'Smoke' Gets in Their Eyes

The wild roundup of the eclectic Blue in the Face cast is a story in itself: Roseanne had campaigned for the Smoke role that eventually went to Channing, so she was eager to work on Blue in the Face with the same creative team and agreed to play Keitel's boss' wife, Dot (who is discussed but never seen in Smoke). Fox's people wanted to get their star into an edgier project after such duds as Life With Mikey, For Love or Money, and Greedy. Madonna couldn't resist the cameo part of the singing telegram lady. Auster enlisted his friend Reed for his quintessential New York attitude and accent. Jarmusch was a late fill-in for William Hurt, who couldn't reprise his role because of other commitments. And Tomlin? Well, she jumped in to play the panhandler known as "Belgian Waffle Man" when none of the male contenders panned out.

The following week, Auster returns to the corner cigar shop to direct Blue in the Face for two days while Wang is sidelined with bronchitis. ''I told Paul I knew he could do it,'' Wang explains later. ''Who could give the actors their motivation better?'' As Auster signals the start of a scene on an already steaming summer morning, a heavily disguised Tomlin — in Army boots, ripped jeans, and blond facial hair — is hitting up Giancarlo Esposito, who plays one of the OTB guys, for a Belgian waffle breakfast.

''It all happened so fast,'' says a sweaty but happy Auster, who outlined Blue in the Face in the back of his car on rides home after watching Smoke dailies at Manhattan's DuArt lab. ''We did Lily's street scene in just one morning — she showed up in costume, was never out of character even between takes, and then she was gone. I think there were a few people on the set who didn't know it was Lily.''

Considering the rules that were rewritten in the course of shooting Smoke and Blue, everything worked out well for Auster. Even so, he's quitting the movies before they become a habit — despite his idea that White Between the Eyes would be a fitting follow-up to Blue in the Face and reports that Al Pacino has cast an admiring glance at Auster's latest novel, Mr. Vertigo, a fantastical Depression-era saga. ''I certainly have no plans to direct again, and I don't think writing screenplays is in my future, either,'' he says. ''It was a great experience, it got me out of my room, but it was a lot more work than I thought it would be. Now I'm ready to start another novel.''

And with that, the writer smiles, pulls out a Schimmelpenninck, and has himself a smoke.