Christy Corridor was a playwright dwelling in New York Metropolis — which implies she had a number of facet jobs, together with strolling canine and bartending. “There’s a great quote saying, ‘you can make a killing in theater, but you can’t make a living,’” she notes. She had at all times dreamed of working in movie and tv, however it by no means felt fully real looking to her.
As we speak, Corridor is the writer-director of “Daddio,” an acclaimed two-hander starring Sean Penn as a taxi driver named Clark and Dakota Johnson as his passenger, identified solely as Girlie. The movie is each a love letter to New York and a reminder of the significance of human connection set nearly totally inside a cab experience from JFK Airport to Manhattan. The 2 strangers reveal secrets and techniques, provide encouragement and show each humor and vulnerability over the course of the movie, which was shot in simply 16 days.
After a competition run, “Daddio” hits theaters June 28. Corridor spoke to Selection about her circuitous journey to the massive display, filled with as many twists and turns because the cab experience into town.
Daddio was initially written as a screenplay — then a play — that “changed my life.”
When Corridor first had the thought for “Daddio,” she noticed it as a movie. “You want to be able to see her on the phone and feel the claustrophobia of the cab and feel this very distinctive drive,” she causes. “But as a playwright living in New York, I thought, I don’t know how to make movies. So, I formatted it as a stage play with the thought that one day I could make it into a movie.”
Solely downside was, no person wished to provide it. Uninterested in working day jobs and worrying about medical health insurance, Corridor started to think about shifting away from writing. In a last-ditch effort, she submitted the play to Julliard for his or her playwright’s diploma, pondering it will give her extra cred. “Like maybe if I had a more sexy resume, people would talk to me,” she says with amusing.
In April 2017, she met with Julliard’s literary supervisor, Adam Szymkowicz. “He said, ‘Chris, do you know why people come here to Julliard to get a playwright’s diploma?’” She remembers, “I asked why, and he said, ‘To learn how to do what you’re already doing. How to build a play, how to work with actors. The problem, is no one knows you exist.’”
Saying he didn’t need to waste her time in academia, Szymkowicz despatched the play to brokers and managers, main Corridor to signal along with her supervisor, Harry Lengsfield of Grandview. One of many first issues he stated was that he noticed the play as a film. After giving him the screenplay, Corridor discovered her script the excitement of the city, touchdown on The Black Record, a list of greatest unproduced options, pilots and performs for trade professionals to think about.
Dakota Johnson got here on board as star, producer and unofficial casting director in getting Sean Penn on board.
The script discovered its solution to Johnson’s TeaTime Footage, and Corridor credit her with actually championing the piece. “She was also the one who said, ‘What do you think about Sean Penn? We’ve been wanting to work together,’” Corridor says. Clearly, she gave her permission, and Johnson dropped the script off with Penn. “Within 48 hours, Dakota told me Sean wanted to talk to me,” she remembers. “We got on a Zoom, and it was remarkable. He’s a theater kid, he’s been on Broadway and he worked with Sam Shepard. He said, ‘Reading your script made me want to be on stage again. So, if you’ll have me, I would love to do it.’”
Corridor has countless reward for her forged, who jumped into the no-frills shoot with enthusiasm. The actors share a straightforward rapport that has led some to imagine the script was at the very least partially improvised — however that’s not the case. “They are word-perfect,” Corridor reveals. “I understand why people ask — they’re so organic and natural and it feels so raw and real. But that’s the magic trick they pull off.”
Corridor rehearsed for 2 days along with her forged, not desirous to overdo it for the reason that characters are presupposed to be strangers and he or she wished to maintain pure reactions. The primary day was desk work, and the second day they did some tough blocking. Because the characters don’t face one another and solely make eye contact within the rearview mirror, Penn opted to imitate the impact by strapping a hand mirror to a brush and duct taping it to a chair. “We just kind of marched through it with them sitting that way in Sean Penn’s living room,” Corridor says. “I was like, ‘I can die right now and be perfectly happy.’”
Regardless of the one location, the shoot was “complex in its simplicity.”
Although many of the movie takes place totally contained in the cab, it doesn’t imply it was simple. She couldn’t movie the precise drive virtually for continuity causes and was averse to utilizing a inexperienced display, which by no means seems fairly proper.
As an alternative, Corridor and DP Phedon Papamichael selected to shoot on a set the place the cab was surrounded by LED panels. Her crew used 9 cameras to movie the precise route Clark takes by means of New York Metropolis, then used that footage on the LED screens. “It created an immersive experience for the actors,” says Corridor. “So, when Dakota looks out the window, she sees actual cars passing by. It was very realistic. At one point, Sean even said, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to hit somebody.’”
The set was so tight, nevertheless, that Corridor needed to primarily talk with them by means of microphone. “Every time I wanted to talk to them up close, I had to literally crawl under this technology and delve through panels to reach them,” she says with amusing. “But it was absolutely worth it.”
Stephen King presents nice recommendation.
When requested about author’s block, Corridor defers to a quote from “On Writing,” a memoir by Stephen King. “He says, ‘Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work,’” says Corridor. “I don’t have the luxury to have writer’s block anymore because this is now my job. And I’m so grateful for that.”
