A Career Advances as a Film Debuts

In 1978, just after starring in “Superman” and almost two decades before his paralyzing accident, a British film magazine asked Christopher Reeve about his career choices. “Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool,” he said, “or you go out into the ocean.”

With his debut as a director, Reeve swims in deeper waters. He showed off his new work, “In the Gloaming,” at the Directors Guild theater Monday night.

“This is definitely a great step forward,” Reeve said. “I spent most of 1995 becoming medically stable. To go from surviving to finding a way back to creative work is a tremendous relief for me. I was an actor for 27 years. To make a transformation to directing was a natural progression.

“So I didn’t lose my livelihood. I gained a new dimension to it.”

Colin Callender, HBO / NYC’s executive vice president, said Reeve the director “was a calming influence on the set.”

“You have directors who go around ranting,” Callender said. “Christopher was quietly autocratic. He’s very powerful, a real presence.”

At the after-party, Reeve, with his wife, Dana, received congratulations from the 650 guests. Among them were Jane Seymour, Jacqueline Bisset, James Brooks, HBO’s John Matoian and Keri Putnam, Kathy Najimy, Nastassja Kinski and Charles Dutton, who called the film, the story of a terminally ill young man returning to his wealthy, dysfunctional family, “a 60-minute joy ride about humanity.”

“It struck me as a beacon of hope that a movie like this can get made,” Tony Bill said. “I only hope it can get made more than once.” Michael Keaton described the film as “real spare and well-handled.”

The film’s star, Glenn Close, gave some credit to the cable TV format, where there’s a certain flexibility in programming. “Cable is like the BBC, where all these great actors, directors and writers were nurtured,” she said. “We don’t have that with our networks, but you do have it with cable.”

The hourlong, commercial-free drama isn’t a common form on television. Reeve called it “directing on the installment plan. They give you one hour and, if you do OK, they give you two.”