
K: It had started to run out again, that's correct.
H: And so . . . you were specing THE BLUE LIGHT. You had made some money on THE SOFT KILL . . .
K: Right.
H: . . . and then what happened?
K: And then . . . I decided to go to New York . . . stay with my parents -- my parents' house. We live in Brooklyn, New York.
And [I wanted to] write another spec there . . . however long it was going to take me to be there.
[So I wanted to] write another spec, come back to L.A., and try to find an agent for that spec.
So I go to New York. I start writing the spec. [Then] a simple twist of fate . . . brings me to a friend of mine's workplace. And I meet a girl there . . . with whom we click. And I do go back to L.A. eight months later . . . but with no spec . . . because I was too busy . . . [y'know] . . .
H: What got you back to L.A. eight months later without a script?
K: Because I felt guilty that I [was] not advancing my career at all.
H: So you just felt sorta, like, a migration urge to . . .
K: Right. Yeah.
H: You thought you were disconnecting, and you just wanted to be near the source again . . .and be in the game.
K: That's right. Near the mother lode.
H: [laughs]
K: The idea also was to bring her and her child to L.A.
H: Yes.
K: I wanted to go to L.A. -- establish myself . . . bring them [out] here . . . and so . . . continue working.
But things turned out differently because -- her ex-husband put up a fight and refused [to let] the child leave. And so . . . being the romantic that I am . . . I decided that my personal life was more important than my career. And I still think that way . . . but it was just the wrong move in my personal life, too.
And I moved back to New York to be with [this] woman, and [I] continued to write scripts.
H: So how long were you in L.A. during that period of time?
K: Six months.
H: Six months. And so then you went back to New York . . .
K: For that period, yeah.
H: Did you do any writing, any productivity or just . . . you tried and tried . . . and nothing happened.
K: No, I really didn't. My mind was elsewhere.
H: Okay. So you went back to New York . . .
K: I went back to New York. I moved in with her. I lived with her . . . and we lived there . . . and I, unfortunately, did not do any writing because I was too . . . too depressed . . . by this whole situation.
It was just . . .
From 1993 to 1997 -- four years -- I lived with her. And then we had a falling out after four years . . . it was . . . y'know . . .
H: So where did the RED MOON RUN come in?
K: RED MOON RUN came in . . . around that time . . . while I lived with [her].
[The] producer . . . who produced my co-writers on OUT OF THE COLD -- [their] first film . . . had contacted me through him . . .
H: Now, not THE SOFT KILL. OUT OF THE COLD -- [you're talking about]?
K: OUT OF THE COLD. Right.
H: Okay.
K: And he was a president of White Eagle Productions.
H: Okay.
K: And then [he] contacted me, and he wanted me to do a rewrite . . . a page-one rewrite, basically, on a script that he had optioned a year earlier . . . for which I did.
And it was an easy thing also because he basically knew what he wanted to change.
H: But again. This was the low-level money . . . the deal that . . .
K: We're talking about $7000 . . .
H: So -- [this is] enough to generate interest but not enough money to keep you going for very long.
K: Right. It was just a money situation.
H: Right.
K: . . . And then right after that -- when I moved out of [my girlfriend's] place and moved into my parents' . . . trying to see what I'm going to do with my life . . . I got a call from my friend, Alexandra Buravsky [i.e., Sasha] . . . with whom I had written a script while in New York. It was almost like a joke because I thought nothing would happen with it . . .
H: What was the name of that script?
K: The name of the script was originally called THE VIRTUOSO.
H: Oh, yes. Okay. So this was OUT OF THE COLD.
K: OUT OF THE COLD. Correct.
H: So . . . how did you [get the introduction]? Was it through a friend who introduced you to Sasha or . . .
K: No . . . the guy who had hired me to write THE MASTER AND MARGARITA -- Gary . . . the producer that I'd met at the party. He had met Sasah before. He said, 'Well, here's another fellow Russian filmmaker.'
So we had met, and then later . . .
H: Did Sasah go to film school?
K: Sasha went to film school . . . but in Moscow.
H: What was the name of the school?
K: That was the Russian State film school. It's probably one of the most prestigious institutions in the former Soviet Union.
H: Undergraduate or graduate?
K: Undergraduate.
H: So he was probably a film fanatic, and he studied film, and then he came out of . . .
K: He was also a playwright. A famous playwright . . .
H: Oh.
K: . . . when I met him, yeah.
H: How old was he when you met him . . . roughly?
K: Well, he's forty-five now.
H: Okay.
K: I had met him when he was eight years younger.
H: Okay. So . . . the connection was -- that you were very good at English at that point . . .
K: Right.
H: . . . and had some very good credentials . . .
K: Right.
H: . . . and you could do translation both ways . . .
K: That's right.
H: . . . and he really . . .
K: That's how I met him, actually. I translated a play for him. I translated a play for him -- through that guy; I met him through that guy -- and I translated a play for him called THE RED PSYCHIC
H: THE RED PSYCHIC?
K: Yeah.
H: That's nice. I like that.
K: Yeah. And it's a very good play, actually. A very good play.
H: Wow.
K: . . . We thought about turning it into a script . . . but nothing . . . y'know . . .
H: Did he direct it? Did he produce it?
K: He wrote it.
H: Oh, he wrote it. You translated it.
K: I translated it. He wrote it.
H: Okay, at some point in time . . . what year are we talking . . . '97 or . . . ?
K: No, earlier. The year was '96.
H: '96, okay.
K: '96. I'm living in New York.
H: Okay.
K: I get a call from Sasha.
H: Okay.
K: I haven't spoken to him in a long time. And he says, 'Listen. I've written a script . . . a long time ago. And [I have a] draft in Russian of this story.'
And he tells me of OUT OF THE COLD, [i.e.,] VIRTUOSO, right? And he said, 'Would you like to work with me on it because I really don't know what to do with it anymore.'
And I said, 'Why don't you send me the script, and I'll see what we can do?'
He sends me the script. I read it . . . and I say, 'Listen. I love the story . . . but . . . here . . . [and] here . . . are changes that I think need to be made, okay? In order for me to be interested.'
He said, 'Fine.'
H: Now -- at that point he was taking the role of director and co-writer . . .
K: Co-writer and director, right. [He wanted] to direct this movie, but there was no money. And I was living in New York. I wasn't writing. And I was really depressed.
And I said to myself, 'Okay, there's no money, but at least I can get back into writing.'
H: So -- you got into a deal with no money?
K: No money.
H: Wow. I didn't know that.
K: No. No money.
He said, 'If we sell it . . . if we sell it . . . we split the money halfway.'
H: Fifty-fifty.
K: Fifty-fifty.
H: Wow.
K: 'Absolutely. No matter what the money is. No matter what. We'll sell it.'
H: So you were 'really' specing at that point.
K: Absolutely. And a spec that paid off. Absolutely.
He said, 'Listen. I can not afford to offer you any money. I have no money. Here's the script. I think it's a good story. See what you think.'
I spent three months working with him on this [project].
(To read ACT VII --> click on --> "Alex Kustanovich (7)" below.)
< (c) 1999 > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
