Read an encouter with David Duchovny and Todd Robinson during the Q&A panel at Adelphi University. March 6, 2013:
Shannen and David Duchovny
Shannen wrote: Also known as "Holy Respectful Portrayal of Epilepsy, Batman!"
About a week ago (sorry about the lag time, and the radio silence for the past couple of weeks; midterms are Hell), my university held a private screening of Todd Robinson's new movie Phantom.
Before the movie, Robinson spent several hours talking to Comm. majors and Theatre majors about the film industry. I missed his talk with the other communications majors because I had a history midterm, but I grabbed dinner quickly and managed to catch the last part of his talk with the theatre majors, which was pretty cool as well.
After that, there was about an hour until the movie, so I hung around in the school Performing Arts Centre, half-eavesdropping on whatever was going on around me. I got to hear Robinson on the phone with Duchovny, so I had advance knowledge of when Mr. Duchovny was going to arrive. After that phone call, I approached Robinson to express my disappointment in having missed the scriptwriting lecture, but he told me not to worry. I asked him if, since I wanted to go into camera work or directing when I got out of school, I should make as many movies as I could now, or if it would matter more what I did after school. He told me that I should do the former, while I still have creative control over my work, and asked me my name, which I gave gladly. We shook hands and parted ways.
At a bit after seven, the movie began.
Phantom is a fictionalized depiction of what might have happened on a Russian nuclear sub that went missing during the Cold War, bringing the world inches away from nuclear holocaust until it was discovered to have sunk.
That's all the factual information about the incident, actually, which gave Mr. Robinson a lot of creative freedom in writing and directing the movie. Unlike most movies about historical events, this had a lot of unexpectedly correct details, given all the leeway that it had.
I was pleasantly surprised, for example, when Duchovny's character brought up the Dark Star Initiative, a proposed (but later rejected) American idea to put nuclear missiles in space. The fact that Dark Star never happened was an added bonus -- of course Duchovny would be misinformed, and they would have no way to know. It's an excellent little detail, and it's quite possible that I will never be over it.
Another thing that I will never be over (in a good way) is the way that the protagonist, Demi (played by Ed Harrison), is an epileptic, and the subject is treated with appropriate care and respect. While his seizures are a plot point, they're not the be-all, end-all of his character, or of the trauma that he went through that prompted them. Demi is much more than his disorder, and that's a really rare thing to find with characters who are epileptic. The only major character I've seen in media recently is Erica Reyes from MTV's Teen Wolf, and her disorder is her backstory and the reason she (spoiler alert) becomes a werewolf is because her epilepsy has so consumed her life that she'd do anything to get rid of it. And while there are epileptics who, like Erica, are forced to deal daily with terrible, debilitating illness, the fact remains that it's not the rule.
As an epileptic myself, I fall much closer to Demi's category than I do to Erica's. My epilepsy does not consume my life, and it was refreshing, and, honestly, really, really good to see another person like me -- someone whose seizures are part of them, sure, but aren't all of them -- onscreen, in a world where nearly all of the portrayals of epileptics are Ericas instead. He breaks stereotype, and I couldn't be more grateful.
After the film, Duchovny and Robinson answered questions about the movie. The talk lasted about twenty minutes and discussed everything from acting to camera angles. I wanted to compliment Robinson on his respectful portrayal of epilepsy, but no one called on me, so I waited until the photogs started swarming to get pictures of or with Duchovny. When I saw that Robinson was unoccupied, I approached him again and asked him at what point in the process did he decide that Demi was epileptic.
He said that it was one of the first parts of the character to be fleshed out. I thanked him, saying that, as a seizure disorder patient, I had been pleasantly surprised by the way Demi had been written, and he told me that his father had seizures almost identical to the ones in the movie. We talked about epilepsy for a few more moments, and he asked me if I "want[ed] a picture with David." It took me a moment to realize he meant Duchovny, and accepted -- since Duchovny played Mulder on X-Files, it seemed like an important thing to cross off the Geek Bucket List.
He pulled Duchovny away from the throng for a bit after helping me up onstage, taking my phone. Duchovny put his arm around me and I around him, and Robinson took two pictures of us before handing me back my phone. I shook hands with both Duchovny and Robinson, and exited the concert hall.
As I was walking out, despite having never seen X-Files and never seen anything else of Robinson's, all I could think was, "That was so cool."
Because it was, from start to finish.
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