Williams Moved By 'The Visit'

<P><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/tims-bio.html"><IMG SRC="/sh/images/editorial/tim_lammers.jpg" ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="120" HEIGHT="90" BORDER="0"></A>Anybody who has kids knows that it's hard enough just being a parent facing day-to-day situations -- so it's difficult to imagine how unbearable it must be to be the parent of a child in serious trouble with the law.<p /><P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2001/0420/734090.jpg" WIDTH="150" HEIGHT="200" ALT="Billy Dee Williams in 'The Visit'" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0">That's exactly what famed actor Billy Dee Williams faces in the new film drama "<A HREF="http://thevisit-movie.com">The Visit</A>" -- and it's a dilemma to which preview audiences have greatly responded.<p /><P>"It doesn't matter who it is or where they come from, everybody tells me how they relate to that father," Williams told me in a recent interview. "He's a good man. He loves, but he doesn't show his love in a very affectionate way. But by his deeds, by what he's done -- it shows he cares deeply."<p /><P>And it's that deep devotion that ultimately ends up troubling him in "The Visit." Inspired by a true story, the film tells the story of convicted rapist Alex Walters (Hill Harper), a young man searching for understanding and redemption as he serves out the last days of his prison term while dying of AIDS. Williams plays his father, Henry, a proud man who waits five years before he visits the prison, despite Alex's proclamations of innocence.<p /><P>Simply put, Henry is ashamed of and angry at his son for the way he turned out.<p /><P>"He's from the old school," Williams said. "He's devoted to his family and devoted to doing everything he can possibly do to keep the family together -- to make sure that everybody's OK and everybody has the opportunity to do good things with their lives. But when something goes wrong he doesn't quite understand it. I think he feels guilt, (that) there was something he didn't do that caused his boy to go astray, and it becomes a real dilemma."<p /><P>Williams describes the film as a "psychological drama," and hopes that audiences don't stereotype it as a "prison movie" because of its setting.<p /><P>"This is really about the redemption of love, and that's why it is so powerful," Williams said. "It stays with you because it is about love and about people. People rediscover themselves through Alex's pain."<p /><P>He does believe, however, that the prison setting ultimately gives the film more impact. The prison, he says, is a metaphor for the prison of the mind that we create for ourselves.<p /><P>"It's like a highly charged emotional experience (that at one screening of the film) I saw one guy walk out that was so overwrought by the experience," Williams said. "It was like something had grabbed him and wouldn't let go. And the more he tried to contain himself, the more it grabbed him. That kind of experience is rare."<p /><P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2001/0420/734104.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="150" ALT="Jordan Walker-Pearlman directs Billy Dee Williams in 'The Visit'" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0">"The Visit" marks the directorial debut of Jordan Walker-Pearlman, who as a child saw Williams play Martin Luther King Jr. on stage. Williams believes that their ultimate pairing in "The Visit" didn't happen by accident.<p /><P>"He was 10 years old when he saw me doing the one-man show on Broadway, and he never forgot that experience," Williams said. "Life has a way of bringing people together."<p /><P>Williams recalls reading the script, written by Kosmond Russell, and it was that riveting emotional experience that brought him and Walker-Pearlman together.<p /><P>"I found myself weeping as I was reading the script," Williams said. "And when I met Jordan, we had this wonderful chemistry with each other, and it all sort of evolved from there."<p /><B>Art And Life</B> <P>Aside from the filmmakers and fellow actors who inspire him, Williams has more than ever found that his first artistic love -- canvas and oil -- is greatly influencing his life.<p /><P>Long before Williams grabbed audiences with roles in such films as "Brian's Song," "The Empire Strikes Back," "Return of the Jedi" and "Lady Sings the Blues," he was an 18-year-old art student at New York's National Academy of Design and Fine Arts.<p /><P>"It's an adjunct -- it adds to one's perception of the living experience," Williams said. "As a painter, you really start looking at things much more closely. Everything becomes that much more important. You get more specific in your view of things.<p /><P>"Certainly that helps the acting, and the acting helps the painting because I'm prone to expressing myself in dramatic terms. It creates more drama in my work as a painter."<p /><P><I><B>Catch up with Tim Lammers on these recent @ The Movies interviews:</I></B> <UL> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-66791220010413-120411.html">Jamie Bell ("Billy Elliot")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-58222920010406-160413.html">Carl Brashear ("Men of Honor")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-56579520010329-230344.html">Robert Rodriguez (director, "Spy Kids")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-56122720010327-140304.html">McG (director, "Charlie's Angels")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-54275120010316-140346.html">Jodi Benson ("Lady and the Tramp II")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-53934320010314-150344.html">Anthony Michael Hall ("The Caveman's Valentine")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-52203920010302-140358.html">Jay Roach ("Meet the Parents")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-50250020010226-080231.html">Eric Stoltz ("The Passion Of Ayn Rand")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-20010119-180102.html">Robert Englund ("Python")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-20010112-140126.html">Sam Raimi ("The Gift")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-20001222-112213.html">Kenneth Branagh ("The Road To El Dorado")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-20001215-111643.html">Lochlyn Munro ("Scary Movie")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-20001208-130928.html">John Frankenheimer ("Reindeer Games -- Director's Cut")</A></LI> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-20001121-181759.html">Carrie-Anne Moss ("Red Planet")</A></LI></LI>