Actors take center stage in Norman

By Matthew Price

Published: July 28, 2007

NORMAN — Tacked-up paper signs pointed to the set, and crew members wearing headsets called out "Quiet!” with alacrity as the film production of "The Ivory Trade” took over Norman's Nancy O'Brien Center for the Performing Arts this week.

Academy Award winner Martin Landau, character actor Peter Stormare and other stars were on the campus of Norman North High School filming the drama about concert pianists produced by Amy Briede and Academy Award-winning producer Gray Frederickson.

Frederickson, who was a producer on "The Godfather” series, lives in Oklahoma City and is responsible for bringing "The Ivory Trade” to the state.

"Without him, Francis (Ford Coppola) would have been over budget more,” Landau joked at lunch, sitting next to Frederickson and exchanging stories about 1970s Hollywood.

"The Ivory Trade” is directed by Andrew Chan. The film will star Stormare ("Fargo,” "Constantine”), Abigail Spencer ("Angela's Eyes”), Travis Fimmel ("Tarzan”), Beau Garrett ("Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer”) and Charlotte Salt ("Wildfire”), in addition to Landau.

Landau and Stormare praised the script by Laurence Gingold. Stormare said he signed onto the film based on his enjoyment of the script.

"It's based on the script. It's a very unique script,” Stormare said.

The movie, also produced by Gingold, details the troubled lives of classical pianists at a major American conservatory as they confront personal and professional rivalry during the rigors of training for an international piano competition.

Martin Landau

Landau plays a former competitive piano instructor who is now the chairman of the competition. Landau won the best supporting actor Oscar for his role as Bela Lugosi in "Ed Wood” and was nominated for an Emmy for his role of producer Bob Ryan on the HBO TV series "Entourage.”

Beau Garrett

•Garrett, who plays Alicia, is also an "Entourage” alum, having played Vincent Chase's hippie girlfriend in the first season of the series. In "Ivory Trade,” her character is an opera singer who faces decisions about the direction of her life.

•"She grew up in a bit of a conservative family,” Garrett said. "Her mother pushed her from day one to be an opera singer, so it was always auditions, always singing lessons — her whole life, that's all she knew. She went to the school and that was just her path.

•"It's such a coming-of-age thing for her. ... She's figuring out what's important to her, is it music or is it love or family, and that's really her struggle through this film.”

Charlotte Salt

•Salt said the darkness of the story of her character, Nadia, a Russian pianist, was appealing.

•"We're all obviously in the conservatory together ... I play a Russian. She left Moscow to train with a teacher, Olga, in the United States,” Salt said. "My character through practicing so much suffers from tendonitis, so she's slowly losing control of her finger muscles.

•"She funnels her pain through alcohol, and she gets very drunk, then she's sort of sleeping around ...,” Salt said. "It's a destructive character and you just sort of see her destruction through the movie.”

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