On the Screen: The Dyson Comeback, Reported Despite Dyson
Editor's note: Melanie Dyson's camp reached out to this newsroom directly and asked us not to run anything from Cynthia Hargrove, citing years of friction between the two that this paper won't pretend to fully understand. We took the request seriously and thought about it. We're running the piece anyway. Ms. Hargrove's reporting on this story is going to exist somewhere whether Dallin reads it here or not, and this paper would rather it ran in a place that checks its facts. Signed, G.H.
LOS ANGELES. Melanie Dyson's people didn't want this story anywhere near The Dallin Chronicle, and they said so more than once, through more than one channel. It's running anyway. Whatever the two of us think of each other at this point, the reporting doesn't stop because someone would rather the headline not exist.
Dyson is currently filming Harvest Moon, her first project since Sweetest Release, and by every account reaching this desk, it's the role she's been angling for her whole career. Three people on set, none authorized to speak publicly, describe a leading lady more hands-on than they've ever seen her: sitting in on script revisions, pushing back on a director's note more than once, and doing it all without her longtime manager, Cary Ostrander, in the room for a change.
Reached for comment, Ostrander didn't bother denying the tension around this piece. "Melanie has strong feelings about certain reporters. I'd call those feelings long-standing, and I'd call them mutual," he said. Asked directly whether Dyson's team had contacted The Dallin Chronicle to try to keep this from running, he paused before answering. "I'll just say we made our position known," he said. "It's not the first time it hasn't mattered."
Dyson herself declined to comment for this story. A spokesperson, reached separately, called this reporter's continued presence around Dallin "an intrusion, not an interview," and asked that be printed exactly as said. Consider it printed.
Harvest Moon is expected in theaters next fall. Whatever else is true here, that part isn't in dispute.