This morning I woke before the dawn even though I didn’t have to. I went out into the garden of my wonderful room at The Somerville and watched the dawn. My last morning at that lovely hotel. Good to make the most of it.
I took it easy today. Let myself rebuild after filming. Didn’t put any pressure on myself to DO even though I was in Jersey. A full English breakfast. Then I checked out. I had a full meal at Tides Restaurant last night. Sure I paid for my drinks but everything else was on the room. When I checked out I half expected them to hit me with unexpected charges. Instead I got an unexpected compliment. “Your style, your clothes and the way you are – all the staff are talking about you. I’m glad you had a good stay.” I’ve been nice to them and I’m twenty years younger than the average punter there. It felt like he was being pleasant to me, not concealing a barb. I walked away smiling. Nice to feel relevant when you’ve just been the old guy on set.
“We should do more of these. I’ll be your Peter Cushing,” I told the director.”Fuck yeah,” he agreed and showed me some incredible stills on his phone that I can’t share. I’m genuinely quite stoked at what this tight knit Jersey team have achieved. I think it’ll look beautiful.
“After today I’m gonna forget about this until it’s made. I want to be able to watch it without remembering my acting choices.”
It’s hard to watch yourself. I hate it, but I’ve got better at it because of self tapes. I feel for Andy the director, going solo into the edit. He’ll have to watch himself acting a lot. He never did too much though so I think he’ll forgive himself. And he’ll have to spend a long time looking at my big long face too. By December I reckon he’ll have as many lifetime “looking at Al Barclay face” hours as I did at the age of 40.
I barely recognised him this afternoon without his goatee – the missus made him shave it immediately after we wrapped. I was driven into St Helier by a fresh faced young slip of a fellow.
Then absolute whistle stop catch-ups in town with an old schoolfriend (ten minutes walking while he mostly took phone calls) and a very quick catch-up with Adam, who took me to the airport.
Up and down is so quick. The flight was to Gatwick. Took me no time to get home from there. Jersey is currently accessible – even with the fuel crisis it was £35 to fly back this evening, all in.
I’m happy to be home. Switching my head again again. Halloween now, and perhaps an audio book recording if I’m up early enough. To which end, goodnight goodnight my darlings goodnight!
