West Wing (1)

The following has been cobbled together from an email written shortly after the shoot and my memories of the day:

I was in one of Rob Lowe’s last episodes on the show. I spent a lot of time in the trailer they called holding, listening to various stories from people who’d been on the show a lot.

My favorite story was about an extra who was hungry. He quietly went over to the craft service table, grabbed one donut and took a bite. The crafty at the time smacked the donut out of the guy’s hand, all the while saying that extras weren’t allowed to eat from the table. The poor extra was mortified, worried he’d be thrown off the set, but he really was hungry, otherwise he wouldn’t have taken the donut in the first place.

Well…Martin Sheen overheard something of the scuffle and approached, asking what the problem was.

Then fired the crafty on the spot because it wasn’t right to deny a person food just because he was an extra.

Yeah…Martin Sheen is a hero in the eyes of us background actors. I heard a few other stories about his heroic deeds, but unfortunately can’t remember them right now.

And now on to Rob Lowe and the scene where I played one of his office staff. I got about an eighth of a second of screen time in the finished product. A little bit of freeze frame and whole lot of knowing where I was and I’m actually seen for a change.

This screen capture shows me doing what’s called a wipe… It’s a very fast and very close cross in front of the camera. It’s generally used to help cut from scene to scene, but in this case it was to show that the office was very busy.

I’d forgotten about the wipes I’d done until I watched the episode. This other screen capture is from when Jen just happened to notice me. I’d assumed I wasn’t in the finished product because I was hardly used for more than wipes. Somehow, I made it in for split second and here I am in my prime–surfing through my folder of fake paperwork while pretending to look busy…just like many office jobs I’ve had!

Here’s some of the kind of stuff that no one really hears about… When the director was making him and the other actor (whose name I can’t remember) do the scene over and over to the point where Rob Lowe started to forget his lines, he got all fussy about it and actually told the director he couldn’t do it anymore and wanted to move on. I wasn’t shocked, it was just funny to hear a big Hollywood star whine like a baby!

And how’s this for lifestyle differences… After our lunch break, he sent his personal assistant to a sushi joint down the street. He wanted two pieces of yellowtail, a spicy tuna hand roll and something else I couldn’t quite hear. Kinda silly little tidbit that Rob Lowe not only likes sushi, he likes it enough to send someone to go get him some during filming!

…And while I was on the set, he nearly ran into me so, once again, I had a close encounter with a star. Jen always asks how close I got to whoever the star of the show was. I can say that I was about 2 inches from Rob Lowe.

Comments are closed.