There really is a first time for everything, including being jealous of your actor's performance of his monologue in your movie. I am more crapshooter than competitive - it does not make me crazy when another actor outshines me. Sometimes it makes me feel like I should quit, but that's the limit except for the few times when I am as green as the screen in the photo above. 

I think a few people who read this may remember how Donald discovered Indigo's missing husband in the yard - his body, that is. This afternoon, Nidal

improvised a yarn around that mystery as handily as if he'd been telling that story over and over for years. I was wide-eyed covering my mouth with disbelief practically the whole time. You spend ten years studying playwriting and write only about one paragraph that's not mediocre; and because you are a better casting director than you are a writer, you give your neighbor who owns the neighborhood grocery a fact situation and tell him "call me when you're ready and I'll put you in front of the camera"; and in 20 minutes, he spins a better tale than you ever wrote. And he's so good at it that even though you wrote the original goddamn play, you start believing the story he's telling more than the one you spent two years writing. 

Film at 11 on Friday - tomorrow, Thursday, I shoot my last scene, Russell's monologue, with my baby brother-in-law, Steve Lewis - who is one of the actors whose work often makes me feel like I should quit. (Photo above, still from Indigo Lady, A Performance Art Movie with Nidal Yousef as "Donald the Detective.")