I just want to say Thank you to all my adoring fans...to my agents (aka Andrew and Greg) and to my fellow actors and the supporting background.......OK, I'm just kidding:-) I guess I need to back up a little in case you haven't been following my Facebook...this will be a long one so get settled, grab a snack and drink (hot chocolate sounds nice right now) and keep reading:-)
You may notice my entry about a week ago about "The Joneses" (go read it if you haven't already)....anyway, after hearing about the movie, Andrew and his buddy Greg Wright decided to go over to The Manor and generally be nosey, try and get a few pics etc etc....As some of you know, the neighborhood is gated and has security so anyway, they drive up to the gate and pretend that they have been asked to show up on the movie set...the lady asks for ID, checks the list, even calls back to ask whoever on the movie set if they know these guys (and let this be a lesson in perseverance and not giving up because you are totally mortified....or maybe it is a lesson in sheer arrogance - one of the two!)....Anyhow, whatever they say in their wheedly deedly way, they convince the lady on the gate that they are "supposed" to be there and she lets them on in. Now they are keeping their tactics on the down low as they have obviously hit on a succesful formula, but somehow they drive in, find the movie set etc, end up talking to someone and get an invite to come and be an extra on the movie!! Don't ask?! I wouldn't have made it past the security guard:-)
(set up outside the house)
So, a few days later they both go and spend the day on set - when the movie comes out look for them in a lawnmower scene - there are three of them "drinking beer" (it's water in the bottle FYI!) at a table and Demi walks by and waves at them....they also got to do an "arriving at the cocktail party" scene. Andrew gets to drive in his car (a black BMW 650i) - they gave him a walkie talkie in his car and he thought it was pretty cool - he also did a driving up with a lady in a golf cart. So watch out there too:-)
(Demi is far left walking with the "neighbor" women)
Anyway, the next night they needed an extra woman so Andrew got me in. Again, this was for the cocktail party. I was there from 3.30pm til 12.30....It is totally fascinating!! You arrive and have to "go through wardrobe" which basically means that someone decides what you will wear (we had to take our own options, but some women were given a different outfit - it couldn't bee too flashy or too vivid in color or too similar in style/color to the other actors). A lady called Dana was in charge of the extras (actually they call us "background"). She was pretty nice, but as the night wore on she got more and more bugged!
(Dana is the lady standing up - the guys sitting down are extras)
This scene was pretty lame as scenes go as we are inside the house and they are filming from the outside, just panning the house and then going down to the daughter (Amber Heard) and her teenage friends smoking 'something' on the patio at the firepit.....but the cool part of this night was that Dave's (that would be David Duchovny) wife and kids arrived and one of the kids was doing backflips on the front lawn of the set - oh yeah and the local paper came and took photos and interviewed the 8 extras there that night - don't they say any publicity is good publicity??! The bummer about the night was being in holding in the neighbors garage (and it is really cold at night here!!)
(Glamorous "holding" in the freezing cold garage - note all the heaters in there!!)
They can't have us in the house where they are filming cos of the noise.....but they feed you every 6 hours. "Lunch" was around 7.30pm and then they fed us again as we were leaving - pretty good food too:-)
(In the food tent with the other extras)
(They also have these food trailers around that you can grab a drink/snack whenever you need)
So for "continuity" (they are big on continuity and take photos of everything and everyone about every 10 mins to compare and make sure things haven't changed) as I had been there at the cocktail party already I "had' to return again for the main cocktail party scenes (I was soooo bummed about having to go back!) So Saturday afternoon, Andrew and I, Greg and he took Shellie Nielson (as his wife Lara couldn't make it) went over to the set again. We had already had our wardrobe approved but had to go through hair and makeup (which is very fun and I absolutely want a personal hair stylist when I am rich and famous!!) One of the cool things about the night was that between takes, someone would shout....well lots of things actually, but the last thing would be "last looks" and all these hair/makeup people would appear out of nowhere and run around touching up our makeup and hair - way to feel important!!
Makeup lady in blue...
(Hair guy doing Shellie's hair)
There were about 35-40 extras this night so it was crazy....at some point they took us over to the food tents to get "breakfast" (this whole breakfast lunch thing seriously screwed up my internal clock - it's been worse than jetlag!!) and then they took us over to our favorite holding place - the garage:-) Anyway, here are the 'finished' couple at the beginning of the night - fresh and full of energy and enthusiasm:-)
(Andrew and I)
(with Shellie)
(Andrew, me, Shellie and Greg)
OK so where am I up to in the story.... just had breakfast - OK so we were in the dreaded garage again, but this time had come a little more prepared, with jackets etc - but it wasn't too bad as we were in and out of the main house more often. At this early point, one of the main guys comes in and asks me if I can be a stand in for Demi - it has more to do with coloring than looking as cute as her!! - so of course I say absolutely:-) although I have no clue what it means:-) Anyway, I got to go over to the house and watch Demi etc in a private rehearsal of some of the scenes which was VERY cool. She is dressed in casual jeans and one of her 3 assistants has her cute chihuaha). After about 15 minutes her 'regular' stand in arrived and so I wasn't needed, but as we got more 'behind-the-scenes' savvy I was glad not to have been the stand in all night. A digital stand in basically takes the place of the actor for lighting purposes so they don't have to stand there while the camera crew decide how much more/less lighting they need and how best to angle camera shots etc etc. They don't get to be in the movie at all (but they do make more money and get to hang out with the actors more than extras). So, I am back to the garage for a while and then we get taken in for a scene that I had just watched in private rehearsal, where Demi is talking about frozen sushi or something except now Demi is dressed up and looking glam (she has a hair assistant and a makeup assistant and they both follow her around all night touching her up every time the cameras stop rolling - which is about every 5 mins - no joke!). It's hard to figure out where this will come in the movie as none of it is shot in sequence - anyway, I got paired with this great lady called Rabia (she is on the left -I guess on my right?? - in the photo below)
ANyway, she was soooo much fun - she lived a few doors away in the neighborhood and so was doing this for the fun of it like us and so was totally NOT serious:-) We were standing behind Demi nr the couch in the family room.....Andrew and Greg, probably got dubbed the token gay couple at the party as they were doing their thing, working it with all the wardrobe and makeup ladies to get in every shot.....(they even managed to convince the two Housewives of Atlanta that they had been placed in front of them?!!) Anyway, they shout "Rolling" then "Background" then "Action" and we have to 'pantomime' that we are having fun and chatting, enjoying the party so to speak:-) We had to do a lot of retakes (and they weren't happy with the riff raff background who didn't understand the difference between whispering and pantomime) but Aaron, one of the assistant Directors came and told me and Rabia that we were doing a good job and looked great on camera (yeah I bet he went around telling everyone, but don't steal my glory) Anyway, finally they are "checking the gates" which are the words you really want to hear and we are done with those particular scenes and they let us go to "lunch" - it is now around 10.30pm. By now, our feet are already beginning to hurt from standing in the strappy high heels for hours and hours and Shellie is exhausted (but although we didn't yet know it, we had 8 more hours to go!)
(Seriously, Shellie was exhausted and ready to go home!!)
(This was James, a cute 19 year old who had tried for 6 months to get on as an extra on the movie. He is one of the waiters so watch out for him!)
So again, in holding in our beloved garage and now we are all taking our shoes off and trying to give our feet a break - I of course had shoes that buckled in on the strap so while other people could slip their shoes on and off on set in between takes, I was glued into mine - make a note of that if you plan on entering the movie business!!
OK so more scenes blah blah same old stuff and now it is around 3.30/4.00am and they take little groups of people up to the house. Dana comes in and points (it's real personal!) and says,"you - I need you" and I am trying to strap my sore feet back into my shoes and she is freaking - "hurry" so we stumble up to the house - one shoe is still not done up but I can't bend over in that dress! - and I end up being placed with this actor, Jason MacDonald as the woman he is chatting to - and I was thinking this is pretty cool, but wish I could do my other shoe up - then it turns out that we are a couple that Demi talks to as she walks into the room!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, kind of freaking out - so Aaron comes over and says - just say anything like great Sushi, great party, thanks for having us etc etc - and I ask if he wants me to pantomime and he laughs and says no you can really talk - so we do this scene probably 20 times from different angles etc and every time we say something different so no idea what we will be doing/saying in the shot they keep. In between takes Jason and Demi and also Gary Cole (pic below) are chatting to me and I ask Demi if her feet are killing her (seriously look at her shoes in the movie!) and she laughs and says that I am probably worse off as she has platforms on her shoes which she says helps - and we chat about Ashton arriving in town that morning and that she is taking a few days to hang out with him and everyone is joking about the sushi that has been sitting around for the last 12/13 hours (I kid you not - this really happened!!)
Jason was really nice and explained a lot of the behind the scenes stuff to me and said that although they would probably dub my voice out (as you become an 'actor' as soon as you speak so they have to pay you more!), it has happened before that they might just like my voice and keep it! Gary was chatting about going to England next week - he is going to be in a Broadway show in London and Demi told me I did "great"....Anyway, most SURREAL 30 minutes of my life I can tell you!!
So after this, it is much of a blur - a few more hours of standing, waiting, doing scenes holding glasses of pomegranate juice or ginger ale. Another quirky thing was that when an actor was done with his/her scenes, the Director would shout out - "we have an announcement" and then say "And that's a wrap for Jason" (or whoever) and the entire crew would clap and cheer and the actor would leave. Kind of interesting!
Anyway, by 6.30am the sun was coming up, Shellie had pulled her hair out, we had our vouchers signed and we were allowed to leave!! Saturday went by in a huge blur of JetLag and numb feet,...Sunday was a little better with just my toes on my left foot being numb and this week we are finally coming down off our cloud of being movie stars.......OK, like that will EVER happen!! The movie hasn't even come out yet:-) I have a year of post shoot, pre movie, movie, post movie stardom to revel in...I'll try to think of other things to talk about so I don't get too annoying:-)
Jordan's Winter concert where he got to do a solo of Silent Night (he was the only 4th Grader doing a solo - and I think mainly as he begged and begged and begged his teacher for weeks to let him do it!) He did great:-)
Amelia's school Christmas program (she knew all the words to all the songs - and I promise she has a lovely voice, though her friend is obviously not enjoying something!)
They also had this kind of creepy puppet show with Grandma and Grandpa characters who were telling the kids the Christmas story - kinda cute but kinda creepy!
Anyway, it has been a crazy couple of weeks but now I am looking forward to a Christmas at home - actually will be our first time spending the whole Christmas by ourselves (OK so we have Ben, but he is one of the kids - no he's an adult - no he's one of the kids........one of these days we'll make up our minds on that!)
