Ready When You Are, C.R.

The first thing you notice about Christopher Reeve, of course, is that he’s in a wheelchair. His head is in a brace. His arms are strapped down. His hands, which are beautifully manicured, are displayed on hand rests. A respirator tube, which helps him breathe, is inserted at the base of his neck. Sometimes he runs out of breath when he’s talking. Occasionally he has spasms that require his limbs and tubes to be put back in place. It’s been more than a year since his fall from a horse rendered him a quadriplegic.

The second thing you notice is that you forget about all this. According to Colin Callender, executive vice president of HBO NYC Productions, which is producing Reeve’s directorial debut, “In the Gloaming,” everyone who meets him has that experience.

“It’s absolutely extraordinary,” Callender says. “I think it’s a tribute to him and how he won’t let it get in the way of his ability to do things he wants to do. I remember visiting him, and his young son ran in and talked to him. I have a son exactly the same age as Chris’, and I saw he related to Chris as any son would relate to any father. The fact that Chris was in the physical condition that he was in didn’t impact at all on the way in which his son playfully related to him. He manages to put everyone at ease.”

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This is evident on the set of “In the Gloaming,” which is being shot on an estate in Westchester County, about an hour north of New York City. The shoot is proceeding much like any other. The grounds resemble a truck stop. Aside from the jumble of cables and lights, the producers have dressed the interior of the house, which is semi-colonial, to reflect the reserved taste of moneyed WASPs.

Reeve, 44, sits in one of these rooms in front of a monitor that shows a living room scene as the camera sees it. Because of the noise the respirator makes, he cannot be on the set itself, although he tries to see it in person during rehearsals. Around him is the usual fluctuating group of crew members: the unit production manager, first and second assistant directors, director of photography and, discreetly, a nurse. His wife, Dana Morosini, visits, as does his mother-in-law. Sometimes he talks to the actors (in this case, David Strathairn and Glenn Close) over the production sound system.

“Mike up,” he says as Close tries to get his attention between takes. “I’m listening, Glenn.”

Other times they huddle around to confer with him. What he says is audible to everyone and always expressed with economy. Everything he says and does is public, whether it’s giving direction, eating or quietly fulminating when the pace of the production is too slow.

“We’re rapidly running out of reasons not to shoot this,” he says.

You can’t help but think that there’s a kind of moral authority when he says things like this. As “In the Gloaming” executive producer Fred Zollo (“Quiz Show,” “Ghosts of Mississippi”) puts it: “It’s tough for anyone not to run around and do their work when Chris is here every day--early.”

Reeve doesn’t use his disability as a weapon. In fact, he often makes jokes at this own expense. Alluding to his respirator, he says, “It sounds like I’m scuba diving.” Staring at the monitor between shots: “I’m sitting here watching TV. There isn’t anything else on.” Discussing his directorial qualifications: “Getting me was an administrative oversight.” In a comment to Strathairn that is completely straight but is unself-conscious in a way that says more than any joke does: “You look like you do the Stairmaster.”

“The only word I have for it is I think he’s a man who’s full of grace,” says Close, who has known Reeve for years. “It’s grace the way he deals with his affliction in the eyes of others around him. If he had a different frame of mind, it would be humiliating for him when his body does things that he has no control of and it’s there for everyone to see. It’s an existence that, when you think about it, always comes down to ‘I wonder how I would act under similar circumstances.’ ”

“In the Gloaming” touches some of these issues--and a few others besides. It’s an hourlong drama, set to air in May, about a young gay man with AIDS (played by Robert Sean Leonard) who is estranged from his family (his parents are played by Close and Strathairn) and returns home to die.

Zollo says the script, by playwright Will Scheffer, was considered a strong one, and HBO initially tried to enlist an A-list director--names like Robert Redford, Rob Reiner, Ron Howard and Milos Forman were kicked around. Finally, then-HBO Chairman Michael Fuchs had the idea of offering it to Reeve, an old friend.

“When the idea of Chris first arose,” Callender says, “the question was whether it was practical, logistically practical, practical in every sense. I went to meet him, and it became clear that there would be a way of logistically dealing with it because the production demands of the piece itself are contained. It wasn’t like shooting ‘Die Hard 2.’ It was a chamber piece. And he brought a lot to the script. I hadn’t realized until I sat there talking to him the extent to which his condition was very relevant to the story itself.”

“What I responded to most was what I perceived as the dignity and courage that Danny has in facing his situation, that those qualities help to heal his parents’ relationship,” Reeve says. “Since my injury, a lot of relationships in my own life have been transformed by the experience, so I connected strongly on that level.”

Reeve had actually harbored directing aspirations for a long time.

“On ‘Superman,’ I used to go around to all the departments and ask questions,” he says. “When I told [“Superman” director] Dick Donner about a month ago that I was going to direct, he said, ‘What else is new?’ ”

Zollo says he and playwright David Mamet discussed the possibility of directing with Reeve shortly before the accident. Ironically, one of the obstacles was that his acting career would have to be put on hold. Now, of course, that’s not as much of an issue.

“People say to me, ‘How is it possible for him to direct a movie?’ ” Zollo says. “I say, ‘It’s about as possible as Roosevelt running the country for 12 years.’ They’re in similar situations, and Chris doesn’t have to deal with Nazis or the Depression. With video assist now, where he doesn’t have to go look at the set and jump up and down all the time and run back and forth and look through the lens of the camera and that sort of old-fashioned stuff, he really has no problems at all.”

Reeve says he had no doubts that he was physically up to the challenge. His only concerns were about the script, which he committed to without being entirely happy with. Before production started, he got together with Scheffer and they worked in some of his own ideas. Among other things, the writer says, Reeve thought the gay character was too cliched, too flamboyant, too much a lover of MGM musicals. But apparently Reeve created such a level of trust that such disputes could be fought out without descending into rancor.

“When we first started working together,” Scheffer says, “it was coming on the anniversary of his accident, and he said he was having trouble sleeping. He was just being honest about what he felt. I felt I could talk about my life with him. There’s a lot of both of us in that script.”

Some of this was done orally, because reading for Reeve is difficult--pages have to be held in front of his face. (In fact, it’s evident on the set that Reeve, more than most directors, holds the movie in his head. For example, without referring to notes, he and the line producer discuss whether several scenes scheduled to be shot outside can be shot inside instead. After consulting his memory, Reeve’s answer is no.)

With Reeve aboard and a strong script, talent flocked to the project. Chris Gerolmo, who wrote “Mississippi Burning,” is available as director for insurance purposes. The cinematographer is Frederick Elmes, who has shot many of David Lynch’s movies. The sound mixer is Christopher Newman (“Philadelphia,” the upcoming “The People vs. Larry Flynt”). The editor is David Ray (“The Bonfire of the Vanities,” “Billy Bathgate”).

Close, who was on a long shoot in Australia, says she had no intention of doing another movie right away--until Reeve faxed her and then sent her the script (it also helped that the set is 10 minutes from her house). Leonard, who had worked with Reeve once at a benefit reading of Michael Cristofer’s “The Shadow Box” in Arizona, says he was in Los Angeles on the lookout for screen work when Reeve called him up. He says he jumped at the chance to do a role for Reeve (and to do one that hadn’t previously been offered to Ethan Hawke).

In addition to all of the above talent, Bridget Fonda plays a small role as what Leonard describes as his “Martha Stewart sister,” and Whoopi Goldberg has a bit part as a nurse. As with most people, Reeve apparently put her at ease, so much so that she said to him after viewing several of his spasms, “You’re not doing that because of me, are you?” Leonard and Close are not only comfortable with it, they deal with it. After one bout, Leonard readjusted Reeve’s feet and Close put his hands back in place.

Reeve says the toughest part of the 20-day shoot has been the long hours.

“To concentrate for 9, 10, 11 hours at a stretch, that’s very tiring,” he says. “I find, though, that when a scene is working well, I get excited. They are such good actors that the interaction with them is very satisfying, and I’m very grateful that they trust me. That really keeps me going.”

The producers--and Reeve--insist that no one is cutting him any slack.

Says Zollo: “I told him from the very beginning, ‘If we’re going to do this, I’ve got to be able to have the same feeling I had with a Reiner or a Redford. If I feel self-conscious or it’s not my place or you’re too much of a genius or I feel sorry for you, what the hell am I doing here? You don’t need me. You do whatever you want.’ You can see that Chris hasn’t surrounded himself with sycophants.

He’s surrounded himself with people who have opinions and feel strongly about them and will stand up for what they believe in.”

“We mix it up every day,” Reeve says. “My main fight with the studio is about coverage. They want lots of close-ups all the time. I see a lot of scenes where I want separation. We did a scene where Glenn Close sings ‘Danny Boy’ to Robert Sean. As I rehearsed it, I set it up so the camera would start fairly wide and, as she sang, push in tighter and tighter. It ended up as a tight two-shot of how she used to sing to him as a little boy. It was absolutely clear to me that I wanted to see both of them in the same shot all the time rather than cutting back and forth through singles.

“In order to do that, I had to ask Fred Zollo, his producing partner, one of the executives at HBO and our line producer. They had all imagined that it would be a big close-up of Glenn most of the time. We mixed it up for about 20 minutes, and I finally ended up shooting it the way I wanted, but it took quite a lot of convincing. That really exhausted me. We didn’t get home until midnight, and I felt very drained by the end of the evening.”

The only time Reeve felt really frustrated with his inability to demonstrate what he wanted came during the shooting of a fantasy Busby Berkeley sequence. He says he could have showed the actors in a minute if he had been able to get up. Instead, he had to explain it. Because he has to explain everything, Reeve has to dig deep. In an argument, Scheffer says, this makes him a formidable opponent.

“I’m finding that not being able to gesture forces me to really focus my thoughts,” Reeve says. “In a way it’s better because I’m able to express myself more clearly than before because I don’t have any way to channel the energy through extraneous gestures and movements. It’s really just me sitting there and the words I say. It’s been an interesting discovery to find that when I’m clear about what I want to say, my speech is actually more effective than it was in the past.”

To those who’ve watched him work, it is this clarity that may make Reeve a good director. It also dispels whatever suspicions there might be that HBO handed Reeve this job as a publicity stunt. (In fact, Scheffer initially had misgivings on this score, though after working with him he came to believe that Reeve was the best possible director for the material.)

“The work will stand or fall on its own merits, and the work is wonderful,” Callender says. “We’re not in the gimmick business. I think people won’t ask that question when they see it.”

Indeed, Reeve is already working on a romantic comedy for David Kirkpatrick and Keith Samples of Rysher Entertainment called “Tell Me True.” It was something that was lined up before the accident. And, again, it’s something he might be better equipped to direct now. It’s about a boy who has the gift (or curse) of knowing when people are telling the truth.

“His anger is strong,” Zollo says of Reeve. “He doesn’t apologize for it. That’s another reason why he’ll make a wonderful director, because he can get angry. He’s not politic anymore. His pictures are not going to be nice. They’re going to be fiery, they’re going to have an edge, they’re going to have a point of view.”

“I don’t think it’s an edge,” Callender says. “I think he’s got a very low tolerance for BS. I think it’s quite important because this is what the piece is about. What this kid returning home does is he makes the people around him see the world in a different way and the kid himself cuts through the BS. That’s what I think is going on with Chris now. Because he was so close to dying and because he’s had to rebuild his life and because he’s had to go to places others haven’t gone, I think he related to that part of the story. I don’t know whether that’s edge, but it’s certainly a clarity and a focus and a sense of getting to the heart of the matter.”

As with any creative transaction, Reeve gets something in return for all the energy and life experience he is putting into directing.

“Obviously, I’m not happy about the situation,” he says, “but I feel joy when I come to work. I don’t feel anger. I don’t feel frustration. I feel a release. How lucky I am that even though so much has been taken away from me, I’ve found a new creative outlet that’s bringing me joy and satisfaction. While I’m making the movie, I think I’m the least angry that I am in any other place.”