Subtext & Natalie Wood

I was reminded recently of a moment I read in William Goldman’s wonderful Adventures in the Screen Trade, a moment where simple words conveyed rich subtext.

During the filming of Harper, Goldman and Robert Wagner wandered off the set and snuck into a nearby sound stage where Inside Daisy Clover was filming, which of course, starred Natalie Wood. By this point, Wagner and Wood had already been married and divorced.

Robert climbed up a ladder to watch Natalie do several takes of a musical number. When she was finished, as fate would have it, she walked right past them on her way to her dressing room.

WAGNER
(from above)
Hi.

WOOD
(stops, looks up)
Oh. Hi.

WAGNER
That looked good.

WOOD
You think?

WAGNER
I do. Yeah.

WOOD
Hope so.
(little smile, starts off)
Bye.

WAGNER
(watching her)
Bye.

Goldman said he stood there “like a gnome watching him watch her.” They, of course, remarried a few years later.