Category: movies

I learned something today: having no lines can be just as exhausting as talking until your throat is sore in every scene.
It’s surprisingly hard to just sit there for hours, trying to focus on the other actors, react to what they are doing, and not get bored.
Oh man, is it easy to get bored…because of the lights, it’s close to 85 degrees on the set, and the air is very still. We spend a lot of time on each scene, so we get to hear the same lines over and over again, and it’s easy for the mind to wander and the eyelids to fall down.
Now I understand why Levar fell asleep on the bridge behind his VISOR so many times in the early years of TNG.
I didn’t expect to feel wiped out when I got home, you know? I expected it to be a really easy day…but I am beat right now. To be honest, it feels really good.
The lack of dialogue did give me some free time during the day…I watched some Simpsons on DVD on the iBook, and played a few games on MacMAME.
My day started at 5AM, and we shot nearly nine pages, which is really, really, really a lot in films. When I was on Trek, we’d average about 6.5 pages per day, and when I was working on Mr. Stitch, I once managed something like 15 pages in one day.
So now that you know more about page count than you ever wanted, I can give up some details:

• This project is a Movie Of The Week for the PAX network, and it will air at the end of January in 2003. When my friend Keith found out that it was on PAX, he teased me that I was in one of those stupid “Left Behind” piles of crap…but I assured him, and I can assure you, that it’s actually a pretty cool story. =]
• Included in the cast is an actor you may have heard of…”Chef” himself, Isaac Hayes! He plays a mysterious guy who give me this mysterious, ancient, powerful book. The story is about how I deal with it.
• Also in the cast is my friend Richard Grieco. We’ve done three movies together before this one, and it’s the first time he’s not kicking my ass. I really like Richard. He’s one of the sweetest guys who ever lived, he’s very generous and funny…and it bugs me that he has this image as a real cheeze*wiz.
• The actor who is playing my best friend in the movie is Maureen Flannigan. Mo and I have been friends since forever, and I absolutely adore her. I think that our personal history will cascade into our performances, and make the film that much deeper and richer. The cool thing is, the producers didn’t know that we knew each other when they cast us.

Tomorrow I talk and talk and talk, so it will be the polar opposite of today. Should be interesting to contrast the two.
I’m having a really good time. It feels good to be on a set where people know what they’re doing, and there aren’t any incompetent a-holes with huge egos farking things up. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed that.
Time to learn lines.

Copuple of updates on the movie:
I’m having a really good time. This director is just awesome, the crew is friendly, professional, and all the actors I’ve worked with so far have been great.
There is this one strange thing, though…the movie isn’t being called by it’s title on the call sheet, or our signs to location, or the slate, or anything…theyr’e calling it “Boise,” like it’s a codename or something.
I wear lots of suits, so I walk around talking into my cuff, telling people “I’m on Project Boise,” and looking mysterious.
Hey, without WiFi at work, I have to find ways to entertain myself, right?
Yesterday was Day One and it was a typical First Day On A Movie(tm). Most of the actors had gotten their material late Monday night, so they were having a tough time with the lines. Luckily for me, I had the studio email it to me as a .pdf, and I printed it out.
I shit you not, that laser printer paid for itself on Monday!
So I knew my lines, had worked out enough of the character to feel really comfortable living in his skin and stuff. Since we’ve all really hit the ground running, I’m being forced to trust my instincts and make quick and deliberate character choices, which is actually good for me, I think. If left to my own devices, I have a tendency to overthink things, and complicate the hell out of stuff. Since I don’t have the ability to do that on this picture, it is a good test of my acting skills.
Speaking of my acting skills, I was paid a very nice compliment by the director late in the day yesterday. We were between scenes, and we were talking. I mentioned to him that I hadn’t done any real acting jobs in over a year, since I’d been working primarily as a writer.
He looked at me, his face showing real surprise, and he said, “Wow! I would never have known. You’re performance has been so wonderful, I thought you’d just come off of another movie, right into this one. You’d never know that you’ve taken a year off.”
Shortly after that, the producer came over to me and told me how happy they all were that I’d been cast, and that he’d been watching me work. He told me that I was doing great things with the role, exactly what they’d wanted.
It felt good to be told that I was doing a great job, without it being followed by, “but we’re going with another, bigger actor.”
My character in this picture has suffered a terrible and tragic loss, so he is never too far from tears, covering his pain in various ways. He’s ironic, he’s angry, he’s sarcastic, he is occasionally vulnerable…boy, it is grueling work.
At the end of the day yesterday, I was physically and emotionally exhausted.
Today was much easier. I was only in 2 scenes, and I was mostly reacting in them…but I was so tired from yesterday, I was having an insanely difficult time focusing and staying present. I’d forgotten just how tough it is to not get distracted and let my mind wander…it seems that in every spare moment I am thinking about the book, or how I’m going to write about the day when I get home.
The next two days are pretty much like today. I don’t talk too much, but I’m there for each scene…Patrick Stewart called it “Face Acting.”
I was able to break away from the set long enough today to call Screen Savers when they aired my segment. I haven’t seen it, but Anne tells me I didn’t look like a total dork…even though I was wearing what she calls “Your Croccodile hunter Shirt.”
Yeah, there’s nothing quite like gettin’ dissed by your wife, you know?
So that’s it. I’m bleary-eyed and having a hard time staying awake.
More tomorrow.

“This assistant, who was way overqualified to be doing this, turned to me and said in his French accent, `I have scouted this alley for Luc Besson, Neil Jordan, John Frankenheimer…and you.’

UGO has a really funny interview I did with them to support the release of Jane White is Sick and Twisted. Don’t forget to scroll past the advertisement, or you’ll miss the whole second half. (When I read it I thought, “Hey, didn’t I say a lot more stuff?”)

So I’ve gotten lots of emails about this apparent Nemesis script that’s on the net, and I have a thing or two to say about it.
I took a look at it, and it’s not the script I was handed, stamped “CONFIDENTIAL” all over it. It’s not the script we shot.
I guess lots of people have jumped to some wild conclusions about this, which is understandable, because we all want the movie to be good.
Finally, here’s something to ask yourself , if you’ve read it: Would you judge a baseball team’s world series chances by their performance in their first Spring Training game?
Like every movie, some people will love this, and some people won’t. I bet every hard core Trekkie will find something to love, and something to hate. That’s the mark of a good movie. The studio could still mess it up, but I’m not too worried.
Relax, everybody. It’s not Episode One. I promise. It’s going to be fine.
Thought for today:

“When the country falls into chaos, patriotism is born.”
–Tao Te Ching