I haven't been keeping a close eye on what's going on with Adaptation because I've been busy with my own work and honestly didn't expect much from it other than the usual Hollywood noise. I was amazed when Ed invited me to his production office to discuss casting ideas. It made the film seem more real than I imagined. The producers were most interested in who I imagined playing me. I drew a blank. “Red hair!” one said. “Julianne Moore!” Someone else said: Jodie Foster has blonde hair, but she could have dyed it. We talked a little. It was like a casting party, as if that's all you had to do to get them into your film. Finally someone said, “Meryl Streep.” What a crazy idea: this outlandish film stars the country's most revered actress.
It so happened that I had some history with the Strip. During my sophomore year of college, while I was home in Cleveland for the holidays, my friend Lisa asked if I wanted to be an extra in a movie being filmed in the city. I had never heard of this director and thought the title “The Deer Hunter” sounded silly. I also haven’t heard about the actors who took part in it, except for Robert De Niro, who recently appeared in Taxi Driver. But I had nothing else to do, so I moved on. For nearly six hours in a Russian Orthodox cathedral in an old working-class neighborhood of Cleveland, we played guests at the wedding of characters Steve (John Savage) and Angela (Rutanya Alda). The wedding party included Christopher Walken, John Cazale and Streep. The scene was shot and reshot several times, which confused me since I had never been on a film set before. I thought nothing would come of the film or anyone in it. Upon its release in 1978, The Deer Hunter won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Sound and, for Walken, Best Supporting Actor. This was neither the first nor the last time that my predictions were slightly off.
By the time Adaptation was filmed, Meryl Streep reigned supreme in Hollywood. The film was different from anything she had done before, but a few years later she told me that her children loved the script and urged her to take the role, which she did. There were rumors that Nicolas Cage wanted to play Charlie and his fictional twin Donald. A number of actors competed for the right to play the Kaufman brothers. While casting was going on, I happened to be at a screening of the film in New York, sitting next to John Turturro. We said hello and introduced ourselves. He recognized my name and began passionately telling me why he should get the role of Charlie/Donald. However, in the end, Cage got the role, that is, roles.
My favorite part of preparing for the film was the day I spent with costume designer Casey Storm. He wanted to see my clothes so he could properly dress the fictional Susan Orlean. At that time I preferred Gothic fabrications. I met Casey at the door of my apartment wearing a Comme des Garçons dress—black wool with straps and buckles—and wished he would make something similar so Streep could wear it in the film. For the next hour or so I modeled my favorite outfits. But at the end of the day he told me, “We need to make the journalist look like a journalist.” In other words, he won't use my clothes.
I figured I'd at least meet Streep so she could learn my mannerisms and pick up my Ohio accent. I straightened mine New Yorker office, waiting any day for a call and notification that she was on her way. I told my friends at work about it—something along the lines of, “Oh, Meryl Streep might come by my place in case you see a stranger hanging around,” and tried to imagine what kind of gestures she might be focusing on from me. Time passed. More time has passed. Finally I called Ed and asked when Meryl was coming to see me. He told me that she didn't need it because she had already created the character on her own.
Production on “Adaptation” began in 2001, and that spring I was invited to be an extra. They will film a scene in a grocery store in which Charlie, played by Cage, notices two women muttering to each other about how weird he looks. I was offered to become one of the mutterers. I was stunned when we got to the sound stage. My book felt like a personal endeavor—written in the lonely, sometimes leaden silence of my desk—but now it had become a mini-city, an industrial complex, with dozens of crew members milling around and scores of trucks, dressing room trailers, and concession tables. With the exception of that day in Cleveland, it was the only time I was on a film set and the first time I saw something of me rise from the page into a three-dimensional fictional world.
My husband, John Gillespie, flew me to Los Angeles and when we arrived on set we were filming the scene where Charlie meets with one of the executives. Several people milled around, cleaning up the mess and touching up Cage's makeup. A few yards away I noticed a thin figure with a mop of curly hair: the real Charlie Kaufman. I stammered and said hello, adding, “I’m a little embarrassed.” “It's more awkward for to me“, he said and ran out the door. I don't remember seeing him on set again until the end of my time in Los Angeles. In any case, I was busy being an extra; we filmed a scene, but it ended up being cut. Unexpectedly, John was also cast to play David Remnick, the editor New Yorkerin a scene set in a magazine office, faithfully recreated under a hot Hollywood sky. This one was also cut.
