Always open to the idea of working together on projects, The Responsible One put together a filming gig that provided the opportunity for me and several of my mates to work together. The Responsible One spent several hours drafting a script and then we both spent several hours securing talent. Fortunately for us, Sleepless, MissInformation and Iced Tea were all available. In need of an aunt, I reached out to Beaner.
“Not likely. I suck at acting and I especially suck at being an aunt,” was her text reply. “Maybe if you ‘act’ like an aunt it will improve both,” I replied. Fortunately, she finally agreed to participate. With the exception of Beaner’s role, I wasn’t aware of the roles of other, myself included. I decided to read the acts and, as I perused Act One, I found that the mom was expected to cry, sob, and memorize tons of lines. I laughed to myself and wondered, “Which poor sucker will be stuck with this role?” Then, I quickly checked the list of roles. Me. I was expected to be the crying, sobbing, emotional, lots of words mom. With the exception of ‘lots of words,’ this was definitely not the result of typecasting. I was screwed. I mean, I love to chat it up, but I do karaoke for a reason: the words are on the screen, no need to memorize.
Luckily for me, Sleepless shared the same problem with memorization, her iceberg was like a conference center at maximum capacity – cool and full. Luckily for both of us, she would be representing me in the scenario, so we got to sit next to each other during the scene. This wasn’t so lucky for everyone else. As people would say their lines, Sleepless would look at me, start to smirk, and then we would do everything in our power to not laugh, or at least not laugh so loud. Our attempts were highly unsuccessful. In the meantime, Beaner and MissInformation were seating in the pews, in character, and taking time to memorize their lines. I so wished that was me. Had The Responsible One checked my resume she would have seen I was an extra, twice, on The People’s Court – making me more than experienced for pew sitting.
Instead, Sleepless and I continued to act like we weren’t cracking up – to be honest, this was some of our best work, academy award winning no doubt. Act as we might, as others tried to deliver their lines with a sense of professionalism and pride, we still continued to giggle like school girls. When the director said, “It’s a little chunky. Let’s try to smooth it out next time,” we giggled even more.
As we were wrapping up the shoot, the director advised us to “Squeeze together for a wide angle.” Sleepless and I giggled again and Iced Tea finally broke character, “Who thought it was a good idea to have you two work together?” “Us,” we replied, giggled some more, squeezed together, and then acted like we were acting.