Producers urged Michel K. Parandi to take his time and audition as many actors as possible for the main role of Baxter in his long-gestating sci-fi “April X,” but the French-American director knew early on who his man was: Connor Storrie. What he did not know is that, a few months after wrapping production, Storrie would become one of the world’s hottest stars almost overnight following a worldwide furore over his role in Jacob Tierney’s “Heated Rivalry.”
It took a brief moment for Parandi to come to terms with the effect Storrie’s newfound fame would have on his film, which opens this year’s edition of the Raindance Film Festival on June 17. Now, the director is grateful for the increased interest in his story, recalling how he knew from the moment he first saw Storrie that the young actor was destined for something big.
“I remember telling everybody early on that he was going to be a movie star,” Parandi tells Variety. “It’s funny, there is a book where Ridley Scott talks about Harrison Ford in the first ‘Blade Runner.’ After the movie, someone called him and asked, ‘What was it like working with Harrison?’ And he said, ‘He’s a movie star.’ I sort of envisioned myself in that. There was something special there.”
