Scrappy Little Nobody(40)

It was immediately clear that I wasn’t going to improve, so she had me do enough runs to conceivably be satisfied and said, “That was great work. Much better, Anna.”

We thanked her for all her help and left. That night the whole cast went to dinner and one of the men was the first to break.

“Okay, that lady was crazy, right?”

The rest of us couldn’t agree fast enough. I ended up feeling closer to that cast than most others. If I ever direct something I’m going to hire one crazy person so that everyone else gets along.

Film sets are unpredictable; it’s like trying to put together a wedding every day, in the middle of an uncharted forest. (Sometimes literally. More on that later.) There’s an expression about how you can account for everything, dot your i’s and cross your t’s, be totally prepared . . . then an elephant escapes from the zoo and runs through your set. I was shooting a movie in a tiny town in Indiana. I mean tiny, like “stables in the Walmart parking lot for the Amish residents” tiny. It should have been ideal for shooting, because there would be no interruptions. Once we started filming, though, we noticed something. Trains came through the neighboring town about every ten minutes. No one had heard the sound before, because in the whole time they were scouting locations they’d never stood perfectly still and quiet in a room for ten minutes. Unfortunately, that’s all you do on a film set. The flat landscape and paucity of residents ensured that the sound carried perfectly. About two thirds of everything we shot was unusable.

Making movies is a fool’s errand. It’s madness. And there’s never a guarantee that it will work. And yet, people keep coming back. Businesspeople who are smart enough to know better keep investing in movies. Kids keep going to film school. M. Night Shyamalan can’t be stopped. And for some reason, neither can I.





Nudity


Nudity really isn’t for me. Why? Eh . . . I’ve tried explaining it to people, but it seems you either immediately understand, or you don’t see what the big deal is. I don’t mind a sex scene. A character can be having a sex scene, but my physical parts always feel like mine. ’Cause . . . they are. See, it’s hard to put into words. I don’t object at all to the use of nudity in film; it can add realism and intimacy. And by the way, more power to the actors who are comfortable with it, but for the time being, it’s not for me.

I did once get to choose my own butt double (for a scene where so little of “my butt” showed that I doubt anyone really noticed that it happened). Having never done it before, I was relieved to find out the selection process is not done in person. Instead, I was handed a black binder to look through. Inside was a small collection of Polaroids. Naked girls against a white wall, shot from the neck down. It looked like something out of The Silence of the Lambs.

First of all, I didn’t know why they’d been photographed from the front at all; I was only looking for a butt double, and the frontal pics just made me feel like an even bigger creep. (I still looked, though.) And second, as I perused my butt options, I realized I didn’t know what my own butt looked like. It’s behind me all the time, and even when I’ve looked at it in a mirror I’m usually twisting my body around to see if that tender spot is a pimple or if I sat on a thumbtack.

I inspected the selection of anonymous bottoms, and just as I was about to say, “I think this girl looks like me?” the (female) producer casually pointed to my impending choice and said, “Well, this one’s butt is a little square. I think we can rule her out.” What? Is that a thing? I didn’t know a butt could be square. Do I have a square butt? You know what? Don’t tell me.





Kissing


I do not find kissing scenes fun at all. I had assumed that was the lie actors had to stick to because admitting it was awesome would make them seem creepy or piss off their spouses. There’s always talk of how “people are standing around” and “it’s awkward” and “you’re doing it over and over,” but that didn’t seem like enough to negate the awesome to me.

I always thought that if I got to do kissing scenes I’d toe the party line but deep down I’d be thinking, We basically get to cheat here without getting in trouble, so . . . it’s kind of great. And I’ve heard that some people do think it’s great! So bully for them—I’m envious!—but I find it totally clinical. It’s not about the people standing around, it’s about the fact that the other person doesn’t want to be kissing you. They are obligated to do it. They might not be horrified, but it wasn’t their decision.

I could try saying, “Hey, um, is there any chance that you’re, like, secretly into me? Because if you were it would make this work assignment we’re about to do way more fun for me.” But that doesn’t seem super professional. Most of the time I don’t even remember anything about it.

I have been excited about kissing a costar precisely one time. One time! And it wasn’t even until after the fact! I won’t name names since I don’t want to embarrass him, but let me recount this tale quickly.

A couple of years ago I did a small role in an improvised film as a favor to a friend. I had a short scene with a handsome movie star. Our movie backstory was that we’d had a fling in the past, we were friendly now, and it was all a little flirtatious, but we weren’t serious about each other. There was no plan to kiss, just some light chat. As for my real-life backstory, I’d had a crush on this actor as a teenager, so maybe I should have been nervous and excited to work with him, BUT my character had to give him stitches. On his face. On his handsome movie-star face. I needed to concentrate on not drawing blood at any point. The only thing that stood between his face and the very sharp, very real needle in my hand was a layer of latex prosthetic, as thin as fresh prosciutto. I also knew that he was the kind of committed actor who wouldn’t stop a scene to say, “Ow. That’s my actual face you’re ripping into, so hey, maybe we should cut.”