a letter to my co-star

dear stupid actors,

Stop acting like fucking lunatics, you're giving the rest of us a bad name!

your pal,
kate

So last night I shot a short film called Distance, about a cellphone conversation between two friends who want different things from their relationship. It's actually a solid script, and I'm not playing some off-the-wall goofball, so we'll see how it turns out.

The crew had been shooting another short all day, one involving children, so they were really looking forward to working with adults and not facing all the talent problems they had already had that morning.

I don't think they knew what they were up against.

I got to the set (in NJ) at 5:00 (an hour early for our call at 6:00, but apparently someone goofed in giving me the train schedule), and sat around reading a book while they finished up the other film and ate dinner. The AD put a call in to the other actor who said he was 20 minutes away but stuck in traffic. Then, at 6:30, he still hadn't shown up, so they started setting up the most complicated lighting shot in the back yard -- one that involved both actors, not just the one who was there.

At 7:00, he still hadn't shown, or called, so folks were getting nervous. But a good old fuse problem left the backyard in the dark, so they had something to keep them busy.

7:30. Still no call from the actor. Not returning messages. Calls going straight to voicemail.

8:00. People getting nervous. Kate getting frustrated, worrying that they're going to have to use Joe The Lighting Guy as the other actor.

By 8:20, the AD and the director had to have the "Do you think he's still coming?" conversation, and the consensus was a halfhearted No. Five minutes later this asshole knocks on the door and says he's been stuck in traffic for the last three hours. AND HE DOESN'T EVEN APOLOGIZE AT ALL, let alone profusely.

The reason he didn't call? His cellphone was dying. Not dead, dying. I'm sorry, that's precisely when you DO call and say "hey, my cellphone is dying, AND SINCE MY GIRLFRIEND IS IN THE CAR WITH ME, here's her number. You can reach me on that." But he didn't do that.

Now, the film is about a cellphone conversation. So the director asks if we can use our own cellphones. I say that mine is dying and makes an irritating booping noise every 16 seconds. He says his is dead. But as soon as the director is out of the room, he leans over to his girlfriend, while I am THREE FEET AWAY and whispers in her ear.

She, like me, is appalled at his behavior, and we both watch as he PULLS OUT HIS CELLPHONE AND PROCEEDS TO TEXT MESSAGE HER.

I sit there like Madeline Kahn in Clue: "flames... on the side of my face... heaving... breathless..."
Then, when she doesn't respond, and he clearly wants to discuss the situation with her, I politely get up, glare at them both and say, "Excuse me, I think I'll go get a drink and get out of your hair."

He was no great talent, he was fine to work with on set. I wouldn't ever recommend him to anyone else, though. Or, if I did, I would say the call time was four hours earlier than it really was (that way either he shows up on time, or he shows up early and learns what it's like when other people waste your time).

What bothered me most was that nobody gave him even the remotest of hard times for showing up late. If everyone is just going to sit around and fume, behavior like this is going to continue. Because I have discovered that Bad Actors will do the absolute least they can to get by. They're lazy, flakey, inconsiderate and childish victims of their crazy crazy life.

And they have absolutely no place in this profession.

[sidebar: on the way home, I caught a ride with Mr. and Mrs. Late-a-lot, and 1) fourteen minutes into the trip home, he realized he's forgotten his cellphone on the set, so we TURNED AROUND to go back for it, 2) she had the heat turned up to RETARDEDLY HOT, recycling the air within the car (I almost barfed) and 3) he had one of those navigation systems in his car that recharts your course every time you make a wrong turn. So when you veer off the right path and go COMPLETELY IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, it never tells you so. It just keeps mapping your course for you. It takes Kate in the backseat to say "didn't we just pass this?" for him to realize that we're going back the way we just came, and the system is plotting our U-Turn up ahead. I just kept my mouth shut when SOMEHOW we ended up at the Port of Newark at 1:50 in the morning.]