August 24, 2009

Beach's favorite movie to make

Adam Beach posted this biographical note on his MySpace page:

August QuestionSorry I've skipped a few months of the question of the month.

The question is very simple and complex at the same time. My favorite movie that I've worked on. That movie is called Dance Me Outside. When you watch this movie you can see that I am having a great time being Frank Fencepost. A lot of people don't realize that I did this movie right after a film called Squanto: A Warrior's Tale. Now, when I was shooting the film Squanto it was the first time I was away from home for a length of time. This length of time was three months and during that time I got so homesick that I wanted to quit the movie and go home. I was crying every night because I was out of my element of being around family and friends. My family was telling me to stick to it because it would be stupid of me to quit something that I've tried so hard to get. I find this to be one of the hardest things about acting...being away from family and friends. So I toughed it out. All of this experience led to the creation of Frank Fencepost.

The backstory of Frank Fencepost is that he comes from an abusive home. His father tells him that he's worthless, always yells at him, and will occasionally smack him around. So every time Silas sees Frank, Frank just wants to have the best time of his life. His energy is always directed to a fun experience. He pushes the limit to distract himself from his home.

So after completing Squanto, I found myself wanting to redirect the months of crying and heartache into a new direction of laughter. What was so interesting during the filming of Squanto was everybody thought I was method acting because I broke down a couple of times during filmmaking, crying that I missed home, when in reality the character I was playing was kidnapped from home and sent to Europe. So I just happened to be going through the same emotional experience that my character was.

I just wanted to pass on this experience of how much sacrifice is needed to achieve your dreams.
Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

Below:  Adam Beach as Squanto (not Frank Fencepost).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I look forward to seeing the movie Squanto. Albeit, having not seen it, but I think I get the drill. He mentioned he was kidnapped and sent to Europe. So I know what to expect when I see it. These plots are atypical in movies about Indians.

GENO-

dmarks said...

One could probably distill a handful of plot/scenarios, and with them describe 95% of movies with Indians in them.