The Praying Mantis in the opening sequence was the very first shot of the production. On the first day, while waiting for Van Der Beek to arrive on set to shoot him laying at the base of the tree, we saw a praying mantis crawling along the grass. A good omen for the production. We quickly turned the cameras onto it, and shot. I then allowed him to crawl onto a cup, and James arrived and we began to shoot his scene. It was our first day, and James was a bit shagged from being out all night at a strip club, and while he was laying there with his eyes closed, waiting for the cameras to roll, I whispered "I'm going to put a praying mantis on your face, don't move."
"Does it bite?" James asked, his eyes still closed.
"No," I said before rolling cameras and putting it on his lip, not having the slightest idea if this praying mantis was poisonous or not.
Years later James told me that it bit him multiple times as it crawled up his chin, and that it hurt. Bad.
The Food Service Girl, who is placed throughout the backgrounds of the film, is Theresa Wayman, now in the band Warpaint.
Note: I am the director of The Rules of Attraction (2002) and this clip is fair use under U.S. copyright law because it is (1) non-commercial, (2) transformative in nature, (3) uses no more of the original work than necessary for the video's purpose, and (4) does not compete with the original work and could have no negative affect on it's market.
5 мар 2011
