A few weeks ago, I was at a rehearsal watching our three leads do a pretty intense scene. Just today, I saw them doing the same scene, this time in costume and on set. The difference is pretty stark. There is no question that their performances were more intense, more immediate, and so much more emotional than what I saw that other day. Don’t get me wrong, they were great before. We cast them for a reason. So what accounts for this change? The fourth major character (as Mark calls it): the cell. There is a certain feel to the set where the gray walls and the metal bars do something to you, making you feel suffocated, trapped. That feeling is there in a big way that you can’t duplicate in a large living room used for rehearsals. Today, we filmed a powerful scene and all the leads just nailed it-all four of them.

And for good measure: