I Met Him At A Funeral

If you've seen Night Job, you've seen Gabriel Lawrence be everything I hoped for and more in his portrayal of the lead character, Kevin Mullins. As you may have read in a prior blog, The story of Night Job began in 2002. I was considering it as a film idea in ernest as early as 2004, possibly even 2003. Around that time, I was trying to make another short film (the film, Voices, was never completed). One of the positives from working on that film was that I met a man who mentored me in not only filmmaking but manhood. His name was Todd Huntley. It was Todd's idea that Gabriel be the lead in Night Job. Gabriel and I knew of each other (Todd had even suggested him early on for Voices as well) but we did not meat until sometime in 2005 at Todd's funeral. Todd would have been very pleased to know that we touched base and he would have loved that we finally got to make Night Job work.

Todd Huntley

When I first met Todd, my wife and I were living in Amarillo, TX. Todd was a local director and actor who had been working on radio spots, local and national ads, and the occassional film. This is really Gabriel's story so I'll tell you more about Todd on a later date. Todd was working with me on a project and he had also paid me to help out on a couple of other projects. In that time I started telling him about Night Job. He very quickly recommended Gabriel again. All I knew of Gabriel was his work in a series of statewide PSA's concerning the Worth The Wait program funded by the state of Texas. He did this commercial where he talked about honor and I will say this, he had presence. You saw him and you listened. There were billboards and there was one I often passed while working as a furniture delivery guy. I'd seen that billboard but I'd never met him.

I had friends who knew him. My brother even knew him. But we had not crossed paths. Then my wife and I moved to the Austin area shortly before our first child was born. I stayed in touch with Todd and I still thought about Night Job. Then Todd died. We drove to Amarillo for the funeral and after having a tearful but sweet moment with Todd's widow I saw Gabriel not far behind us. Outside, I introduced myself and got his phone number. It was a brief, special moment: Making a new friend while we both mourned an old one.

That was 2005. We stayed in touch even after Gabriel moved to Los Angeles and come May of 2008 I was picking him up at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and for the next five days we ate, slept, and drank Night Job. During that time he went above and beyond the call of duty. When he wasn't in a scene, he often worked on the crew setting up lights, carrying gear or just being there when needed a hand. He was allowed naps because I figured sleep deprivation make remembering his lines a bit difficult.

Gabriel and Andrew Fickett (boom operator) working really hard.

The part was really Gabriel's to turn down. I had been writing and re-writing drafts of both the short and feature film version for years with him in my mind's eye every time I worked on it. I rejected the suggestion to audition other actors until Gabriel could give me a yes or no. We had to play some phone tag and for awhile there, I didn't hear anything from him. I was about to give up when he said yes.

Gabriel is back in California. He's actually in a masters program for acting now. He was a contestant on the game show, Wipe Out and did a really wonderful little short film called Sons Of God. I'm looking forward to seeing more out of him as an actor and can already atest to what he's meant to me as a friend.

When the time comes to shoot the feature film version of Night Job, the part, as always, is his if he wants it.

Gabriel Lawrence is Kevin Mullins.

Photos from the set of Night Job courtesy Matthew Kirk