Jerome Elston Scott recalls seeing police barricades on his first day on the set of “Anderson’s Cross” and thinking, “oh, they’re shooting something else here.”
Then, a production assistant tapped him on the shoulder and said, “OK, Mr. Scott,” snapping him back to reality. His directorial debut was about to begin.
“Cross” co-stars Michael Warren and Joyce Guy, who play Scott’s parents in the film, saw the panic in his eyes and told him, “you can do this.“
Scott let his instincts guide him the rest of the way. The film went on to earn the Best International Feature from the Bridgetown Film Festival in Barbados as well as Best Feature from the Independent Black Film Festival in Atlanta.
“Anderson’s Cross,” out on DVD Nov. 22, tells the story of three long-time friends facing major life changes at the end of their high school days. Nick (Scott) isn’t sure if he should see the world or go straight to college as his mother suggests. Kevin (Nicholas Downs) and Tracy (Heather Bergdahl) seem like a perfect high school couple, but each has complicated feelings toward Nick and the future.
It’s a tale touching on familiar themes – teenage isolation – as well as less explored topics like evolving sexual identities. It’s an ambitious project that might have tripped up other directors, but Scott squeezes some genuinely dramatic arcs from his main characters.
It’s a debut that belies his youth – although the actor/director gently refused to share his age.
Scott started his film career acting in projects like “Freaks and Geeks” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” roles that let him study how directors like Judd Apatow and Joss Whedon, respectively, worked.
He asked plenty of questions and used the experience as his personal film school.
“When other kids [on set] were putting on their iPod, I was a sponge,” he says.
He recalls the directors being eager to answer questions from the cast and crew – no matter how big or small a role the person was playing in the production. Neither Apatow nor Whedon minded if someone offered a line or story suggestion that trumped the script.
“It wasn’t about ego,” Scott says.
Scott, who self-produced “Anderson’s Cross” courtesy of his Illumination Pictures film studio, surrounded himself with screen veterans, like co-star Joanna Cassidy, to help continue the learning process. Cassidy ended up teaching him a lesson he didn’t expect.
Her character was trying to seduce Nick, and the scene called for her to kiss him passionately. The veteran actress asked him, “is there anything you don’t want me to do here,” he recalls.
“Don’t put your tongue in my mouth,” he says. “And that’s the one thing she did, and it’s caught on film. I was completely flabbergasted. She knew that’s what the character needed, that it would throw me off,” he says.
Scott drew on his own high school days to help shape “Anderson’s Cross,” giving the film a personal, autobiographical spirit. His own family is reflected in Nickj’s home, a place where parents take a direct interest in their children.
But he kept some of his past to himself.
“These are my memories … but I took my favorites memories [out] I’m not gonna write about those,” he says.
(Photo: Jerome Elston Scott’s first film, “Anderson’s Cross,” hits DVD shelves Nov. 22)
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Jerome is 43 freaking years old, thinking he could play a high school kid.
He didn’t want to give his age because that’s an embarrassing bit of casting vanity.
And asking and being told “gently” that he won’t give his age doesn’t cut it, Toto!
Is he really that old? I cut actors some slack – Alan Ruck was an old timer when he shot “Ferris Bueller” (late 20s, if memory serves). But if Jerome is in his 40s that’s another story. He struck me as youthful while watching the film … but as I get older everyone looks like a whippersnapper to me.
We newspaper geezers have our ways. Brooklyn, born 43 years ago. Looks pretty old in the movie, and heck, he was pushing it doing Freaks/Geeks in the 90s.