More Orlando Posters Youth Culture Rooms Trends / Lifestyles College Favorites	Chapter 2 - From Script to Screen
	If you consider the passion driving Frank E. Flowers to tell the story of the diverse characters in Haven, imagine the enthusiasm producer Robbie Brenner must have felt when she told Flowers the day after reading his script, “I’ll quit my job if you let me produce this movie.” At the time, Brenner was a Senior Vice President at Miramax Films. She had kept in touch with Flowers after she saw his well-received short film Swallow, a powerful tale about a teenage drug mule in Miami who was smuggling cocaine to make money for college. “I saw Frank’s tremendous talent, and I told him to always try and create something you can be passionate about, something that you would make if it was the last movie you ever did. Haven has that passion.” Indeed, Brenner did leave Miramax, and soon she was throwing her own passion into putting the movie together. With no cast attachments, no financing, and a first time independent writer/director/producer team, she had her work cut out for her. But once Bob Yari, who produced the Academy Award®-winning Crash, showed interest – provided some well-known actor attachments could be procured – Brenner and Flowers had the fuel they needed. In only two short months, talent manager Aleen Keshishian fell in love with the material and became a champion of the film. She signed on as producer and Cassandra Kulukundis signed on as casting director, and they were off and running. “Bill Paxton was one of the first to sign on. He read the script twice, really responded to it, and asked to meet with me,” remembers Flowers. “When we did, he walked into the room and said, ‘Listen, kid, I’m going to do your movie, so let’s talk about something else.” Known for such blockbusters as Twister and now the HBO hit series Big Love, Paxton, who portrays corrupt businessman Carl Ridley, couldn’t believe the person who had written Haven was only 24 years old. “It’s a complicated piece where you come at something from different angles, but it’s really well done,” says Paxton. “It’s kind of a Shakespearean tragedy set against a contemporary situation. That’s really complicated filmmaking, but it turned into this unbelievable movie, and Frank shot the hell out of it.” Orlando Bloom, star of such successful films as Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean, was so taken by the script that he signed on to produce as well. He didn’t, however, sign on to portray Fritz, the role he was initially offered. “I loved the script, but the role I most responded to was the character of Shy, who at the time was written as a young Caymanian kid about 15 years old,” recalls Bloom, who was reluctant for Flowers to change the integrity of the script, but curious to see how he could do it. “I was amazed. In literally 48 hours, Frank came back with another script in which Shy had developed into a character I could play. I knew right then that if he could do something like that, I wanted to work with him.” At the time only 27 years old himself, Bloom also made his first foray in the producing role. “It was exciting to start at the bottom of a film and work your way through it, to really roll up your sleeves and get involved,” says the young actor. “It really made me emotionally connected to the movie, so much so that it became a part of me.” Bloom also liked the independent feel of the film. “When there isn’t the pressure of $150 million over your head, it’s suddenly all about making a really good movie and not about finance. In the end, I think it turned out to be a pretty intense little film, both visually and emotionally, and I know audiences are going to feel its impact.” Certainly responsible for a great deal of the film’s emotional impact is actor Zoë Saldana, who starred opposite Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean, and now plays Andrea, the sultry island girl who has captured Shy’s heart. “What attracted me to the story is that all of the characters in it are broken, and subject to the tragic consequences of their actions,” observes Saldana. “They all had flaws, and whether they were victims of circumstance or because of the choices they made, they were very real because of their imperfections.” Flowers agrees with Saldana wholeheartedly. “That was exactly my intent – to develop characters that aren’t perfect because it’s the common flaws that bind all of us and make us human.” Describing Flowers as “an amazing talent,” Saldana adds that while the characters are dark, they have a great deal of depth to them. “Frank wrote a great script,” says the actress. “It’s young and hip and tragic and beautiful all at once.” If Shy and Andrea are the characters at the heart of the film, infusing it with romance, the character of Fritz, portrayed by Victor Rasuk, is at the core of the film’s action, and the thread that ties most everyone together. A huge fan of Rasuk’s work in Raising Victor Vargas, Flowers met with the actor at Sundance. “We started chatting about Haven and about our mutual history of being from the West Indies,” recalls Flowers. “His unique energy really captures a lot of what the Caymans are about.” After meeting with Flowers, Rasuk really wanted to portray Fritz, so he kept in constant contact to coordinate his busy schedule. “I was very eager to be part of something real and honest, and Haven was that,” remembers Rasuk, who turned down other offers of guaranteed work to fly to the islands to learn Caymanian culture and work on perfecting his accent. In fact, the actor actually took it upon himself to live with a family on the island and enroll incognito in the local high school. “I had met the real Fritz in New York, months before and I was inspired to play him,” says Rasuk. “Even though we were from different countries, there was a common spirit in the way he looked at life. We had the same type of personality of hustling and making the best out of every situation.” 4 Next Page: Producing and Casting Haven
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