"It's my fault you're all here," "Amelia" producer
Ted Waitt declared at the Oct. 20 premiere at Gotham's Paris Theater.
"I had this crazy idea out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 2006 after I read
Susan Butler's and
Mary Lovell's biographies on Amelia Earhart to make this movie, and this is what happened," Waitt said.
What almost didn't happen was the casting of
Richard Gere as Amelia's husband, George Putnam, in the
Mira Nair-helmed biopic.
"I originally told Mira I don't have time for it," Gere said at the Bloomingdale's on 59th after-party. "I was doing two movies back to back, but she was really persistent and asked me to please read the script. So I read it and thought that there was something there."
Ten days later, Nair began shooting the Fox Searchlight release with Gere onboard. While the helmer was trying to persuade the thesp to take the part, pic star
Hilary Swank was mastering Earhart's Kansas accent.
"It was the most difficult accent I've done to date in my career," Swank said. "It took me over eight weeks to figure it out."
Contact Addie Morfoot at
news@variety.com