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Rebecca Romijn steps out of the blue and into the Bellagio to choreograph one of their famous water fountain routines in the new documentary “Wet Dreams.”

The good news–an offer to interview Rebecca Romijn, the gorgeous swimsuit model-turned-actress whose credits have included “Femme Fatale” (the Brian De Palma masterpiece that is, in the humble opinion of yours truly, perhaps the finest American film of the decade to date), the recently defunct WB television series “Pepper Dennis” and a little-known art film inching its way across the country called “X-Men: The Final Stand” (in which she once again plays the blue-skinned shape-shifter Mystique). The bad news–it is a phone interview. Oh well, despite that minor setback, I’m still talking to Rebecca Romijn and I suspect that is probably just as cool, if not more so, than anything that you have planned for today (unless you are that guy from “Tomcats” and “Sliders,” of course.)

Romijn is calling up to discuss “Wet Dreams,” a new documentary in which she explores a subject near and dear to her heart–choreographing the water fountain display outside the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Like many of those who have seen the attraction over the years, she was astounded by the sight of thousands of gallons of waters shooting up into the air in routines perfectly choreographed to various musical selections. Unlike many, she, along with best friend Steve Willis (who directed the film), wanted to try her hand at staging such a routine herself. The film chronicles her efforts from trying to convince the people at Wet Designs, the folks who put together the routines, that she is serious about this ambition to finding the perfect bit of fountain music (Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstacy of Gold” from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”) to putting all the elements together, first on the computer and then in the fountain itself. While the result is admittedly a vanity project, it is an uncommonly endearing one because the subject is so unlikely (who would have dreamed that so much technical effort and manpower went into a dancing-waters routine?) and because Romijn is such an appealingly goofy guide–she is clearly having the time of her life doing this and that sheer enthusiasm comes through throughout the film.

Appropriately, "Wet Dreams" will be premiering at the CineVegas Film Festival in Las Vegas on June 12. And if you want, you can go from the screening over to the Bellagio, where Romijn's piece is still running in their rotation three times a day.

How did the idea of personally choreographing a water fountain display first come about for you?

My best friend Steve Willis and I, like millions of other people around the world, have gone to Vegas and been completely mesmerized by the giant fountains at the Bellagio hotel. It started off as one of those ridiculous ideas where you sit there and think “How cool would it be to blankety-blank?” and then you let it go. With this, the more we talked about it, the more passionate we became about it. Then we started talking seriously about it and then we’d laugh at ourselves for taking it so seriously but we couldn’t let it go. We decided to try to figure out the proper channels and we had to get in touch with this company called Wet Designs, the company that is responsible for handling the fountains. At first, they wouldn’t take us seriously–go figure–and we finally got a meeting to go in and pitch something to them. The idea of choreographing one of those fountain shows to music that we got to pick out just sounded like the most satisfying and fulfilling thing to be a part of–that fountain in Vegas is like the biggest instrument in the world and a fabulous form of expression.

Did you have any idea going in of just how much went on behind-the-scenes in order to put on one of those displays? There is one scene in the film where we look inside an underground area where much of the machinery and computer controls are housed and it looks like something you’d see at NORAD.

It’s creepy, I know. It is such a huge, huge thing and people have no idea about how much goes into it–all those nozzles are basically little robots.

How long did it take to finally convince the Bellagio that you were serious about your intentions? As we see in the film, you even used an appearance on “The Tonight Show” as a forum to plead your case at one point.[/]i

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Once we finally got a meeting with Mark Fuller from Wet Designs, it didn’t take long at all. I think he sensed our passion and that inspired him and gave him confidence in us. I think he was still curious about what we would try to pull off. Everyone had their doubts–we’d never choreographed a fountain before–but we just knew that really wanted to do it and we were sure that we could do a good job.

What are the qualities that go into the ideal musical selection for a fountain show?

It has to have a lot of drama–a lot of build and crescendos and places to punch in for the water to have a greater effect. We had spent so much time collecting music that we thought would be appropriate and we came in with a bunch of songs. We picked “Ecstacy of Gold” because we loved it, it’s Western, it was unlike anything else that they had at the Bellagio and it had a tremendous amount of drama. Morricone is a fantastic composer and we really loved the piece.

Like I said before, it is a fantastic form of expression and you can’t compare it to anything else. We knew that if we picked a piece of music that we loved so much and felt so connected to and then got to see that much water dancing around to it, it would be the most satisfying thing ever and it was.

Besides the Morricone piece, we see that an operatic version of “Unchained Melody” and Ewan McGregor’s rendition of “Your Song” were also in consideration. What were some of the other songs that were initially kicked around early on?

Let me think of what we were looking at . . .now I can’t remember. We’ve actually been invited to go work on Steve Wynn’s new hotel in China–Wet Designs is putting in a giant fountain with fire and lights and colors and they invited us to work on the first three. Sadly, I can’t go be a part of it because I have a prior commitment but Steve is going over to do them and he is using that Shirley Bassey remix of “Diamonds are Forever.” I know–there was one of the London Philharmonic doing Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and it would have been beautiful.

One of the reasons that the Morricone piece is so striking, even if you aren’t a film geek like myself, is because it sounds different from what you might normally hear in Vegas while a more familiar tune like “Unchained Melody” is definitely more in line with the surrounding environment of Vegas.

With “Unchained Melody,” we had a recording of this opera group singing it in Italian–it was so beautiful that you almost didn’t recognize it at first as “Unchained Melody.” It was one of those piece where you would listen to it and then, maybe a minute in, think “Oh, I know what this is!”

What was the experience like of going to the Bellagio and actually getting into the fountain while setting the actual program up.?

It was so crazy but it was so good. It felt kind of dangerous but it was really exciting. There is a lot of water that comes down on top of you–you can handle it but it was a tremendous amount of water.

When did the idea of documenting the experience and turning it into a film come about? Was that always part of the entire process?

No. We really wanted to just do the choreography and that was all that we wanted to do but when we were having so much trouble going through the channels to get it done, we decided to document the process. We kind of thought that the fact that we were taking it so seriously made it feel like we should be documenting it. When you are inspired by something and you are really passionate and persistent about it, that is something that should be documented.

When you finally saw your piece fully staged for the first time at its premiere, how close did the actual experience come to the way that you envisioned it in your mind when you began the project? Did it live up to your expectations?

Beyond–it was the most exciting thing. It was so satisfying and way and above anything that we expected.

“Wet Dreams” will be premiering at the CineVegas Film Festival and you will have another movie debuting there called “Lies and Alibis.”

It’s a really fun caper movie. It’s a great ride and it has a fantastic cast of people–Steve Coogan, Selma Blair, Sam Elliott, Henry Rollins and James Marsden, who I did the “X-Men” films with. It was a really fun little movie and it is a great ride.

Speaking of that, while I believe that I was asked by the website to do this interview primarily because they knew that I wouldn’t spend the entire time asking about “X-Men” . . .

(Laughing) Thank you!

However, I figure that I have to ask one or they will pound me. The first two “X-Men” movies were directed by Bryan Singer and as we all know, he went off with his crew to do “Superman Returns” and was replaced by Brett Ratner. Since most of the actors in the series have been together since the first one, I was curious what it was like to do the film with the same people in front of the camera and different ones behind it?

Well, there was another director was had been in place, Matthew Vaughn, who left the project just weeks before the beginning of production. Whoever was going to come in was going to have to hit the ground running big time. It was a tremendous responsibility and it required somebody who was a huge fan of the X-Men and that was Brett. He had huge shoes to fill and he had a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and more energy than anybody. He really came in and took over and I think everyone was relieved to have someone who was so enthusiastic come in and take over.

Editors Note: this may be the same project as the recently announced "Wet Dreams" project being repped by Steve Carlis' new Hub Studios group, where Romijn is listed as a "Producing/Directing/Talent Partner."

http://www.thehubstudios.com/