Saturday, November 2, 1991 -- Day 1
3 a.m., Wake-up Time. Gotta catch the sunrise. I putzed around the house for a while trying to wake up: eating, jumping about, showering, TV, I think, juice, you know. So once I got enough Oat Bran waffles in me, I set out.
At 4:30, I reached Stephen's. Dino was already hard at work on Kelley. Tom was on hand to start on me. Once in the door, it was underwear-time. Maybe this deserves some explanation -
Three of the scenes were shot with the two of us dressed in plastic. Just plastic. The plastic was thick enough to obscure any indecent body parts, but we were also to be wearing something flesh-colored to cover up. So, out I went the night before to Bullock's to pick up some flesh bikini underwear.
I hit the men's department first, even though Dino had mentioned to me that a pair of flesh-tone women's underwear might be better (no flap in front, I guess.) After some browsing, a saleswoman came over and offered her assistance.
"I'm just looking," I said.
"For anything in particular?" she delved further.
And so I told her the whole scenario. She showed me the only beige underwear they had. It was God-awful ugly and a little over 10 bucks. So I mentioned the women's underwear possibility and she called downstairs to see what they had. There was a chance. Down I went.
It's an unusual feeling to be browsing around in 300 square feet of bras and panties but I found a display that looked about like what I wanted. After a couple minutes of not being able to find anything, I was again confronted by the Bullock's staff. I began with the situation that had led me to be lost in a sea of skimpiness. She had the answer. I was to buy a pair of white garments and dunk them in tea until I had the desired color. So I bought them, went home and filled the tub with tea and soaked for about an hour.
OK, that's not true, of course. But, I did buy a pair o'panties from the woman's department for about 6 bucks, and grabbed some tea on the way home later that night. It worked. What fabulous help at Bullock's.
So, there I was, donning my little tea-dyed undies, covered also by a robe supplied by Stephen. And so, make-up went by simply enough, and out came the plastic. Kelley was wrapped in a hooded, flowing strapless plastic dress, and I had a saran-Wrap-type tunic sort-of thing that went to my waist, then a hip-wrap of thick plastic, and a bonus pair of panty-hose for warmth and added coverage.
Off we went to the hilltop. We drove right up to the location and hopped into place. It was a little chilly but not nearly as bad as the week had been. And there we stood rehearsing our big lines:
K: "Tomorrow and tomorrow"
J: "To the last syllable of recorded time."
And so there we stood mutilating Shakespeare as the sun peaked over the mountain. The view and the sun and the sky and the air were all excellent.
We repeated and repeated as Stephen changed our focus from off to the right to almost directly into the increasingly bright morning sun. Finally, all was set. A few takes and back to Stephen's.
After a 3 ½ hour break, we met up at the second location, the Bel Air house. After a reapplication of make-up and plastic, Kelley and I took our places for the GWTW mutilation. No classic was safe. We started rehearsing around 1 and finished up 4 hours later, all 5 lines safely recorded from a few different angles, as the setting sun made "daytime" lighting increasingly difficult.
I immediately jumped on the lasagna which I had passed on for lunch. It was delicious. We sat and waited while Roman went to work on lighting the party scene. Some background artists arrived and Stephen started setting up the party scene. We got going again around 6 or 6:30, but settled into an hour or so of rehearsing a five-second scene, while also continuing to refurbish the set. One vase rested in over a dozen positions on the piano in a span of 15 or 20 minutes. It was insane.
We shot the first two shots by 8:15, and Kelley took off. All that was left was my pan of the party and noticing Kelley. Although it sounds simple, as with everything on this project it wasn't. After setting up the lights and getting some grunting non-descript direction from Stephen, I did a couple of takes. I looked too tired, according to Stephen, at this great party. (I would guess having been up since 3 had something to do with it.) So I gave it a few more shots finishing up with Mr. Energetic-Party-Scanner and we finally wrapped for the night.
While it was grinding to be doing the same move over and over with no useful change in direction from Stephen, it was during these takes that I really felt excited about this whole acting-thing. I don't know what triggered it, but a rush of excitement swept over me that there I was in a Bel Air house outside of Hollywood, California, doing what I enjoy the most, and someone had actually selected me as the best person to invest all this man/woman-power and energy into. I was panning a room and looking at a camera and, it wasn't a WDUC production and it wasn't Jack Sherman Toyota, it was a real-live film someone wanted me in. Wow.
And so, around 9 p.m., I headed home to finally get some sleep.
Go on to Day
2