Final Filming Days For Atlas Shrugged Part 2

TAS Executive Director David Kelley and I work on the set for the last two days of filming to watch key scenes and dialogue that Kelley had discussed with producer Jeff Freilich on a previous TAS visit to the Either-Or Production offices. Kelley also conducts interviews with a number of the performers in the movie, including lead Samantha Mathis (playing Dagny Taggart). Filming and editing the interviews is co-screenwriter Duncan Scott, who also worked on the We The Living movie and The Objectivist History Project, a series of high-quality interviews with prominent figures in Objectivism. The Atlas Shrugged actors discuss their experiences in playing the heroes and villains of Rand’s novel. “It was fascinating to hear the cast talk about their roles,” says Kelley, "To take one of many examples: I asked Patrick Fabian whether James Taggart actually believed the altruist statements he makes about the public good. Patrick pointed out that James is such a hollow man that you can't really say he has any genuine beliefs. And that comes across in his scenes." The videos of the interviews will be available on The Atlas Society’s web site in the near future. Much like Kelley’s commentaries on Part 1, the interviews will serve as a resource for viewers who wish to better understand the philosophy in Atlas Shrugged and the challenges in bringing it to the screen—or for the avid fan who just cannot get enough.
 

I take part in what’s become a parade of activist cameos in the movie. Searching the background scenes, people familiar with the liberty movement will find Easter eggs such as Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, playing a disheveled wino. While TAS is on set, Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine participates as an extra in the wedding scene (along with his daughter). Logan Darrow Clements, a filmmaker who recently created the documentary Sick and Sicker about socialized Canadian healthcare, mingles as a wedding goer. Joining me as extras are Chelsea Krafve, a coordinator at Students for Liberty, and Ross Kenyon, a member on the board of directors for the Association of Libertarian Feminists and an editor at the Online Library of Liberty. Also joining me is my close friend, Caitlin Ewing, now an entrepreneur. In college, Caitlin spent late nights with me at house-parties, writing “John Galt” on sleeping drinkers’ arms so they might wake up in the morning and ask the great question.

  A number of other people working as extras have gravitated to the set for all the old, familiar reasons: they read Atlas Shrugged in high school or college and it changed their lives or inspired their careers. For others, a flailing economy and a bloated US bureaucracy, highlighting the prescience of Ayn Rand’s novel, motivated them to read the book now, and they’ve seized the opportunity to be part of the movie. I talk to a charcoal-haired woman with a tan, open face and muscular shoulders in her short sleeve dress. Her name is Karen Jones, but she introduces herself as “Snakebite” and describes hosting a number of Tea Party events in southern California. Slipping off her high heels between takes, laughing and rubbing her feet, she says, “I’m not used to these kinds of shoes. I’m conservative in some ways, but really I’m an old hippie who loves her sandals.” Saranac Harris and her husband, Kevin, are also on set,—winners of a contest hosted by the movie team to participate as extras. People on set not familiar with Atlas Shrugged—aspiring actors trying to expand their network, hopeful entertainers taking night jobs—soon become curious about all the people so passionate about Rand’s ideas. Kevin Garcia, a real estate agent and musician, asks me questions about Objectivism. “I knew nothing about Atlas Shrugged,” he says, “but now—talking to people—I find it interesting. I’m probably going to research it."

While the purpose of The Atlas Society’s involvement with Atlas Shrugged Part 2 is to provide the larger philosophical context for the movie’s message, there’s something to be gained in watching the actors encounter the characters in their own way. Kim Rhodes (who plays Lillian Rearden) explains about acting: “You have to have empathy with the character you’re playing. Lillian might be an awful person, but she doesn’t wake up thinking ‘I’m going to be awful today.’ She has motivations for her behavior. Obviously power is very important to her. She lashes out at what threatens her.” Rhodes is an elegant woman with a salty vocabulary. She describes Lillian’s plight more simply, in between takes of a spiteful encounter with Dagny: “Damn, she just handed me my ass.” Esai Morales bursts into song between takes of Lillian’s scene—Foreigner’s “Cold As Ice.” Larisa Oleynik, playing Cherryl Taggart, parodies her character’s naiveté with a comical, blank smile and big-eyed blinks. (A 90s TV/movie generation, especially, will recognize Oleynik from her title role in Nickelodeon’s The Secret World of Alex Mack and from Ten Things I Hate About You, as the ditzy, boy-crazy Bianca.)
 

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Laurie Rice is the research and program assistant for The Atlas Society and the editor of David Kelley’s logic textbook, The Art of Reasoning. She holds degrees in English, philosophy, and psychology.