Newport Beach Film Festival 2008

 I guess Mark has a knack for playing complicated villians. And after a few years of working with him I think I figured out why.  It's not just the uncompromising intellectual rigor with which he approaches his work, where he commits himself to the utmost honesty in performance.  It's that he balances that with a great comedic sensibility.  After all, if the imortal equation 'tragedy + time = comedy' is true, then it's from our deepest sense of pain that comedy originates.  And Mark astutely knows that.  He weaves his magic by remembering that we all laugh at the darkest times, sometimes in spite of ourselves.  He knows that sometimes what we laugh at is the darkest part of tragedy, the part we don't comprehend.

This is what he was able to do in our film. Create a dark and sinister character who manifests the greed and callousness and manipulation, while keeping a sense of the humanity and reality of the character through humor.  It's an amazing feat from an amazing actor.  

I always feel that having Mark on set raises the bar for everyone.  For the other actors, for the crew, but especially for myself.  He makes me reach further, try harder. But most importantly he challenges the work, makes it honest, struggles mightily with the parts no one else would think about.  And this is what makes him so great to watch.

I hope you all enjoy watching his performance as much as I did filming it.