It was the winter of 2000, and every working film-maker seemed to be on a fast-track to beat an impending Actors' and Writers' Guild strike. In the first sequence of the movie, David Aames is explaining a dream in which he is apparently the last man alive in the world, abandoned and running wildly through a fully electrified but empty Times Square.Īlong with cinematographer John Toll, we mapped out the shot and a soulful modern visual style for the entire movie. And always, along with that haunting Elvis Presley interview, was an image I knew we needed. A Nashville songwriter named Julie Miller had written an intoxicating acoustic ballad called By Way of Sorrow. There were other early clues as to what I wanted our movie to be. Okay, I just like the way the words sounded. Vanilla Sky is a feeling, a state of mind, a dream of a life that may or may not actually exist. ![]() The title always felt right for our adaptation. In ways he could never imagine, that sky returns later to help define who he is. The title Vanilla Sky comes from a nickname David Aames has given to the painted clouds in an original Monet left to him by his mother. But where does a real life begin, and where does pop culture end? Aames' life, meanwhile, is defined like so many of us, by pop culture. The melody of a more fulfilling life is always just beyond his earshot. And always, perhaps especially when surrounded by adoring women and scene-makers, there is an odd loneliness within him. More adept at snowboarding than commanding the authority of a publishing empire, David Aames moves blithely through his inherited life. In our film, "David Aames" would be the 33-year-old son of a grand Manhattan publisher who'd suffered a fatal car accident (along with Aames' mother) and left "the keys of the kingdom" to him, the one heir who had little knowledge of what to do with it. ![]() He was never called by his first name, it was always "David Aames". He was a brand name for a life we all wanted. ![]() The real David Aames, whose name wasn't exactly David Aames, was more than a person. The name of the main character, a privileged New York ladies man, was based on someone I'd known in school. Cruise had been a big fan of Open Your Eyes, and agreed that we could honour the original and add some new chords of our own. After working with Tom Cruise on Jerry Maguire, and watching his work deepen powerfully in movies like Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia, I knew there was a big and boldly modern performance inside of him, waiting to occupy the centre of our adaptation.
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