DAY 7: HE SOLD HIS SOUL FOR ROCK N' ROLL
Gerrit Graham has talked about the infamous "musical chairs" casting, where William Finley almost wound up with no part to play. The studio considered casting Paul Williams as Winslow, Graham as Swan and Peter Boyle as Beef. Williams turned down the role not only because he didn't feel physically fit or menacing for the role, but he didn't want to use the role as a slam against the recording industry. Boyle was unavailable, Graham took the Beef role and Finley ultimately took the Winslow role. In fact, director Brian De Palma actually wrote the part with Finley in mind. Finley said in a recent interview that Jon Voight was at one time considered for the role of Swan.
Director Brian De Palma originally considered the popular group Sha-Na-Na for the roles of the Juicy Fruit. They were very big at the time, but De Palma found them too difficult to work with and rejected them.
At the airport when Beef is introduced, the Death Records logo on the lectern was superimposed over the original logo for Swan Song Records to avoid conflict with Led Zeppelin's record label, which had sued. Although the film's producers were certain they would win due to the fact that the phrase was common long before, they decided to make the change in order to get the film finished quickly rather than go through a prolonged court fight.
No comments:
Post a Comment