Friday, December 5, 2014

War Pigs. The Movie.

I began the film War Pigs with a big head. I had just shot a film for the church where the crew was wonderful, everyone was fun and silly and we laughed from sun up to sun down and had a dance party on our last night of filming. It was practically an Abilify commercial. I thought I could do no wrong. A ha. A ha, ha, ha.

The night before our first shooting day I slept an hour. The second night I slept about 4.  The next day I was so loopy I feel off a rock and sprained my ankle. The third day was what we lovingly called "Mickey Day".  And I got Rourked. Hard.

For the record the guy is super sweet. He was respectful, funny, charming and kind to me. The first thing he asked me was how long were my teeth in jail. He wasn't ever mean or rude or raised his voice. He made some crude jokes but at my age I would've been offended if he hadn't. It was the requests. There were a lot of them, a lot of weird them, and because our fitting was happening the night before his one and only filming day there were, shall we say, time constraints. I basically stood in line buying merchandise at 1:30 am at the Super Walmart with one lane open, a cashier who was enjoying his first day on the job and a woman throwing a fit from her Jazzy Power Chair because she didn't know her billing zip code and her card was declining.  I went home and did cast laundry, altered Mr Rourke's pants, fixed his jacket and boots and then crashed for 45 minutes. The next day I was a zombie. A literal zombie. I was a shell of flesh covering internal organs that had ceased to accomplish their designated functions. There was some drama as per usual that day and there was more last minute scrambling in my department before we even got off the first shot, I even got a flat pulling into the location for hell's sale. Just trying to keep up with our chaotic shooting schedule was one thing but there was an impromptu photo shoot scheduled for that day no one in production was told about and so my wardrobe kept ending up there instead of where it was supposed to be, and since we were in a horribly haunted five story building I think I burned off like 3,500 calories before noon hauling ass as quickly as possible from creepy room to even creepier room.   My ankle became the Hindenburg.

Noon. It couldn't come fast enough. I was so excited to finally be able to lay down and sleep. We were in the Masonic Temple and there are couches literally everywhere. One room had seven couches. I told the first AD where I would be, took off my walkie and picked one to sleep on. I had no sooner laid down when a woman with a fluffy round hairdo hovering just over a lace collar looked down at me and said, to the greasy man next to her, "She has her feet on the couch!" And the greasy man came closer and she said it again.  "Her FEET are on the COUCH." Now, to my discerning eye these were not precious couches. They were not white silk, they were not velvet, they were not linen. They were leather and they were old. The man yelled at me, "Get your feet off of those. Don't you know those are 100 year old couches?"  Now...I am 42 years old. I am not, in that case, a child. I'm not even a young lady. I am a grown up. An adult. And these people just spoke to me like a child.  Like an annoying child. But all I had done was lay down on a couch. I said, "No, of course I didn't know that. Just like you don't know that I haven't SLEPT IN THREE DAYS."   And when I got up I shot over my shoulder, "You could have asked me NICELY!" And then I began to cry.

I do not cry. Well, I cry at sad movies. I get choked up at commercials about parenthood.  But I don't cry when my feelings are hurt. I get super angry and talk to myself when I drive home and then vent to my family and friends. But I was a hollow shell of my former self so I cried. (My favorite part is coming up...) I have no where to go so I sit in the wardrobe trailer and cry. One of our poor PAs comes up to me and just goes,  "uuhoooh." And walks slowly backwards away from me like I'm a wild animal.  He was trying to bring me back the production credit card because he had gone and had custom boots made for Mickey, in three hours. We had managed to fill that impossible request (cause we rock) so I womaned up and went back inside with the now terribly uncomfortable PA.  I figured it'd be fine, everyone was eating still so no one would see me. But the 1st AD did, and he stopped me and then he just gives me a huge hug, and I lose it all over again. He and the 2nd AD conspire and get me a room in the honey wagon and buy me an hour of quiet time. I can't be on set like this, I'm useless as long as I am inconsolable, so it makes sense to squirrel me away. I call my therapist. I had just started seeing a therapist. I tell the receptionist I'm losing it and I need the good doctor to call me back ASA friggin P. But like my second birth story, I sat with the phone on my chest, crying and waiting for a phone call that didn't come. And boy, was that JUST what I needed right then, to be reminded of my best day ever. (Yay, that is my favorite part of this story.)  I can identify clearly that it was around this point that my psyche splintered.

The rest of the film was a mixture of sleeplessness, disfunctionality, clashing egos and sub-zero temperatures. How's that for a cocktail? Mix in that we were behind schedule and perpetually covered in Fuller's Earth from head to toe and smelling of smoke pots and you have one quality situation.  Now, I am leaving out a whole lot of stuff that frankly, is probably not best for public consumption. Probably not for private consumption either.  Probably best to forget.   But I will write it down in my journal so that after I'm gone my grand kids can read it and say, "Jeez, grandma. Those were 100 year old couches."