new draft for Beyond the Sea. Epperson's script included Darin's penchant for orgies after his divorce with Sandra Dee. Spacey, finding the Epperson script to be overtly dark and morbid, began to rewrite Beyond the Sea, incorporating info from the 1987 Lewis Colick script. Spacey acknowledged he portrayed Darin too sympathetically and decided not to depict the darker side of Darin's life centrally. "The other scripts made Bobby [Darin] a rather unlikable figure," he explained. "I was not interested in making a conventional biopic, as you can see from the results. I was interested in making an exuberant celebration of an entertainer in a way that would be uplifting for an audience." By making the biopic, Dodd Darin and Spacey acknowledged the similar career experiences between Darin and Spacey. "A lot of people doubted my dad's abilities, and Kevin's had doubters and naysayers," Dodd commented. "But both [men] were willing to take risks, and both were very resilient. My dad would always try new things. You could never pin him down. Kevin's career is similar." David Evanier, author of Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin (), said "You can put Kevin's obsessiveness about getting the film made right up there with Bobby's obsessiveness. He's also the ideal person to play Bobby. He has an uncanny physical resemblance to him, and he also has Bobby's intensity and dark side. Also, there's the connection with his mother. Bobby's mother's belief in him sent him soaring. Kevin's mother wanted him to make this film. Kevin sees the film as an act of devotion to his mother." "I think the movie is about mothers and sons," Spacey said, referring to Darin's relationship with his mother Polly and sister Nina. Spacey's mother, Kathleen Fowler, died of brain cancer just before production started, as such, the film is dedicated in her memory, with the text "for Mom", being displayed before the credits. "I made the movie for all mothers, but especially for my mother. She introduced me to Bobby Darin. When she got very ill in 2002, I stopped everything and took care of her. We constantly played Bobby Darin records, and I'd let her listen to the tracks I was recording. I'm glad she passed knowing this was the movie I was going to make." After his award-winning performances in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, Spacey "chose to move away from dark, sarcastic