Pizza and Gunshots

I was working for a Director/Writer/Actor named Nick Murphy last night. I was Big Boss 1, 2, & 3 in his movie "Pizza and Bullets." It was a pretty simple concept. Say a line, get shot. (Change shirt and tie but keep the same suit.) Say another line, get shot. (Change shirt and tie.) Say one more line, take a bite of Pizza, get shot.

To differentiate between characters of 1, 2, & 3, I changed facial hair and hair style for a different look, and had a different accent for each one. So I went from a full beard to a goatee to clean shaven. It's tough to shave 14 days worth of beard quickly. And the make up artist had never watched someone shave before, so she watched me intently. Then we went back downstairs to touch up the make up and shoot me again. Literally.

I had fun. The shoot was fast. We were in Toluca Lake/ Burbank border, about 5 minutes from my place. I did the first Boss standing in the street. I did the line, I think, 5 times. Nick was to the left of the camera with a gun and silencer. I would hear "Action!" and say the line. Gun would twitch a bit, I would twitch a bit. I didn't have to take a bullet, fly thru the air, and land on hard pavement. Yay!

The beard was shaved a bit, I got powdered up quickly because we were losing light. There was some valiant guy on a ladder with a shiny bounce board angling the sun to another guy with a white bounce board shining the light on me. I was laying on the ground, my back up against the wall. Said the line 4 or 5 times. Gun twitched, I twitched. Moving on.

For the third I was told we would wait. That changed. I went up shaved off the rest of the beard and went back to makeup. This time I had a bit more time to get made up properly. They were lighting a couch next to the wall in this parking area. At the same time a sketch show was performing in the theatre we were behind. They were very nice people. I sat down on the couch when I was done with make up. They were still lighting; a pizza box was next to me. The DP I think his name was BJ. He apologized to me. I think he thought it was taking a long time. I'm just waiting to work, sitting on a comfy couch. Nothing to apologize for. At least not as far as I'm concerned. Waiting is part of the job. To get pissed of about waiting is silly.

I did a Jersey accent for the last boss. Nick had the gun on me and I said the line, took a bite out of the medium sized piece of pizza, and got shot. (I didn't want to wrangle a large piece of pizza. If I have a hard time with the prop, the scene becomes me fucking with a piece of pizza.) I did it again. The one more time. On the last take, the sketch show behind us started doing something with operatic style singing half way thru the take. We finished the scene. When someone said "Cut!" we busted up laughing. The music was serendipitous, and perfect for the scene. Nick wanted to see the play back. He liked the last take with the music, so I was wrapped.

I've never been one of those diva actors. I work both sides of entertainment. I work production and I work on stage. So I have seen the no talent insecure divas ranting and raging over the small things. I also worked 200 rock concerts and have seen all sorts of strange requests and ego driven mandates that made me determined never to be the problem on set. Waiting is a part of the business. I have worked production so I know how long things take and don't get pissed off about it. Part of my job is knowing what the fuck I'm supposed to do.

As an actor I've worked with some great professionals and watched their different styles of working. A good example was when I did Winter's Tale at the Globe. The 2 leads were George Deloy (Del Hoya) and Vaughn Armstrong. You didn't bother George before the show. He had to descend into madness quickly and needed his space. (He lightened up later in the run...) And Vaughn, moments before walking on the stage at the top of the show, would be singing dirty cowboy songs and flirting with the women in the cast. When the lights changed, he was all business. It was like a switch. He knew his job and did it well. I saw that both were valid ways to work, but I lean more to Vaughn's thinking.

I may do a post on how I approach acting... Succintly, say the lines, don't bump into the furniture.