Change Of Careers Christopher Reeve Finds Directing A New Hbo Movie Energizing And Very Satisfying

In an elegant white-clapboard country house, with acres of green lawn sprawling down a hillside from its flagstone patio to a pond below, amid the lush horse country of Pound Ridge, N.Y., Christopher Reeve this fall began his new career as a film director.

Completely immobile from the shoulders down since he was thrown by a horse and broke his neck 17 months ago, Reeve sat in a broad, well-padded hospital chair, his arms laid out carefully on its arms, a breathing tube extending from his gauze-wrapped throat to a metal box on the back of his chair. The box breathes for him.

His famous blue eyes intently watched a television screen. Upstairs, Glenn Close and David Strathairn were playing a scene in the master bedroom; Reeve was in a downstairs parlor, watching them on the television monitor and listening to them through a headset.

Several producers, Reeve’s personal assistant, the script supervisor and a few friends of the director also wore headsets. The only sound in the parlor was the ventilator’s slow breathing noises: a thin wheeze going in, a soft, puffing going out, as flawlessly rhythmic as a metronome.

His medical condition stable, aside from the occasional spasm that is normal for a quadriplegic, Reeve worked every weekday for a month in the Pound Ridge house, a few miles from his own home, shooting the film “In the Gloaming” for HBO.

Adapted by Will Scheffer from a New Yorker short story by Alice Elliot Dark, it is about a young man in his 20s who has come home to his patrician parents and their emotionally chilly family because he is dying of AIDS. It stars Robert Sean Leonard as the young man, Close as his mother and Strathairn as his father; Bridget Fonda plays his sister and Whoopi Goldberg plays his home-care nurse.

On the set, Reeve, 44, said his only limitation was working from the television monitor.

“But lots of directors work only from monitors anyway,” he said, speaking calmly and clearly, with an occasional brief pause to coordinate his breathing. “If I was on my feet, I’d be next to the lens while they set up, and just checking the monitors from time to time. But I can’t do that.”

His paralysis means that a nurse is nearby around the clock. On the set, she fed him at mealtimes and offered sips of iced tea. His personal assistant put the headset on or removed it as needed and adjusted the volume on a small microphone attached to Reeve’s shirt, enabling the director to speak to the actors.

These small ministrations were done so unobtrusively that it was hard to see how Reeve even signaled his needs to aides. With this help, Reeve worked from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day without taking time out for lunch.

“The more I do, the more I can do,” he said. “When I’m relaxing at home on a weekend, my numbers - oxygen saturation, other things we measure - are sometimes worse than when I’m working all day. Sitting around doing nothing, and sleeping, do not agree with me.

“The wonderful thing about directing is I’m energized all day long. I get to make decisions all day, and I find that really satisfying.”

Reeve said he thought that having been an actor made him better than other directors at communicating how a scene should feel. Talking to the actors between takes, he solicited their opinions and generously doled out praise, yet there was no question who was in charge.

“It’s remarkable, the sense of camaraderie, of honesty, the lack of ego on that set,” said Colin Callender, the executive vice president of HBO NYC Productions. “The focus they all have, and the sense of calmness Chris brings, are truly unusual.

“Chris had to redefine himself after his accident, and his family and friends had to redefine the way they relate to him,” Callender added.

“The honesty and candor in the way they’ve done that seem to inform all the relationships around him. And that is exactly what’s at the heart of the script of ‘The Gloaming.’ This young man coming home very ill with AIDS has to relate to his family, and they to him, in a different way, so that the ailment doesn’t define him.”

Reeve is now editing the film, which is expected to be televised next spring. “It’s so exciting to see him start in a whole new field that is possible for him,” Close said, “and to see how good he is at it.”