the last two days have been a lesson in holding my tongue; actually more like hoover damming it.
i’ve been on set finishing up a webseries, filming scenes poolside.
luckily for me and my cheese plate fetish, my character is of professional dress: conservative suit.
my good fortune seemed to have run its course at costume though. my three lines of dialogue yielded 8 hours of green room down time with scantily clad, bikini-girl extras.
compensated in industry exposure {no pun intended}, free food, mindless time in the sun and the occasional makeout session with greasy actor, these girls candied up the melrose place courtyard like willy wonka’s factory after charlie went home.
fresh-faced and eager to please, they swapped spit with the crew and swapped stories with each other that had me begging the prop master for real bullets to use in the gun…on myself of course.
on hour two, miss tennessee charmed us with her knowledge of nasal piercings and husband stealing. i now know that one can get yeast infections in one’s nose if nasal stud is not properly cleansed. miss tennessee also revealed the wonderful world of bear meat cuisine. i’m menu planning my next dinner party as i type.
a charmer with a chrysanthemum tattooed on her nipple, no not a daisy you stupid bitch a chrysanthemum, is looking for a classy place to “git” a serving job…she “reckons bubba gumps or ruby tuesdays” as her contenders. forgive my snark, but this is the same girl who snottily snapped at me she doesn’t smoke, but occasionally “dips”.
these are the g-rated version of the days’ conversation. i wish i could go into the q and a of what the girls would do and not do {there wasn’t much and i had to use google for some of it} for playboy, but by then i was calling hospitals looking for where i could get the nearest penicillin shot and finding out if i could get airlifted out as well.
one of the crew teased me for not chatting it up with the extras.
but tell me what exactly could i add to the sob-fest of what happens when you turn 25 when “yer shit gets really fucking old”?
they talked triple d implants, accepting trips with directors if it meant getting parts in tv shows, and whether taking golden seal will clear up a drug test.
these are the same conversations from 10 years ago when i started this business.
different girls. same stories.
gotta love the hollywood dream.
I'm hoping you hyperbolized for the benefit of your reader. Otherwise, that sounds more horrifying than Saw I, II or III.
Oh, Katie. You made my Thursday.
After dating an Actor – never will do that again and listening to my neighbors tell stories about the celebs he deals with nothing shocks me anymore. Had my own experience as they filmed Weeds at my house for two years and I learned quite a lot about one of the characters – let's just say not so nice in person. I feel your pain.
Hollywood, yuck. You have waaay more patience than me!
help…how do you get multiple photos to show up in your posts??
Sometimes I miss acting. Other moments I don't. Either way, I want to get back into it again. So sorry I'll be missing you tonight, darling. All my meetings today ran over and I was given extra tasks that kept me from driving up.
I just had flashbacks of when I worked in films. MU/Hair peeps always hated the extras too. They were without fail the ones that gave us the hardest time usually because they got hardly any chair time and of course they wanted the most!
This reminds me so much of junior high school where I became a bookworm to escape the horror. I think a loaded kindle is in your near future!
Thanks so much Katie for showing up tonight, it means a lot to me. I hope it was fun for you. Everyone was loving your photos!
xo Mary Jo