Havilland Savage is a woman who has absolutely everything, except love. Lee Plenty is a man who has absolutely nothing, except love. HAV PLENTY is a fresh, intimate look at finding love in the '90's. It explores the unlikely collision of two seemingly opposite people over one catalytic New Year's weekend.

...BEHIND THE SCENES

The story of HAV PLENTY unfolds in an inventive mixture of asides to the audience, dream sequences, comic sketches and sharply irreverent observations on sex and love. These give the film a uniquely personal feel, not unlike the strong point of view exhibited in the early comedies of Spike Lee and Woody Allen. This is no accident; the story of HAV PLENTY comes from Chris Cherot's own experiences in the tempest of modern love affairs.

"I have to admit I began writing HAV PLENTY entirely as a catharsis, as a healing. I was a heartbroken, lovesick fool and I had to do something to get over it," he says. "Writing helped."

"I had never seen characters like this in a film before," says Cherot, "and I wanted to write about them. With Lee, I wanted to see if I could create a romantic leading man who defies expectation. Leading men are almost always suave, debonair, smooth in their approach, at the very least wealthy. But I wanted to see if I could create a guy who isn't the very definition of masculine strength, who doesn't hit on all the women around him, who isn't even sure he wants to have a sexual relationship right now and who doesn't have money - yet is still attractive to women."

Cherot populated his script with characters who have been both enchanted and hurt by love. He comments: "Ultimately, I see HAV PLENTY as being about how different people approach love and heartache. Every character in the movie is heartbroken in some way, but they all come at the solution from a different angle."

ABOUT THE CASTING

HAV PLENTY features a cast of fresh faces, many of whom make their feature film debuts. Chris Cherot placed a single ad in Backstage magazine from which he received thousands of resumes. He then began holding auditions, albeit highly unconventional ones. Actors who arrived to try-out for HAV PLENTY were asked to fill out personal questionnaires with queries ranging from "What is your favorite book?" to "Are you a Trekkie?" and most importantly, "Do you feel men are capable of love?"

"We all should have known right then this was going to be no ordinary experience," comments Robinne Lee who won the role of Leigh Darling, Hav's recently married but still uncertain sister, at the auditions.

From these unorthodox sessions Cherot also cast Tammi Jones as the seductive Caroline; Betty Vaughn as Hav's prescient grandmother; and Michele Turner as Hav's highly successful role model and mother, Sylvia Savage.

Casting the lead roles of Lee Plenty and Havilland Savage turned out to be accidents of fate. Cherot never intended to play Lee Plenty. In fact, he had never acted a day in his life, save for an appearance as the Tin Man in an elementary school production of "Wizard of Oz." But when the actor he cast as Plenty dropped out just two weeks before start of production, Cherot decided to take the risk.

"I realized that no one really knew this character as well as I did and certainly no one was going to get to know him in two weeks," he explains. "People keep asking me what made me think I could pull it off and I still don't know the answer. I just jumped in and when the film was finished, the biggest surprise of all to me was that people actually bought me in the role. I think maybe audiences can sense that I have a personal connection to the story."

When it came to casting Havilland Savage, Cherot had lined up a popular model for the role, but when she took a last minute, high-dollar photo shoot that conflicted with production, he was forced to find another actress. Cherot had earlier cast Chenoa Maxwell as Hav's prep-school friend Bobby Montgomery but every time he saw her he thought of Havilland. Again, he took a chance and offered Chenoa the lead role - with just two days to go before start of production!

"She turned out to be tremendous," says Cherot. "It would be so easy to play Havilland as remote and arrogant, but Chenoa also lets you know that she has a more human side, that she is aware of the games she plays and sometimes wishes she didn't play those games. I could see that Chenoa had it in her to take on this part, that she was psychologically prepared to go where the character is going."

Mostly what Cherot wanted to see was his own personal evocation of the insanity and wonder of romantic attraction. He states: "It was really revealing to me to watch this story - it was so personal that I learned a lot about myself and my own feelings about romance. What I didn't realize in the beginning is how many other people would relate to this story. People seem to take this film very, very personally and that's a truly gratifying thing."