Ahead of April X’s premiere at the Raindance Film Festival, director Michel K. Parandi spoke with
@Variety about casting Connor Storrie before the success of Heated Rivalry.
“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.
The director says they auditioned around a hundred actors for Baxter, with Storrie being the third or fourth he saw. “He was very comfortable, very natural during the audition. They wanted me to see more people, so I basically told Connor, ‘You got the part, but give me some more time.’
Newcomer Storrie had no credits available at the time, with his upcoming work kept “secret” by his team. But Parandi trusted his instincts. “I could see [Connor] had been preparing himself for a long time, psychologically even,” he goes on. “When someone is a natural, they don’t have to work heavily to deliver something believable. It’s a good base to work with. There is also a bit of method acting with him, which I really like. He goes through his own mind, and he’s very fast. Production-wise, it was spotless. He was very easy, smooth, ready on time, always with the performance ready.”
🔗 full article:
variety.com/2026/film/global…