HUFFINGTON
06.17.12
COURTESY LARS KNUDSEN AND JAY VAN HOY
CINEMA VÉRITÉ
and were prepared to do what
it took to get it.
It was late on a Friday night
when Knudsen finally found
an opportunity to prove his
worth to Rudin. The producer
was on his way home when
he noticed that his weekend
“take-home” bin — a postal
basket piled high with scripts,
videos, books, and other
homework items — was sitting
on Knudsen’s desk instead
of on the doorstep of Rudin’s
apartment, where it was supposed to be waiting for him.
Knudsen had messed up.
“He does what he does and
gets upset with me,” Knud-
sen says, “and I just tell him,
‘Don’t worry, it’ll be there
before you get home.’ And
that’s obviously ridiculous,
because he’s leaving now and
the car’s waiting for him and
I’m still here.”
As soon as Rudin left,
Knudsen hoisted the bin and
sprinted the long block from
7th Avenue to 8th Avenue,
hailed a taxi and raced to Rudin’s apartment on the Upper
West Side. Somehow, he beat
the boss home — barely. He
took the elevator to Rudin’s
apartment, dropped off the
bin, and then rode back down.
“And when the doors
LEFT: Lars
Knudsen (center)
and Jay Van Hoy
(right) after a day
of skiing in 2003.
RIGHT: Jay Van
Hoy (left) and
Lars Knudsen
(right) enjoying a
poolside breakfast
in Los Angeles
for the 2003
Academy Awards.