CRAIG WASSON WROTE UNUSED SONG FOR 'BODY DOUBLE'
MENTIONED AS HE DISCUSSES HIS CAREER ON 2-PART "STUFF WE'VE SEEN" PODCAST
"They want to see you for a movie
Brian De Palma's doing."
Craig Wasson tells the story of how he was cast in
Body Double on the second of a two-part interview with the podcast
Stuff We've Seen. He mentions that during rehearsals, De Palma found out that Wasson does music, and asked him to write a song-- something along the lines of "Every Breath You Take" by
The Police (a song which, of course, includes the very
Body Double-ish hook, "I'll be watching you"). "So I wrote a song called, 'What You Do, I Do,'" Wasson says on the podcast, "and it's got that whole thing. And he was going to use it in the movie, but Sony Pictures had a deal with
Frankie Goes To Hollywood, which actually is a fantastic song."
Wasson says he loved working with De Palma. "He's a poet, like [Arthur] Penn. You know, he was speaking in terms of extended metaphors through the whole thing, which I loved. Oh, he was good! We rehearsed like they rehearsed a play-- you know how they tape out the furniture and stuff on the floor while you rehearse the play? We had an open space like that, and we rehearsed for about a week or two, and then we shot, and he very rarely gave direction, because he says, 'Hey, I wouldn't have hired you if I didn't think you could act.' Isn't that great?"
Wasson adds that De Palma wanted them to follow the script, of course, but always with a "What would you do here?" sort of freedom. Using his Jimmy Stewart voice for the podcasters, Wasson says De Palma told him, "I don't want you to do Jimmy Stewart, but I want you to be Jimmy Stewart." It's a terrific interview-- check it out.