Actress Laura Walker channels Rosemary Clooney in “Fancy Meeting You Here”
Actress Laura Walker has made a career of playing the goofy sidekick, but in “Fancy Meeting You Here,” she channels a darker side of herself while playing iconic singer and actress (not to mention aunt to director George Clooney) Rosemary Clooney.
The film itself initially began as a writing project as one-act play for Laura. Her then-acting teacher thought it was a bad idea and tried to dissuade her from creating the piece. But Laura followed her instincts and created a one-act play based on the mental breakdown of Rosemary Clooney and her one-month stay at the well-known Mount Sinai Hospital.
“I loved reading biographies and was just fascinated with her,” Laura reminisces. “One sentence, in particular, jumped out at me: ‘and then she entered Mount Sinai Hospital for a nervous breakdown,’ and I always wondered what happened to her.”
The reviews were fantastic, and people encouraged her to keep going — including the acting teacher who then offered to help her produce a longer version of her play.
Laura wrote the longer play and then developed it into a feature film, but decided to do a short film first as she figured out the ins and outs of funding and producing a feature-length version of her script. She assembled a cast and crew together and they filmed the first eight pages of the film in an eight-hour day.
The short film, directed by James Carey, takes place in July 1968, a month to the day after Rosemary witnessed Bobbie Kenny being assassinated, and in a time of racial and civil tension prior to her breakdown. The film tackles themes relatable for women today like balancing family life and career goals, her mother/daughter relationships, social pressures of being a star, and drug and alcohol abuse.
Laura remarks, “With a lot of research, I created this world for that one part of her life — her interactions with the doctors and the nursing staff, as well as the friendships she forged inside that mental hospital. Rosemary was at the forefront of saying, ‘It’s okay to get help for your mental health,’ in an era of Hollywood where you couldn’t see the cracks of the movie stars.”
Laura’s dedication to Rosemary Clooney’s story is beginning to capture the attention of the modern day movie industry executives as well.
”Fancy Meeting You Here” was just awarded Best Independent Short by The Independent Filmmakers Showcase at The Regal Cinemas at LA Live in downtown LA.
