So, I learned an important lesson from Grayson “The Professor” Boucher: The Art of Perseverance. This lesson was not so much taught by him, but rather taught by the experience of this film.

For two years (yes, two years), I’d been running around town (well documented on this blog) preaching that Grayson was the only dude that could play Sticky. I convinced everyone and anyone with whom I could get an audience that he was Sticky and that Sticky was him, this includes Grayson Boucher himself, financiers, other actors, agents, managers, Michael Roiff, Matt de la pena, and, most importantly, my own damn self, among many, many others. I preached so much, I got tired of my own preaching.

A window of negative opened for me and I let other, non-believing folks start to dictate whether the idea of a kid from Salem, OR with no acting experience taking the lead in a project so important to so many of us was a good idea or not. I let self-serving individuals start to dictate whether this could or couldn’t happen. I let narrow-visions get in the way of my vision. I started to have doubts. I began to have second thoughts. I wondered what the agenda of the “Professor” and his “people” really was. I wondered if this kid was committed. I wondered if the “Professor” moniker could be shed for a skin named “Sticky.”
Then do-or-die day showed up and so did Grayson Boucher. There was no “Professor” on set except when kids screamed it from a passing car on Lincoln Blvd or grown folks stood near our camera trying to cop a photo with him. There was only Sticky. Sticky-icky. Truth is, Grayson delivered. He came with energy, enthusiasm, and ambition. For that, I’m grateful. There will be no lines like “Tell Me When I Have a Bad One, sucker” in this film and that is less on the writing and more on the performance that will be projected on the screen. Grayson surprised many of us, but I’d like to think he proved my first instinct right (another lesson in trusting that sense) - the instinct that said he could be Sticky. He taught me a lesson in perseverance. For that, I’m grateful, too.