*54 (1998)

Test audiences killed writer/director Mark Christopher's vision of the notorious New York nightclub. His original cut focused on a love triangle involving bartender Shane and married couple Greg and Anita. Shane's travails include sleeping with Anita and kissing Greg onscreen. Early audiences were put off by the gay kiss and also protested the happily-ever-after ending for all three. After extensive reshoots, the entire triangle subplot landed on the cutting room floor. (J)

Source: Entertainment Weekly (September 4, 1998, p. 20) via FROMSCRIPT2SCREEN.COM

*The production history of this fiasco has been documented in the pages of Entertainment Weekly and other such publications, and it is a bit of a sad story. The original cut did not test well with audiences, Miramax requested cuts, the director balked, and...the machine won. The film was drastically redone for the worse, it seems, and whatever edginess or decadence the film may have had was lost. If you saw the theatrical version, you know it was pretty lame and missing precisely the glamour, sin and sex the material requires. Of course, wouldn't we all love to see the original version? I know I would, even if it isn't that great (it can't be worse than what ended up on the screen). Interestingly, Miramax has stated in the trades there is no director's cut slated for video, DVD or otherwise. However, Miramax has announced a movie-only version, which if you've seen the film, you know is pretty lacking. No day & date or VHS sell-through tie in, and no director's cut, but a DVD. Guess we'll have to wait and see if someday this admittedly limited-interest title is seen the way it probably should have been in the first place..

Source: DVDFILE.COM 10/11/99

Alternate versions of 54 (1998)

A 40 second scene at 1:46 on the DVD showing Ryan having sex in a car was not seen on the PPV telecast nor in theatres but was on the DVD. A promotional clip showing Shane and Julie discussing her status as his girlfriend was edited out of the film after the line where she says "You're Sweet". Another promotional clip had Bell & Jame's "Linging it Up (Friday Night) playing when Shane was trying to get into 54. In the film no song was playing at the time.

Source: IMDB.COM 12/12/99

54's Bisexuality-

Neve Campbell has a bad omen for sex scenes (mostly gay though) in films. In 'Wild Things' the only gay sex scene landed on the cutting room floor. Now, 54 has had to be abridged. One bedroom scene involving Campbell, Phillippe and another man was considered too risky after the first previews were shown. I don't know where these sneak previews were shown, probably somewhere in New Jersey, I just read the reviews, and they often complain that this has robbed the film of its one real thrill, the sex of 54. The film had a very bi-sexual feel to me, until it dawned on me that only traces of this had been left. At the end of the day, the club seems to be more like a village fete that's run out of control.

What's left is Mike Myers in arguably the most important role as the club's organizer. He is supposed to have been ready to promote male workers for sexual favours. Well, that's a bit off, innit? But Christopher, who is himself gay, shot this scene in a light not often seen in Hollywood. On one occasion, having obviously taken too much in the way of drugs, Rubell actually apologises after one rejection on the part of a worker, saying he respects him for having said "no".

In another scene, Shane rushes into the office and starts unbuckling his belt before Rubell realises that the young man is after a pay rise. Rubell, who has certainly been waiting for this opportunity for a long time, kindly refuses this offer. This is not an attempt to excuse sexual abuse at work, but it has to do with dispelling the image of a horny gay boss. Regrettably, this approach to political correctness does have the disadvantage that not even in these scenes anything exciting happens.

It is also interesting how 54 fights against restrictive labels of sexuality. When Brecklin Meyer as Greg refuses his boss' wish to give him a blow job because he isn't gay, Rubell counters that he isn't either, but he just wanted to give him a blow job. The scenes which were cut would probably have contributed to the queering up of some other sexual labels as well.

Source: QVIEW Dec. 10th 1998

Disco Dance

Miramax ordered "54" director to lighten up his first cut after disastrous test screenings

by Josh Wolk

The "54" that enters theaters today is a disco saga that dances to a different beat than did its original incarnation. As Rebecca Ascher-Walsh reports in this week's EW, first-time feature director Mark Christopher was forced by Miramax to alter the movie drastically after a disastrous test screening.

The film studies the hipper-than-thou New York nightclub of the '70s, Studio 54, as seen through the eyes of an impressionable New Jersey teenager (Ryan Phillippe) who works there as a bartender. The original cut, however, was significantly darker, with Phillippe disrupting the lives of a couple who befriend him (Salma Hayek and Breckin Meyer) and spiraling into drugs á la "Boogie Nights." But sneak-preview audiences thought the characters were too unlikable and sinful --and particularly hated a moment when Phillippe and Meyer kiss.

Miramax quickly ordered a none-too-pleased Christopher to do major reshoots (the film was to open in two months). In the end, the kiss vanished, and the characters lightened up dramatically, with Hayek's and Breckin's roles shrinking, while Mike Myers (who plays club co-owner Steve Rubell) and Neve Campbell (as a soap star club habitué) gained screen time. (As a whole, the movie was trimmed by a half hour.) Many of the cast members were surprised by the extensive changes, but not Myers, who says he was surprised that the movie is "as unchanged as it is. I've written four screenplays, and they're never what you think they'll be. You always have to scramble and change. A screenplay is a blueprint, it's not the house. The movie is the house."

Source: Entertainment Weekly August 28 1998

THE 411 ON '54'

Thanks to a tumultuous postproduction period, the film that was made is not the one you'll see.

by Rebecca Ascher-Walsh

WARNING This article discusses several elements of the plot of the movie '54'

Disco sweeps the nation--see it on the History Channel!" proclaimed a billboard beside a Toronto highway last November. On a nearby soundstage, on the set of 54, first-time feature director Mark Christopher was doing his part to bring that history back to life, detailing, in all its sordid glory, the heyday of New York's infamous nightclub Studio 54. "We're not making fun of the time," coproducer Richard Gladstein (Jackie Brown) yelled above the disco din, as sequined extras, balanced precariously on platform shoes, made their way onto the dance floor. "We're being faithful to it and having fun with it."

But the fun was about to end. Christopher, a 37-year-old novice who'd won the chance to direct his 54 script on the basis of two gay-themed short films he'd directed, knew he had re-created the club to within an inch of its Mylar-coated, mirror-plastered self. He knew, from five years of research and writing, that the activities being played out on the stage--having sex with anything that moved, snorting anything that didn't--were accurate. What Christopher didn't know was that he was making two different movies: the one he filmed, and the one that--thanks to dismal initial test screenings, a battle with Miramax, extensive reshoots, and a blizzard of edits--is being released.

The before and after films share a setting, a time period, and a cast. Mike Myers, in his first dramatic role, is club co-owner Steve Rubell; Ryan Phillippe (I Know What You Did Last Summer) is Shane, a naive New Jersey kid seduced by 54's sex-and-drugs siren call; Breckin Meyer (Clueless' hapless stoner) plays Greg, a club busboy; Salma Hayek is Greg's wife, Anita, a coat-check girl who longs to be a disco queen; and Neve Campbell is a club-going, jaded soap opera actress.

But where Phillippe, Meyer, and Hayek were once the center of the story, the star is no longer a person but the club itself. And much of the action taking place within that space bears little relation to what was originally shot.

Miramax purchased the 54 script in 1997 and, after overseeing minimal rewrites, sent the director and his cast off to Toronto for the two-month shoot last fall. There, Christopher filmed a story about an out-of-control love triangle set against the backdrop of an out-of-control nightclub. After the opening scenes, in which Shane is plucked off the street and escorted into a bartending job at the club, Christopher's original script has him spiral downward, not only indulging in drugs but also undermining Greg and Anita's marriage by kissing him and sleeping with her (among others). All the characters engage in tawdry behavior as they claw their way to the top of the heap of creeps, culminating in Shane's expulsion from the club, mysteriously hand in hand with the couple whose relationship he has all but demolished.

During production, a Miramax executive kept tabs on the set, and cochairman Harvey Weinstein himself flew up from New York to give his blessing. According to the cast and crew, filming was completed without a snag.

Miramax, a studio with one eye on art-house filmmakers and another on mainstream, commercial fare, thought that Christopher might be delivering a big summer hit. As Christopher finished editing the film, Miramax scheduled 54's release for July. Realizing that the cast was a teenager's dream team, the company's publicity department began pitching Phillippe as a cover candidate to youth-oriented magazines, even though the subject of the movie and its overt omni-sexuality made it unlikely to appeal as first-date material.

But when Miramax screened Christopher's two-hour cut for a test audience, the reaction was alarming. A person familiar with the response cards reports that the viewers found the characters irredeemable and the ending, in which Greg, Anita, and Shane find happiness, unacceptable. ("I don't think that's true," says Christopher, when asked to comment on Shane's lack of popularity.) And another person involved in the filmmaking process says the audience loathed the moment when Meyer and Phillippe kiss; the subsequent elimination of that scene has been seized upon as proof that Miramax had problems not with the movie but with the theme of homosexuality. That turnabout would be strange, given Miramax's history of films ranging from The Crying Game and Priest to the upcoming Velvet Goldmine, in which any number of men bed each other with alacrity; in fact, the studio proudly showed a clip of 54 at April's New York Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation awards dinner (at which Miramax was honored). Explains Christopher: "This was a very ambitious story line from the start. Our goal was to keep the audience sympathetic to the characters, [and] any material that was removed from the film was removed because it was too challenging for some members of the audience. However, I'm excited because some of the most groundbreaking material really played and still remains."

But Miramax took seriously the test audience's opinion of what didn't play, and fighting began between the studio and Christopher. While the director was vocal to friends and colleagues about the trouble at the time, complaining that Miramax was attempting to take his movie away from him, he has since retreated into the more politic stance of a first-time director who has bitten the hand that could possibly feed him again. "I'm not not commenting," Christopher says now, crafting the kind of hedge it takes most industry insiders years to perfect. "The process is...whatever. Can we keep this general? We were both trying to make the best movie possible, and I think we've done that."

The actors were less confident when they received calls in June summoning them back for reshoots. All were in the middle of other projects; none knew what the result of their additional work would be. Says Meyer: "I figured maybe they didn't get an angle or an insert shot."

But by the time Christopher reconvened the cast in New York for reshoots, only two months before the movie was due in theaters, it was clear more than an insert shot was missing. "It's the first time I went through something like this, and it was scary at the beginning," says Hayek. "I was confused. I didn't know whether it would work or not."

The entire love triangle between Anita, Greg, and Shane was to be left on the cutting-room floor. With the core of the movie missing, the actors had to substitute scenes, and fast. Meyer found that his part had been whittled from "the moral fiber" into a best-friend role; apparently to make Shane appear more heroic by contrast, Greg was now a thief, and Meyer had to film a scene in which he is shown stealing money from Rubell to finance his drug-dealing business. Phillippe extended Shane's voice-over to frame the movie and filmed new scenes with Campbell in an attempt to make their relationship--once incidental--more of a backbone to the movie. As for the notorious kissing scene, Meyer and Phillippe were asked to replace it with a conversation in which Meyer's character tells Phillippe that he's getting out of control. "It's more paternal," Meyer says. "It's on a different level."

No longer do the film's misbehaving characters appear to get away scot-free: The new ending has Shane cutting ties with Anita and Greg and returning to the scene of the crime, only to witness Rubell's pathetic, one-night comeback after having served 13 months in prison for tax evasion. (Rubell died in 1989.)

While Hayek and Meyer say their parts are diminished, it's not surprising that Myers and Campbell--the film's two biggest names--found themselves with more screen time (the film itself has shrunk to a trim 89 minutes). Myers, at 35 the oldest and most experienced of the principal actors, claims to be surprised the movie is "as unchanged as it is. I've written four screenplays, and they're never what you think they'll be. You always have to scramble and change. A screenplay is a blueprint, it's not the house. The movie is the house."

But some of the house's inhabitants aren't altogether sure they're pleased to live there. "It's pretty frustrating to go into something with the best intentions and interests, and have to let it go at a certain point because I'm not the one investing the money," says Phillippe, a staunch believer that the movie should stay true to the tempestuous time in which it takes place. Still, he adds, "my hopes remain the same. I want it to tell a story that will be entertaining and bring back a feeling of an era and a place."

"A lot of my scenes got cut, but shit happens," says Hayek. "I think the movie is better, and I'd rather have a small part in a good movie than a starring role in a bad one."

Source: Entertainment Weekly September 4 1998

54 - AUGUST PREVIEW OF UPCOMING FILMS IN PRODUCTION

STARRING Mike Myers Ryan Phillippe Salma Hayek Neve Campbell Breckin Meyer Sela Ward Sherry Stringfield

DIRECTED BY Mark Christopher

Sex between men, women, and anyone indeterminate who wanted to join in, reflected in glitter balls, choreographed to a disco beat, and enlivened with cocaine--just another '70s night at New York's notorious Studio 54. Twenty years later, Miramax is hoping such revelry will lure audiences to the velvet rope of 54, a fictionalized account of the center of the disco universe. Think Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights with spangles, sequins, and Seconal.

Myers, in his first dramatic role, plays the late Steve Rubell, the club's real-life coked-up co-owner, who turns innocent Phillippe (I Know What You Did Last Summer) into a debauched stud. Meyer and Hayek are a husband-and-wife busboy and coat-check girl who watch the comings and goings of New York's glitterati--including a Bianca Jaggerish socialite (Ward) and a sullen soap star (Campbell).

First-time feature director Christopher persuaded Miramax to finance the project on the basis of two gay-themed shorts he'd directed that won festival-circuit acclaim. When the studio asked for a more mainstream script, he toned some things down, including a love affair between two young men. Still, plenty of eye-catching details remain: Meyer and Phillippe are clothed in tiny shorts or unbuttoned jeans, sans shirts. "I wanted to die every day in wardrobe," says Meyer, who shares his first on-screen kiss with longtime friend Phillippe. "As soon as a take was over, Ryan and I ran for our robes."

Miramax approved the script but is said to fear that 54 is still not mainstream enough. Says producer Richard Gladstein, "Miramax ordered a pretty edgy film; we gave them a pretty edgy film; they're going to release a pretty edgy film." (Aug. 7)

THE LOWDOWN The ShoWest promo reel--too edgy for theaters--declared 54 "the sexiest movie of the year," but some of that may get cut to avoid an NC-17.

Source: Entertainment Weekly August 1998

Ryan Phillippe Interviews (NEW) - 1 of 4

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY May 15 1998

....And in this month's 54, written and directed by Mark Chirstopher, Phillippe is Shane O'Shea, a small-town boy dazzled by the big city lights built into the ceiling of Steve Rubell's iconic disco, Studio 54. O'Shea has nothing to offer but his dynamic, physical charms, which turn out to be quite enough to build the shallow fame he seeks. It's a role Phillippe took on because, he points out, he likes a challenge.

Ryan Phillippe: I'm sorry I didn't call you before. I've been on night shoots. I got home at five in the morning, so as much as I would have liked to have been awake, I didn't have it in me.

Elizabeth Weitzman: That's all right -- I've got you now. The first thing I'd like to ask you is how much you identify with Shane's journey in 54. I ask this because you made your way from New Castle, Delaware, to Hollywood, just like Shane goes from Jersey City to Studio 54 in Manhattan.

RP: Shane's a guy who's a lot more naive than I think I was when I started out and who wants a lot more of the superficial aspects of the fame -- or pseudo-fame -- that come with being a bartender at Studio 54. He's also somebody who is not really as focused as I like to believe I am. But at the same time, he aspires to something bigger than his situation and feels that anything other than the achievement of that goal will be less than what he wants out of life. So there are things I can definately relate to, but I'd say we're pretty different as far as philosophy is concerned. In fact, that's the reason I took the role to begin with. I was scared by it and I didn't think it was something I could pull off. Even the way Shane looks at himself is the polar opposite of the way I do. This is a guy who digs what he sees when he looks in the mirror -- he thinks he's hot shit. I by no means feel that way about myself.

EW: Do you think the film says something about the present day -- or just the era in which it's set, the late 70s?

RP: Anybody can identify with the idea of wanting a more exciting life and not being allowed to have everything they want. I think most people, if they're lucky, have a period where they let go and experiment a little as they grow, so that they end up forming their own tastes and opinions. Studio 54 stood for all that and I think it's still prevalent today, although the hedonism of that time has gone. It wasn't something that was built to last.

EW: Is it a world that would have drawn you in if you'd been around then?

RP: No. Not after having done all the research and heard all the stories. I would have loved to have gone there just one night, at the height of its glory, but more as an observer than a participant -- just kind of checked it out and watched the way everybody postured and moved within the club. I lived in New York when I was seventeen and I occasionally went out to clubs, but there was nothing satisfying about it to me. But as an actor you want those contradictions -- you want to get into the idea of being someone you don't completely understand.

EW: What did Studio 54 come to symbolize to you while you were making the film?

RP: I originally thought of the place as a cartoon, but what changed my perception eventually was realizing how liberating it must have been for people, particularly a lot of gay kids who would make the trek there at age eighteen or nineteen because they'd heard about it, and would allow their senses to be filled with whatever was going on. No one was judging anyone. People who've heard I'm in the movie have said to me, "I was at Studio 54 one night when..." and whether their story's full of debauchery or just the excitement of being there, it'll be clear that it had an effect on their life and enabled them to open up and be who they wanted to be.

EW: So what would you say 54 stood for as an icon? Was it freedom, or was it the opposite of that because obviously, there was a policy of exclusivity and not everyone could get in?

RP: I don't think it had a direction really, and that's the key to it. That's what New York in 1979 was about. My character does immoral things throughout the film, and it's difficult to make excuses for him, but he wasn't really considering the future or trying to hurt anybody. He was just caught up in that world. It was about having a good time.

EW: So it was like a fantasyland that actually became reality for a few years.

RP: Yeah. And then the reality got too real, so it had to end. You can only run at a certain pace for so long until you're out of breath and everybody else catches up and passes you.

EW: Do you think we're equipped to judge Studio 54's hedonism or only observe it neutrally?

RP: I think any judgment that's made is pious. Maybe we can learn from it, rather than judge it.

EW: Learn what exactly?

RP: That sex, drugs, power, and money in excess doth corrupt and will meet an end at some point. You can only escalate so high before gravity calls.

EW: Were you at all concerned that the film could be perceived as a sort of sexy exploitation of nostalgia?

RP: In a way, yeah. There were times where Breckin [Meyer, one of Phillippe's costars] and I would show up for work and look at the pairs of tight, shiny shorts or jeans that made up our 54 wardrobe and wonder if we were making Showguys. But we had to let any reservations go. Otherwise we wouldn't have been doing what we were supposed to. We know that we're actors and we're more than a look. And if it's done to women over and over again why shouldn't it be done to us? I think that's fair.

EW: OK. So do you think Studio 54 is something worth celebrating or just worth remembering?

RP: I'd say "remembering." Because I think the good stuff that we've gotten out of it would have happened regardless, and was happening in other places anyway.

EW: The good stuff meaning...

RP: Meaning acceptance, understanding, and personal liberation. And who needs the celebrity stuff anyway? I wish more people understood that or believed it.

EW: Tell me about that a little bit. You've not only recreated a specific world that helped advance the modern concept of fame but, being a successful actor in Hollywood, you're part of it, too. What does the whole celebrity thing look like to you?

RP: It looks pretty silly. It looks the same as it did when you would get on the bus for a school field trip and try to find the seat next to whoever it was you wanted to sit next to. I have my dogs and I have the house that I live in with my girlfriend [actress Reese Witherspoon] and my friends and my family, and a couple of months out of the year I make a movie that I'll want to promote because it's heartbreaking when you make something and it instantly disappears. Beyond that, nobody can make me do anything I don't want to.

EW: Is that really true, though?

RP: Yes, it is. Nobody thinks for me. And it's irresponsible to let anyone try. If you do, then you're damning yourself and it's your own fault. I have no sympathy for anyone who does.

EW: How do you like living in L.A.?

RP: I spent the first few years there despising it because I'd been raised on the East Coast and when I came out here I had no friends, no car, no money, no place to live, no definite work. Then, after a while I figured out it was a waste of energy to hate a place where you can carve out your life. You're responsible for your own existence and you choose your friends and the places you want to go, so it becomes like anyplace else.

EW: How has being in Hollywood changed you?

RP: I have an easier time saying no and being more definite in my judgments and my decision-making. So I think being here's made me stronger as a person. I don't know if that's good, because I don't know if it's that desirable to strengthen every belief I've got.

EW: What do you mean by that?

RP: I don't know. I guess I'm just being self-deprecating. Or at least humble, so I don't sound like a self-righteous jerk.

EW: Do you worry that you might come off as a totally different person than you really are?

RP: Yeah. I tend to speak freely and sometimes very stream-of-consciousness, so I feel like I'll either come off sounding confused or that something will come out the wrong way and will be misinterpreted.

EW: Do you feel like your image of yourself has changed at all?

RP: No, because that's not the focus or emphasis for me. When I played Shane in 54 -- and now I'm going to sound like a complete hypocrite because I had to run around shirtless for half the film or stand around like I was some Greek god, but that's what Rubell's whole thing was, making these guys the center of desire -- when I did all that, I knew it wasn't me. It was this guy. I really believe that, or else I wouldn't have done it.

EW: You grew up with three sisters. Do you think that's enabled you to get in touch with your feminine side more easily?

RP: [momentarily distracted] My bulldog is in the ivy right now, like up to his neck. It's really funny. [pause] Yeah, I think so. Consequently there's not much that makes me uncomfortable and I'm not really afraid of any aspect of my own personality or anyone else's.

EW: You seem especially open-minded about playing roles that explore issues of sexual identity. A lot of straight actors are insecure about playing gay or bisexual men.

RP: That's an area where I do have confidence. But there's no design behind it. You take whatever role is most interesting to you. If something is real to you, why not play it? Why not be it? Why not show it? Who's going to deny that at Studio 54 in 1979 there were a lot of people going both ways, guys who'd make out with a boy upstairs and then head down to be with a girl? That was real; it happened. Maybe if my character had been someone who came from a staunch moral background, then it might not have made sense for him to do that. But as an exploratory individual who's very susceptible to persuasion, why not? Why should I be afraid of evoking reality?

EW: Did it make you uncomfortable kissing Breckin Meyer in the film?

RP: No. It was really the first time I'd kissed a guy, not that that matters, but because it was Breckin, it was easy. He was my first friend when I came to L.A.; we hung out with our girlfriends all the time. But I don't think it would have been difficult to kiss an actor I didn't know. There are parameters I don't think I'd want to violate in a heterosexual scene on screen, and I'd probably apply the same thing to a homosexual scene. I don't want to do full frontal nudity. I don't think anybody has a right or need to see my penis. Nobody needs that to continue living their life. But any sort of kiss between two people in a relationship is fine.

EW: Is there a danger you could become a sort of totem for sexuality because your roles are so frank?

RP: I don't think so, because it hasn't been that calculated. I've never said, "I'm going to take this or that sexually charged role." When I read a script, I'm like, "Shit, can I pull this off?" And that's usually why I do it in the end.

UNKNOWN

The heady days of conspicuous over-indulgence at New York's infamous Studio 54 nightclub are now just a hazy memory. But the movie "54", starring blonde bombshell Ryan Phillippe, attempts to recapture the cocaine-fuelled cavorting on film. It didn't occur to Ryan Phillippe that once he became the subject of feverish Hollywood attention, no one would have a clue how to pronounce his last name. But then, he never anticipated he'd have made eight films by the age of 23, without a dud amongst them. "It doesn't even seem possible that I've heard so many different pronunciations," he laughs on the set of film number eight, "Dancing About Architecture". (For the record, the correct way to say his surname is Phil-lip-pe). The current excited murmurs about the cherubic-looking young actor are the result of his role as Shane O'Shea, naive New Jersey teenager turned New York City golden boy, in the film "54", based on legendary 1970's New York nightclub Studio 54. In fact, the character's arc in "54" was initially quite similar to Mark Wahlberg's in "Boogie Nights", encompassing copious amounts of sex, suspicious-looking pills and all things hedonistic. And the central story revolves around what Phillippe terms "an equally divided love triangle" which also includes Anita (Salma Hayek), a coat-check girl/wannabe singer who may or may not be based on Madonna, and her husband Greg Randazzo (Breckin Meyer). "I've got this fascination with both of them and the three of us are the heart of the movie," explains Phillippe. "Three colorful kids who are ambitious and wanting different things out of life. You see the club mostly through the characters' eyes." Once he's promoted to bartender at the club, O'Shea enters his Dirk Diggler phase. "The bartenders at Studio 54 were pseudo-celebrities," says Phillippe. "Shane starts doing a lot of drugs and having a lot of sex and becomes completely demoralized. But he is constantly surrounded by fascinating characters. It was 1979 and there was tons of cocaine around because this was before people realized it was addictive. And, back then, everyone was having carefree, unprotected sex because no one was worried about AIDS. It was a time and place that will never exist again, probably for the good of mankind." Many of Phillippe's raunchier scenes have unfortunately been cut, including his love scenes with both Anita and Greg. The threesome is no longer the core of the movie, since O'Shea's flirtation with soap star Julie Black (played initially as a cameo by Neve Campbell) has been reworked into a much more substantial storyline. (The changes required the cast to reassemble in New York for two weeks of reshoots). Although Phillippe is correct in calling the film "a period piece", many of the people who frequented the club are very much alive and kicking, even if they're never mentioned in the film. Ian Schrager, now a hugely successful hotelier, ran the club with Steve Rubell (portrayed by Mike Myers) but is never referred to. However, as Phillippe astutely points out, "famous people don't really want to admit they were there. But we did have a license to feature people like Halston and Andy Warhol who have since passed on." \par Regardless of the unfortunate butchering of the film received in the editing suite, Phillippe admits he had a blast making "54", even if he learnt the hard way that actors have little control over how much of their finely nuanced performances make a film's final cut. "I just hope it gives people a glimpse into what it was like to spend a night at the club," he offers gracefully. "That's still the most fascinating element, regardless of how you surround it. I still think there's some great stuff in there, a lot of elements worth watching." Besides bartending in New York and working with a dialogue coach "to develop a really thicwhere" [1997].