Being an executive producer on The Source was exciting mainly because it was going to be the end of a long journey for me in the Highlander world. From actor, to director and now actually executive producing – a desire that I had harboured for a long time. I don’t think anyone (including myself) really expected that I would have as much say in the production of this film as I eventually did.
 Peter Davis and Bill Panzer had chosen an interesting director - Brett Leonard (Lawn Mower Man) - to direct this installment and I remember first meeting with him in Cannes in May 2005 and thinking that this was going to be an interesting ride. Brett is a bigger-than-life character with a large heart and a lot of passion. He had some very strong ideas about how the story should go, with a world that was darker and a MacLeod who had lost his way. I agreed we had to do something different, not only in the story but also in the look of the piece. It was an important factor if the franchise was going to go any further.
 We knew that the most important thing that we needed from the start was a good script. Indeed, it was essential. When I heard that David Abramowitz was teaming up with Stephen Watkins to write it, I was thrilled because I knew that David more than anyone could put the heart back into the franchise. Afterall, he knew the story and the franchise better than anyone. It was going to be a hard job because, after four films and a TV Series, the idea of Highlander was fast becoming an old story. It had to be brought up to the 21st century without losing the essence that made the franchise so worthwhile. Everyone was confident that Brett, with his extensive knowledge of visual effects, could do that. The trick would be to balance this with a heart felt story - one that conveyed the essence of what Highlander was all about.
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We knew that filming in Lithuania was going to be an interesting experience because some of the things written in the script just
didn’t exist there. One scene in particular I remember that got changed involved a suspension walkway bridge that was
supposed to
give way with a car on top of it! Constructing this
would
have
been extremely expensive - and since Lithuania
is a flat country
there was the added problem of trying
to convey the idea
of a massive abyss surrounded
by mountains.
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In August I met Brett in London to begin auditioning actors for the other roles. Bill Panzer, unfortunately, couldn’t make it but casting tapes usually got to L.A. a couple of days after we had seen the actors, so keeping in contact throughout the process wasn’t a problem. At the time of casting the characters' descriptions were:
Giovanni: an immortal Cardinal who was even older than our 5,000-year-old immortal, Methos;
Ryo: a 'big bear of a man” who was an avid Astrologer;
The Elder: an Immortal who time had forgotten;
Zai: an Asian immortal tracker;
The Guardian:, the main bad guy in the film;
Katia: MacLeod's love interest.
The roles of Methos and Joe Dawson were of course to be reprised by Peter Wingfield and Jim Byrnes.
In relation to Katia, no one really had any idea as to who should play that role - just that we needed someone who had that ‘Highlander’ feel. Motherly, sexy with an earthy quality and of course a good actress. We interviewed quite a few actresses. It was interesting to see that each had ‘some’ of the qualities that we were looking for but none of them had ‘all’ of them.
Then, when we saw the reel of Thekla Reuten, we knew she was the woman for the role. We sent the reel back to Los Angeles and they agreed. But things never run smoothly - Thekla was committed to another film and a series. It didn’t look like we were going to get her, so we continued casting. After a week we were told that the possibility of getting her was again there since there was a possibility that she might be able to withdraw from her other projects. By that time we had seen one other possible Katia who we liked and who had given a great reading. In the end, however, Thekla was able to do the job and we were thrilled.
As we developed the characters, their names and characteristics changed for no other reason than actor availability and story concept. Originally, as I had mentioned before, Giovanni was supposed to be an older priest. We saw many actors who fell into that category, but something was missing.When Thom Fell walked into the room, Brett immediately told him he was too young for the part. The look he gave in reply was priceless. When he read we realized that Thom was a good actor with a different edge to him, and I knew that playing an ancient Immortal as a young man could actually work (after all, look at Methos!). We sent the tapes off to Los Angeles and waited.
The character of Ryo, too, had been changed during the short time we were in London since it gave more balance to the group for him to be a younger, more sympathetic character. His name was too similar in feel to that of Zai so we decided to change it to Reggie. The character changed from a big bear of a man to cockney boy who had never really fought a battle and had existed only on his wits.When Stephen Wight came into see us, he said he didn’t really fit the description of “a big bear of a man,” and we realized he had the sense of humor that we were looking for in that role. Even though the subject matter was dark, we needed some black humor and Stephen certainly was up for that. Katia too was finally changed. I mentioned to Bill that this name was too close to Kate in Highlander: Endgame, so eventually she became Anna. It suits Thekla better, too. Later when we were already in Lithuania, during our discussions I asked Thekla what she thought her last name was. We decided we needed to know. After going through several suggestions with Peter Davis, we heard that part of his family was Russian. His grandmother was called Teshempka, so we decided it was perfect, and she became Anna Teshempka.
One of the easiest characters to cast and one of the first actually given the job was that of Zai played by Stephen Rahmen-Hughes. The smaller roles in movies are usually harder to cast because better actors are not attracted to small roles. But Steven was definitely up for the role and came in prepared, blowing away anyone else who auditioned. Another thing that I noticed in casting was how some actors would come in with absolutely no take on the role, and that surprised me.
In the meantime we had heard that Peter and Bill really took to the idea of seeing Giovanni as a younger man and thought he was definitely the best they saw on the tapes. 
It’s rare that everyone agrees in casting situations, but we all did. It seemed like things were running smoothly even though we were pretty close to production time and there was still a lot to be done.
The last one to cast was the bad guy himself: The Guardian. Brett was looking for an actor with a different take on being bad. So many actors who came into the room played the role very stereotypically, so we were a little disappointed at first with choices we had. That changed when Brett saw Cristian Solimeno. Cristian had his own take on things and it was definitely different. We saw that the role could be expanded with the additions and individualistic choices that Cristian would bring with him. Then, as luck would have it, we had another actor - Patrice Naiambana - who also read. We liked him very much (in part because of his voice) but after deliberating on the choices we realized that perhaps he would be better suited to playing the timeless character in the film - The Elder. Again L.A. agreed, and in no time flat we had our cast. Now we had to get everyone into wardrobe fittings and rehearsals as soon as possible.
