He has the dark good looks and intense eyes that movie stars are made of, but today Ian Somerhalder is looking tired and a wee bit frustrated.

The problem? The 23-year-old actor, starring opposite Faye Dunaway, Lauren Holly and Tom Skerritt in the independent film Colored Eggs being shot in Nashville, arrived on the set at West End Middle School at 7:30 a.m. But by 5 p.m., he's still waiting to shoot his scene for the day.

''It's one of those hurry-up-and-wait things,'' says Somerhalder, an up-and-comer featured in the current film Life as a House opposite Kevin Kline and Kristen Scott Thomas and the soon-to-be-released The Rules of Attraction, also opposite Dunaway.

Then, as if realizing life could be worse, he flashes the megawatt smile that Dunaway describes as ''Tom Cruise/Johnny Depp time.''

''Everything seems to be taking shape,'' he says. ''It's a great script, and Faye is a legend, so I'm glad to be here. It's just a little chaotic. Low-budget independent filmmaking can be a little bit crazy.''

So it can. Inside the school auditorium, a gaggle of child actors and crew members mill around the stage as director Martin Guigui blocks and rehearses a scene before shooting.

''Whoosh in, then whoosh out,'' Guigui says, demonstrating the whooshing action before dashing to the TV monitor to check out how it looks on the screen.

The children, dressed as Easter eggs, execute the required moves several times until Guigui is satisfied. ''Oh,'' he calls out, ''I love the way you whoosh!''

During a break, the director summarizes Daniel Wright's script, which is set primarily in a cancer hospital in an unnamed Southern city. Holly and Dunaway play cancer patients struggling with their illness and their love lives. Holly's character falls in love with Jason, a young hospital volunteer played by Somerhalder, while Dunaway's character ends up with Skerritt.

''It's kind of a cross between One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Steel Magnolias with a bit of Driving Miss Daisy thrown in,'' Guigui says. ''Early on, Lauren's character is trying to not fall in love with Jason. She knows it would be unfair, because she's terminally ill. But she does love him, and things go on from there. The secret of life is in this picture: Every second is precious.''

Or as executive producer Randy Holleschau puts it, ''It's about choosing life, about having respect for death but not focusing on it, about living in the now. The idea is that even for a cancer or AIDS patient, it's not too late to find love. It's not too late to live your life.''

Originally to have been shot in Los Angeles, Colored Eggs came to Nashville because a high school friend of Guigui's, Ned Horton, lives here. Most of the film is being shot at Bordeaux Hospital. Other locations include Springfield and the school on West End Avenue.

The script grew out of a play that Wright, who once taught at Columbia State Community College, wrote in 1994 while in graduate school in Arkansas.

''Almost everything in it is based on something in real life,'' Wright says. ''At the time, I was working as a volunteer at a hospital, and a good friend of mine in college was going through cancer treatment, and I combined those two. It's about when you're young and searching for meaning, and someone comes into your life who opens your eyes.''

The distribution plan for the film remains in flux. Guigui and Holleschau say several Hollywood studios, including Miramax, New Line and Paramount, have expressed interest in the project, which Holleschau confirms originally was budgeted at $1 million but will end up costing ''somewhere in the neighborhood'' of twice that.

''It started off as an art-house film, but the production quality and the production value is so high, and the cast is so renowned, that it's turning into a big picture,'' Holleschau says. ''Faye is going for an Oscar. She's outrageously great.''

''Sweet of him to say that,'' a barefoot Dunaway says in her trailer. ''It's a very small movie, but the most important thing is to have a good script, and this one is very good. It's nicely written, and it's an interesting little role. My character is made out of gruffness and cragginess, and she's always trying to keep everybody away from her because she's scared to death. That's what it's about: what it's like to live and die, and how you cope with everything in between.''

Skerritt is equally enthusiastic about Colored Eggs.