Watched HAMLET the other night, re-watched THE ADDICTION today. Got curious about who played the guy handing out tracts in the latter, wondering if it might be some sort of cameo (maybe Nicholas St. John?) or a "real person", like the priest who appears in this and other Abel Ferrara films, playing a priest.

Turns out "The Missionary" (as he's called in the credits) played Rosencrantz in the HAMLET I saw a couple nights ago. Whatta ya know.

And tonight I realize that the woman who's going to be a keynote speaker at the Christians In Theatre Arts conference I'm going to a month from now played Gertrude in the Hamlet flick. With Claudius played by Kyle McLachlan, who I met at University of Washington when I auditioned for their actor training program, because he was buddies with another guy in the program who was a Christian, a friend of my wife's friend, who kind of hosted me that weekend. Saw Kyle play Benvolio in their ROMEO & JULIET, and my wife said "He should play Romeo." A few months later we went to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival en route to Cal Arts (where I ended up going to theatre school), and who was playing Romeo in their production but Kyle!

So how many degrees of separation is that? And has anyone in THE ADDICTION ever acted with Kevin Bacon?

Well, Kyle co-starred in Showgirls, which was directed by Paul Verhoeven, who directed Kevin Bacon in Hollow Man ...

He also co-starred in The Doors, which was directed by Oliver Stone, who directed Kevin Bacon in JFK ...

Oh, that wasn't what you were asking. Okay, then. The Addiction. Hmmm. No, it seems the five most recognizable names in that film (Taylor, Walken, Sciorra, Falco, Imperioli) have not worked on any films with Kyle.

Ron,

I envy you hearing that actress she was outstanding in The Insider.

It was a long time before I noticed Kevin Spacey in A Time to Kill.

Oh, crap, I was checking to see if anyone in The Addiction had worked with KYLE, not KEVIN.

There is no film where Kyle matches with the top five leads (assuming the top five leads in The Addiction are Lily Taylor, Christopher Walken, Edie Falco, Annabella Sciorra, and Paul Calderon).

However, I have done all the trouble and come up with their associations in two degrees each.

Lily Taylor was with Salma Hayek in Four Rooms, who was in Time Code with Kyle MacLachlan.

Christopher Walken was with Dennis Hopper in True Romance who was in Blue Velvet with Kyle MacLachlan.

Annabella Sciorra was with Halle Berry in Jungle Fever, who was in The Flinstones with Kyle MacLachlan.

Edie Falco was with Peter Coyote in Random Hearts, who was in Northfork with Kyle MacLachlan.

Paul Calderon was with Steve Zahn in Out of Sigh, who was in Hamlet (2000) with Kyle MacLachlan.

Back to work...
Nick