Trailer
Plot summary
Mitchell Haven, a promising young filmmaker, puts together a movie drawn from a financial scandal that had once been in the headlines. For the part of Velma Duran, the woman caught up in the affair, he chooses Laurel Graham, an unknown actress who bears a striking resemblance to Velma. Shooting the picture carries the production from the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina to Verona, Rome and London. As the work goes on, Haven falls in love with his leading lady and becomes obsessed with her, with the crime he is recreating and with the line between the story he is telling and the facts behind it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Road to Nowhere (2010)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Road to Nowhere was Monte Hellman's first feature film in 21 years, and it also turned out to be his last: he died in April 2021.
- Shannyn Sossamon became the first actor cast in Road to Nowhere after writer Steven Gaydos spotted her in a restaurant rehearsing a scene with another person and, reluctantly, handed her his card.
- Cullowhee resident Jim Rowell struck a deal with the filmmakers: he repaired a fuel pump at the airport in exchange for flying his 1966 Piper Cherokee four-passenger plane as a stuntman, making eight to nine passes over the lake 300 to 500 feet above the water.
- The plane crash into the Fontana Dam was faked in post-production by cutting between Jim Rowell flying near the dam and the actor sitting in Rowell's plane on a green screen, pretending to crash.
- Monte Hellman shot Road to Nowhere on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which recorded 12 minutes at a time on a flash card, compared with 10 minutes with 35mm film.
- When Hellman still had European scenes to shoot but was over budget, his daughter, co-producer Melissa Hellman, raised more money through private equity.
