Day 3 -- March 15, 1992
Day 3 was devoted nearly completely to the final sequence: the discovery of the body, and the gun-shot, and the denouement. The necessary presence of all three leads brought to my attention the disgust and hatred Wendy and Ian had for each other. This was especially annoying since I got along with each of them. Then, they would squabble, and complain to me about the other, to which I would usually respond with a , "mm-hmm," or a non-committal chuckle.
Admittedly, their styles were so different that some level of criticism was bound to occur. Wendy prided herself on getting in there, delivering the lines, and getting out. Her approach bordered on jaded, but only as jaded as a 31 year-old could possibly be. She spent most of her off-camera time joking or smoking, and hanging out with Phillippa (usually talking dirt about Ian).
Ian, on the other hand, exercised some sort of method-type preparation for the scene - the scene that took nearly the whole day to shoot, and, consequently, he remained in his character-cocoon for the entire day, blasting Pink Floyd into his head through his walkman whenever we weren't shooting.
So there I was as an unhappy moderator between the two of them, even having to hear Phillippa's charges against him because he didn't shower and smelled bad. (Actually, these are legitimate complaints, but Wendy did turn Phillippa against Ian more than she would have been naturally disposed to be.)
The scene went well. Ian was, after all that, very convincing as a madman. And I felt good about my performance. It is really hard to gauge how well you're doing without an audience, without a group of people who are hanging on your every word as the plot unfolds in front of them. Instead, you're performing for a room full of people who are changing the focus, and moving the boom, and holding a scrim, and want to break for lunch, and need time to set up the next shot, and would really rather be anywhere but there as you cry over the body of the woman you just shot. It is necessary to remember the audience behind the lens. I need to feel their eyes eagerly intent on my character and his life. I hope I pulled it off.
I did need to cry. This frightened me at first, but Phillippa assuaged my fear by promising to blow some menthol into my eyes right before the shot. As they set up for my big close-up, I removed my contacts and readied myself for the big moment. I used a little Ian Warwick preparation stuff, sitting quietly, thinking about sad moments in my own life. Just thinking about sadness, in general, generating a lonely, lost feeling inside. It helped. I thought the scene went very well, especially the ending where I'm sitting curled up in the corner and Floyd is over me trying to talk sense. (I am afraid they chose to cut out that part of the shot, though, because we recorded a voice-over of the same dialogue later that night.) So, crying didn't kill me.
Go on to Day 4.