Speedlemania

Fans of Tim Speedle were chagrined when Rory Cochrane decided to leave CSI: Miami at the beginning of the show’s third season. Cochrane retuned to his film career after leaving the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation spin-off, and he took the time to talk to CSI Files' Kristine Huntley about his two 2006 films and his newest gig.

CSI Files: Your CSI: Miami colleagues speak very highly of you. Do you keep in contact with anyone from the show?

Rory Cochrane: Yeah, definitely. Adam Rodriguez (Eric Delko) and I just had dinner last night.

CSI Files: Do you have any regrets about leaving the show?

Cochrane: Not really. I know people love the show and some people still come up to me upset that [Speed] was killed off. But you have to do what’s right for you. People are very sweet and kind and will still come up to me in airports and want to have their picture taken with me because of the show, which is cool.

CSI Files: Would you have preferred to see Speed written out in a different way?

Cochrane: Yeah, absolutely. I had asked the people in charge to not kill me off and that I would like to come back and do a few episodes here and there, but they said, you're leaving and we're killing you off. It was their decision.

CSI Files: Would you ever do television again?

Cochrane: I wouldn't want to be a regular on a series again, but I'm doing a Ridley Scott miniseries, which is six hours long. I'm just not cut out for doing TV all year long. It's good for a lot of people, but it's not for me.

CSI Files: What's your newest project?

Cochrane: I'm about to go film this Ridley Scott miniseries in Canada about the CIA and the KGB. I plat a Soviet spy--a KGB operative that's in the U.S.

CSI Files: Were you happy with how your latest film, A Scanner Darkly turned out?

Cochrane: Yeah, I was happy. I think it's a film people need to see twice to really get it.

CSI Files: Do you think it followed the Philip K. Dick story fairly well?

Cochrane: I think they were pretty accurate towards the book. Philip K. Dick's daughters saw it and thought it was accurate.

CSI Files: Why do you think director Richard Linklater decided to animate the film?

Cochrane: I think it was because of the subject matter and things like the scramble suit in the film. It made it easier to show people's hallucinations. We shot it live action though [before it was animated].

CSI Files: What drew you to the role?

Cochrane: I like working with Richard Linklater, and I like the people involved, the other cast members. I liked going to Texas!

CSI Files: Your other recent project, Right at Your Door, deals with a terrorist attack on Los Angeles. What was it like to film that?

Cochrane: It was probably the hardest thing I've ever filmed. It's not a big flashy story with things blowing up; it's a simple story of a man and a woman who have to deal with the consequences of a terrorist attack. [In the movie], my wife goes to work and [the attack] is on the news and they’re saying don’t come into contact with the people [who were exposed to the dirty bomb] and my wife comes home and I can't let her in.

CSI Files: The film debuted at Sundance; when is it going to be in wide release?

Cochrane: Lionsgate picked it up at Sundance. It's being released in the UK first, in September, and then they're going to bring it [to the U.S.] in January.

CSI Files: What led you to pick this role?

Cochrane: My manager sent me the script and then I sat down with the director. I liked the material, but I was scared to do it. Anyone [in that situation] would let his wife into the house, so I needed to try to find a way to do it [and make it understandable].

CSI Files: Given recent events, do you find the film especially relevant?

Cochrane: It's definitely topical. But I think it's more of a simple human story about the people who are left behind when these attacks happen. We're not trying to exploit people's fears; it's more about the lack of preparation of governments [to deal with terrorist attacks].

Posted at April 21, 2006

Khandi Alexander says in this interview at  http://www.csifiles.com/interviews/khandi_alexander.shtml :

CSI Files: I know you have to catch a plane for Miami, so I won't keep you much longer!

Alexander: I just want to say on a closing note for all of his friends out there, that I as well miss Rory Cochrane (Tim Speedle) very much and I still think of him as being a part of our cast even though he has moved on. I get fan mail from people [and they] always ask me about Rory, so I just wanted to let everybody know that Rory's great, working on some films, and we still miss him. He does have [a very strong fanbase] and I'm part of that fanbase!

1. A Scanner Darkly (2006) (post-production) .... Freck
2. Right at Your Door (2006) (post-production) .... Brad

'Right at Your Door' offers a different kind of festival film
MATT JAMES Of the Record staff

Chris Gorak's directorial debut, "Right at Your Door," which will premier at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival in the Dramatic Competition, offers a plot line different from most independent films. A dirty bomb detonates in Los Angeles and a man must deal with the chaos that follows.
The subject evokes images of crowds of scared people, explosions, destruction, all the elements that make film budgets balloon to "Titanic" proportions, but "Right at Your Door" was never supposed to be a blockbuster.

"It's an independent film with an independent budget, so we had to figure out ways to work around those limits," said Gorak.

"Those limits we had actually made the film a more thrilling story," he added.

Set principally inside one man's house, "Right at Your Door" goes light on big-budget destruction, deferring instead to actors' performances and the implication of a greater danger. So the film offers a different, more personal kind of fear.

"Our scope of our film becomes smaller, because we're shooting through windows," said Gorak.

The film tells the story of a man, Brad, who, after watching his wife leave for work, hears the first reports of a series of explosions and is forced to react. With roads closed, Brad decides to seal himself into his home to protect himself from the possible effects of the bombs.

The film's viewers note both the film's close focus and its tension.

"Gorak and his collaborators demonstrate a restraint and attention to detail that multiply the effect of both the personal and public crisis," writes Sundance Film Festival Director Geoffrey Gilmore in the 2006 Festival Film Guide.

"I'm a huge advocate of setting parameters," said Gorak.

An art director, Gorak said he learned a lot about using parameters when he worked with Steven Spielberg on "Minority Report."

Gorak said he'd watch Spielberg purposely limit himself to get exactly what he wanted out of a scene, and Gorak said he used some of those lessons when writing and filming "Right at Your Door."

Gorak said he first thought of the idea for the film following the World Trade Center disaster on Sept. 11, 2001, when he was in Vancouver working on a film, completely separated from his wife.

"The subject matter of this film was definitely a reaction to the post-911 society and that fear," he said.

The work, he said, started with his anxiety over the distance between himself and his wife and the feeling of disconnection that resulted from his inability to travel and communicate with the larger world.

To write the screenplay, Gorak said he simply thought of the kinds of decisions a person would have to make if faced with such a disaster. After writing the screenplay for the film in 2003 and finding funding for the work, Gorak said he set about writing the film's script.

There, he said, the film started to take its final shape, and he began to write with his limitations in mind.

"They kind of intuitively challenged me to write a contained, budgeted script," Gorak said.

The film went into pre-production in January of 2005 and was shot earlier this year. Rory Cochrane and Mary McCormack star. Gorak said that after the initial work, the project began to gather steam.

"As time went by, we had more and more actors interested," he said.

He said he chose them for their talent more than their previous credits.

"They're fantastic, talented actors and really, to this point, they haven't had a chance to do anything like this," said Gorak.

They matched the film's intensity, he noted, working with their characters' conflicts to create the atmosphere.

"It was just captivating to watch them work at that intense level," Gorak said.

Gorak came to "Right at Your Door" with significant filmmaking experience as an art director and production designer, working on films like "Fight Club," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," and more recently, "Lords of Dogtown."

He said he started as an art director after earning his masters degree in architecture from Tulane University, but he said the art directing provided more of a beginning than anything.

"As I got deeper and deeper into a film, I got more and more into telling a story with film," he said.

After writing a few screenplays, "Right and Your Door" was the first one that was chosen to be made.

"It's exciting," he said. "Coming from a different area of film, I felt I was in a position of all or nothing."

After this first film, he noted, working as a director will likely either become much tougher or much easier.

Gorak said that with his previous filmmaking experience, he had an excellent idea of how a film was made, and thus how to organize and work with the logistics of the project. That experience was valuable, he noted, when writing the film, because he could adjust the script to the time and logistical limits of the film's budget.

"Then," he said, "I was able to focus on the new things (in directing) like working with the actors and telling the story."

The result of his work will be on display when the film premiers on Monday, Jan. 23 at 5:30 p.m. when the film premiers at the Racquet Club.

For a full list of screening times of "Right at Your Door" and for more information, go to www.sundance.org and, under the 2006 Sundance Film Festival section, click on "Film Guide."

First Look:

RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR

Release Date: Sundance Film Festival 2006

Director: Chris Gorak

Screenwriter: Chris Gorak

Cast: Rory Cochrane, Mary McCormack, Tony Perez, Scotty Noyd Jr., Max Kasch, Will McCormack

Synopsis:

 Dirty bombs have been simultaneously detonated in Downtown, Beverly Hills, and at LAX, spreading mass panic through Los Angeles. By focusing on one couple (Mary McCormack and Rory Cochrane) and driving the narrative via news radio, writer-director Chris Gorak has made what is perhaps the first indie urban crisis movie a heart-in-your-throat viewing experience. But it is Gorak’s background as a production designer (“Lords of Dogtown”) and art director (“Minority Report”) that may be most responsible for his ability to pull it off: in this movie, dollops of ash fall like toxic snow as whole city blocks burn in the distance. A story about the life-and-death choices one couple must make in the face of chaos, RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR is also a timely rumination on how the press and federal government responds to disasters of unthinkable proportions.

http://www.blackfilm.com/20060106/features/rightatyourdoor.shtml

And don't rule out the return of Rory Cochrane, even though his Speed demon was killed off last season.

Mike Ausiello, of TV Guide's Ask Ausiello column talked to Ann Donahue about  Rory Cochrane's departure and the chances of seeing Tim Speedle again, even though he's quite dead. "You know, I'll tell you what, it's always open," she said. "We love him, too; I've got to tell you, we love him. And we have kicked it around, different ways to go. Never say never."