Gerald Nicosia Talks About Kristen

I came to like Garrett, Kristen, and Sam Riley immensely, and to feel as if they had as good a chance as anyone to portray the intense and driven threesome of Cassady, Lu Anne, and Kerouac. To know them was to learn that they all had great gifts as well as great insecurities to match up with the people they were playing. Sam had been a small-time rock-'n'-roll musician who got drafted into being a movie star--he actually had some trepidation about what it was going to be like to be famous like Kristen, for whom we always had to enter the hotel through the secret underground entrance to keep from being mobbed by her fans.

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And Kristen--though again, physically quite different from her character, who in real life was large and blonde--had a lot of Lu Anne/"Marylou" inside her. She kept her high intelligence well-concealed beneath her sexuality and good manners; she cared enormously about people, both the ones she knew personally and those whose urgent need seemed to demand that she reach out to them; and, perhaps most like Lu Anne/"Marylou," she had learned to be utterly self-reliant even in her teens, prizing independence above men, money, power, or any of the other lures that Hollywood actresses are known to covet.

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I connected him with Anne Marie Santos, Lu Anne's daughter, who came to Montreal and shared memories, photos, and a great deal else with all of them, but especially of course with Kristen, who has many times acknowledged how much she benefitted not only from Annie's help as consultant, but from her spiritual guidance and encouragement as well. In fact, everything seemed on track for a great movie to be made.

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