Scrappy Little Nobody(44)
“It’s just really digging into my leg, man. I’m not sure I can keep going.”
“Well, I’m supposed to take you on at least five more runs. Do you want to take a five-minute break first? Maybe drink some water?” By the time I got home, I had a bruise on my thigh the size and color of a rotting mango.
At one point a renowned rider was brought in to work with me. A muscle-bound Spaniard who spoke almost no English, his connection with these horses seemed to transcend the laws of nature. On our first ride together we galloped past the stables through the rolling, sunlit hills. We took in the majesty of the countryside, and he turned back to me.
“Beautiful,” he said.
“Yes, beautiful,” I echoed.
He cast his dark eyes away from me and gave the horse a kick. I gripped his chest and buried my face in his neck as we picked up speed, all the while thinking, When is this * gonna let me go home so I can ICE MY VAGINA?!
The day of my big horse scene, as I perfected my mount and dismount, the director said, “You know what, I’m never going to use that. I’m going to end the scene before you get on the horse.”
So I hadn’t learned to ride a horse, and as it turned out, there was no reason to spend all that time training my inner thighs to endure blunt force. But it wasn’t a total waste. I got to be outside in pretty weather, and I’ve got a head start if I ever get into S&M.
I once played a chef, and although I did not get cooking lessons per se, I was sent to a knife skills course so that I’d look like I’d taken cooking lessons. In fact, I was flown from LA to Atlanta, more than once, on days that I didn’t shoot anything, solely for more lessons. I chopped piles of herbs, diced mountains of onions, cored bushels of apples. I got confident but not especially good. This became clear when I sliced off a fingernail halfway through a pile of cilantro. Given the choice, I’d take a metal ring to the thigh any day.
When we set up the shot for my vegetable massacre, the director took a look at the monitor and called out, “Hey, Anna, don’t worry about the chopping. We can’t see your hands.”
I’ve never driven a stick shift. Sidenote: I don’t know why people act so superior about this. I don’t churn my own butter, either; let’s not act like I’m a dick for doing the easier thing. I was, however, asked if I would learn for the movie The Voices. The film was being shot in Germany, and the car that the producer chose, like most European cars, was manual. I expressed some hesitation but said that of course, if that’s what needed to happen, I’d learn. For three days, before and after work, I drove a beat-up stick shift around a former Nazi airbase with a patient stuntwoman. Why a stuntwoman? I have no idea. The scene demanded that I start the car, then drive precisely ten feet, just out of frame. Not exactly “The Driver” from The Driver.
I joked to the producer that I was mostly worried about the other actress in the car. My scene partner, Gemma Arterton, happens to be a great beauty and a class-A broad, and the world would be cheated if we lost her to my poor driving skills.
“You’re learning to drive a stick for that one shot?” The producer furrowed his brow. “That’s ridiculous.”
I was confused. Didn’t he know that? Surely the days of lessons and the dozens of emails coordinating them couldn’t have happened without the producer’s knowledge. An hour later, I got an email saying that a nearly identical car, with automatic transmission, would be used for my driving scene. I am now pretty annoying about cutting out the middle man, a.k.a. ignoring the chain of command and bothering the person in charge of an entire film set about every little problem I have.
Cake Attack
On a recent film, we shot a scene in which a large wedding cake gets ruined. The characters all blame each other for the accident and pieces of the destroyed mass are lobbed back and forth in frustration. The fun part was that we had to shoot some of the aftermath before we shot the cake destruction itself. In order to create the conditions of a cake-fight aftermath, a cake-fight zone was constructed.
The art department commandeered a small room by the kitchen of the rustic hotel we were shooting in. It was the last scene of the day, and after changing into my wardrobe I walked in, ready to be caked. Every surface was covered in clear plastic sheets. It was like something a serial killer would save on Pinterest under “Dream Office.” If you walk into a room like this and you are not shooting a movie: Run, buddy! You are about to be dismembered!
I stood in the middle of the room and the director—a grown man, my creative ally—threw handfuls of heavily buttercreamed cake at me while I shrieked, further tickled by every frosted assault. At one point I started screaming, “Not the face! Not my beautiful face!!” Don’t get too into a bit when you’re wearing four-inch heels and standing in a pile of icing. I lost my balance and crashed to the Saran Wrapped–ground. At this point I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, so I barely noticed. Two members of the art department wearing lab coats (seriously, I was in Dexter’s murderous paradise) helped me up and steadied me. Then they turned me around and held my arms so my boss could throw cake at my back. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to laugh and couldn’t help but think, I am in the world’s weirdest, most precious porno right now.
It Makes You Feel Like What?