Car at 6:35. And I’m lucky. The Winnebagos are on The Mall. Darren picks me up. He’s an unusual human. Very tall. Maybe a bit touched. Is he ex services? When I come down, he’s staring up into the trees. “You’re after the crows,” I tell him. He agrees. “They’re eloquent, these ones.”
I have some local crows that know me. They trust me so they come to me. Darren didn’t know them, but he could sense they were biddable. He was checking them out. Communing. You can’t park outside my flat without being checked out by those local crows.
Darren is a bit sideways as a location driver which immediately makes me love him. It’s a balance. You have to have personality but you mustn’t fuck up the route. Darren had his secret right ear satnav earpiece – (PRO-TIP) – but he was still a bit lost in London. He mostly got me where I needed to be but he was always late in the process. I didn’t mind. I don’t need to spend time over my breakfast. It reminded me of the Extreme-E stuff, where I’m basically him.
I got onto set promptly after changing superquick. I then said my 38 words. I knew them inside out and back to front and I had actioned them all and was just willing to roll them around. That’s easy when the sides only have 38 words. Those motivations and transitive verbs were well explored. I was sub though. The other actors had far more to say than I did. But … I had my bit. And they covered it from so many angles. The camera was only on me twice, but I must have said that tiny piece over 20 times before all the shots were covered.
It helped that I was talking to people I admire, who turn out to be good people too. I met another human I respect very much. I’m looking forward to using today’s shoot as a point of contact with them when I’m playing an equal part. Today I was a service part. Today I tried to push myself back into the old game. Today was lovely. We are only as good as our last job, and today I was taken seriously and worked with humans I have liked in theory. Lovely to see that, in the case of all the well known names today, they were all balanced and professional actors.
Obviously I tried to jokingly persuade the writer “You should have more scenes in this restaurant and get me involved.” I wouldn’t have made the crack if he hadn’t been the most lovely fellow. I trusted that he would know I was making an obvious joke about actors. “Have you played a waiter before?” asked the director. “I’ve been a fucking waiter,” I told him because I have. “That’s not the same,” he responds. And he’s the director. So “yes, of course I have” trips off my tongue. But I haven’t. I’ve been in the abyss until recently. I’m looking forward to playing lots more waiters and fuck knows what else going forward.
In real life I went straight in at Maitre d’hotel for major event restaurants and that’s the me I was channeling. I know the bullshit. I know my high end service personality. Unctious little shit. That’s what I served up. They seemed to like it.
AlBarclay 