Scrappy Little Nobody Read online

  Sometimes, though, nothing bonds a cast like a common enemy. For an independent film I once did, an acting coach was hired. I’ve never been sure why; it’s certainly not common practice. She took herself very seriously, so we felt we had to take her seriously as well. We did an exercise in pairs where we ran across a room toward each other and jumped as high as we could at the point of intersection. After a while, my woefully unathletic ass said, “Hey, I’m sort of out of breath here, can I take a break for a second?”

  “No, keep going. Jump higher.”

  Um, are you my Soviet gymnastics coach? I thought we were all adults, and I thought we all kind of understood that this “acting exercise” was New Age bullshit.

  I prepared to run at my partner.

  Fuck me, now I’ve got to commit twice as hard or she might make me keep doing it.

  But that’s the trouble with being an anemic little weakling: you can’t just draw from your reserve of energy and focus, because you don’t have one.

  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.”

  Halfway through the evening, I still hadn’t permanently scarred any coworkers, and as we got more comfortable with the scene, the director leaned in and said, “It felt like you guys were going to kiss in that last take. I think it was a good instinct, maybe we should go with that.”

  Okay. We each got a mint, and for a few takes we stumbled through the double awkwardness that is kissing onscreen without an exact cue to do it.

  At the end of the night, I went home happy with the work we’d done and relieved that no flesh was harmed. I drove all the way home, pulled into my driveway, and, as I was putting the car in park, suddenly shrieked, “Oh my god, I just made out with Legolas!”

  Again, I’m not going to name that actor, as I wish to respect his privacy.

  Budget

  Into the Woods was one of the biggest-budget films I’ve ever worked on. It made the production glorious. Every single detail in that film was designed with love and passion. The world created by Rob Marshall and his team was so rich, I felt inspired and grateful on a daily basis in a way that is VERY unusual for me. A larger budget enables a fully realized vision, but it inspires overcomplicated solutions to nonproblems. It also has some comica
l side effects.

  There’s a scene in Into the Woods where Cinderella runs down the palace stairs, but Prince Charming has covered them in sticky tar to keep her from getting away. As that scene approached, someone asked me to try on my “magnet shoes.” “My what?” No one had bothered to ask me, but some mystery higher-up had assumed that I wouldn’t be able to “stop in my tracks” unassisted and tasked several departments with fitting both the stairs and my shoes with powerful electromagnets. The idea was to switch them on as I ran full speed down concrete steps.

  Now, this was not only a spectacular waste of time and resources, it was kind of a fucking death trap. Even if it worked, I would surely be sent flying out of the shoes and into some corrective surgery. I had to do a couple of runs to prove to Rob that I could successfully mime being stuck in goo, and I let the special effects guys turn on the magnets when Cinderella struggles to pry her shoes up by hand, so that everyone could feel like Operation Electro-Murder had been a justifiable project.

  My second-favorite thing about that scene was that Chris Pine, who played the prince, had to stand there THE WHOLE TIME. Both of us assumed he’d come in for an hour in the morning, they’d shoot some footage, and through movie magic, he would appear frozen in time at the top of the stairs. No such luck. Poor Chris had to stand there and watch me do that number a hundred times. I was running, crawling, falling down, jumping up, and belting my stupid face off for two days straight, and with every “action” he trudged back into position and endured another take.

  I’ll admit I found the situation amusing. Every time he complained it just gave me an easy opening to say, “Oh, I’m so sorry that YOU had to work hard today. Can somebody get Chris a medal?”

  Here’s the thing: I really felt for him. A long day at work is made abnormally grueling by an absence of productivity or accomplishment. For all the physical and mental energy I was expending (and the bruises I was getting), I left those two days so content and satisfied. He left them needing a burger just to get a little dopamine flowing in his brain before we had to start all over again.

  There were also two small fires on set that no one seemed to be that worried about. I do mean small, but still. A scrim and a prop lantern (which was not built for actual flames) caught on fire, and there was no real sense of hustle. This was a big-budget film; there was a department for that. This is how a roomful of adults ends up staring at a rapidly growing fire with their mouths open.

  The previous year, I’d been shooting the movie Happy Christmas with a total of six crew members and about four principal actors. If there’d been a fire, all ten of us would have run to a water source. (Unless it was a grease fire; we’re filmmakers, not idiots.I)

  When you’re on an independent film, you have to wear more hats. It isn’t stressful, though, because you start to feel capable and relish the responsibility. Happy Christmas was shot in eleven days for eighty thousand dollars (for perspective, that’s 1/262nd the budget of Silver Linings Playbook). There was no script, no paper involved whatsoever. And we didn’t tell anyone we were doing it.

  Aspiring filmmakers: Isn’t it great news that you can make a movie for so little, and, more important, that you don’t need to ask permission? It was the happiest and most productive set I’ve ever been on. I’m not saying small-scale movies are always better off on the whole—I don’t want the next Bond film to be improvised and shot handheld. You can’t make a movie about an alien-werewolf invasion with ten people and eighty grand. And I want to see Fur from the Sky by 2018.

  Wardrobe

  I’ve wanted to work on a period piece for as long as I can remember. A fantasy period piece even more so. I got my wish with Into the Woods, and it was everything I dreamed it could be. And a little less. Turns out, authentically made corsets are quite small. They seemed bearable in my fitting, but any woman who’s ever tried on shoes in a store knows that you can think something is perfectly comfortable only to wind up begging for mercy at the end of your first day in them.

  In between scenes, I could ask to have my corset loosened and get some relief (I couldn’t do it myself because of how it was made), but inevitably, it had to get laced up again. This led to an unusual dynamic between Asia, the on-set dresser, and me. I adored Asia. She was funny, hardworking, and sweet. But she was responsible for putting me in a moderate degree of physical distress. If your best friend gave you a charley horse ten times a day, you’d feel weird about her, too. So after a few weeks, whenever I saw Asia (Lovely Asia! Whom I really liked!) it struck fear into my heart. We would eye each other across the set, awaiting the telltale signs of camera readiness. This equally tiny blonde and I would get locked in a stare-down like bull and matador. Eventually, I’d lose focus and Asia would creep up behind me.

  “Oh, hi, Asia, are we sure they’re ready? I thought we were waiting on the animal wrangler to bring the cow?” I said, stalling.

  “Nope”—tug, tug, tug—“the cow’s already set.” Tug, tug, tug. “Dion’s just swinging a lens and then picture’s up.”

  I’d get desperate. “Oh”—tug, tug, tug—“I feel like the cow always runs away a couple times before we actually shoot, though, so maybe just a few more minutes—”

  But she was the matador, and she skewered me every time.

  Our legendary costume designer, Colleen Atwood, had every piece that we wore custom-made, and she handpicked the perfect fabrics, laces, and buttons. Even the shoes were made by hand. The skirt on Cinderella’s “rags” was a dusty-blue linen. It was humble but lovely—the perfect choice for Cinders—but linen is a fabric that wrinkles like Jack Nicholson’s balls without Botox.

  So I’m working in a corset and heels for sixteen-hour days, but every single time I sit—just sit down and have a little rest in between takes—someone has to steam my skirt, because it now has some minor wrinkles in it. I’m Cinderella, by the way. My body, my hair, every part of my costume has been painstakingly covered in soot and grime and grass. God forbid my skirt isn’t freshly pressed.

  The most annoying part was that Colleen was right; it really did look better smooth. Dirty and disheveled added to the aesthetic, but wrinkled was distracting. It was this major production, Disney’s Christmas tentpole, and I couldn’t even sit down. So in between takes I’d walk over to a chair or a bench and just look at it. Longingly. Sometimes I’d lean on it. Or circle it like a cat. People on that set probably thought I had hemorrhoids.

  My wardrobe on Up in the Air was perfectly curated for my character. But it felt so unnatural to me, as did the rest of my look—the hair and the makeup—that I started to feel claustrophobic in it as the weeks went on. I bought some glittery nail polish in an alarming shade of blue and painted my toes so that I could be in control of one small corner of my body. Natalie would never wear something so juvenile, but I liked knowing that under my perfectly tailored skirt suit, I was still messy and strange.

  My tiny act of rebellion was discovered on the day we shot a scene at airport security. I had counted on Natalie always wearing closed-toed shoes, but even in movie-land, the TSA is unflinchingly scrupulous. I pulled at the toes of my nude stockings until enough material gathered to obscure my sparkling nails. Our costume designer, Danny Glicker, as acerbic as he is brilliant, looked me up and down and raised his eyebrow. Your secret’s safe with me, but that’s an unfortunate look. No one else on set seemed to notice. That scene was cut anyway. Perhaps test audiences were thrown by how guilty Natalie looked during a simple airport security check.

  Keeping Up Appearances

  When you start a new film, you come to work looking nice for the first week. Then, inevitably, you remember that you are in your personal clothes for thirty minutes each morning and your costume for the next fifteen hours. All right! Same pair of sweatpants every day for a month, here I come! By week three, if an actor is still coming to work in a full outfit at four a.m., you can be sure that they’re banging someone on set.

  The same is true for your appearance from the neck
up. You show up looking like hell on toast and, lucky for you, some poor sap has to put your face and hair into some recognizably human arrangement before the first shot.

  I’ve been told I have “working-girl hair.” I like this expression because it sounds like my hair is a swarthy, streetwise prostitute in 1930s New York. It’s actually a reference to the damage your hair goes through when you are on a film set. The more movies you make, the worse the damage from blow-drying, curling, coloring, etc. In this sense the term is supposed to be worn as a badge of honor, a testament to your work ethic—like calling your dark under-eye bags “success circles” or “ambition sacs.” What it actually means is that your hair is wiry and brittle with thin ends, and will need even more blow-drying, curling, and coloring to be made camera-ready.

  I had very curly hair when I was growing up, but I WILLED IT AWAY and now my hair dries naturally into gentle waves. (I heat-style my hair every single day so I don’t look like Dale Dickey in Winter’s Bone.) I used Frizz Ease for years until my first on-set hairstylist pointed out that the frizzy “before” picture was just a straight-haired model who’d been photographed with “messy” hair through some contrivance. I’m sure the look was achieved with a crimping iron and some back-combing, but I felt so betrayed that I liked to imagine the model had run afoul of a rabid squirrel.

  In the hair and makeup trailer on my second film, rumors started to swirl about miracle flatirons from Japan. Previous generations of flatirons made your hair less curly yet somehow bigger and angrier, but not these. They were smaller, they were hotter, they’d transform you into the Amanda Bynes silk-nymph you’d always wanted to be (think What a Girl Wants, not mug shot). The cost of becoming this new woman? Almost two hundred dollars. (Straight-haired women, don’t you judge me! Cheap curling irons are completely fine, but flatirons don’t work like that!) The hair department bought one, and I used it on the days I had the energy for the Sisyphean task of straightening my hair, one inch at a time, knowing the process would begin anew upon the next wash. I had to get one for myself. I had no money, but you bet your ass I put that bad boy on a credit card. I couldn’t go back to being Book Hermione when I’d had a taste of being Movie Hermione. If that reference went over your head: In the books, Hermione is supposed to be ugly. In the movies, she’s Emma Watson. Also, in the book she fixes herself with magic. So nothing is fair.