Were you seriously discouraged and ready to drop the whole project at one point?
Yes. But when Steve finally told me that he didn’t think it would happen and he was ready to give up, it lit a fire under my butt. I was promoting a movie in Los Angeles and was on my way to do “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno that night. I did my film thing, than on-air, begged Mark Fuller to call me. He got in touch with my publicist the next day and set up a meeting. I was thrilled, of course.

What was your next step?
Steve and I had a “fountain-off” at my house to choose five tunes with lots of punches that we thought were the most appropriate fountain songs and eventually took them to WET Design. They in turn took them to Bellagio’s management, who picked “The Ecstasy of Gold” by Ennio Morricone.

How do you choreograph the water to the music?
That’s the real tricky part. We started out with a bird’s eye map of the fountains, showing us the mechanical layout, plus the positions of the robotic nozzles and the lights. Looking for inspiration, we spent about a week dancing around in a hotel room pretending to be fountains. And sitting there at the lake, watching how all the shooters (robotic nozzles) and lights worked. Wearing wet suits, we even swam to the center circle of the fountains to get a feel for the sheer power and magnitude involved. It was awesome.