Sal Masekela (Hank Ashby) - I first met Sal at Sundance in 2010 with Justin. I was struck by how he treated people who came up to him for pictures or autographs or just to talk. We were with him for a few hours and many, many times he was stopped, once by a pretty big group, and he was so gracious and kind it made me immediately like him. I knew he would be great as Hank.

So we asked him if he would do it and he agreed! It was a lot of fun having Sal on set. He has a great view of life and of his place in it. It’s great to be around. He’s fun and I can tell you he brought a lot of smiles to our group. 

Sal never complained and had a willingness to work and take direction and just a natural likeability… I can’t tell you how helpful that was to me and the crew. 

PLUS Sal is really good in the movie. Very natural, believable… cutting the scenes with him in them was great, he’s really consistent and he also did something that I really noticed - he let others have the scene - by that I mean he set people up and didn’t try and shine the light on himself. Actually, our entire cast had that in common - that kind of selflessness which helps so much in building moments that are believable and put the focus where the story needs it to be scene to scene… part of that is my job, to shade the performances that way, but with Sal it was innate. 

Now, Sal does have his moments and I love what he gave us. His delivery is so unique and specific to him that it’s really kind of special to have the stuff I wrote brought to a place I didn’t really think about - some of this is in his body language, or gestures, pacing, timing… I was really impressed and it makes Hank real, a guy you could imagine hanging out with, talking to… 

I would love to work with Sal again and again if I am lucky enough to have the chance to continue to direct !

-Bryce

SIDE NOTE: We found out late last night that we didn’t get into Sundance… I was initially depressed but it was actually kind of nice the way the timing of that worked out because we had a screening in LA in front of about 100 people and it went great! We got amazing scores on our feedback cards and got some great notes in a little group session we had afterwards. I am very happy with where the movie is and am looking forward to the next phase: completing the technical aspects of post and bringing the movie to distributors and producer’s reps! Onward!!!