Juan Carlos Oganes' film-making and work blog.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

"Alfonso Ugarte" is onboard

So, last night had a meeting with my next casting option and I'm happy to make the right decision: Fernando Petong is simply one of the few actors on the theater scene here I happen to respect work-wise.
His acting skills Ive seen in other people's visual works and also in one of mine 4 years ago was enough to convince me that he could carry on the weigh of being one of the lead actors to represent one of our main national heroes: Alfonso Ugarte.
Even Ugarte was originally 33 years old when he fought and died in this battle (and Fernando must be in his early forties with some gray hair here and there already), make up can make him look younger for even when Im being picky when choosing actors that also look and have lots of resemblance to the real ones, I'm giving myself some license here with him.

Explained him what the story is about, all the dramatic moments im portraying in the film and he seemed excited.

On another note, a curious and hilarious anecdote was that in the middle of our meeting, a guy dropped by who seemed somewhat "tipsy" and approached us out of the blue and inmerged himself in my talks about the film: it was one of the best representatives of the poetic scene, the one and only Antonio Cisneros.He was happy to share some of his views about the war and about history and how he saw it. Interesting stuff.

One thing that remained in my mind thru the night was during his farewell...he shakes my hand and says: "Enough of crap, I think you are making such a good project and film and I wish you the best in making it. You are risking your balls here. You have to do it for it will serve a purpose to our nation!".

Little words like that do make a difference for me.
Specially in these months of hard moments trying to push this thing forward so it ends looking as professional as it can get.

Makes my efforts worth it.
:)