Bee-cause she can
Architecture alum Tilly Hatcher takes star turn in indy film “Beeswax”

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

You could say getting a degree from the Rice School of Architecture is a character-building experience. But would it help build a character?

That’s a good question for Tilly Hatcher, who made her big-screen debut in “Beeswax,” a film by independent writer/director Andrew Bujalski that makes its local debut at downtown Houston’s Angelika Film Center Oct. 9.

	Ethan Vogt/The Cinema Guild
	As Jeannie, Tilly Hatcher ’98 deals with romantic, business and familial problems in her film debut, “Beeswax,” which opens in Houston Oct. 9.

Hatcher ’98 will come to town for the evening show Oct. 10 to answer such questions and talk about how she found herself on the silver screen.

It’s a long way from architecture, but for Hatcher, landing a plum acting role was more a matter of circumstance than career choice.

“My twin sister went to college with Andrew,” she explained by phone from her hometown of Atlanta, where she teaches at a private school and paints. “He was studying film in college, and she played a small part in his thesis film. I got to know him through her, and we probably knew each other for five years before he started talking to us about doing a movie.”

In an interview in Cinema Scope magazine, Bujalski said, “It’s been in the back of my head for a long time, the fantasy of a Maggie and Tilly movie, trying to harness what I find so fun and so fascinating about them.”

Hatcher and her identical twin, Maggie, play sisters in the well-reviewed film that was shot in Austin in 2007 and debuted at the Berlin Film Festival in February. Tilly plays Jeannie, the co-owner of a clothing boutique, while her sister plays the devil-may-care Lauren. How they deal with various crises, and with each other, is at the heart of the film.

That both Tilly and her character use a wheelchair is never discussed in the movie’s context, which she (and reviewers) found refreshing. “I was really lucky to get this role where (using a wheelchair) is not a big deal,” she said.

Matthias Grunsky/The Cinema Guild
Lauren (Maggie Hatcher) carries her sister Jeannie (Tilly Hatcher) in a scene from “Beeswax.”

“Working with somebody who is really in the chair is a completely different experience than it would be trying to replicate that with an actor,” Bujalski told Cinema Scope. “In fact, it probably made it a lot easier for us to treat it matter-of-factly in the film — because it was matter-of-fact!”

Tilly, who worked for Shook Kelley architects in Charlotte, N.C., after graduating from Rice, has been paralyzed since 13 as the result of a spinal cord tumor. “Five years ago, I got a spinal fusion and had to start using a wheelchair,” she said. “I had about a year of recovery where I couldn’t work full time, and I left architecture at that point — more than anything because it’s pretty hard to have a part-time architecture job.”

John Casbarian, dean of the Rice School of Architecture, recalled Hatcher’s determination. “Her condition was never a hindrance in her ability or desire to achieve,” he said. “I remember our sophomore field trip to Paris. She was using crutches then, and her parents were a little concerned it would be too much for her to be walking around for days on end. But Tilly would have nothing of that. She did everything everybody else did.”

Though the construction of her character — Tilly called Jeannie more “angsty” than she is — didn’t lean on her architecture background, her Rice training helped in other ways. “It did come into play a little more in my unofficial role as script supervisor,” she said. She took a special interest in the film’s continuity, making sure sets and costumes were consistent from day to day and that the script made internal sense. “It’s not one-to-one with architecture, but thinking about continuity uses the same part of your brain as architecture does.

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“It’s got a spatial component and also requires attention to detail. All those things are important to both jobs.”

“Beeswax” builds on miscues between the characters, something Tilly can appreciate, having learned from Rice architecture professor Gordon Wittenberg and former professor David Guthrie that there’s value in miscommunication. “I developed a design process that harnesses the innovative potential of miscommunication — what gets lost and found when an idea is translated from a spatial language to a verbal one and vice versa,” said Tilly, who looks for similar opportunities in collaborations of all kinds. “Inevitably wires get crossed and something new is born. That’s what I feel most passionate about when I think of the Rice School of Architecture.”

Tilly has now seen “Beeswax” three times. “The first time was really exciting, because it was like seeing a slide show of my summer,” she said. “The second time, it really seemed like a movie. And the third time, I started getting really critical of everything I did. I decided after that I wouldn’t watch it any more.”

A return to architecture is not out of the question; she said she’s done the necessary preparation to test for her certification as an architect. And while she’s not actively looking for another part to play, Tilly enjoyed the experience enough that she’s open to offers.

“What I loved about this movie was it was totally non-crucial to the role that I used a wheelchair,” she said. “And the idea that there are a lot of directors out there who would look at a role and say, ‘Oh, this person could use a wheelchair,’ is kind of far-fetched. But I would prefer roles like that.”