Day 8 -- Friday June 27

Going to bed at 10:30? Yeah, that was a little weird. So imagine my surprise when I climbed into bed last night at 10:00! Another dawn pick-up time today to head out to Copperton to shoot the scene.

But let me digress...

As far as the housing situation goes, I spent a couple of hours in the production office last evening on the phone with my agent, Gary, and the SAG representative for Zack & Reba, Patricia. Calls were made and excuses were given and after all this time, absolutely nothing has been accomplished. The whole situation is being turned over to an "Administrator" at SAG by the name of Elizabeth. She is supposed to deal with the producer, Dan Grodnik, sometime today.

What I realized this morning in the shower is that somehow I have been tricked into caring so much about this. A couple weeks ago I was dropped off at the Sun River apartments, and though I was slightly bummed about being far away, I accepted it. End of story. It wasn't until my agent got involved and then I got sucked into it that it all became such a huge deal.

As I see it now, the turth is that it is unfair, yes, but so what? The acting business, in six years, should have taught me nothing if not the simple fact that nothing about it is fair. The breaks, the chance, the casting, the meetings, the timing. Success isn't doled out equally in Hollywood. And when you're on a set or on a location, people are not all created equal. Credits, experience, connections, whatever it might be, all the factors add up to a certain quality of treatment. And right now, at this point in my life and career, the truth is that I get put in a trailer the size of my bathroom and I spend my nights in the Sun River apartments. No, I don't have a fridge and TV and full-size bed at my disposal on the set, but, hey, I'm not forced to stand around in the hot sun with the extras either. It's all relative. And it takes time to move up the ranks of the "unfairness scale."

For now, I am shooting a movie in Utah for four weeks. How cool is that? And how foolish is it to let my housing arrangement put a damper on my activities? This is a great adventure and I'm getting paid lots of money (relatively) to do it. How far I've come from the day I walked onto the Against the Grain set and was so thrilled to see my name on the trailer door. My room was the same size on that show as this one, but to those eyes it seemed so much bigger. Could I have imagined then that one day I would be upset on a four-week shoot on location because my one-bedroom hotel room is an extra ten minutes away? Probably not. And it's time to let it all go. A final decision will (should) be made today. And then maybe it's off to the Residence Inn! But whather there or back at my old Sun River, it's time to sleep like a baby and stop acting like one.

with Michael Jeter

Later that day...

Oh yeah. I'm also acting in a movie up here in Utah. Today we shot the bar scene in which the three bullies terrorize first Oras, the grave-digger, played by Michael Jeter, and then when Zack gets involved, they go after him, too. The scene strats up at the bar when Rusty, Don, and Shank pester Oras about his shoes and their similarity to Sparky's missing ones. After pinning him to the pool table and assessing the shoes are the same size as Sparky's, the real bullying begins. Oras is mercilessly tickled.

Zack, being the nice guy he is, steps in to assist. A stroke of genius inspires him to spray the boys with a fire extinguisher and then make tracks with the bullies in hot pursuit. We hop into our respective vehicles and the chase is on. (Scene 53)

So let's go back to this whole fire extinguisher thing. Inside a very normal-looking fire extinguisher sits a fair amount of whipped cream. Not your sexy, let-me-lick-it-off-your-body type of whipped cream, but a warm, NO2-filled, nasty-feeling, foul-smelling whip cream, coming at your head at 75 miles an hour from a total of two feet away. Yummmm.

We end up doing two master-shots. In the first, the fire-extinguisher fails to go off on Rusty (lucky me) until later in the fracas (unlucky me). So we have to towel everyone and everything off to do it over. Dry pieces of identical clothing are donned as the whipped-cream coating is toweled from faces and arms and blow dryers work overtime to return every lock of hair to its original pre-dairy state. Finally, we are ready and return to the table to go through the fire once again.

This time whipped cream flies everywhere and the three bullies become a cream-coated middle-America young-hick version of the Keystone Kops, stumbling after their latest crook. Don (Rick) even manages to go sprawling after catching his foot on a stand holding about a dozen pool cues, the splattering of which creates a very funny tumble indeed. That's a keeper.

CREMATED

Time to move the camera outside. This takes some time to set up and they shoot Zack and Oras running out first. So an hour or two later, it's time to get the bullies. These are not freshly-sprayed bullies anymore. They are now half-toweled-dry, cream-caked-hair, smell-of-curdling-dairy bullies. So back in front of the whipped cream blaster again before the shot even starts. A few squirts later and some momentary touch-ups to try to get the "look" to match the end of the previous shot, and we do it. We run out, look confused, wipe off a bit, and hop in the truck and high-tail it after them. Nope. No good. Zack's car made too much dust. Must be creamed again.

It's at this moment that I mention to Rick that a "true dedicated comedian" would try to jump over the little bench outside and trip on the way over it, sprawling onto the gravel below. As we return to the cream-master for our fourth coat, Rick appears with knee pads on. Here is a true artist. We run it all again and this time two things happen...

1. As you know, Rick, as we try to get him to the car, goes flying. It seemed very funny. But also...
   

2. I take the opportunity of standing outside on camera to wipe nearly every trace of whipped cream from my face. And as the truck leaves the parking lot and speeds past the camera, I use my shirt sleeves to towel down the sides of my head.

What does this mean? Well, it means that Rick is a goofball and you have to admire him for going for it. It also means that next time the bullies are shown on camera, I have made it much easier for Hair, Make-up and Wardrobe to match the "look." Kind of me, yes? More importantly, although much less obvious at the time, I have guaranteed that no whipped cream will be fired from any apparatus at my head on Monday or Tuesday or any other day for that matter. I just happen to be the clean bully.

We didn't get to the dialogue in the truck so that will have to take place on another day. But as days go, this one was a long one, a fun one, and certainly one to remember.

Go on to Day 9

Day by Day | Zack & Reba | Ducey on Film