WPLN News Archive; John Lloyd Miller I Still Miss Someone (Rebecca) 6 11 99; News Archive 6/8/99-7/2/99

It's said that no good act goes unrewarded, but Selby and John Lloyd Miller had no idea just how rewarding a favor to a friend could be. The husband and wife owners of AV Squad and award-winning production company, they were in the middle of editing a music video when longtime pal Mark Colley asked for two minutes of their time. He had heard a film based on the life of Johnny Cash was being considered, and Colley wanted the role badly. But Colley Wood was looking for a big name bankable star. Could Selby and John help him out by shooting a screen test with Colley playing the man in black? The couple had a better idea. We said, instead of a screen test, why don't we just make it a short film? I can wrap my brain around that a lot easier than a screen test. So Selby Miller called in every favor from every vendor and crew member in Nashville, she knew. The group filmed it in two and a half days, and they edited it in less than a week. The cost was $10,000, hardly a flea bite by Hollywood standards, but the result, titled

I Still Miss Someone, is a dark, gripping vignette depicting the country music legend when he was very much in the clutch of pills and alcohol. The black and white footage, shot in a sort of film noir style, is gritty and riveting, and Colley's performance is mesmerizing. He captures the tortured artist beautifully. What? You all right, Mr. Cash? Come on. You all right? I have a drink. Oh, no, thank you. I'm here for the magazine interview. Oh, yeah. Have a seat. When you're on top of that. Oh. Well, uh, Mr. Cash. John. Call me John. I'll tell you what you want to know. Everyone connected with I Still Miss Someone was very pleased with the result, but it wasn't until after a special screening for the crew's family and friends that director John Lloyd

Miller realized they had produced a jewel. People couldn't quit telling him how moved they were by the film. Of course, for the film's star, there was an even more important audience to please. Mark wanted Johnny Cash to see it, but he decided to work his way up the Johnny Cash food chain. So he started off with Chris Christopherson, and Christopherson gave it the two thumbs up from Hawaii. Kinda works way up, and I guess John's son saw it, and then finally, John saw it. And Mark was in the studio one night, and his wife called him and said, Johnny Cash just called. You weren't here, but he's going to call back tomorrow at 8 a.m., so Mark didn't sleep that night. And in the morning, the phone rings, and Mark picks up the phone, and the other side goes, oh, it was Johnny Cash. And he said, he loved the film. He said, you just have to work on your Twitch. When he was taking all these pills, he tended to Twitch a whole lot, and we've seen old footage of him doing it, and we didn't want to play it as twitchy as it really was. That's the first thing that the Johnny Cash said, and so I was the first thing Marty Stewart

said. Looks good. I just need more Twitch. Then Mark Colley took the film to his agents in Hollywood, and they loved it too. Suddenly, John Lloyd Miller was bombarded with phone calls from movie studio executives. Offers began pouring in. It seemed like everyone wanted to work with the man who had made, I still miss someone. Fortunately, John Lloyd Miller has a very clear idea of the kinds of projects which appealed to him. I had an opportunity years ago, when I first got out of film school, to make all kinds of films. I remember being interviewed by the CBS Morning Show, and they interviewed three guys. They interviewed Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and me. I was the next guy, and I would have meetings with all these big, important people, and three picture deals here, and two picture deals there. But they want you to do things you really don't want to do, or your heart's not in. I really don't want to make movies just so I can walk around and puff out my chest and go, well, I made a movie, you know, big deal. Still Miller is fairly certain there's some film project out there with his name on it,

and he'd love the chance to turn his 17-minute short into a full-length feature about Johnny Cash. But even there, he has priorities. They keep adding digits to how big a deal this is going to be. It's suddenly a $50 million feature, and you have to justify spending $50 million with Sydney Pollock, and Johnny Depp, not John Lloyd Miller and Mark Colley. It's not as good a movie, but John will have a better retirement, and Johnny Cash, because he'll make more money. So maybe we'll make the sequel. I still miss someone gets its first public screening tomorrow evening at 7 at the Regal Green Hills, as part of the Nashville Independent Film Festival. For tickets or more information, call 356-766-47. For Nashville Public Radio, I'm Rebecca Bain.