DIGGERS DIRECTOR DIGS UP ON-SET DIRT

Director Katherine Dieckmann who made her mark shooting REM videos directs Paul Rudd, Ken Marino, and ER stars Maura Tierney and Ron Eldard in Diggers, the story of clam diggers in the seventies fighting against large corporations and their desire to keep the family business.

Katherine talks about the challenges of helming the cast and crew in vintage fishing boats on the bay.

“It was extremely challenging to shoot on the water because we were a low budget movie and because we were working fast, because we had period boats with period engines which would die on the water. And then we wouldn’t have enough boats to shuttle back and forth for hair and make-up and back up people and we had batteries dying in walkie talkies. It was incredibly arduous actually and it was really hot that summer too. We were shooting in July so people were sort of stuck out in the water. The film takes place in September and the guys were dressed in sort of heavier clothes and it was very difficult.”

It’s a good thing Paul Rudd was there for comic relief.

“My favorite thing Paul Rudd used to do is late at night when everyone was really tired he’d do like the most ludicrous lines from this script in the voice of James Earl Jones. It was histerical. There was a whole monologue that was cut out of the film about tits that Ron Eldard’s character did at the bar and one of the lines was ‘I would suck the teet of a tit mouse to get to a tit,’ and he would do that in the voice of James Earl Jones. It was high comedy.”

Diggers also stars Josh Hamilton and Sarah Paulson, opening Friday in theaters.