Keyes leaving Wm. Morris
Keyes said she wants to go from ten-percenter to independent producer, stressing she's in no way a candidate for her old job, which will become vacant when current commissioner Richard Brick ankles, also Friday.
The town has been buzzing about possible appointees, or whether Brick himself would be asked to stay.
"I've done it already," said Keyes. "I feel it's time for new blood in that office. It just isn't where my interests lie. I'm tired of working for everybody else, now I want to work for myself." Keyes' bosses included David Dinkins during two years as city film director and Gov. Mario Cuomo during six years as head of the state film office.
At Morris, Keyes said she worked with writers and directors and in casting on films, specializing on independents. Her clients will be serviced by other Morris agents, she said.
"I found myself perking upevery time the subject of budgets would come up," she said. "William Morris has been very supportive.
I felt like I was going to my parents after they put me through medical school, telling them I didn't want to be a doctor. But they knew I wanted to be in production."
Keyes tried her hand at producing once before, after she left the state film office and tried to adapt the Florence King novel "When Sisterhood Was in Flower." That project stalled when she got the city film job. She said she's had "three or four offers, but I don't want to jump into anything."
She'll make a decision in the spring, she said.
