More synchronicities when casting for the Celestine Prophecy Movie.

And we had some people readily in mind. First of all, we wanted the leading character, John, to be played by someone who could relate to this character's life situation -- just fired from his job, at an emotional crossroads in life, interested in a greater theory or knowledge concerning "what life was about" -- and we without knowing much about him personally, intuited we should interview Matthew Settle (Band of Brothers, Into the West) Only after meeting him did we find out that he was the son of a Baptist minister from North Carolina. And because of that, he had rebelled somewhat from any interest in the spiritual dimensions of life. Only recently, however, he had come around to wanting to explore a deeper spiritual consciousness on his own to help him with the craziness of life as an actor. In short, the more we talked to him, the more we began to realize that he was the character we were asking him to play.

Later we were searching for John's main female mentor at Viciente. Try as we might we could not find the right person to play this character.

Then, when we were within a few days of shooting, we got a call about another matter, and someone mentioned that Annabeth Gish, (Mystic Pizza, West Wing) was perhaps available. When we called her agent, she said that Annabeth was in flight from Miami to LA, and that we should meet her with a script at the airport, which we arranged. Later, Annabeth told us that during the flight she suddenly had an inspired feeling and wrote in her diary that "something wonderful was about to happen." When she arrived, she ready the script, loved it, and accepted the role...