Wow, I had a very interesting day on Monday that was fraught with terror and ended up in delight. Monday morning a van came to pick up myself and a fellow actor at eight in the morning at our hotel and proceeded to bring us to the set in West Barnstable Cape Cod. The other actor in the van was a nice guy by the name of Steven Mailer who was going to play the other half of our duo as lazy gossipy n’er do-wells. A note of interest is that he is the son of the famous writer Norman Mailer. His brother Michael Mailer is the producer on the film.

I arrived on the set about 8:15 and was brought to my little area to hang out in. It was basically a partition in a small room in the back of a little country store, that was right next to the outdoor set. The partition had my characters name on it, and behind the little ‘L’ shaped partition was nothing but a chair. This place was for me to get changed into costume and also a place for me to hang out and get warm. The big actors like David Carradine and Rip Torn had trailers to hang out in like you would expect. Soon my costume was brought and I got changed and then was driven in a van to the hair and make-up station that was set up in a nearby meeting house. After getting my hair and make up done, which only took about 5 minutes, I hung out there for about an hour when I was again driven back to the set where I had some breakfast that was set up in the old historical train depot that they were using for the set; then the waiting began.

Michael Caine has a very cool quote that I like that goes like this, “If you can wait, you can act.” This is so true, because in movies you end up waiting around a lot as they set up the lights and equipment for each new shot and angle, or when you are waiting for another scene to finish before yours starts. I ended up waiting till about 1pm before my first blocking rehearsal. Now, normally I am extremely used to this waiting because I have been in over 35 independent films and this film was not much different; same circus, bigger tent. But this day I was extremely nervous about acting with a big name actor for my first time. I was worried my head would explode or something. I was stewed in my own nervous juices from about 9am till when I was called to the set at 12:45pm. To tell the truth I was pretty miserable, trying to keep my self confidence about the whole thing. But then after that first rehearsal where I actually acted out the scene with him I started to feel much better because my head didn’t explode. This was David Carradine who is an actor I have seen on TV and in Films almost my entire life and I did not explode into a ball of anxious, quivering jelly! I actually started to have fun and enjoy myself. Then we went for lunch and when we got back we filmed the scene from about 1:45pm till 4:00pm. I must tell you this was extremely surreal and eerie but fun as hell. I was in heaven, and got some very nice comments about my acting from the crew members that I talked to between shots. All-in-all it was a great day! I felt like I went through the crucible and survived my trial of fire. I think the next time I get a chance to work on a big set with well known actors I will be much less nervous having had this experience.

‘Tis all for now!

p.s. My camera phone’s battery died before I could get some shots of the set and my costume. I was very sad about that. There was a newspaper photographer on the scene, and he took some pictures which can be seen here. In the third picture of the slide show you can see me standing behind a guy kneeling down. You can only see about half of me, but I am the guy standing directly behind him.

This Friday I will head down to Cape Cod to be fitted for my costume for the movie Chatham. The movie is a period piece that takes place in 1905. Then I head down again on Sunday where the production company is putting me up in a hotel for my shoot on Monday morning. I am very excited about this, and a little nervous too since this is my first speaking role in a big budget movie.

I have heard some more news about the project recently. It turns out Burt Reynolds, Dennis Hopper and Anne Archer have all pulled out or maybe never signed on; not sure. In their place the new cast in production now is David Carradine, Rip Torn, Bruce Dern and Mariel Hemingway. Here is a link to an article about the project from the Boston Herald.

‘Tis all for now!

First off, I want to apologies to those who read my blog, I have been very lazy about blogging this month. The weird thing is I have had some cool news and fun experiences over the last month and did not blog about them. I used to blog once a week for almost two years and now I have trouble blogging once a month. I guess I need to re-evaluate my feelings on this blog and decide what to do. So, for now, on to the cool news!

I got an audition for a small speaking role in the movie Chatham being filmed in Cape Cod a few weeks ago, and even better yet I found out recently that I got the part! Yippee! Last year I had a gaol to be cast in a speaking role in a movie with a budget of $100,000. This year I got a speaking role in this movie that has a budget of eight million dollars. Wow! I can hardly believe it! The movie will star Martin Landau, Anne Archer for sure, and it looks like Burt Reynolds and Dennis Hopper are signed on as well.

A new cast was was formed with David Carradine, Bruce Dern, Rip Torn, and Mariel Hemingway.

I have one day of filming and my shoot date is at the end of March. Very exciting! I am not sure why I have waited so long to blog about it; I have known two weeks. I guess I was afraid of jinxing it or something if I talked to much about it to early. I guess I had trouble believing this for myself!

Also the TV Pilot I talk about occasionally looks like it finally has a solid shooting date in June. I am so glad the producers have taken the time they needed to make sure the script was right and that the actors are all connected. The cast has been working together in rehearsals for over eight months now and we need to be fully connected to make it work; I think we now are!

‘Tis all for now!