Threat Matrix
The following is from an email I’d sent to Jen:
So, yeah, last night aside from getting more good stuff to put into books, I did an amazing job and they loved all my 80s stuff…especially my 80s hair. You know how I used to do it with the one side flipped up, etc. I just did that again and they LOVED it. They said I had the best hair of the whole show.
As for stuff we need to add into books… We got to the first location with our cars and they initially had me park mine and then I was gonna be a pedestrian, but they last second changed their mind and wanted me to drive through. So, there I go trotting across the street and just as I get behind my car, my feet come completely out from underneath me. I did manage to hurt my wrist and elbow, but the fall was so comic, I just couldn’t mention it.
They’re all askin’ if I’m okay, and I’m laughin’ and giggling, saying I’m fine and I get in the car and do the stuff. And honestly, at the time, I was fine. It wasn’t for about 6 hours later that I started feelin’ it. Ah well. It was just such a Blaina moment. She’s eager to drive on set, so I think it’d be hilarious. We should put something like that in Driven To Distraction.
Okay, now for standing in… Well, sitting in and the scene after that I stood in. And you’re never gonna believe who for… First let me say that she’s about 4 inches taller than me and had long, poofy blonde hair. Yes, I looked NOTHING like her… Denise Crosby. Probably best known as Tasha Yar from Star Trek Next Generation. She’s way cool and she likes late 60s rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly.
I was just having one of those incredibly ‘on’ kind of nights. The guy I was standing in with was asking me where to go and what to do and the ADs loved me to pieces because I was always trying to fill empty spots and wasn’t afraid to walk between the principals and the camera. I seriously think that of the 4 or 5 different scenes where I walked in front of the camera, one of them has got to be saved from the cutting room floor. This episode takes place in 1983. Two American agents are tailing a Russian agent. This was 2nd unit, so that’s about all the information I have on the episode.
Sleepover
I think the movie was called Sleepover, but I’m not positive. I remember it being a high school kids movie. This was my second time being a stand-in.
The regular stand-in didn’t show up that night for some reason, so the 2nd Assistant Director gathered up all of the female extras, I believe there were only about four or five of us. We stood there, waiting to find out which of us would be the stand-in.
It came down to me and another girl. The AD got on her radio saying something like, “Well, neither of them look like her at all. Do you want someone the right size, but an inch shorter and with the wrong hair color or someone who’s the right height, but wrong size and also wrong hair color?” Then the radio broke up and the AD had to just make a quick decision.
The following is an excerpt from an email I wrote to Jen the day after the shoot:
Let me get the two dirty jokes from the set out of the way… ‘What did Cinderella do when she got to the ball? …She choked…’ and you know the saying: ‘I’m all over it, like white on rice.’ Well, new and improved: ‘I’m all over it, like a grip on an extra.’
Now for story time… The female stand-in didn’t show up, so they lined up all the girls and picked one–me! And I look nothing like the actress, but I’m the same size as she is. So, they put this incredibly ill-fitting blonde wig on me. Remember Julia Roberts in the beginning of Pretty Woman? That’s kinda the style of this blonde wig. I looked horrible.
They gave me a pink shirt to put on, too and there I go to be a stand-in. It’s cold and raining off and on, but at least as a stand-in, I can sit in the nice director’s chairs by the heaters. Anyhow, I was kinda feeling like Blaina must feel when she’s trussed up to look like Meleta. I mean, guys didn’t know what to make of my fake hair. Some were afraid to ask! It was pretty funny. I wish I’d had a camera.
Meet Blaina and Meleta in Driver to Distraction.
Havoc (2)
Okay… This is gonna be a long one. The past couple of days just whizzed past me with non-stop excitement. Even as I write this, there are still plenty of helicopters flying over my neighborhood. I mean, I thrive on excitement, but this was really, really pushing my envelope. Although, the best thing I got out of the experience is the knowledge that if I had lost everything, I knew I could survive. I take life as it comes at me and I would have been just fine. Sometimes, that’s one of the best things to learn in life.
All right… here goes!
I’d headed out to the set of Havoc [Bijou Phillips, Anne Hathaway, etc.]. As I got on the freeway, I saw about fifteen fire engines in one of the canyons just past my house. The police were out closing the road down there and the mountains were ablaze.
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Havoc (1)
The following is an excerpt from an email I’d sent the day after this shoot. Southern California was on fire and I was working on a movie…
I’d driven in to downtown LA in my primered Mustang [most of which I’d had to reassemble just to be able to drive it] when, while changing lanes, I hear this nasty crackling/thumping noise. I knew it was my tire…and it was bad. Real bad as far as definitely gonna make me late for call time. And I’ve never ever in my theatre or film/TV career been late.
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The Shampoo Commercial Audition
The following is an excerpt from an email I’d sent shortly after this wild and crazy adventure:
I got a message on my voicemail–an agent telling me that a casting director had requested me for a commercial and that she’d tracked me down by calling SAG to get my number. I call her back and set up an appointment for the following morning to come in and have a talk with her. Mind you, I’m in the absolute middle of getting everything ready for RT–costumes, promo, writing, everything–and I was worried that I wasn’t going to have time to get it all done before it was time to leave.
So, I go in to meet her and I brought in a headshot just in case. I mean, I have no idea who gave her my name, why they gave her my name. I’m completely clueless, just going with the adventure. Okay, so she has me talk to another agent. They make a bunch of copies of my headshot, slap their sticker on one of them and tell me I gotta go over to this other place to talk to some other guy. I’m thinking I’m going to another office kind of situation. I’m nervous as hell because I’d never been to an agency before let alone going to two in one day. I’m just a lowly background actor who hasn’t worked for a month. What the hell do I know, right? I still have no idea how any of this came about. I’m just letting it take me on the journey.
I go to see this other guy and I land at an audition hall. There’s all these 6-foot-tall, skinnier-than-I-am women with long straight hair–yes, everything I am not. And I still have no idea who I’m seeing or even why I’m seeing the guy… and at that moment, where the hell was the guy anyway?! As I’m looking for the right room, a woman comes out to talk to another guy. She tells him his monologue was good and now he just needed to go back in and give them a real strong read.
And if I wasn’t completely freaking out before, I’m definitely gettin’ weathered around the edges at this point. I mean, yeah, I have two monologues memorized, but those were from years ago and I haven’t rehearsed them for at least three years. I’m a background actor for goodness sake! I don’t speak on camera!
I sign in and sit down–still completely unsure where I am, why I’m there and what’s really going on.
A guy whom I swear I’ve never seen before comes out of one of the rooms, beckons me over to him, shoves a Polaroid camera inches from my face, and snaps a shot before I even know what has hit me. Although, by this time, I was really getting off on the adventure and surreality of my situation. It’d been years since my last crazy adventure like this. And things were waaaaay far beyond any ounce of my control at that point.
Okay, so he leads me into the room and I nearly fall over when I see that there’s a camera in there.
I did my very first screen test that day and then walked out of there thinking that all in all, I’d had a damn good time of it. I mean, it was a hair commercial and I was actually having a good hair day at least!
And now to tie the whole thing together… to this day, I still have no idea who any of these people are or how they got my name. Generally, when something this odd happens, it’s an avalanche and I’d at least get a call about it. But nothing this time. I was just in the crazy, unsure reality not having even the faintest idea what to do about it.
Las Vegas
I don’t recall exactly which day this shoot happened on, but it was some time around this day. My memory is a bit hazy and for some reason, I can’t even find so much as an email written about it back then. Let’s see how much I can remember…
It was a very long day–at least 12 hours. Most of it was spent sitting at a blackjack table. That was kind of fun. Toward the end of the day, I did a few crosses, but I don’t recall what the scenes were about. I was reasonably far from the action, so I suppose that’s why I didn’t make it in frame.
My favorite memory of my time on Las Vegas happened just as all of us extras got placed in the casino setting. One of the prop men came by with decks of cards. They were brand new and he was peeling the plastic off and telling us that this was the first time the Montecito cards were being used. Previously, they were just generic cards without the casino name on them. It was also apparently the first time they’d used that full casino set here in Los Angeles.
The prop man gave me one of the Jokers to use as a bookmark and I really wish I could remember what book I was reading that day because I bet that card is still in it!
Cold Case (1)
The following is an excerpt from an email I’d sent shortly after this shoot:
I was in a new TV show called Cold Case… playing a prostitute of all things! …in 1973 no less!
Yeah, I even got a close-up. Who knows if it’ll end up on the cutting room floor or not. I don’t care. I had fun.
I’d worked with one of the guys on that show a few times before. Let me just describe him… 30 years old, 6’2″, about 180lb., nice body from working, not weightlifting, brown hair, brown eyes. Looks menacing, but is really a sweetheart. Has a sexy sounding accent… Yeah… It wasn’t a bad day just getting to hang out with him. The kind of guy a happily married woman like myself could flirt with and he’s not gonna take it the wrong way.
Gems of my day: the first scene I was in (the one that got me the close-up) I’m leaning against a grafitti wall sort of showing my wares (I was oddly fully clothed in a t-shirt and hip-huggers even though I was supposed to be a low income hooker.) and the guy walks up to me, looks me up and down, nods his head and I put my arm around him and walk down the street.
Yeah, in the group of extras I was hanging with, that became the running joke… I was so easy he didn’t even have to say a word. And he was so suave, he didn’t have to say a word to pick me up.
Back and forth all day. It was a hoot!
The other gem was his advice on relationships to one of the other girls working with us. He told her that she had to kiss frogs in order to find her prince. He also said he didn’t know why guys are such bastards to women. Women are actually easier to please than men. Of course, myself and the other girl expressed that we thought he was nuts. He said, “Think about it… All you have to do is tell her how you feel, please her in bed, whatever she likes, and every now and then get her a little something, no matter how small, cheap or insignificant. If you give her something like that, she’ll know you were thinking about her. They’re real easy to keep happy like that.”
As I recall, that was a fifteen hour shoot over night where us car people really got along with each other. Shoots like that are hard to come by. I don’t recall pulling out my notebook very much because the conversations were all really great.
According to Jen, I was completely cut out of this episode. I never even got seen in the background let alone the close-up they did. Oh well. I still wouldn’t trade it for the world. It was the first time I got to play a prostitute!
Anchorman
I was on Anchorman about 9 times from July to September 2003. I didn’t write much about each shoot at the time.
The highlights were seeing Vince Vaughn (who’s really tall and quite handsome in person) rehearsing his lines while standing about two feet from my car. And spending an entire day scribbling down notes for Driven To Distraction and Forsaken Talisman while lounging in the back seat of my car because I wasn’t being used much. And driving my husband’s ’66 Corvette convertible while wearing a pink herringbone polyester pantsuit, but that shot didn’t make it into either the movie or the deleted scenes.
The following is an excerpt from an email I’d sent after seeing the movie:
I saw Anchorman today… Hmmm… Out of a 9 week shooting schedule where I was there 9 days, of the exterior shots, only two of them were actually in the movie. I’m thinking that during reshoots, they must have reshot half the movie or something. Even if I wasn’t in frame, I should’ve recognized more of the shots. Very strange…
My car did get a blip of camera time, though…the exact same blip that’s in the theatrical trailer. My Mustang fastback is parked out front of the bar and takes up about three quarters of the screen. Kinda odd that that was the only time one of my cars was in frame. Hopefully, the DVD will have tons of deleted scenes. There’s still hope for me yet!
Hell, I might as well talk about that one night where my car was parked outside the bar. I know that last year, I didn’t write it up. That was a little bit before I started doing these Tales.
Anyhow, that night was a Second Unit gig during one of the last weeks of filming. Absolute cake of an evening. I showed up at the location, waited around until it started to get dark. Then, we got in our cars and drove essentially about a half block, parked and walked away.
At some point after the cars were parked, we broke for lunch…errr…dinner, but they still call it lunch even when it’s about 8 or 9PM.
After that, I hung out in the real bar that they were using the exterior of. It was open for business that night. Mind you, the neighborhood wasn’t the nicest and I felt kinda odd when a guy started picking up on me despite my wedding ring. So, I looked for the biggest crew guy I could find. His name was Tim, he was 6’5″ or so and somewhere around 300 pounds. A cool transpo guy. He’d driven me back to the set after lunch. On all the big shows, they’ve got shuttle vans even when the set is less than a block from base camp.
Anyhow, I just ran right up to him, gave him a big hug and told him I might’ve left something in his van. He looked at me kinda odd and I whispered, “Weird guy picking up on me” and started leading Tim out the door. He followed with a chuckle.
Once we were outside, he inquired about the weirdo like he’d get down to business if I needed him to, but I told him it wasn’t really necessary. The weirdo was a little tipsy and it was easier to just stay out of the bar for the rest of the night. So, I hung out with Tim and one of the costumers. Oddly enough, the costumer guy was smoking a Cuban cigar. I’d thought it somewhat of a waste to be smoking a Cuban on set, but he replied something like, “Nothing is ever a waste. Life is to be enjoyed.”
So, there I sat on the curb, talking philosophy, cars (and stuff I don’t even remember anymore) at about 1AM, between Tim and a big tattooed costumer who was smoking a Cuban cigar while my pride and joy ’68 Mustang fastback was getting her big break in the movies.
Life’s weird that way. And that’s just the way I like it!
Bonus shots:
This was the night that us background people were sort of filling out the scene. The cars coming toward the camera were all stunt and precision drivers. The cars going away…well, I was in that group.
I found this next one in the deleted scenes. This day was a little odd in that I was at the very tail end of the costume line somehow and all of the other car background people had not only gone through the line, but had gotten in their cars and gone to the set. I’d gotten completely left behind, so I followed one of the shuttle vans.
When I arrived, they’d started rolling, so I got in line to drive through because I wasn’t brazen enough to go and just park my car in the scene. I knew I’d get yelled at for driving through because my car was so loud, but I also felt I was there to do a job, so I went on through. The AD, predictably, told me to park it…
And for this last one, there’s a little more story involved. My ’68 Mustang Fastback is actually hidden even though it’s in frame. The arrow is pointing to me! I can’t believe I made it into the movie after all!
However… This shoot ended at about 2AM and I was pretty tired. I stayed in my disco dress and left my hair and make-up done. Why should I care what I looked like? I was only going home…
So, I was driving a little fast on the wide-open freeway that night. So, I weaved through a little bit of traffic, too. I just wanted to get home and go to bed…But of course, at that time of morning, the cops see speed and weaving and assume the driver’s drunk.
I got pulled over, but not ticketed…I showed him my paperwork from the set to verify that I was just heading home from a period movie and he really didn’t looked fazed at all. Even though my disco dress is loud, I’d imagine he’d pulled over much crazier people in weirder outfits. All turned out well and I crept home nice and slowly.
Starsky & Hutch (2)
This was definitely a life-altering experience for me. I was earning my first two SAG vouchers, on my way to getting into the union and got waaaaaaaaay more than just that. I had zero expectations going into it and just let it unfold. It’s still one of my favorite shoots ever.
Two weekend days in downtown LA that I will never forget.
The following are excerpts from an email written shortly after the shoot:
I spent my weekend on the set of the feature film Starsky & Hutch.
Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson are playing Starsky & Hutch in the movie. I’m thinking it’s gonna be rather campy. But the original S&H do make an appearance.
I saw them very briefly this weekend. They were in one of the stunt scenes we shot. I got to watch as the lead stunt driver jumped the Torino through a driveway into the street so that it landed going backward. Then, he drove in reverse gear toward the poice station and then whipped the car around 180 degrees into a parking space. Oh yeah… It was a thrill just to watch. I was about three cars away from the action… The captain of the driving team was riding in the car in front of me so he could see everything. My, oh my… what a weekend!
Let me break it all down a little more…
I showed up at base camp and got my first SAG voucher. I was absolutely on cloud 9 at this point.
The person checking me in gave me a map of the set and told me where to park. I was already in costume because wardrobe chose an outfit from my own personal collection, so I hopped in my car and drove to where the map told me to.
I was about three cars back in the line-up and gradually the rest of the background cars rolled up eventually. I was just excited to be there. I didn’t really care about much else. I was on a show that I’d loved as a kid and was two vouchers closer to getting into SAG. Life couldn’t get much better at that point.
Oh, but it did…
During the first take, the cars in front of me took off and then I was waved through frame only to discover afterward that I’d been grouped with the precision drivers!!!!
Talk about a little dream come true for me!
Because I’m a good driver, that first take set the stage for the rest of the shoot. The precision driving coach took a liking to me and used me all day the first day.
And then on the second day, I figured I’d never get used again because my car was seen so much. But when the driving coach asked me where my car was, I told him production didn’t want to see me anymore and he talked to the 1st AD about it.
WOW!
From that point on, they considered me a precision driver! I had the time of my life! He let me drive a bunch of different cars on the driving team.
I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and know how to pay attention and drive a car such that I hit the same mark every time and I got to be on the precision driving team. Yeah, the captain of the team has been stunt driving since Mission Impossible, the TV show!
By the time that second day was through, I’d driven about five different cars. It was so amazing. I’d found a new dream…to be a stunt driver or at least a precision driver. So far, that’s my absolute favorite. I already love cars.
Also, during that fantastic second day, Jen and I got to talking on my cell phone. We were in edits on Lover’s Talisman and were discussing the book as a whole.
This was the day we decided to rewrite the end of the book.
Actually, one of the weirdest things about our decision to rearrange the end of Lover’s Talisman was that I was the one who actually noticed it was lame somehow. Usually, I’m not quite that astute and Jen points out where we suck the hardest and we fix it.
I just remember sitting with the driving team on Starsky & Hutch, calling Jen on my cell phone to check in as I usually do and of course, we got to talking about Lover’s Talisman and how we were both rereading it for the millionth time.
We sort of reminisced about writing it and I was trying to figure out how to exactly say what was on my mind… That while even on the millionth read through, Lover’s Talisman wasn’t half bad, but there was one scene…(one of Jen’s personal faves from the getgo)…that I was just tired of reading.
It was wonderfully great the first time, but after the millionth, I really paid no attention to it. And it’s a friggin’ sex scene! So, I just kinda quickly glossed over that in hopes of not pissing her off and we went on to talk about other stuff.
Then, the next time I talk to her, she has this brilliant idea to rework the end of the book mainly because the cave scene really didn’t advance the plot in the ways it should.
Boy, did I wipe the sweat from my brow. 🙂 Sure I had no idea why I didn’t like the millionth read through of the cave scene, but that’s why Jen and I work so well together.
Life altering. I tell ya, this shoot had everything. Tons and tons of adventure plus writing stuff. I got to do great research for Driven To Distraction as well as get on my way to getting into SAG.
One of my all time favorite shoots bar none. I wish they were all as awesome as this one.
Ripley’s
The following is an excerpt from an email I’d sent to Jen the day after this shoot:
There were five events last night. Clearing a pool table, forward flip slam dunks, breaking boards on your forehead, hot dog eating and my personal favorite (where a new hero might come from) laying in a bathtub with the most rattlesnakes.
I was right up in the front row so one of the snake wranglers occasionally tossed me a one-liner or two. The line I remember most was, “It’s just controlled fear.”
There were two hundred rattlers on stage. And that particular wrangler even got almost bitten on his pinky finger. He’s been bit so many times that regular antidote doesn’t work on him, they’d have to do surgery.
Anyhow, the snake wranglers were from Texas so a couple were even wearing cowboy hats. The testosterone level was so deep I was worried I’d need waders. Them rattlers were pissed off and striking at each other.
That was the only event of the night where a new world record was set. One of the snake guys sat in the bathtub with 81 rattlers. Yeah, you just gotta be really still. The girl doing it had a helluva time because two rattlers started to have a fight and everyone was worried that they were gonna strike at each other, miss and end up hitting her. Also, after they got one of those pissed off rattlers out of her tub, the other one slithered deep between her legs and it took at least a half hour to figure out how to get the darn thing out of there without it striking at anyone.
Anyhow, the guy with 81 rattlers in his tub, his wrangler was the one who talked to me in between. He had to put the snakes in one by one. By the time he got to 65, he was sweating bullets because most of the snakes on the pile they were pulling from were pretty pissed off by that point. I mean, I couldn’t see the look on the guy in the tub’s face, but his wrangler was lookin’ pretty nervous as they got up through the 70s. The guy in the tub is one of those crazy guys who’ll kiss cobras.
The tension in the place was extreme because by the time there were so many rattlers in the tub, they were all getting pissed off and the number one rule of snake handling was do not make any sharp movements. I mean, the tubs were plexiglass and we could see that there were about twenty snakes just snuggling under the guy’s back. It was actually more difficult to get the snakes out of the tub than it was to put them in there.
At 81, they stopped and started taking them all out. It was so intense. That was when I decided that our hero will either be a snake wrangler or perhaps a former one.
Of all the events, the snakes really did it for me. I mean, how crazy is that? One move and the thing could strike you. These rattlers were striking sometimes multiple times. They were not messin’ around. It was great.
So, after talking with Jen, we decided to create a hero very similar to any of the guys I saw on this shoot. I’m not telling which Hollywood Heat book he’ll meet his lady, but I am serious when I say that I do background acting for the stories.
That whole night shoot was incredible. While in the audience, I stood next to an incredibly handsome fellow named Jay. Yeah, he does stunts sometimes… Just like the hero in Driven to Distraction.
Once and awhile, a gig comes along that really moves me, really affects me. This was certainly one of those gigs that offered up stories and characters smashed into an experience that knocked my socks off. And I got to keep a snake skin, too. I keep it in my office for inspiration.
And as a little side note to all of this: During my “lunch” break around midnight, I got a call from Starsky & Hutch essentially begging me to help them out and work the following weekend. Of course, I was excited, but they went one step further and offered me SAG vouchers. I was in heaven. At the time, to get into SAG, three vouchers were required and they’d just guaranteed me two. I was on my way to achieving further dreams.
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