CBS News
Book excerpt: "A Bright Ray of Darkness" by Ethan Hawke
Knopf
Our director, J. C. Callahan, stood up in front of us. He was in his early sixties with a shaved, balding head, a bow tie, and a custom-made tweed suit. He was an elegant and powerful man with large, kind, teary blue eyes. His formidable confidence was a mystery. He stood before us, five feet, six inches tall, like an Irish Buddha. Underneath his feet and sprawling out beneath all our tables, chairs, and shoes were reams of tape, probably ten different colors laid out in odd geometric designs of the various floor plans of the set. Red for scene one; yellow for scene two; green marked the battle; et cetera. It looked like a map of our future. Times Square loomed silently, blinking its mad lights through the immaculately clean windows around us.