My friend Damion Stephens is directing a movie called Peace and Riot, filmed on location in downtown Ventura and parts of Ojai. I got roped into the role of “Assistant to the Director” because I’m a nosy asshole and I’m always up in Damion’s grill.
On set, Dames calls me his Girl Friday because I assist with everything. Almost everything.
Hey, I’m not gonna shine any knobs around here if you get my drift.
I have met, and spent a reasonable amount of time with each actor and have memories to last a lifetime. For example: Don’t ever sing the theme from The Wonder Years to Ben Savage and jokingly say, “Oops. Wrong brother.”
You will swiftly be put in your place.
Richard Riehle joined the cast and crew last week for the Honkey Tonk Bar scene, downtown at Zoey’s, a swanky little bar and eatery off Santa Clara.
Richard has a crazy resume of TV and film credits, and he has one of those memorable faces that everyone recognizes.
I’ll prove it to you:
In Peace & Riot, he plays Raymond, an ex-Marine gone cupid. His character talks tough and tries to help our Scott (Ben Savage) fall in love.
Off screen, Richard has a thick horseshoe mustache, is soft spoken, but pretty spunky if you get him going.
The first Saturday morning in Ojai, at Rancho Grande (a 220 working horse ranch), he joined us in the chow hall for breakfast, wearing brown and red flannel, one side untucked, and a pair of blue jeans. He wore a pair of blue-framed glasses, and was reading from a several-times folded piece of paper he had pulled from his shirt pocket.
On that piece of paper were all of his lines, hand-written, from Damion’s script. It was his personal cheat sheet.
During breakfast, Ken, the caretaker of the property, said, “Richard, I know I’ve seen you in a lot of movies… Could you name a few for me?”
“Well, most people usually recognize me from a movie I did a few years ago that was really popular called Office Space,” he said, “But I was also in a Lethal Weapon 4, a TV remake of that movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Glory…”
He had me at Glory.
Sure, he went on to talk about hanging out with Mel Gibson on set, and how fun Mel was, and how unfortunate Mel’s current troubles are, but when he started talking about Glory, I was like a 2nd grader listening to Shel Silverstein poems for the very first time. Little embarrassing hearts were floating out of my eyes.
Glory was critically acclaimed. Oscar winner for best supporting actor (Denzel Washington), Best Cinematography, Best sound, and Golden Globe winner of Best Performance (Denzel), Best Director (Edward Zwick),
Starring Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, Cary Elwes, and Denzel Washington. I like to think that I was 2 degrees of separation from Sarah Jessica Parker.
As he was speaking, my heart swelled up and my eyes sprung leaks. You see, Glory–for me–is one of the most amazing and touching and brutal and grotesque (especially because we’re talking about human nature) movies I’ve ever seen.
I must have sounded like quite the pussy when I said, “I cry every single time I watch that movie, I’m getting teary eyed just listening…”
I think that’s what it is about celebrity that can make us completely oblivious to one but stricken down by another– a real good spotting tickles me so much.
I’ve never been around any kind of movie set–
Unless you count that time I was on The Price is Right, but forget about that. I never made it to contestant’s row, and my friend Rena and I spent every commercial break pretending to choke each other, very exaggeratedly, with hopes that we’d get our 5 seconds of fame.
–so being a noob on this set, I couldn’t tell you what is par for the course, and what’s completely wrong. But I can say that watching Richard made me nervous. Watching him perform is always fun because you never know what he’s going to do next with his character, Raymond. He’s an expert ad-libber–his ad-libbing has even caught Ben Savage off guard and made the entire crew burst into laughter. During filming, I was inside the cabin and peeking out at the actors during scenes and I spotted Richard between the apple trees, waiting for his cue. He was talking to himself and making hand gestures as though someone else was there. The reality was that he was rehearsing lines to himself.His professionalism makes me not want to fuck up. Like when your dad sees you walking the stage at graduation… the last thing you want to do is trip on the steps and bust your ass on stage.
At dinner that Saturday night, Alan, our Director of Photography, said, “That guy’s a fucking star.”
Opinions are like assholes, Alan. That’s what my dad always says. Anyway, Alan, our assholes are twinsies.. because I totally agree.
Published by permission. Visit Mari's blog at http://www.mari-go-round.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment