Austin\u2019s filmmaking scene suffered a tragic blow earlier this month with the death of beloved actor and musician Bill Wise. Now the community that was so affected by his work and personality will come together for a special celebration of his life and legacy at AFS Cinema on Monday, May 18 at 5:30pm.<\/p>\n
A constant player in Austin\u2019s screen acting scene<\/a>, Wise appeared in dozens of locally created movies \u2013 so many that it would be nearly impossible to pick one role over another for such a tribute. However, the organizers have selected his unforgettable performance as the perfect 1970s crew-cutted Houston father in Richard Linklater\u2019s Apollo 10\u00bd: A Space Age Childhood<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mike Blizzard, who was a producer on Apollo 10\u00bd, recalled that Wise \u201cwas the perfect Dad for the wonderful ensemble family cast. He played Dad when the camera was off too! Helping corral and be a father figure on set for the young actors \u2013 most of whom had never been in a film before.\u201d<\/p>\n Seats for this rare theatrical screening are first-come, first-served, and will be followed by remarks, a reception in the lobby, and then a trip back into the screen for a supercut of Wise\u2019s work intercut with remembrances and anecdotes from those that knew and loved him.<\/p>\n Those people were many, and tributes have continued to pour in. Wise\u2019s representatives at the Collier Talent Agency described him as \u201ca true Austin icon, a one-of-a-kind artist who made Austin weird and tried to keep it that way. Bill\u2019s mind moved at lightning speed. He was a fearless performer and an absolute comic genius.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond his work on Apollo 10\u00bd, Blizzard called Wise \u201ca stalwart part of the Austin creative firmament for decades, he brought such passion, kindness, and hilarity to everything he did.\u201d<\/p>\n Bryan Poyser, who directed Wise in the video for Emily Bell\u2019s \u201cCan\u2019t Talk Back,\u201d echoed those sentiments by calling him \u201cone of the brightest talents we\u2019ve ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s been said that casting directors would say that, if Wise wasn\u2019t available, they\u2019d look for a Bill Wise-type. However, his eagerness to perform and be part of making movies made him ubiquitous, and a regular on the sets of many of the best-known Austin filmmakers. That included Andrew Bujalski, who shared multiple sets with Wise. \u201cIt became a kind of inadvertent running gag between us that I never had a decent part for him.\u201d The director wrote. \u201cAs one of the encounter group folks in Computer Chess he dropped plenty of hilarious improv gold, which of course I had no place for in the movie (though it always makes me laugh to see him, in the background, absolutely *destroying* that loaf of bread in Annie\u2019s lap) \u2026 In Results you barely catch him as the cop pulling Cobie\u2019s character over \u2026 And when his audition video came in for another day-player bit in Support the Girls, I had to reach out and say, Bill, I don\u2019t know if I can do this to you again \u2013 but if you want the unglamorous work, of course, I\u2019d be happy to hang out for the afternoon and let you punch James Le Gros in the gut, which he did handsomely.\u201d<\/p>\n