I wrote a script about two thirds of the way into the season of Invasion. What can I say? I had some time on my hands. It was during the time that episode #117, “Re-Evolution” was shooting and I had only one brief scene to do for it. I decided that rather than sit on my hands I’d put them to work writing. I’d never written for tv before so I wasn’t hoping for my efforts to lead to anything more than an opportunity to develop my skill. I had by that point in the year of production established relationships with some of the writers on the show and I thought I could pass the script off to one or two of them and get some pointers from the professionals. It turned out that they couldn’t legally read, handle, or even look at a script for Invasion that hadn’t been submitted throught the proper channels. Dismayed, I didn’t follow through with having the script documented with the Writer’s Guild of America and submitted to Invasion Production through my agent. I was like, “For Pete’s sake people, I just want some feedback!” Well, maybe you all could provide my feedback instead?

Download the script: Communion Invasion Script in PDF format (zipped).

Quick notes about the script:

I had no firm ideas about where Invasion was heading. As you well know, every time you thought you knew where it was going Shaun and his crack staff would throw you a nasty curveball that would make your head spin. I did, however, hear about certain ideas that were being floated around the set. Plus I had my own ideas about what stories I thought would be interesting to explore. As it turned out, I wasn’t so far off the mark after all. I was shocked and encouraged to find that more than a few story points in my script were used in some form or another in the episodes that were to follow.

SPOILER ALERT*** One particular story line in my script which never saw the light in the Invasion series was the one involving Mariel. When I auditioned for the role of Sirk, Shaun wrote a scene specifically for the audition in which Sirk seduces Mariel at the behest of Underlay. I asked him afterward if that scene was ever going to see the light of day and he replied, very hedgingly, that they were keeping all of their options open. Because Kari was such a strong actor I felt it was inevitable for the show to explore the intricacies of Mariel’s fidelity. It was much more believable for Russell’s character to be the vehicle of that exploration than her husband’s deputy. Besides, I ended up getting some pretty cool stuff with Kira.

In the end, I learned that I have a bit of a dark sensibility and that the only way that some of the more extreme story elements would work is if this were a script for a the season finale. Like I said, I’m a novice at writing but I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed the process and I certainly plan on pursuing it as a creative outlet. Well obviously not this time around, but next time I’ll be a little more aggressive about weaseling my way into the writing process so I can grow in my writing as well as my acting. And now you can help me. I encourage any kind off feedback you want to offer up. Don’t worry about hurting my feelings…I have no feelings. Juilliard stole them from me a long time ago. Seriously, I enjoyed writing “Communion” so much and I hope you enjoy reading it, from one fan to another.

Nathan

Like many of us, last night was my first Invasion-less Wednesday night. Fortunately I had some big season finales to fixate on. American Idol was my hands down favorite with more than a couple of, “Are you kidding me?” moments. The most notable was Prince’s appearence. Are you kidding me? Prince?!! He’s one of the most exciting live performers in the world and he was on American Idol! Did A.I. get legit on me? I mean its one thing to get Burt Bacharach and Barry Manilow for an appearence, but Prince and Mary J. Blige? Wow. And the award for the most satisfying train wreck goes to Clay Aiken’s duet with lookalike Michael Somebodyorother. My sister Kelly didn’t close her mouth again until a rivulet of drool spattered onto the coffee table. My sentiments exactly.

And congratulations to Taylor! If it couldn’t be Chris or Elliot, I’m glad its you. And really, did anyone think at the beginning of the season that this pepper-headed Joe Cocker/Ray Charles soulman had a shot? I’ll buy his album…as long as that “Do I Make You Proud?” song isn’t on it.

Top Chef also concluded last night and Harold (maybe too soft spoken for his own good) pulled out the win. Its great to see that good guys sometimes finish first.

Well, the support for Invasion keeps on coming in and keeps flooring me. You have all been so enthusiastic in your praise of the show, and your support to ensure the future of Invasion. Audiences all around the country and the UK as well have been galvinized to write when they never write, or turned activist when they would usually say, “That sucks, but oh well.” It reflects my feeling I had all the while we were working on the show: This is something special. Invasion is a very different show than the usual newtork tv offerings, and audiences will appreciate being addressed as sensitive and intelligent people rather than condescended to with formulaic tv fare. Keep up the amazing work everyone. Endure.

Nathan

…I hope you all enjoyed the finale tonight! I’m getting a lot of love from north of the Channel these days and I want to thank you guys. One of these days we’ll get it together back here in The States and pay you back for Monty Python and The Office. I promise.

Nathan

I can’t thank you all enough for your posts of encouragement. I’ve received so many compliments from you for the work I did on Invasion. Its been so flattering, its almost overwhelming. I’m so grateful that I was given such rich material to work with and so much room to play around, and that the combination spoke to people. It was an incredible opportunity to learn my craft, be creative, and work with talented people. I have so many memories of walking around the Warner Brothers lot or on location and thinking, “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this!” The last nine months have been an absolute gift.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end. I know that there is an impressive effort underway to save Invasion and I applaud all your efforts. Not ever having been in this situation before, I have no idea if a grassroots campaign can bring a show back from cancellation, but it seems to me that a lot of folks are making some very passionate pleas to the Powers That Be which may just cause them to rethink things. Stranger things have happened.

As for myself, I’m back to the audition circuit. Fortunately some of the fans of Invasion happen to be casting directors. So after a brief bout of depression I’m back in the saddle and as Bill Fichtner says, “On to bigger and better things”. I’m going to keep plugging away with film auditions until tv season starts up in July.

Speaking of Bill, he called yesterday to say he had a blast working with me and good luck. It meant a lot to me that he called. It was a really classy thing to do and it was great to hear from “Big Daddy” that his experience matched up with mine. I had a ball working with him. There’s only one way to put it: I LOVE BILL FICHTNER!!! I know he’s got a number of fansites out there and there’s a reason for ‘em.

Alexis was sad on Wednesday night as the finale aired and we cried into our figurative beers for a while about things. But ultimately the show was such a fun ride we agreed that if we have nothing else but fond memories, that’s some pretty rich currency.

Finally, if anyone wants to send a letter to me or any of the cast, crew, or production staff of Invasion you can send it to Warner Brothers c/o Shaun Cassidy Productions. We all appreciate the support. Annie tell your boys I can’t wait to read their letters!

I’ll still let you know what’s going on with me from time to time but I imagine I’m going to have a little less to share in my posts for a while. Hope that’s okay. I love talking about the show however so if you have any questions about your favorite scenes or your favorite cast members, post a comment on the site and I’ll see if I can get an answer together for you. Until then we’ll look for the next ball park to knock a homerun out of. Batter up…

Nathan

The first season of Invasion has wrapped, and as I’m finding more and more down-time to slowly gather the pieces of my life back together I’m wishing I could keep on working! Sure there’s little room for anything other than work when its going on, but if you only knew how good this work is to do you’d quit what you’re doing and move to Hollywood right now. Here’s a taste:

The last four episodes of Invasion involved my character in fairly significant ways. Are you kidding me? A character that started off with “little” to “no” future helps contribute to the finale of a great season of television? As you’ll see (I hope) Lewis Sirk is in the middle of some intense goings on in Homestead. There are moving moments as some families are reunited and horrifying ones as some families are forever torn apart. Its very exciting, very sad, and very rewarding television.

I was able to sit in on the scoring session for episode #121, the season finale, last Wednesday night. I can’t tell you how cool it was to watch as an incredibly talented orchestra (a full, live orchestra!) and sound crew lay down the score to some of the more dramatic scenes of the final episode. They executed so flawlessly and professionally, taking very little in the way of direction and adjusting just so to get it right. One of the composers, Jon, said something which really struck me. He said that after watching my character all season and creating a score inspired by the emotions and tones of Lewis, he knows me very well. He knows all of the actors very intimately by now. “But” he remarked rather sadly, “You have no idea who I am.” Its really true. There are hundreds of people working so hard to make Invasion not just a good t.v. show, but a really special experience and I probably wont even meet many of them. It was moving to see the musical family of Invasion mirroring the kind of family which I’ve seen develop in front of and behind the camera with the cast and crew over the last year. When you watch the finale take a moment to appreciate the beautiful scoring. You’ll soon realize how rare and stirring that kind of music is. My only note to the composers Jon and Jason was: More cowbell. They assured me it was being taken care of.

The cast has dispersed to all parts of the globe since we wrapped. Tyler went back home to Canada. Lisa’s taking some well deserved r&r at her home in New York. Eddie (who does not wear belt loops on his pants, I kid you not he has them removed from all of his pants!) took off for a couple weeks to Hawaii with his family. Alexis, who’s hometown is New York, booked a Russel Crowe film which is shooting in NY at the end of the month. So she’s combining rest with work. A great combo for an actor. Personally, I’m trying to keep the work coming in. I’m better when I’m focused on something. I workshopped a great new play by David Wiener for the Pacific Playwrites Festival at my theater home of South Coast Repertory last week. The reading went well and I hope it gets a production somewhere soon. I know everyone, including the cast, is checking the internet and their voicemail to see if there’s any news of a second season for Invasion. There’s a lot of rumor and a lot of suggestions about network jockeying but no real hard news yet. My feeling? I’ll quote Shaun Cassidy from the scoring session Wednesday night: “See you next year!”

On the Behind the Mask front things seem to be going really well. The GenArt film festival in New York a month or so ago was a blast. We got a huge reception from an audience of people that aren’t slasher film aficionados. This was a big confidence boost as it seems BTM appeals to horror fans and non-horror fans alike. Not that I know anything about marketing, but that seems to be a VERY marketable kind of quality. I also got to meet a fan of Invasion and her husband at the afterparty which was very cool. Hi AJ! The piece is beautiful. Nate loves it. He keeps his coins cozy in there. If anyone out there is looking for unique, personal pieces for decoration or for use check out AJ’s site at you-clay-me.com.

Not to speak out of school but it looks like a distribution deal is being finalized as I type which will be bringing Behind the Mask to a theater near you for an October 1st release. More news on that as it comes in.

Finally, I apologize to everyone for not being more current with my blog posts. I get the feeling that as interest in the show has been building, more and more folks are taking to the net for info about the show and its players. People who don’t normally join blog sites or sift through the corridors of the internet are welcome here. I mean, I’ve only been doing it since I got my laptop in December. If you want to know something I might have an answer to or you’ve got a comment to throw out, do it. Now that I’ve got some more free time I’ll put it to use on this site and my myspace page. Endure.

Nathan