Jim Caviezel is the picture of a cool, collected Hollywood star - tan, with electric blue eyes, wearing a tailored summer suit, calmly talking about portraying Jesus in last year's blockbuster The Passion of the Christ.

During Sunday's premiere of Madison, his eyes flick around the Madison City Council chambers as he answers questions about the film in which he's the lead character. It's as if he's trying to find something on which to focus.

Enter Mark Fauser.

As the Marion resident and co-star in the film appears on the sidewalk, Caviezel's gaze locks on to Fauser. The stillness is broken.

"There he is, right there! Walking by! Mark Fauser!

"Here he goes, right now!" Caviezel shouts, pointing through the huge window with a child-like grin on his face.

In trademark fashion, Fauser greets his old friend by pressing himself against the window.

Moments later, he bounds into the room, taking about three seconds to brush past the journalists and drape himself over Caviezel, landing with a flourish in the man's lap.

"Did I tell you about this guy?" Fauser shouts, using the same tone one would use to holler across an open ravine.

Still grinning and holding Fauser as if it were the most everyday thing in the world, Caviezel tells a story from the shoot, one of many detailing Fauser's antics.

Like Caviezel, everyone has a Fauser story - like the time he took a pratfall into the Ohio River or the time he gave a senior citizen a bear hug in front of a group of strangers.

But what many people don't get to see is the gleam of excitement in his voice when he talks about something he's really passionate about, like his work in Hollywood or his role as executive director of the Community School of the Arts in Marion.

Walking the red carpet Sunday afternoon, joining his co-stars for the long-delayed release of Madison, Fauser, who left Hollywood 10 years ago for Marion, is back in his element again, chatting it up with press and fans alike.

"I like it, man. I love it," he says of his red carpet walk. "This is always fun. It's really a neat feeling, you know, especially to do it where you make the movie."

Like many working actors and writers in Hollywood, Fauser has had his share of career ups and downs.

Fauser headed for Hollywood at 27, after graduating from the University of Missouri and living and working in New York.

He worked in Florida at the Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theater for a year, which is where he met his wife, Marion native Julie Harris, who was a waitress there for a time.

After a short engagement, the two married and moved to Los Angeles, where Fauser later worked as a writer on the TV show Evening Shadeand acted in seaQuest DSV.

"Evening Shadegot cancelled, seaQuestgot recast, so you really lose everything," he said. "It looked like my choice was to move into an apartment again from our house or say, 'Hey, we did it, let's go back and raise our kids in the Midwest.'"

They did. But just the day before Fauser was to leave Hollywood, he learned the script for The Right to Remain Silent, which he wrote with Brent Briscoe, was being picked up as a Showtime movie.

He still moved to Marion, though, and later got actor Billy Bob Thornton, recently an Academy Award winner for Sling Blade,attached to his script for Waking Up in Reno, a 2002 release.

The movie made less than $1 million in limited release, and as soon as Fauser was at the top of the heap, he had fallen off again.

On his Web site, http://www.markfauser.com/, he talks at length over his frustration with Hollywood, recently with trying to sell a script that was first loved then rejected by studio executives.

"I am so over that sick demented town I can't even tell you," he rants in a Nov. 11 entry.

"You don't even know a half, a fourth of what I feel," he later said in an interview. "... Those things are just frustrating. At what point do you compromise? I was willing to starve out there, I was willing to pay the price. But you can't underscore how difficult that is."

Now, as the executive director of Marion's Community School of the Arts, Fauser said his creative needs are being fulfilled by writing for the stage and helping children reach their artistic potential.

"It actually fulfills me so much more than, say, Waking Up in Reno," he said. "There's Billy Bob Thornton, Charlize Theron, Patrick Swayze, all reading my lines, and those moments will never be taken away from me.

"But there's so much of that that's out of your control. They can change words, rewrite scenes, cut scenes, edit scenes, and all of a sudden, this work of what you thought was art becomes a business. And it really kind of decapitates you in a way."

Fauser recently returned to the screen, playing a mechanic named Travis in Madison, being released today in Marion and across the country.

The film chronicles the southeastern Indiana town's quest to host and win the Gold Cup of hydroplane racing in 1971. Caviezel plays real-life boat pilot Jim McCormick, and the cast also includes Mary McCormack, Bruce Dern and Jake Lloyd.

Although the production wrapped six years ago, before Waking Up in Renowas filmed, being back in Madison on Sunday for the premiere reenergized Fauser, putting him back with many of the Hollywood stars he calls his friends.

"My gosh," Caviezel said. "Let me tell you, he was the one saving grace for this film as far as keeping me in stitches always. I could talk to that guy forever.

"(Director) Bill Bindley did a great job casting this movie," he said. "It's like a basketball team. You have to have great players in certain positions."

The stars weren't the only ones with Fauser stories in Madison, a city of 12,000 that hosted the seven-week film shoot.

"Oh, he's something," said 75-year-old Mary Zelda Adams, a Milton, Ky., resident who was an extra in the film. "In between scenes, while we were waiting, he was always doing something to keep us amused."

Despite his disillusionment with the Hollywood machine, Fauser isn't ready to turn his back on the movie business. Not yet.

He's got some work to do first.

As CSA's executive director, he's also been given the task of co-writing and directing a show about James Dean's childhood for the upcoming James Dean Fest set for June 3 through 5 at Marion Municipal Airport.

Once that is done, and he gets through another season of iTheatre, the weeklong, intensive writing and acting workshop he puts on through CSA, Fauser said he wants to go back to his roots and work on a movie script.

But until he's ready for that, CSA is keeping him more than occupied and interested, and that's going to continue as long as he's got the support from the students and the community.

"I think as long as there is an interest here and there are people that get it," he said. "The more people that get it, the more inspired I will get.

"If it's just like, 'Oh, this is Marion,' or 'Oh, it's just Grant County' and it's blasé and I'm fighting in quicksand, then it's time for me to press the ejector button."

But of all the roles Fauser has played, the one he's taking the most seriously now is as an inspiration to young people.

"I am here as a living example of someone who has had success in what they like to do. It is my duty to pass this on," he said.

Originally published April 22, 2005