Reactions of an Actress to the Creation of a Show from the Ground Up
Marhselle’s Blog i got involved with this project because of cherise, one of my best friends, we’d just wrapped a dark comedy together and were wanted to work together again. we were at our annual birthday lunch (we both share birthdays in early September) and she asked me if i was interested in doing a sitcom. she also […]
Marhselle’s Blog |
i got involved with this project because of cherise, one of my best friends, we’d just wrapped a dark comedy together and were wanted to work together again. we were at our annual birthday lunch (we both share birthdays in early September) and she asked me if i was interested in doing a sitcom. she also asked if i’d like to help produce. so i read the script, loved it & quickly decided to jump in. cherise and i have decided to just finish up the casting with the project and not produce. we’d both rather focus on our roles. plus shit rolls downhill people. neither one of us wants to be responsible for something not going right. it’s been a rollercoaster w/ this puppy. one day we have a director. the next we don’t. up down up down up down. very frustrating. need a little direction. starting to wonder if rich is a little too much of a control freak or something. wondering if he’s capable of letting someone else hold the reins. i think he is, but with all the “directors” coming and going, it does give one reason to pause. but who knows? maybe it’s just simply not the right pairing. sacrificial offering worked! we have a director! I’m almost gun-shy to get attached though, afraid he’ll quit too. …starting to need therapy… rehearsal w/ new director sean patrick flanery, we just had our first read through w/ sean. very excited. although, we did it w/out someone reading the narration, fucking train wreck in some ways. we didn’t know where we were – it’s amusing i suppose in hindsight. i just thought fuck it & just tried to listen to my partner & just “be”. actor speak. sorry. but it’s exciting. sean is someone we all respect & he obviously knows what he’s doing. so it feels “safe”. & fun. he’s a cool cat. rehearsed at his “dojo”. (do people really call them that, or was that just in “karate kid”?) we had to take off our shoes. funny. all sitting around in our dirty socks. i was just happy mine matched. so we have this assignment to write down 10 different ways to say our lines. probably just to keep us fresh, get us out of our heads, open up the door of possibility, yadda, yadda. fun, exciting & a little daunting. i try to just be natural & it’s hard in some ways, in my mind at least, to think it out that far in advance. but honestly, it’s a fucking brilliant idea. i see SOOO many little nuances now. i always just saw diane in a pretty straightforward sense, which i still see, but now i see so many other subtle choices. this is fun. but i’m still a little daunted. think i’m just a chicken shit in some ways. audition for my blond loververy cool. learning alot. sean is going to be great to work w/. so much insight. it was interesting to hear him have the girls read it so many ways. some of his direction for the girls in how to look at how to play the scene, was a direction i’d already thought of for my own character’s perspective. which was nice, made me feel like i’m on the right track at least. comedy is scary. very happy he said it’s what you do in between – the subtleties. my kind of director/guy.finding my blond other half is proving to be difficult. so many of the girls go for the obvious/ridiculous choice of being overtly sexy. which usually comes across as lame and frankly, rather gross. they had to lick their fingers in one scene & instead of going for an earnest, “oh my God, that’s the best chocolate sauce ever” sort of take, they act like they are auditioning for DEEP THROAT or something. STILL auditioning for my blond half. (hear the flat monotone of that please) Good Lord. is it that hard to fucking take direction and be real? apparently it is. it’s been 2 weeks now i think… so. now Garrett has quit. or rich let him go. not quite sure what is going on. but Garrett didn’t make his schedule work w/ this shoot’s schedule. i’m wondering if we should put this thing off a week or two until we find a replacement. and the problem is you don’t want to just pick a guy, you want it to be someone who “gets it”. we’re all coming up with people we know & hopefully between all of us, we’ll find him. i know a few guys from playhouse west that would be great. just depends on the type they want. auditioning for a new peterALL the guys were great! any of them would have been good. we went with randy lahaye, an old friend of mine from playhouse west. he’s going to be hysterical in this i think. he has such a way of just going off on a tangent, it’s hilarious. and, i have to admit, i will LOVE to throw that glass of water in his face.it’s funny, because all of the guys were solid. very good. it just came down to who “clicked”. whereas with the women, it was tough. we ultimately went with amy & she’s great. plus she’s an amazon at 5’10” – and i’m only 5’3”. ( i got the distinct impression that amy couldn’t believe they actually made people my size when i told her how tall i was.) i think it was sean who told her to grab me & give me a hug after the audition, she pulled me right into her boobs. my eye line was her chest. i figured she had the role right then and there. plus she was game for anything. she wasn’t a diva by any means and we were really looking for someone who would fit in with all of us. gadi & i had to be at all the auditions whether it was for the blond or the peter character, so we were all getting to know one another pretty well. first and foremost, rich & sean wanted it to be a fun shoot. i think we have the right cast now. very exciting. i didn’t keep a blog for each day of shooting. so i’m writing this blog looking back on it all. it honestly was a wonderful experience. i know people say that all the time, but truly it was. it was funny, exciting, and a special project to me. i made some great friends that i intend to keep in touch with. there are many moments that stand out. we all just had fun with the roles. you do your homework, then just go with the flow when you hear “action”. there were tons of takes where we’d all be silently laughing or crying from laughter behind the camera. it was hard enough not to laugh in front of the camera. especially, for me, when randy would just go off on something. his natural delivery just kills me. then hearing sean laugh – well that didn’t help much either.bottom line, it was a great project. i can honestly say i’m proud to be a part of it. i’m looking forward to seeing the final project. |
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