Cheryl Hines Opens Up About Her New Film, ‘Serious Moonlight’

When Cheryl Hines got the call to direct Serious Moonlight, she didn’t know what to expect.

NYGossipGirl recently sat down with Hines and she opened up about her directorial debut and how she brought Adrienne Shelly’s script to life.

Shelly was murdered before her film, The Waitress opened in theaters and her husband Andy Ostroy called Hines to see if she wanted to direct Serious Moonlight.

“I really love the way Adrienne wrote; she was a great writer,” said Hines. “I felt like the only thing I could do was to tell the story the way I saw it and to do the best job that I can do telling that story. I decided early on in the process [that] I can’t approach this filled with ‘what would Adrienne have done, how would she have wanted it to be?’ because you’ll never know. Then you’ll be second-guessing yourself. I just tried to find all the comedy in the script, as much as I could because I thought she was such a funny writer and bring that to the screen.”

Hines was shocked when Ostroy called her because she never directed a film before and thought that he would want her to act in the film rather than direct it.

“The odds of somebody calling you and asking you if you want to direct a film – I don’t know what the odds are, but they’re not good,” laughed Hines.

While she thought of who to cast as the leads, Hines thought that she might as well reach for the stars and try to get the best actors she could. She sent Meg Ryan and Timothy Hutton the script and they gladly accepted. The next challenge for Hines would be the different aspects that her job would entail.

“I did as much as I could to prepare,” she said. “I sat down and talked to my director friends and asked them for some advice, very specific advice. Even on the set, I would be texting questions. On the way to the set I would call one of my friends and say ‘what do I do in this situation?’ I tried to use all my resources as much as possible. And even before I said yes to direct this film, I directed a few television episodes.”

Of course there were some stressful situations on set, but as time went by, Hines new how to deal with them. After seeing the finished project, Hines wants to direct again.

“I would like to do it again. If you had asked me while I was shooting, I would said there’s no way I would do this again, it’s not worth it. My hair’s falling out, I had adult acne for the first time ever, I was a mess. But, by the end of the shoot I got to a point where I knew what to worry about and when to let go.”

Edited: December 12th, 2009

A ‘Serious’ Look at Love

Rarely is there a film that allows one a chance to see the lengths that a person would go to, to save a marriage.

In Serious Moonlight, director Cheryl Hines tells the story – as if through a peephole – of two people, one of whom would do anything to get her husband back.

Meg Ryan plays Louise, a hard-working attorney who is content with her marriage. When she comes home one day, her husband Ian (played by Timothy Hutton) tells her that he’s leaving her.

To prevent that from happening, she tapes him to the toilet, thus forcing him to reevaluate their marriage and remember the good times that they once had.

Hines brings Adrienne Shelly’s (Waitress) screenplay to life. Shelly, who was murdered before Waitress debuted in theaters, always had a knack for telling a story that centered around characters with troubled relationships.

Both Ryan and Hutton are a perfect match for Louise and Ian. They both co-starred together in French Kiss, where Hutton’s character left his fiancé (Ryan) for someone else. Ryan steps away from the roles that she’s most known to play – the woman who the man falls deeply in love with. In Serious Moonlight, Louise is empowering and charismatic and holds her own against Sara (Kristen Bell), Ian’s other woman.

It’s refreshing to see a film that is not a typical love story, but could be seen as a realistic one. Hines brings Shelly’s story to life and the result is captivating.

Edited: December 7th, 2009