Steve Carlson's "Final Exposure"

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Steve Carlson has been a working actor and screenwriter for more than thirty years. In his varied career, he has been a series regular on General Hospital, Young and the Restless, and A New Day in Eden on Showtime. He has also guest-starred in hundreds of hours of television and starred or costarred in ten feature films. Carlson has written feature films, television episodes, and books on working in acting.

He has applied the Page 69 Test to his novels Almost Graceland and Final Exposure.

Here he proposes a few stars for the cast of a big screen adaptation of Final Exposure:

It's strange how compartmentalized the brain becomes. My background, for the last 38 years, has been in the film industry primarily as an actor but, over the years, I drifted more into writing. My first writing endeavors were screenplays (Emergency, Love Boat, Hart to Hart, etc.) Actually my first novel, Almost Graceland, was first written as a screenplay. I had very definite ideas on who should play what in that one, even after I made it into a novel. (I still expect a film to made of that, which would be great fun - to see it come full circle.)

Final Exposure started as a screenplay only in its rough concept. Keeping the main theme, I strayed considerably in formatting the novel. As a result, I thought very little about casting it. It has been interesting reliving it all and going Hmmmmm?. By the way, here's a short synopsis so you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about.

Life looked great for David and Rebecca Collier as they moved into their beach house and changed occupations in mid-life to pursue something they were each more passionate about. All seemed fine until the day a stranger came to the door, calmly raised a silenced pistol and shot Rebecca in the face.

David also was wounded but the gunman tried again before he even got out of the hospital. What did he think David knew? Getting into the world that had gotten Rebecca killed took David much too close to one of the largest crimes of the century.

My main character, David, is an ex lawyer who is led by revenge and love to right a horrible wrong. I could see Richard Gere or Edward Norton in that role easily. I realize they are both very different but they're both such good actors, they would each make it their own and, I think it would work in either case.

The story centers around the death of Rebecca. We therefore need an actress who can make us fall in love with her quickly, and have our heart ache every time we see her picture, which also dominates. Someone like Diane Lane, Naomi Watts or Ashley Judd would do nicely.

The other main character is a swarthy, Italian cop, David's best friend, who goes in and out as a candidate for the bad guy until the end. I see him as a younger Tommy Lee Jones. I don't know who exactly would fit that bill, but someone like that.

The Page 69 Test: Final Exposure.

Read more about the book and author at Steve Carlson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue