An Active Life

Some tardy (non-acting) thoughts on the Fourth.

2011-07-06T13:23:00.000-07:00

They look so small from up here. Smaller even than you'd have thought.

Yeah yeah I know. I gotta back up.

Perhaps because it's an expectation-free holiday, I have a fondness for the Fourth of July. I love Christmas, too (I am the Christmas Ho, after all), but we want Christmas to go a certain way. The tree, the gifts, the music, we need it all to be just so; for Christmas, we even make requests of the weather (snow!).

But not the Fourth. You can go to a barbecue, or not; head away for the weekend, or not; gather with family or simply stay put. Up to you.

Me-- well, you know. I love fireworks. Love 'em. But this year I'd decided to head to LA for the weekend, and the return fares on the Fourth itself were simply to cheap to pass up. Since arrival in JFK in time to make a fireworks display would have meant leaving LA at an ungodly hour, I decided to gamble on the next best thing: a late afternoon flight that, if the route was right and the weather held, just might put me over some fireworks. It'd be a new perspective, and fun.

We push off fifteen minutes late, have a long taxi (TWO Delta flights get the call in front of us! Why? Why??), and aren't wheels-up until almost five. I curse American Airlines as I feel my plan slipping away.

But I do have a tendency to struggle against trusting in Faith.

The sun sets as we cross the Rockies... we clear a cloudy stretch... and we're somewhere over the Heartland (Iowa?) when I first see it: a small cluster of lights which can only be a town. (Thanks to the pervasiveness of the Sodium-Halogen streetlight, there's a distinct look to urban areas, even minor ones, from up here.) Then, just off to one side... there... no bigger than a single spark from a sparkler, really, so small I'm not even sure... until there's another. And this one's red. A tiny bright pin-pop that quickly fades.

Fireworks.

And I suddenly ache to be there, wherever There is: some baseball diamond, some fairground outside of the town, sitting on a blanket, looking up at the night. The town's now sliding underneath the wing and out of view, but no matter: here's a slightly larger town, and over there, another... and if you let your eyes sort of... drift... these tiny, colorful puffs dot the land below. Pop, fade. Pop, fade. Happy Birthday, America. Happy Birthday, us.

Now, an incredible turn of good fortune: in the distance but coming up fast, Chicago! What are the odds? A major city, at just the right time-- and on a clear night! I'm gonna get my Big City fireworks after all.

I notice two concentrated bursts that are busier than the others --the big displays-- but, funny thing: from here, they're not that much different than the smaller ones. Not much at all. Still I watch, for the Grand Finales will be impressive, surely. And they do get a bit brighter... but then they simply stop.

I settle back in my seat. I'm depressed, a little, let down, a little... but there's something else, a thing I've felt before; a vague feeling of what I can only call profundity that's making itself known. And since I am a religious person I believe that to be the gentle nudging of God.

"Oh, come on, what--" I think, "can't I just sit here and feel depressed?" Fine. OK, Universe, I'll bite: what am I missing? Think, Peter.

Personally, I go back and forth on the whole There Are No Accidents concept. But tonight, well, the timing could be chalked up to chance (but that delay at the gate...), the clear sky, to predictable weather patterns...

...but the good stuff outside the window is NEVER on my side of the plane.

So. I got the Big Show, like I requested... but from up here, there really wasn't much difference...

Ah. Got it. I'm a little slow sometimes, but in the end I get it.

It's one of my great flaws, see, this Wishing I Was Somewhere Else. And I can imagine myself on that rural baseball diamond, pining for Chicago (or that plane flying way up high), not appreciating what was lighting up the sky right over my head, losing the moment while not realizing that, depending on your seat, that change-everything difference isn't such a difference at all.

Which leads to: is it like this about everything? Beauty, wealth, accomplishment? When you're Up Here, far enough from it, do all our seemingly-important differences grow narrow? All these distinctions we measure by, and value so highly-- success or failure, rich or poor, hot or not?

And I wonder if this is how it will be when we Depart: a flight that doesn't follow the curve of the earth but flies straight, soaring off while behind us everything slowly... fades. What's that? What kind of car did I drive? From up here you can't even recognize cars. (Although a bit of practical advice from a lot of night flying: have bright headlights.) So, maybe, none of this matters so much.

No. It's this: ALMOST nothing matters. For as I think on it, I come back to where I always come back: love.

I'll miss that a whole lot. I wouldn't have a panicky urge to claw out of my plane just to jump back down to get my car; I'd want to get back to the people. Sure, I'd want to experience a little more. But I've experienced plenty. Really, I'd want to feel a little more. That's what I'm gonna miss.

None of us have taken that particular flight yet, though we all have a reservation. But we already know that the feelings won't fade. As for the rest... perspective.

So, Universe, thanks for this-- and, ya know, worth the Holiday flight. A new experience, and a lesson learned.

But next year, I'm going to a Big Show.

A few thoughts about home (what else?)

2011-05-08T22:39:00.001-07:00

"Do you mean to tell me, Katie Scarlett O'Hara, that Tara, that LAND doesn't mean anything to you? Why, land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts."
--Gone With The Wind.

Nine PM. Back at Terminal Four at LAX. And, indeed, where better to finally write to you than the Admirals Club?

And, no, not gloating. At all. The kind of chap who's a gloater, see, would have MADE that 4:20PM flight, and not had to spend his last few hours in LA gazing out at at incoming and outgoing air traffic.

Anyway. Sorry for dropping off the radar for a bit. I've been working on two (!) Scene-of-the-months (and they're winners), and I didn't want to write 'til they were done... but here I am. Thinking. (...and, in truth, drinking as well. Never good, but free wine will do that to a man.)

I am by ancestry Irish, mostly. And as such, am a member of a culture for whom bonding to a place, a home, is a defining link in the DNA.

But I currently pay rent on three storage facilities. I am having mail held in two cities. My car keys are with a friend. I offer a quick nod of acquaintance to the ID kid at the TSA line at LAX (who, I SWEAR TO CHRIST, is the twin of Jake Gyllenhal), and he says: "where you been?" I have not boarded a plane in about two months and realize that is my longest flight-gap in over three years.

And standing here, gazing into the mirror of the admittedly lovely restroom in the Admiral's Club... I look tired. (When it didn't matter, I was often called "young-looking." Really, who gives a shit? Now, an embarrassing truth: I do. And I'm not, any more.) I don't think people are meant to live like this. At least not people like me.

But... what if I'm wrong? I never thought I'd get good at this life, but. No matter what it is, we get good at what we do. And I don't know how it happened but this is what I do.

Is there ever a moment? When a person looks in a mirror and realizes that, perhaps, This Is It, For Me? (and, if so, shouldn't such a moment have come earlier in life?) Is there a too-yong part of me fighting this, protesting that no, there's Something Else?

Besides. Amongst us humans there are nomads-- entire cultures defined by their ability to never put down roots. As one of the Concord Poets (Emerson?) pointed out, migratory birds never return to last year's nest. Thing is, how does one know such a thing about one's self?

Do you?

Outside, in a ballet of slow-motion, whale-like grace, a Quantas 747 is pushed onto the taxiway. Strange, how silent it is behind glass. In truth, I love this part. I love wondering where that plane is going, what lives are moving forward. I do love forward motion.

And now, quietly in the background, Miles Davis. Flamenco Sketches, off "Kind of Blue." One of the most beautiful pieces of music ever recorded.

Again: what is it, exactly, with life? How can it be beautiful and mysterious and lonely and hard and joyful all at once? I thought only women possessed that capability...

I owe you an apology, I think, because this was heading somewhere when it started (I swear it was). But it ended... here.

So. I'm in NYC for a month or so, with a few Boston weekends in the mix. I'd love to see you-- so if you're looking for a class in NYC or Boston let me know.

Actually, shoot me an email either way. I'd love to hear your thoughts on all this. I really would.

Thanks for reading,

PK

Some thoughts on my last day at 601

2011-03-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

the view from my ex-office

I saw your picture today.

Yes, sir, yours. In black and white. You're sporting that full, proud head of hair in your headshot, staring out at the world with your best "you know you want this" look.

Now, you're a little... older. And thicker. And bald. It happens.

Oh, I saw yours too, missy-- you too with the hair, the leather jacket, and nothing but a lacy black bra underneath(!), looking for all the world like The Hot Extra in a Van Halen video.

Now you've got a different last name, a kid (two?), and don't really act much anymore. It happens.

And I saw you, too, my friend. I wasn't really prepared to see you today. You were alive then.

Now you're not. It happens.

I moved out of my office this weekend. As some of you know, my awesome and entirely too lenient landlords at 601 W. 26th in Manhattan had, when I shifted my base of operations to LA, offered me a sweetheart deal on my office, with the understanding that if a "full-price" taker came along, well, that was that.

How come we never, ever think these things will come to pass? I'm still in LA, mostly, and simply cannot justify full freight on my amazing office, so it was time to go. (But I will be back.) I'd been slow to respond, and February's a short month-- next thing you know I'm realizing that I've got ten days to clear out. Oh, I was prepared for the hassle: if you're an actor, chances are you're a "mover" too (funny, the things we get good at)... but.

What I was not at all prepared for was how difficult it would be inside.

My mom's a hoarder. Foolishly, I thought I was immune to this; I am cured of that misconception when I open a desk drawer and find it stuffed to capacity with paper napkins. (Hey-- they give 'em to you every time you get, like, anything at the commissary on the 8th floor-- and, ya know, Free Napkin! It just seems like a waste to chuck 'em.) (I'm right about this, BTW, and NOT crazy.) It takes about ten minutes to realize that A) I've been in this office longer than I'd thought, and B) there's been a whole lot of hoardin' going on. Time for some hard decisions. A little tough love.

So I labor. I agonize over each keep-it/chuck-it moment, and there are hundreds of them (How is this possible in a 10X10 office??). And in the midst of this Hoarder Hell... I finally arrive at my headshot files.

You should know this: if you have ever, ever walked into my office with a headshot, in any city, at any time... I still have it. I resolve to thin this herd by at least a half. It's ridiculous, really, all these crates. (As a side note, I'm saddened by the gaps in my recent collection due to the lazy proliferation of "oh let me just send it to you electronically." Do yourself a favor: print your headshot. Pay the money. Get the richest, most vivid headhsots you can, and carry them with you, and give them to people like me. It will pay off.)

So I spend the rest of the day staring. At you. So many headshots. Each one the representation of a dream. All these little triumphs, little heartbreaks.

Here's something I bet you think isn't true, but it is: I remember you. Whether we met on Harrison Ave or Babcock Street or East Broadway or South Street or Greene Street or 440 Lafayette or 6th Ave or Greenwich street or any of the other countless rooms I've rented over the years... I remember you.

And in remembering you then, I remember me then, too. Who I was. The sky I saw. The world I lived in.

And here's what I realize, as today's sky darkens and the lights of Manhattan outside my gorgeous window (sigh) twinkle to life and I'm still sitting, overwhelmed, amongst a sea of headshots: I'm proud of you. Because in the end, whatever the result, I think it is the attempt that counts. I believe that. I do. And I was a part of that and I'll bet I didn't say thank you but I am. Thankful. More than you know.

It's fully dark when I come to realize one more thing: I'm keeping your headshot. In fact, I'm not throwing out a single one.

IN those rare moments that I share, I sometimes tell people that what I want most in my life --my deepest fantasy, my porn-- is photo albums. Or, more to the point, to have a life where photo albums would exist. And every day I carry a little ache with me that I don't.

But sitting in that dark office I realize that I do.

You're my photo album.

601 W. 26th St.
Feb 28, 2011

Some thoughts on Thanksgiving. And Thankfulness, and friends

2010-11-29T03:19:00.000-08:00

When you live this Nomadic Life, it happens now and then: you vanish.

Everyone in your life --at least everyone who thinks to wonder about it-- assumes that you're somewhere other than where you actually are. At that moment you could be anywhere, or nowhere at all. The wind of life has calmed and you are, for the moment, adrift: your course, for better or worse, is yours alone.

Where I am is Del Mar, a sleepy surf town turned chi-chi beach community north of San Diego (and home, over the years, to various Kelleys). I'd come down for the holiday and realized, once here, that I wasn't really needed in LA until noon on Monday. We've got a spare house on the hill (long story), and, after saying my familial good-byes, rather than heading back up the coast I chose to stay.

But something's not quite right, and it takes me a minute to place it: I'm walking funny. I'm moving fast, hands dug into packets, tilting against a sharp wind. It's a New Englander's walk, this, and its strange dislocation brings a thought I've not thought in years: it's a "cliffe-y" day. The phrase arrives as a memory; it brings a smile and warms me in that way that only nostalgia can. It's from years ago, learned from a grad school chum back in Boston who'd done his undergrad at Harvard, and the "cliffe" is meant to reference Radcliffe girls. Like Radcliffe girls, you see, a "cliffe-y" day is Bright But Cold. Ahem.

One so seldom gets these days in Southern California. The vivid blue sky, the ocean a foreboding slate grey, flecked with whitecaps hair-tussled by the wind. It strikes me that the day and I are both out of place: we're Here, yes, but we're a better fit Back There. The thought brings a vague ache, which I trace back, as I so often do, to family. After all, it's Thanksgiving, and the iconography of the holiday has always run deep in me: the fire, warming against a shortening day, the day-long aroma of the great meal-- and, of course, family, gathered close.

One of the wonderful advantages of family --one's actual, flesh-and-blood relatives--- is the ability of such relationships to endure a certain amount of what can best be understood as a kind of laziness: you love 'em, you don't; you're speaking to each other, you're not; no matter. They're still family and nothing will change that. And while we should nurture those relationships, well... even if we neglect them, come Thanksgiving, there's still a seat at a table, somewhere.

But as one ages, one wants to create one's own table. (It's what your parents did, after all.) And if you live a life like mine you may not have yet succeeded in doing so. And if you haven't, you learn something else: the incredible generosity of a seat at a table, any table, that is set aside for you by friends. And when a seat at the table of friendship is be the only seat available, one's friendships grow valuable indeed.

Because unlike family, friendship is always a choice. And like any relationship of choice, if left untended, it will simply fade. And that's a pity, but it seems epidemic of late. It has become so easy to simply not return the call, to blow off the party-- but as we do, bit by bit those wonderful friendships fade.

This is what I'm thinking about as I drive along the coast later: my friends. Who have so often, over the years, become a fill-in family when I needed one most.

If you know me, you know I've got a love-hate relationship to all that San Diego represents (when I lived here, I was a small, pale, druggie kid who didn't tan or surf well, a decidedly bad combination in the Land of the Beautiful). But this stretch of of the PCH, from Torrey Pines Park through San Diego's coastal north, late in the afternoon when the sun is low, grows only more beautiful to me over time.

I'm headed to the E Street Cafe, a little coffeehouse in Encinitas that's retained the raggedy, surf-town vibe that most places in Fashionable North County have lost: hippie kids, elderly couples, and a few leathered, weathered Lost Causes that one sees in beach communities. On the drive up, I wasn't really sure why I came, but once I walk inside the place I know: I've got something to write.

There's a singer, see, a portly fellow best described as a San Diego Cowboy --a kind of Wilfred-Brimley-by-way-of-David-Crosby, if that makes sense-- and as I walk in, he's singing a Beatles tune: "With a Little Help From My Friends."

I do not think this coincidence. I am certain it is evidence of God. But to talk of God at a moment like this, it's best to talk first of Gratitude, and Thankfulness, especially as we're at the tail end of a holiday meant to honor the giving of thanks.

Gratitude seems to have come into vogue lately. A good thing, to be sure, but in so doing it is often confused with thankfulness, which may not be quite the same thing. I've always understood thankfulness as an inter-human notion: I am thankful that you gave me a ride, or that you called me when I was feeling down. Gratitude is a deeper, less concrete notion; it has at its core, I think, an appreciation for What Is, for life itself as much as one's things in it, and requires an accompanying acknowledgement of one's incredible fortune to be a part of All That Is. As such, I think it's impossible to contemplate Gratitude without some acceptance of a Higher Power. Here's why:

It could be argued that it's simply a matter of coincidence that I find sunsets beautiful. After all, it's only a sunset, nothing more than a refracting of light as the sun dips below the horizon-- it would occur without humanity to bear witness to it. I could be indifferent to it, I could be made nauseous at the sight of it. Instead, it brings me a kind of quiet joy. You too, I'm guessing.

A fortunate coincidence? That we just happen to exist on a planet that happens to have this phenomenon that we happen to find beautiful? Perhaps... but. That feels to me wrong. In some way that I cannot articulate, it makes sense that the setting sun would please us. It feels right when I contemplate it; "righter" still when I experience it.

I'd respectfully submit that the "right-feeling" is the presence of God inside me. And I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the day that I've been given, for the God that produced it.

So. Thankfulness and Gratitude. And friends.

For all my wonderful friends, who are so crazy and baffling and loyal and wonderful that I may not even deserve them, I am thankful. More, I fear, than they know. And to God (or The Universe, if that helps), I am Grateful for the ability to care so deeply and appreciate my friends so very much. It is something that does not get said enough, I think.

It's dark out now. The cold snap that has settled over Southern California remains. Or maybe it's me-- maybe it's simply that my blood has finally grown thin. Either way, I'm already bracing for the quick walk to the car. But tonight, even in the chilly dark, I think I'll leave the top down.

Speaking of thankfulness: thanks for reading.

PK
Del Mar, CA
November, 2010

Acting 101: A tale of Two Entrances

2010-11-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

People sometimes ask what, exactly, I do on set. By way of an answer, here's a story - and a little Acting 101 brush-up. Which everyone needs, sometimes.

DAY ONE of a new episode is always interesting. Everyone's shaking off the cobwebs of the previous episode (which we were working on 12 hours earlier), everyone's getting warmed into an entirely new story. As a result, we're often on the soundstage (the "Operations Center") on Day 1-- it's a controlled location, crews know their way around the space, and things can move quickly.

This new episode is bookended by two scenes between Callen, our lead, and Hetty, the wizened "boss" of the investigators. More, they're set in the same location, and the staging is almost identical in each. Since they're both relatively simple "gets" involving only two characters, we'll start day one with these two scenes.

But here's the thing: due to a number of logistical considerations, they'll be shot in reverse order. And since the story in the script covers a single day, that means that Callen's first entrance (a shot that will go off at 7:30AM, give or take) is meant to be at the tail end of a long, wearying day that ends the episode; as soon as that scene's done, we'll shoot the very first shot of the story, when none of the day's violent events will have yet occurred.

Same actor, same entrance, completely different emotional moments. Two hours apart. Think it's easy? Try it.

So we start with the wide. All looks good, except Callen is not quite entering with that heavy, "end-of-a-long-day" energy that the moment requires. In the focused momentum of getting that first shot, we've skipped a commonly overlooked part of an actor's prep:

The Moment Before

It's a concept borrowed from the theatre, to be sure: essentially, the actor must ensure that the energy of their entrance is in keeping with the circumstances of the moment-- or, more specifically, the moment just before one's entrance. Hence, "Moment Before." (Some of you may have learned this as "Given Circumstances", but it's the same concept. ) It's a simple idea-- but mastery of it is so, so much more critical to a film performance than theatre.

Why? Two reasons: first, we often shoot the place you're leaving days after the place you're going to, and without doing this work you will never maintain continuity. Second, often a film or TV scene is so short that the entrance IS the scene, or a big part of it. Think: how many entrances and exits does a character make in a play, and how many in a film? So call it what you want-- Given Circumstances, Moment Before, makes no difference. The key to mastering it is the same:

remember that every entrance is an exit, and every exit is an entrance.

Like so many things in acting, you can notice this in action in life: when you're entering your apartment, you're leaving the hall. When you're entering a restaurant, you're leaving the sidewalk. And if you pay attention to the entrances and exits of others, you'll notice just how much of the "Moment Before" they carry with them.

In this case, our work required no more than a 20-second conversation to shift Chris' emotional focus from where he was entering (the gymnasium) to where he was leaving (his office, at the end of a draining day). Since we'd already worked the scene itself, that "scene energy" would take over when it happened. There was no need to focus on the upcoming moment.

Which seems counter-intuitive to some actors, but: imagine walking out of your apartment, fresh off a phone call with a debt collector, and now you're late, and life just really really sucks.... when there's Megan Fox (or Johnny Depp), passed out naked in front of your door.

Suddenly, that crappy phone call doesn't seem so important.

So if that's your scene (and if it is, LUCKY YOU), you don't open the door with "here comes Megan/Johnny, can't wait!"; rather, you open it with "well, THAT sucked..." The sight of Megan/Johnny will then carry you into the present moment.

It is understandable that an actor with a long day might overlook this. It's even more understandable that the director, who's rightfully focused on not getting behind on Day 1, is not going to slow down because of an entrance on the wide that may or may not even be used. The truth? If the actor hits their marks, connects on their lines, and all of the technical land mines that can sabotage a shot are avoided, then everyone will be happy, and we'll move on.

Which is, on one level, as it should be: taken on its own, the specific energy of any single entrance a character makes is a minor thing, to be sure. But minor things add up. "So what," you say - "who will notice?"

You will. The audience will. And over the arc of a season you'll notice that the show is demanding just a little less of you.

But at 7:30AM on Day One, it's possible that everyone might miss it. Except the guy who's hired specifically to watch for these things.

And if you don't have one of those guys --and chances are you don't-- then it's your job to remember: context. On an entrance, remember where you're coming from. On an exit, think about where you're going to.

Because we'll notice.

My favorite scene

2010-10-18T15:56:00.000-07:00

(*one of) MY FAVORITE SCENE(s): A CASE STUDY

PART 1: SOME BACKSTORY

Funny how some conversations never really end-- they simply spin out of the orbit of one's life, only to return, comet-like, with some unmeasurable regularity. For me, "The Strong Film Scene", where I find them, and how to recognize them in the wild (as it were), has recently circled back into orbit. It's been the usual questions from actors, mostly. But then the other day I get this: "there really aren't any amazing film scenes. Not like there are in theatre."

If you know me at all you know I can't let that go.

The irony here is that I agree with the statement-- for an actor, an amazing film scene IS nothing like an amazing theater scene.

It's better. And for a writer, it's harder to write.

I have for years railed against the notion that challenging, quality writing exists mostly in theatre; that in contrast, there's an "emperor's new clothes" quality in writing for film and television, and the actors' work in front of the camera mainly involves investing the writing with a depth it does not, on its own, possess. The more I read strong screenplays, work the meatiest scenes, the more I respect the accomplishment of the writer, whose work is done, and the challenge for the actor, whose work (unlike in the theater) often must begin and end in a matter of days.

But I digress.

To those who'd asked about The Strong Film Scene, I was simply going to fire off a "Top Ten" compilation of my personal all-time favorite scenes (and since my "library" now stands at about 1,100 scenes, even that list was agonizingly difficult to assemble), but again: if you know me at all you know that's not how I roll.

I decided instead on a Case Study. I'd send along a single scene, one that contains all my requisite characteristics of The Strong Film Scene-- then put it under a microscope to show what, exactly, makes it so strong.

So what are characteristics of such scenes? There are several (characters I can HEAR and BELIEVE on the page is a characteristic that's becoming increasingly difficult to find...); for now, let's focus on two: ECONOMY and TENSION.

ECONOMY

The Overlord of the screenplay is page count. There is an unspoken truth Out Here that, no matter how solid a screenplay, Shorter is Better. It's 120 pages? Make it 110, and it's better. 98? Lets get to 94. Much to my surprise, I think I've finally drank the cool-aid on this-- because in my experience It's almost always true: inexperienced writers love to burn through pages with dialogue. So:

The First Universal Quality of the Strong Film Scene: it accomplishes what it needs to accomplish without an excess of words. A beautiful film scene will carry us emotionally from A to Z with an economy of dialogue.

This does NOT mean it covers less emotional ground. Rather, it challenges the actor to do work which is distilled, sometimes even into a single moment. And when you see it on the page (and, later, brought to life), you realize how often words are used as crutches, by actors and writers alike.

As some of you know, I'm originally from the theatre, and MAN was this a hard lesson to learn. But during my years lecturing at film schools, learn it I did. "Film is a visual medium," we'd drum into the Little Scorceses' heads. "Tell the story with pictures."

So where does this leave dialogue? Superfluous?

Nothing could be further from the truth. As any poet will tell you, when you place a restriction on words, each word you do use becomes far more valuable.

As an example, Neil Simon (an under-rated playwright) does not, for the most part, film well. Why? No Tension-- at least not the kind that is of interest to us in film, which we'll get to in a minute-- but, also, all those words.

Look - here's an example of "couple" tension:

SHE walks in, slumps on the sofa. Sighs loudly. HE notices...

HE
You OK?

SHE
...Yeee-up.

He stares at her for a beat, unsure. Then...

HE
You sure? 'Cause--

SHE
--I'm FINE.
(to herself)
God...

What's of interest here, of course, is what ISN'T said. And if the actors do the work, if they invest in what's underneath those simple words... well, that films like crazy. The camera invites the viewer in to the internal world of the actor-- what is that person really thinking? What do they really want? That can't happen on stage, at least not in the same way. We have the close-up to thank for that.

But Neil Simon is a consummate writer for the stage. He creates a world in which people say what they think, and think what they say. Here's the same scene, "Simon-ized":

HE
You OK?

SHE
Yup.

He stares at her for a beat.

HE
You sure? 'Cause--

SHE
--I'm FINE.
(then)
But you know what gets me? I mean you really want to know?
It's how for three MONTHS you've been coming in here, with that
"everything's OK" look..."

...and here comes an articulate, clever monologue, during which all the character's thoughts spill out. We are not shown the inner struggle, we're told about it. Good onstage; better still for that monologue audition. VERY hard to film.

So, economy. The strong film scene is rich with moments yet uses words sparingly, giving the actors something to do.

Speaking of which...

TENSION

Actors who've studied with me have heard me use this term, as it's central to my work. I'm not talking about "tension" in the usual sense, that tight feeling in the air when you walk into a conflict in progress. Rather, I'm talking about the tension between what's INSIDE you and what you let OUT, to the world. It can spring from frustration, fear, desire; no matter.

The greater the tension, the better you film.

Period.

Screaming at someone actually releases that tension. Obscenities release that tension. In fact, most of what you may have been taught in drama school releases that tension. Or, to borrow from Mr. Strasberg, all the yelling and swearing is merely a weak attempt to INDICATE a tension that does not, in fact, exist.

Not that the tension must always remain contained-- in fact, release of The Tension can be a powerful moment. It's what drives every romantic comedy, after all: what's inside (God, I want to kiss you...) is submerged by what's outside (...but I can't!). If an actor feels this, it needn't be forced. I've got a camera; I'll come inside you and get it. And we'll accompany an actor on a long journey indeed if we sense tension, for we know we'll be rewarded at the end, when it breaks. The downside to this? If you have no inner tension, well, I'll film that too.

An actor would do well to respect that it can be an act of faith for a writer to write this kind of tension into a scene-- for what if the actor misses it? But strong writers realize that there really is no other kind of dramatic scene to write.

Why? Because it's how we live. Oh, and P.S.: it films like crazy.

________________________________________________________________

PART 2: FINALLY, THE SCENE

from THE SWEET HEREAFTER, adapted by Atom Egoyan

This is a perfect little jewel of a scene.

THE SET-UP: for those who haven't seen it, The Sweet Hereafter starts with a devastating event: in a small town in Canada, on a sunny winter morning, a school bus skids on a patch of ice and careens into a frozen lake, killing almost all the kids on board-- and effectively killing all the town's children.

The story traces the terrible aftershocks of this event, seen through the progress of a predatory lawyer, Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm, brilliant as always), who comes to the town in an attempt to organize a class action lawsuit.

THE SCENE: BILLY, widowed with two children, has been having an affair with RISA, married, who owns a roadside motel with her husband. Both of Billy's children (and Risa's son) were killed in the crash. (Worse, Billy was driving behind the bus that morning and saw it slide into the lake.) Prior to the crash, Billy and Risa had been arranging clandestine meetings in the motel; this is their first meeting after the crash. (FYI, "Nicole" is a teenager who'd been babysitting Billy's children; she was the only student to survive the crash. "Lydia" is Billy's deceased wife.) Here is the scene in its entirety:

INT. MOTEL - NIGHT
Billy sits in his chair in room 11. He is alone, tapping on a pack of cigarettes.

After a moment, the door opens. It is Risa. They stare at each other for a moment.

RISA
I knew you'd be here.

Risa sits on the bed. Pause.

RISA
Are you going to the funeral?
Another pause.

BILLY
I stopped by the station a while ago. I stared at the bus.
I could almost hear the kids inside. There was a lawyer
there. He told me he'd gotten you signed up. Is that true?

RISA
Something made this happen, billy. Mr.
Stephens is going to find out what it was.

BILLY
What are you talking about? It was an accident.

RISA
Mr. Stephens says someone didn't put a right bolt in the bus--

BILLY
--Risa, I service that bus. At the garage.
There's nothing wrong with it--

RISA
--or that the guardrail wasn't strong enough.

BILLY
You believe that?

RISA
I have to.

BILLY
Why?

RISA
Because I have to.

Pause.

BILLY
Well I don't.

Billy gets up to leave.

RISA
Is it true that you gave Nicole one of Lydia's dresses?
That she was wearing it when the bus crashed?

BILLY
Yes.

RISA
Why did you do that, Billy?

BILLY
You think that caused the accident, Risa?
That it brought bad luck? Christ, it sounds to
me like you're looking for a witch doctor, not a lawyer.
Or maybe they're the same thing.

Risa is overwhelmed. Billy opens the door. Turns back.

BILLY
You know what I'm going to miss? More than making love?
It's the nights you couldn't get away from Wendell.
It's the nights I'd sit in that chair for an hour.
Smoking cigarettes and remembering my life before.

Billy stares at Risa for a moment, then leaves. Risa collapses.

I saw this film over a decade ago; I've worked this scene dozens of times since. It still get hit in the chest every time I read it.

So let's get to work. We first see Billy, thinking. Then:

After a moment, the door opens. It is Risa. They stare at each other for a moment.

RISA
I knew you'd be here.

...and right there I love this scene. Why? Because, if you're Risa... "I knew you'd be here?"

No you didn't no you didn't. Lie lie lie lie lie. You HOPED he'd be there, sure-- but can you IMAGINE the long walk down to the last room on the end? How deep the gnawing fear that you'd open the door onto emptiness?

(A DIGRESSION: no, this is not implicit in the script. This is a capital-C Choice. But filling in the blanks in the deepest way possible is what you DO, remember?) (Think I'm wrong? OK... so what do YOU do during those agonizing days after an audition when you're waiting for a call? Filling in the blanks is what you do, with some catastrophic, nightmare scenario of casting people stopping whatever they're doing to call one another to warn the whole town against YOU AND YOUR BAD ACTING.) (Ahem.)

So you take a breath, open the door... and there he is. Billy. The clouds part, your stomach relaxes. Until...

Risa sits on the bed. Pause.

From BIlly, silence. No smile, no "hey, baby," no nothing. And the sky clouds right back over and you begin to collapse inside. And you say, what?

RISA
Are you going to the funeral?

OH how I love that awkward, space-filler question. THE WHOLE TOWN is going to the funeral, and you both know it. It's just something to say. And all you get is more silence (I adore silence in film), before finally:

BILLY
I stopped by the station a while ago. I stared at
the bus. I could almost hear the kids inside.
There was a lawyer there. He told me he'd gotten
you signed up. Is that true?

OK. So, Billy: your answer, the very first words you speak, aren't a response to Risa all. Before you even open your mouth, this scene demands that you'd better have an answer to this question: why are you here? All your stillness, all your silence (Tension and Economy...), paying off, how?

The answer is right there: Mitchell Stephens. You need to hear from Risa's mouth that she signed on with the guy. You didn't come here to get laid, you came here to see how she reacts when you tell her, how she looks when she admits it. Because you sure aren't gonna sign. (And here's the killer: Lydia wouldn't have, either. Oh how you must ache for her.) (Yes, that's another Choice.) And then comes this perfectly crafted exchange:

RISA
Something made this happen, billy. Mr. Stephens is going to find out what it was.

BILLY
What are you talking about? It was an accident.

RISA
Mr. Stephens says someone didn't put a right bolt in the bus--

BILLY
--Risa, I service that bus. At the garage. There's nothing wrong with it--

RISA
--or that the guardrail wasn't strong enough.

BILLY
You believe that?

RISA
I have to.

BILLY
Why?

RISA
Because I have to.

BILLY
Well I don't.

...and, really, that's it. All the whispered conversations, the secrecy, the WORK required to keep an affair secret, here in a small town... gone. Each now knows who other is, in a way they hadn't before. There's nothing more to say. And Billy got what he came for. (And if you're RISA, I just know you're not simply going to blurt out "I have to," as if it's a pretty way of saying "yes." Because you know it's a much more difficult, honest answer to give, and reveals so much about who you are.)

Billy starts out. And we could easily cut the scene right there. Except....

RISA
Is it true that you gave Nicole one of Lydia's dresses?
That she was wearing it when the bus crashed?

BILLY
Yes.

RISA
Why did you do that, Billy?

...and my heart breaks all over again. This exchange does not move the story forward, at all, EXCEPT as it deepens our understanding of who Risa is: we have been underestimating the depth of her grief. She simply does not have the capacity to absorb what's happened. And she knows it, and now Billy does, too.

Risa is overwhelmed. Billy opens the door. Turns back.

BILLY
You know what I'm going to miss? More than making love?
It's the nights you couldn't get away from Wendell.
It's the nights I'd sit in that chair for an hour.
Smoking cigarettes and remembering my life before.

...and the scene elevates to another dimension entirely. Two reasons:

First, take a look at the line again-- try to notice where, exactly, Billy dumps Rita. See it?

Of course not - because by the time he speaks he's already ended the relationship. He dumps Rita in the silence. It's a subtle point, yes, but the difference between good writing and great is so often subtle. There is no "so this is it, Rita," or "it's over," any any of those other parting shots that so many writers write but no one ever really says. Rather, Billy STARTS with "you know what I'm going to miss?"-- and by doing so we understand that this is already in the past for him.

Second, if you're Billy... you don't have to say any of that. You could simply leave. This is worse than a slap, this is more humiliating than a spit in the face. Sure, you're leaving-- but before you do, you want to make sure this woman understands that the best thing about sleeping with her.... was not sleeping with her?

You tell her because you want it to hurt. You tell her because, after all, it's a small town. You'll see each other. And you don't ever want to talk about this again and Risa needs to know something raw: in your heart, she is not Lydia. She never was, she never will be.

Whenever I work this scene I am reminded of dunking a basketball.

Really, nothing could be simpler: here's the ball. There's the hoop. Put it in.

Yet that simplest of acts is beyond most of our capabilities. We can coach and train and coach and train... but we will never dunk a basketball. (That's OK, by the way. We have other gifts.) As any shy guy who's had to ask a woman out (ahem) will tell you: simple does not mean easy.

And so it is with this scene. Really, it's not complicated.

If you're Risa: Billy is the love of your life. You dream every day of building a life with this man. In this scene, he leaves you-- but before he does, he cuts your heart out. And, to make it worse (and to put it bluntly), he blows you off for a dead chick. (Good luck with that.)

If you're Billy: Lydia was the love of your life. In this scene, you come to hate yourself for every day you spent with Risa. You come to hate your weakness, your loneliness, and in the end you feel an unimaginable ache for your deceased wife. She would never, ever have signed on with any lawyer. And she's dead. (Good luck with that.)

All in two and a half pages. All this risk, all this revelation, all this devastation, without either character flying off into a rage or launching into some musing about--

...how it got like this... do you remember
that first time, Billy? Do you? That magical
night, by the lake? I've been thinking so
much about that and, you know, I was actually
worried, terrified, really, that something like
this might come out of that mouth of yours--

--stop. Stop stop stop. This is the movies, and we don't need that. You're an actor; you'll show us. And we'll film it.

And that's what makes a Strong Film Scene.

P.S.: I hate to admit this but it's so instructive I have to come clean: when you write, it's always wise to run what you've written through a "word count" program to get a feel for length.

This piece (which includes the scene) is about 3,000 words.
The scene itself, in its entirety: 300 words.

If you make your living acting in front of the camera you'd do well to think about that.

Los Angeles, CA
Oct, 2010

Life in Flight

2010-07-30T18:42:00.001-07:00

It takes about an hour to relax.

After all these years, all these hundreds of flights... I am still always, always last-minute getting to the airport. And since I really fly out of only two airports (JFK and LAX), I'm a Jedi at getting to each. And even though I fly solo these days, I have to think that my timing would be exasperating (to say the least) for anyone who accompanying me who is less last-minute than I.

Today, it's LAX. Where my flight is at 3PM. Lemme lay it out for you:

1:12:walk off the lot (Paramount, Van Ness @ Melrose).

1:16: realize that I have left my car keys somewhere on the lot. (Production Office? Set? trailer?) My 1:15 exit was tightly timed as it was, so this has the potential to Majorly Suck. Because the lot is BIG.

1:23: walk off the lot, take 2. (keys were on set-- in the shot! Well played, PK!)

1:28: pull out of the parking structure and onto Melrose... to McCadden... to 6th... to La Brea... to the 10... to La Cienega.. to La Tijera... to Airport... to the hated Lot C.

2:04: Score a prime parking space! Just make the shuttle bus! I RULE!!

2:14: at AA Terminal 4.

2:29: at the gate-- and I get the Upgrade (sa-weet!)....

3:21: plane leaves the ground. (Frequent Flier Note: when the captain comes on and announces the "estimated flight time" it's usually accurate TO THE MINUTE. It's spooky.

So between the lot and takeoff, it's a tense two hours. Naturally, it takes about an hour to let all that recede.

And after all the drama, here's the thing: I find myself in one of these seats roughly every two weeks. I love it. I love the white noise of the engines and the fans. I love the fast-forward sunsets (I ALWAYS get a window) and the way the sky fades from blue to orange to black. I love the disconnect from worldly things. Truth? I'd do this every day, if I could. The food in Business is good, the wine's great, the service is phenomenal (why can't I have a Waiter Call Button at a bar?)-- and don't get me started about that view.

And, about an hour in... something unwinds. And for this moment, I am nowhere. I'm not here, I'm not there. Nobody's yammering on a phone. There is no text to reply to. I am a happy captive, here in 7A, and I can, finally, think. And breathe.

And see, finally, that those postage-stamp towns are like life, in a way: the events that seem so important up close are impossible to even distinguish from here. But the feelings, the love... funny, how distance and time have no effect on that.

I both love and hate my life for being forever mysterious to me. How is that possible? But I suppose that's why we make movies. They're a clumsy, beautiful attempt to explain it.

A little big event this morning

2010-05-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

So I was forwarded two things this morning: an actor-written screenplay...
and a link to the following Bukowski poem.

And this is why I believe in God.

so you want to be a writer
by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

NCIS - LA: finally, a working stiff

2010-04-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

I got paid for last Friday.

Yeah, OK, so what... except: Friday was a holiday, and we didn't shoot.

Again, I know: so what?

Here's so what-- for me (and perhaps you), it's been "eat what I kill" my entire adult life. Prior to now, I've never, ever been paid for not working. Not on New Years, not the Fourth of July, not on Christmas. I get sick? Bummer for me. Vacation? Factor in the loss of income and decide if it's worth it. Where's the rent coming from next month? Wait for the phone to ring, and see. Which wears a body down, after a while.

Many of you know what this feels like. Others have lived it for a time, and said "not for me, thanks." Still others read this and think (perhaps rightly): that is simply no way for an adult to live.

I hear ya. But until recently it's been the only life I ever knew.

Besides, there's an honesty, a kind of dignity in it: you HAVE to bring your A-game, every day-- because, as is often said, Results Don't Lie. The phone rings? You're doing something right. It doesn't? Get up a little earlier, work a little harder. And if that doesn't work... take a long, hard look in the mirror. (But if it comes to that, please, please: respect yourself. Most people will never have to take that look in the mirror.)

For me, working in theatre or film has always been a calling, a privilege even to be asked-- but until now, it's never been a job. So this latest development has been something of a surprise. And after decades of being "that guy" on sets ("who's That Guy?" "I dunno-- I think he knows the star, or something...")-- it is a revelation to realize that I have become part of the rag-tag community on the lot.

And I gotta say, it's nice. The day after St. Patrick's Day, Ron, the Guard, who greets me with a smile every day, asked if I was hungover from The Big Night. I told him that we New England Irish Catholics think of St. Paddy's as Amateur Night-- and when I left for the day he said he'd been telling everyone that, all day long. He loved it! That doesn't sound like much, I know-- but if you've never had it, it's a big deal, indeed.

So, yes. It's nice to wait my turn at the gate to swipe my ID. It's nice to flirt with the payroll ladies. It's nice to have the wardrobe guy say to me, excitedly: "they got Chinese chicken salad at crafty! Better get over there!"

Wanna know a secret? It reminds me of theatre, this misfit-toy feeling on the lot. We're just a bunch of oddballs trying to do our best to make a thing good. And tomorrow we'll do it again. And again, the day after that. Except for two weeks at Christmas, I've been working this job every weekday since last July.

Which is fine by me.

pk

This has nothing to do with acting...

2010-04-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

...but a lot to do with Easter. It's a few years old, but still. Hope you like it.

I saw Jesus walking down East Fourth Street today.

He was dressed entirely, and simply, in white, and carried over his shoulder an improbably large crucifix, which made a hollow scraping sound as it trailed along the pavement behind him. He looked, from the the high angle of the front window of my sixth-floor apartment, an awful lot like one of the neighborhood kids, mainly due to A) his street-fashionable buzz cut, and B) his gleaming white Pumas, just visible underneath his robes.

In truth, I heard Jesus' coming before I saw him, for his arrival was heralded by a repeating hymn that grew louder as he approached. I cannot state with certainty that what I was hearing was in fact a hymn, being that it was in Spanish; also, since the single hymnal voice was issuing loudly from a pair of PA speakers strapped onto the top of a Toyota (the roof was which was protected from harm by a NY Mets towel), little beyond the melody line could be discerned. The effect from my living room was that of an ecclesiastical ice-cream truck, luring customers with the promise of salvation rather than a cold Mister Softee.

And it seemed to be effective, for behind the boy Jesus (and a gang of somber apostles, all similarly white-robed) there trailed a crowd of a few hundred varied souls. Mothers in clumps, quietly pushing strollers, the elderly, and even teenaged Puerto Rican couples, side-by-side, hands squeezed into one another's back pockets. That particular sight gave me pause to consider for a moment the eternal question of What Would Jesus Do, especially as regards Public Displays of Affection. I concluded he would not mind, even if (as was currently the case) he was limping along with his burden just a few yards ahead.

This procession was capped at either end by an NYPD cruiser, each gliding silently at a respectful distance. They made their presence known mainly by their strobing red lights, which added an odd sense of holiday festivity to the procession.

But Jesus. He'd been taking his burden seriously, shifting his slow course left and right to avoid manhole covers and other minor street obstacles that might jar his load.... but as I looked down at him now, he seemed to be veering purposefully to the right, limping even slower toward the line of parked cars along the curb...

...and then I saw it too. Money.

A couple of bills, just pinched under a tire and fluttering almost free. I was too far away to see their denomination, but I could make out the coloring identifying them as among the newer bills. It had to be at least a ten-spot, maybe more. They had blown there, clearly, and would not remain there long. What Would Jesus Do, indeed?

I believe there is a biblical passage that observes that in moments of decision we are all alone. Or perhaps that was George Bernard Shaw. Or Mark Twain. Whatever the source, I have always felt it to be the case, and so I was sympathetic to the forces I imagined were tugging at the young Jesus as I watched unobserved. What moral calculus, I wondered, was being done so quickly in his head?

He passed the bills by. It was hard to tell from where I was, but I think he may have sped up a bit, pressing forward with just a little more sense of urgency as he continued on his journey.

By the time his followers had passed and the warbling hymn-song had grown distant, the money was gone.

And I felt at that moment overwhelmed, in that way that comes upon one (or at least me, sometimes) without warning. The young Jesus had been given a gift-- a story that would, over his life, be worth far more than the value of the bills he'd left behind. And I'd been given a gift, too; I knew it. I just wasn't sure what it was.

Maybe a reminder of the value of having something, anything, to believe in.

Life on the Lot, part 1

2009-12-13T15:16:00.001-08:00

"Waitwaitwait.... are we pink or buff?"

No. I am not in West Hollywood on Saturday night.

I'm in my home in Laurel Canyon; Chris O'Donnell, my friend, client, and the star of NCIS Los Angeles, is (presumably) in his trailer somewhere near Venice beach. It's 8 AM, and we're running a scene for the current episode over the phone, and what he's saying and what I'm reading do not match up; we have this confusion --which is not one of tanning-booth settings or skin tone but about the "color" of the most current draft of the script-- from time to time.

(FOR THE UNINITIATED, A NOTE ON SCRIPT COLOR: It's something of a genius system, really: once a color progression is agreed upon --not unlike the Bronze-Silver-Gold progression of Olympic medals-- there's no more confusion about which script is current. If Green comes after Blue, and you got blue pages and see anyone walkin' around with green... you missed the memo, sport. You're out of date.)

Anyway. On a show like NCIS, there can be more than one script revision A DAY. Granted, those changes may be as little as a few lines, but still. Given that we have eight days to shoot those 60 pages (give or take), that's a lot, and they pile up.

P.S.: For those keeping track at home... it's Buff. We get back to work.

_________________________________________________________________

I think I need to answer a few questions first.

- No, I'm not dead. I'm in LA. Feel free to insert a joke, if you want.

- Yes, I have a place to live here. So... since August, give or take, Laurel Canyon (technically the Hollywood Hills, north of Sunset Blvd) has been my home. For what it's worth, it's an awesome place (view, fireplace, the whole deal). True story: while I was first walking through the house, I called the owner (now my landlord), Leslie. She's in Jersey and was initially a little confused by my 917 area code-- but 15 minutes later, in the midst of talk of commute times from Weehawken to Sony Music, she said "...you know what? You want it, the place is yours. Just send me a check."

No app, no lease, nothing. I would not know Leslie if she walked in the room.

- I am here because primarily because my two most long-term actor clients, Eliza Dushku and Chris O'Donnell, both are leads in network series-- Eliza is the lead in Dollhouse, Joss Whedon's show on Fox; Chris is, as mentioned, the lead in NCIS. I am also here because, through a series of details too convoluted to go into here, when these shows were announced last spring I had no place to live in Manhattan. My friends claimed that this was the universe's way of saying, in essence: you've been talking about LA for years-- it's Now or Never, Pal.

I chose "Now." And here I am.

______________________________________________________________

There is a funny thing about moving without thinking it through: one has no idea of what one's life is going to be-- and one (OK, me) soon realizes how completely one (OK, me) has underestimated how much of a life one leaves behind. It's hard, this; the new life, all that.

Fortunately, as some of you know, once in LA I had to hit the ground running-- for in addition to Chris and Eliza, my friend Rick Fox needs "refocusing." I have never, ever met anyone in Hollywood who receives more varied, over-the-transom offers than Rick. And me? Scattered, running-in-ten-directions me-- compared to Rick? I'm friggin' Ghandi, I'm so calm and focused.

So I settle into this new, strange life, a life dictated by call sheets. They come in nightly, and it's always surprising to me how the next day's call sheets for two entirely different shows, halfway across town, arrive in my inbox in within ten minutes of each other. (Honestly, how is that possible?) As one might expect, the Universe seems to conspire to make Big Days (or even Big Scenes) occur at the same time for all my clients. So I toggle back and forth between the two-- who's shooting what, and when-- and where? It's kinda stressful, to tell you the truth. But one does what one can.

______________________________________________________________

Much more to say, but it's late. I'll tell ya more from the plane tomorrow.

Peter

Boston, part two

2009-12-09T19:10:00.000-08:00

... yah yah yah I know: it's been more than 24 hours (as promised) since I last wrote. But I've got a good excuse, for my ensuing 24 hours do not start well.

At all. I'll pick up where I left off:

So I'm in bed. I've sent my emails, I've shut off my laptop; as I roll over, I marvel at the fact that I'm so tired as to actually be nauseous. It's my life, I think, finally catching up to me.

Fifteen minutes later I change my mind, for the nausea has overtaken the fatigue. This isn't good.

A few minutes later the nausea has intensified, and now something more: dread. A dread that soon turns into an awful certainty I haven't felt in years: in a few minutes, I'm gonna puke. And puke hard.

Nothing changes about this ritual, or the steps that lead relentlessly to it: the sweating, the shallow breathing, the clenched fists... the desperate bargaining with one's own stomach: please, please, not now... the eternal bucket/toilet debate (and where IS the ice bucket, anyway?)... the mental plotting of the bathroom dash, followed the realization that the mere act of standing will seal the deal and the dread that one has waited too long to sprint.

One forgets how painful it is.

...the first time. After an hour or so of this, as my fingernails dig into the toilet seat and my even my legs, fully extended and tensed, are in on the job, I come to hate my body. I hate the level of pain it can endure. I hate its stubborn insistence that the best thing to do now is, ya know... puke more. I hate the fact that every muscle in my body is tense in an effort to squeeze another drop of God-knows-what from my body--and if I could breathe, I'd scream to my body (really, I would): THERE'S SIMPLY. NOTHING. LEFT. Anywhere. Trust me. I know this.

Finally, it recedes. as I collapse onto the tile floor, drenched in a sweat that trickles even into my ears, I am reminded of a fundamental truth of life: few things feel better than the end of pain.

My last thought before passing out is a prayer that this is food poisoning, for there's a stomach flu going around LA that's got a nasty reputation and I simply can't afford a week of this. Time will tell.

6AM: I open my eyes. The sliver-window in the bathroom has turned from black to a dull, slate gray. Dawn. Crawl back to bed.

A lifetime later (but it's only 9:40!) and my body has decided that one final, just-in-case round is in order-- and as I assume the position, this I know: ain't no way I'm teachin a class today. But by noon, the pain-tide has turned a little, and I decide: Peter Kelley is no quitter. I'm in Boston, Dammit, and I've got work to do. Come hell or high water, I'll rally.

2PM: I call my good friend Steve Stapinski, who's registered in the class, and he agrees to stop by with replenishing fluids on his way in to rehearse. A few minutes later, a knock at my door: a bellman, with a bag containing TWO ONE-GALLON JUGS of Gatorade. (Thanks, Steve.) A little after three, and I'm at the BCA. I make it through class, actually rally a little, and when we exit the BCA...

Now THIS is more like it. THIS is the Boston I remember.

I am suddenly walking fast and my head is down and my hands are dug into my pockets and I am squinting in a futile effort to shield my eyes against the wind-driven sleet that sandblasts directly into my face. As we approach steve's car, Steve-- who can never, ever resist talking to a young woman-- asks the valet whether we are in fact dealing with snow or rain.

"Neither," she says... "it's 'snain'. Snain's the worst."

"Snain." That's a good one. Fifteen years in Boston and I never heard that. I am shivering by the time I climb into Steve's car and I am reminded to never, ever take small miracles like heated seats for granted. Five minutes later I am back in my bed. Two minutes after that, I'm asleep.

It is not, as it feels, ten hours later when I wake up. In fact, it's barely nine PM. But I am on the mend, and I'd earlier heard a rumor that I now must confirm, so I get dressed and manage to head outside.

The rumor is true. The "snain" has turned to snow. Real snow, White Christmas snow. Suddenly, I don't even mind the cold. Suddenly, I know there's only one thing to do. I drop my head, squint... and return to the the Oak Room. I order a ginger ale (but for the love of Christ stay away from those Wasabe peas!), and listen.

One thing about Christmas carols: all the good ones succeed on the level of melody, so they don't need to be sung to be enjoyed. But now, in a bold shift... this new tune is not a Christmas carol, and it takes me a second to place it. It's The Beatles: "Here,There, and Everywhere."

Here's the thing about a Beatles song: every element is by now so iconic --the arrangement, the production, those vocals-- that it's sometimes necessary to hear one out of context to realize how beautiful it is. It's a brilliant choice, this, for it's so simple and haunting and sweet that, in another musical life, it could actually be a Christmas carol. And I get the sense I'm not alone in this thought: for the duration of the song, the whole place grows a little quieter.

It ends, and I decide not to press my luck with another Ginger Ale. One more chin-down walk though a Boston night, and in ten minutes I'm back in bed and once again quickly dropping into sleep, and as I do so I think about my day. Despite its horrible start, I taught a class. I heard Christmas carols. I saw snow. And now I'm in a warm bed.

All of our lives go through times of ache. But even then - or especially then - above all things, Gratitude. Which is the point, I think, of the season.

PK

a short note...

2009-12-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

I have to remind myself that for Boston, this is warm.

It's ten PM, or thereabouts. I'm heading over to the Oak Bar at the Copley Plaza for a quiet(ish) glass of wine before bed, and as I scurry across Dartmouth street I remember the essential fact of how windy this place is, so I'm thankful for the relative warmth. I'm remembering from my days in Boston a series of post-Thanksgiving cold spells-- snow turning to ice in early December (I swear!), and days on end of bitter, bone-snapping cold. Not tonight, though, and I bless my good fortune as I slip into the bar.

Which is packed. A confession: there's a kind of sadness to coming alone to a place like this, in Boston, on a Friday night in the Holiday season -- as far as I can tell, it's not only Family Night but Date Night here at the Oak Room, and while I enjoy the dull din of conversation and the piano player's medley of Holiday Favorites (I am, after all, The Christmas Whore...), I'm also aware of my presence as the "party of one" guy who's workin' on his laptop on a Friday night (it's true - since I'm teaching a class tomorrow, this does qualify as a business trip for PK). (It also reminds me of a script idea about a man who goes through life positioning himself next to happiness, based on his hope that happiness is contagious and can, like a winter cold, be "caught" if one is around it often enough). Anyway. I'll probably overpay for the wine, but I don't care-- I've reached a point where I'll gladly pay a premium for a warm spot with comfortable seats.

So what am I doing here? Well, I made a promise to myself on the flight out (where I got the upgrade, again! I'm on a roll, baby! But no wi-fi on Boston flights...): I'm going to try to send "a musing a day" for the next few days, to get back into the swing of chronicling my increasingly scattered, hard-to-describe life. As a few of you have pointed out, it's been a long time since you've received a "PK rambling." I know. Rest assured I've got a backlog of observations about the culture of celebrity, working in network television, "life on the lot", life in Laurel Canyon, all of it. Things are slowing down, so hopefully that will allow me to catch up.

Stay tuned.

Especially since I now see that it's gonna snow tomorrow.

A sobering thought from another Peter...

2009-07-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

This is from Peter Bart's recent column in Variety. It's true, and a little scary:

...Hollywood, too, is having growing pains. Indeed, the kids who fight and fret and fuck their way through "Entourage" may, in their own small way, serve as a metaphor for the agonies of the community at large.

The economic crunch has had a delayed impact on Hollywood, but its impact has now become devastatingly clear. Jobs have become scarce and pay sharply shaved. Insiders believe the number of film releases will drop sharply from more than 600 last year to as few as 350 in 2010.

"The film business is like a snake digesting a large meal," the Economist pointed out last week. "The production bulge caused by the deluge of money in 2006 and 2007 will take a year or so to work its way through the system.

The entertainment business poses many contradictions to analysts. Box office is up as much as 12% this year, but the studios are getting squeezed by their once-flush parents. Corporate hatchet men at behemoths like Sony or Viacom have thus sent forth their austere mandates: Cut costs and scale back risks. That message is not exactly great news to a business whose entire history rests on expensive risk-taking.

The upshot: Just as Vince and 'E' and their confreres may now have to come of age, so do the many actors, writers and other members of Hollywood's creative community who face a tough period of corporate consolidation and cost-cutting. The balance of power between the talent and the corporate suits has shifted to the corporations. That translates into the many ugly realities no one likes to think about -- foreclosures, kids being pulled out of private schools, courts jammed with claims for reduced alimony, restaurants shuttering.

It's getting ugly out there. I'm glad we have "Entourage" to give us a few laughs.

A Boston day-Night Doubleheader

2009-06-27T22:04:00.001-07:00

Funny, this business. If you hang around long enough, things have a way of circling back.

MARCH
I'm sent a copy of "THE TOWN," Ben Affleck's follow-up to Gone Baby Gone (and a Hot Script in LA, at the time), to read for my client Eliza.

"Oh, for CHRISSAKES," I think as I start reading, "another Boston Guys Doin' Crime script-- will these things never stop coming?"

I'm serious. Is there something in the water up there? Some friggin' Artesian well in Dorcherster or Saugus or someplace that produces, in anyone who drinks from it, an insatiable desire to write about 'these guys from the neighborhood who plan to steal some (drugs guns money)'? I can tell you without exaggeration that in the 20 years I've been doing this I am sent about one of these scripts a month, and most of them are God-awful.

But not The Town. The Town is wonderful.

Crime thrillers have a self-imposed challenge: they must quickly succeed on both plot and character levels, and the Town does so on both counts, beautifully. I opened the file sitting in bed at the Mondrian hotel, on that first, jet-lagged night in LA, but kept clicking through the pages until after two AM (actually five AM, since I'm on east coast time). Let's see what we can do with this one, I tell Eliza, and go to bed.

APRIL
I'm sent another script: VALEDICTION, a small, finely observed family drama with a supernatural layer that gives it a nice, twisty feel. Better, this is an offer for Eliza, not an audition.
Better still, I very much like the script.
So even though the role is not large --and it's the "home-wrecker" role in the script-- I urge Eliza to take it. I always urge clients to pick the project, not the role-- and Oh how some agents hate this. In limited cases I see their point-- Leading Men are Leading Men, for example, and should only consider leading roles. But still-- were there any insignificant roles in No Country for Old Men? Would any actor's career have been hurt appearing anywhere in that film? In the case of Valediction, I'm 'validated' (get it?) when I hear of the wonderful Brits that are in the cast-- ends up that Eliza is one of the only Americans in the film.
Ends up, also, that it films in Boston. July, they say, so that's that. It's on.

MAY
Out of the blue, I get an email from an old acquaintance: Frank Corache, a fine director best known for helming some of Adam Sandler's best films. Ends up Frank's directing ZOOKEEPER, a Kevin James film shooting in Boston, and do I still do any casting up there? I tell him that I do, in tandem with my good friend and casting director Carolyn Pickman. So, another script. I read it, offer some thoughts, and Frank tells me we'll be in touch.

So now it's JUNE...
...we got the Zookeeper job, Carolyn's gearing up on The Town... and, at the eleventh hour, a call from Eliza:
"Pete, can you be in Boston THIS WEEK?"
Ends up VALEDICTION got pushed-- up, not back. That NEVER happens. Suddenly, a temporary relocation to Boston seems inevitable-- and since my personal life's been in something of a freefall, it sounds like a welcome diversion. The Universe Conspiring, all that.
Back to Boston I go.

Ends up Eliza's days are mostly nights, so I manage to manage my time pretty well. But on Tuesday, I finally end up with a double header: Casting Zookeeper from 10 to 3, then moving onto the Valediction set from 4 to... well, late. As you might imagine, I have a couple of thoughts from that looong day.

THE DAY: CASTING

...which, it ends up, hasn't changed all that much. I'd forgotten how challenging these day-player days can be: it's a numbers game, and the session can feel as much like a commercial job as a feature job. But before I go any further,

LET ME EXPLAIN SOMETHING ABOUT CASTING. By observing something about falling in love.

In acting class, I sometimes ask: who here's single? This being an acting class (and New York City, after all), it's not surprising that most hands go up. (on a side note, it's always surprising who's single, and who isn't, but that's a subject for another time.)

So then I ask the single folk: "let's say you go to a party, or a bar-- how long does it take for you to know whether there's anyone there you're remotely interested in?"

The consensus: about five seconds.

And as for "The Click", that magical connection you feel with someone who might be The One? Well, that takes almost no time at all.

Which is precisely what casting for a film is like. For even the smallest of roles, there's this undefined ideal that just sort of walks in the room (for the record, "we'll know it when we see it" is true, and not at all a blow-off excuse). An actor who's not right for a role can give a lovely audition, but if there was no initial 'click' when they walked in the door, it matters not.
(But PLEASE don't despair, actors, and don't let off the gas, because "Terrific actor, wrong for this" is one of the best notes we can make about you-- and, honestly, sometimes better then getting called back. There are other projects. What's important is that we remember you as good.)

And here's what feels counter-intuitive for many actors: this holds even more true for smaller roles. Zookeeper is a Disney comedy, so if we see you onscreen for FOUR LINES we kinda need to know who you are the minute you appear in the story . Which is why it breaks our heart when actors who've been called in for the one-line Security Guard role walk in, eyes filled with hope... because they're also clutching the sides for the larger, three-scene, 'Best Friend ' role in their hands.

"Can I also read for...?" Sorry, but no. No Click. It's as simple as that.

But what of the actors for whom we feel the click?

It's equally heartbreaking when they haven't done the work to follow through on that initial promise. (I tell women it's like finally talking to the hot guy and finding out that he's dumb as a post. Oh, how you want him to be smarter, more sensitive, more insightful-- and, sure, you can choose to delude yourself that he is, for a while. Six weeks, tops. But he ain't, and you know it. But I digress.)

I can tell you now that at least this one thing about casting hasn't changed: in film and TV, you gotta bring the performance in the audition. And to do that, you must create an entire world. I like to tell actors it's a matter of going temporarily insane: for a minute or two, you actually see, quite clearly, people and things that just happen not to be there. And if you believe in this fantasy world, if you commit to it fully, then we'll see it too, in you and through you.

And Zookeeper? I'm guessing that everyone who Clicked --and who Did The Work-- will get called back (if there are callbacks)(ahem). We'll see.

THE NIGHT: ON THE SET

Which is Whiskey friggin' Park, of all places, and I'm late-- but not nearly as late as the production.

I have no way of knowing, when I arrive at five, that the first shot will not go off til after eight PM, a full five hours after crew call. Mostly this has to do with the complex setup of the first shot-- which is a gutsy thing for a director to do.

Orson Wells was known for doing it, as was Coppola: composing a long, challenging opening shot that takes a while to set up but will, once in the can, cover a page or more. You're five hours late-- then suddenly, a half hour later, you're back on track. Suri, the director (a Brit whom I get to know rather well, and who becomes a friend partially becuase I may be one of the only Americans who saw his film "A Man of No Importance" several years back), is setting up a travelling master, a stedicam shot that will follow Ben Barnes, the lead, down a flight of stairs, where he'll discover Eliza; we'll roll that two-shot all the way though the scene, right up until Ben's character is hauled back up the stars by Security Guards.

Since this is only the second day of shooting, though, the crew hasn't yet coalesced as a team. This shot shouldn't be this hard to set up, and Suri's professional, but a little tense-- and when the director's tense, everyone's tense. And as the minutes slip away one hears (with increasing frequency) from the AD: "People, we need QUIET!"
(Side note: at this moment the director in me instinctively looks up at the ceiling-- polished metal-- then down: concrete floors. Cool-looking, but an accoustical nightmare.)

And the quiet is needed, for the most part, from the extras. So, those who do extra work, take a breath. I'm gonna beat you up a little.

To some of you, being an extra feels like being invited to a cool party: I'm in wardrobe! I'm right next to the stars! Plus, for most of the day, you're not really a necessary part of things. Add to the fact that you folks are not, by and large, a quiet lot... and what you have is a perfect storm of chatter.

I speak for directors everywhere when I beg of you: Please Don't.

Even under the best of circumstances, production is tense, and often a grind (personally, I don't have a problem with that, as it reminds us of how challenging the making of good movies really is). Everyone on set is focused, and the "keys" walk around with that buzz-tired that most of us only remember from college finals.

But not the extras.I should tell you this is why so many directors (myself included) prefer to have extras holding far away from the set: everyone else on the set, even that forlorn PA over at craft services, is working-- and, probably, feeling lucky to have the job and focused on not getting fired. They stay quiet when they're asked. But to some extras, I gotta ask: what are you thinking??

Many of you are cater-waiters as well, and I can offer you this comparison: the set is like one of those parties you cater-- except that you, the waiter, are the crew; those guests are the extras. And when you're dead tired and trying to get back with that tray full of empty shrimp plates before you get screamed at or your arm falls off... don't you want those loud guests, who are apparently oblivious to the job you have to do, to simply WORK WITH YOU AND GET OUT OF YOUR WAY!?

Welcome to our world, people.

Again, I know this sounds harsh. Apologies. And, of course, not all extras are like this-- that night, I caught site of an elderly gent, nattily attired in a Brooks Brothers blazer and crisp khakis (...in Whisky Park??), sitting quietly, chipping away at a book full of sudoku puzzles. Because he was far from the action, he had an entire comfy sofa to himself, and seemed perfectly content to while the evening away, out-puzzling the puzzles, waiting for a call to action which, if it never came, was fine with him.

My kind of extra. (And don't worry about not being seen-- we know who you are. We'll find you.)

As for me? I chat with my other new "BFF," Ben Barnes (the male lead) who's quite passionate about the craft (my experience? The good ones, especially the Brits, usually are). I watch a few takes... I offer a few notes to Eliza, and give a few observations to Suri. I think they help.

And, at about eleven or so, after a few hours of watching the monitior.... I know my work here is done. I head out into a damp Boston night.

I reach my rental car, parked on Boylston Street in a 'Meter Parking 'til 8PM' spot. I bought one of those hated "muni meter" slips that was good until 7:54--

--and there, on my windshield, is an orange love letter from my old, old friends at the Boston Transportation Department. Meter Expired-- as of 7:55.

Ahh, Boston. Love you too. You never change.

There is NO WAY it has been a month...

2009-06-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

...yet, amazingly, it has.

So... another "Scene of the Month." As always, let me know your thoughts.

PK

2009-06-09T08:59:00.000-07:00

Ya know...

...I've been told that I can, on those occasions when the stars align, string together a sentence or two of quality that, together, rise to a certain... place. (Clearly, that was not such a sentence.)

But every now and again I read something like Garrison Keilor's latest piece in Salon and I am reminded of how words can soar; I'm reminded of how high I (or anyone who writes) must set their bar if they are to attempt excellence. Like some of my pieces, it's a simple story of a party he attended; nothing more than a page from his life, really. But oh, what a page:

Garrison Keilor's article in Salon.com

Cheesy Confession: I may --MAY, mind you-- have gotten a little choked up while reading it. Spare, eloquent, profoundly moving-- and, unlike PK, he requires only 750 words or so to get the job done. (...how does he do it? How?? I write paragraphs that are longer than that.) (On a routine basis, as some of you know...)

Here's a sneak of one of my favorite passages in the piece-- his description of what good art can be:

"...a lavish gift of the heart that shames pretense by its outrageous generosity."

I am reminded of Oscar Wilde's assertion that anything truly worth reading is worth re-reading, so,

a lavish gift of the heart that shames pretense by its outrageous generosity.

If I ever happen to meet Mr Keilor I will thank him for that phrase alone. It made my day; it may in fact have made my month, but we'll see.

Read it. I promise it'll be the best five minutes you spend today.

PK

P.S.: for those interested --and speaking as we are of fine writing-- here's a piece by Boston alum Marj Galas, writing in Variety 411 about (ahem) Yours Truly:

Every Great Actor Should Have a Great Acting Coach.

I will say that that was the most accurately I have ever been quoted in print in my life. Thanks, Marj! (Full disclosure: Marj is on the "get PK to LA" Team, which may have held some editorial sway in the piece)

2009-05-13T15:53:00.000-07:00

I've been tinkering with this for a while: my first video post.

I'm realizing that some (many?) of you may never have seen what, exactly, I do in my work with actors, so here you go. Let me know what you think. Be gentle.

First, here's the "tutorial:"

And below is the companion piece-- a bit of the final scene, cut together. Yes, it's a little rough, but given that it's a classroom (a conference room overlooking the Hudson, actually) and not a set, I'm pretty pleased with the work that's done.

But before you watch it, a few words about the scene partner, Kyla Druckman:

she's an NYU senior who, given that she's done more film than theatre, doesn't know how NOT to live in the moment. Watch her almost control the scene through silence-- and her strong, secret thoughts about Don.

Lesson: on film, your ability to listen is, in my experience, more important than your ability to speak. Watch:

The Park City Diaries: a Tale of Four Films (and one almost-film...)

2009-02-05T14:30:00.000-08:00

I should be doing more.

This is what I'm thinking as I lounge in a club chair in my beloved Washington School Inn, just off Main Street in Park City. It's Friday, and I've already managed to take care of the majority of the meetings I'd scheduled while here.

I'd almost not come this year. If one has (or is involved with) a film that's here, the decision to attend the festival is a no-brainer. For me, the fact that I'd booked my accommodations far in advance ended up being the deciding factor-- that, plus the fact that (again) my pal Eliza has a whirlwind weekend scheduled.

But there's something else, too. I always end up seeing familiar faces while here; at the end of the day, there's a value in seeing which among your old acquaintances are still in the game (David Kleiler, from back in Boston, in line next to me for a film!)-- and, sometimes, to remind those same acquaintances that you're still in it, too.

And this year a free bonus: it's amazingly warm. Even now, in January and at 7,000 feet, the temperature rises well into the 40's each day. Better, I will not see a cloud for the entire time I'm here (and it's true that sunshine is a little warmer at altitude). Best: New York is still in the grip of a brutal cold front, and daytime highs in Park City are higher than those in New York City for the duration of my trip. (Yes, I check. You would too.)

Back in my chair, I come to a radical decision: this year, my priority at Sundance is going to be seeing films.

I know: crazy, right? Still, I warm to the idea quickly: late mornings, relaxing strolls, a few parties, a lot of new films. That's it. I'll focus on the "festival" side of Sundance and ignore completely its "market" side.

For the uninitiated, a lesson:

FESTIVALS and MARKETS

...they used to be different. Cannes began the fusion; Sundance completed it.

The New York Film Festival (the original, at Lincoln Center) may be the last of the pure film festivals: a prestige collection of what could only be called "art" films from around the world, selected to be shown for an audience whose only interest, in theory, is cinema. Prizes are given, sure, and there is the occasional Hollywood premiere among the films chosen (Mystic River is a good recent example), but, really, it's a prestige event that's All About The Work.

A film market, by contrast, is a Persian Rug Bazaar. The name of the game is rugs, and everyone there is either buying (HBO, Lion's gate, etc) or selling (EVERY filmmaker on the mountain). A rug bazaar is not a place for the uninitiated, or the slow-- but the cagey, the quick, can do well there indeed.

How? Simple. Wanna be a "player" at Cannes? Yes, you! A week in the south of France in May! All it takes is three things:

- spend some money,
- know someone famous,
- and lie. A lot. Lie lie lie lie lie.

BRAINSTORM RIGHT NOW! Tell you what: I'm going to do it. right now, as I write this. Ready?

Boston Souls.

Just came up with that. It's my title. Of what, you ask? Of my film. The one I'm... pre-selling. (sadly, this isn't done much anymore, but I digress). What's pre-selling, you ask? Why, it's just what it sounds like: I'm selling -- no, offering an opportunity to buy-- something that hasn't been made yet!

Sa-weet!

And, now, let's see.... The New York Film Company. (maybe "Village Films?")

Just made that up, too. That's the name of my International Production and Distribution company. I like it--- I'll bet that exact company doesn't exist, but it sounds like a company that DOES exist. You gotta use the word "film," and those business types like the word "Company," and who doesn't like New York??

So.... the New York film Company has a slate of five mid-budget (8-12 million) character-driven (read: cheap) romantic thrillers and romantic comedies, that are to be independently financed and structured for strong foreign sales (translation: no Baseball movies). NOOO, silly-- I haven't MADE any of these movies and in fact I really DON'T have any scripts. YET. But to quote Linda Obst: It's not a lie, it's just the truth that hasn't happened yet...

Anyway. Boston Souls is our first. It stars Dennis Leary, Chris O'Donnell, and Eliza Dushku, all of whom are committed; there's a terrific cameo for a aging-but-still-hot female police chief; both Meryll and Glenn are verrry interested but we can't officially say that, yet. If Meryll comes on we get Ed Harris, who wants to work with her, for the Uncle-- though I hear Dennis Hopper wants in. We're looking for pre-sale commitments in all territories. We're looking to start in May.

OK, everything I just wrote? A lie. Lie lie lie lie lie. How do I get away with it? Easy-- first, I've got a HUGE, professional-looking poster with the stars' faces in it (you walked past it when you entered my office/hotel room); second, I've got just enough people who will, sort of, back up this cockamamie story; mainly, though, I LIKE LYING. I'm good at it. And if you walked up, saw that poster, made a few calls and yes, this Peter Kelley guy checks out, we haven't heard of Boston Souls but you never know... it might never occur to you that it's ALL A LIE.

Unless, of course (and back to the Rug Bazaar) you've bought a few "fine Persian Rugs" that fell apart after a few weeks. In that case, you walk into my office/room with the assumption that EVERYONE'S lying.

(P.S.: welcome to my world. "Why so cynical, Pete?" Because I've bought a few Fine Persian Rugs in my day, that's why.)

So that's a film market. Like Toronto and Cannes (and, to a lesser extent, Berlin), Sundance is one of the few remaining festivals that is also a market, an open-air, Persian Rug bazaar-- just, you know, at high altitude and with ridiculous parties and swag-filled "lounges" and battalions of women in cowboy jackets and high-heeled uggs (and not much else) wheezing their way up and down Main Street (trolling for what, I always wonder... to be discovered? To sleep with a celebrity? To find a bathroom?) (But I digress.)

SO, like any market, there are mainly two groups of people in Park City: buyers and sellers. And if you ain't buying, and you got nothing to sell? Best just to get out of the way.

Which is what, come Friday, I do. Eliza's arriving, with an entourage, on Saturday morning;I have a friend who's arriving a little later that day. Thankfully, I've got tickets to three films, and I decide it's my mission to get more.

The following four days are entirely unlike what I'd expected them to be, back when I'd first scheduled this trip. There are late nights, sure, but a sense of leisure during the day, a few car trips, and, yes: seeing films. And that's pretty much it.

It's magical.

Looking back, now, I can't imagine attending a film festival (a good one) any other way... and there's much to be learned from my cinematic adventures. So let's get to it, shall we? Our four films....

NUMBER ONE: THE HIP INDIE FILM

Quick background: the Sundance film festival has grown to the point where fewer than half of the screening venues are actually in Park City. Of those that are, four have a certain cachet: The Egyptian (on Main Street, with that famous marquee that you've all seen pictures of); the Library (thanks to festival revenue, Park City has an impressive public library, and this close-to-town theatre, housed in the Town Library, is my personal favorite venue); The Eccles Auditorium (literally the auditorium at Park City High School--and, sure, why not have a 1,200-seat theatre with FULL DOLBY SOUND at a High School in the Utah mountains?), and, finally, Prospector Square, known mainly for its poor sightlines and Abu-Ghirab-style Seats of Torture. (not lyin 'bout that).

Even though You Won't Miss Me isn't on my must-see-list, it is at Prospector Square, and has a primo screening time (Sat nite, 8PM), so I feel good about taking a chance on it. Plus, two other factors guide my decision:

First, the description. In most festivals, those little blurbs in the festival guide are written by the filmmakers and are thus (for the most part) poorly-written propaganda and largely unhelpful-- but each Sundance film is lovingly "introduced" in the catalogue by a member of the selection committee. This, about You Won't Miss Me:

(The Director) creates and engrossing character portrait in this deceptively compact, but exquisitely layered, feature. (She) renders this depiction of intersecting dead ends with astute and exactingly measured empathy. Her searching, eliptical narrative structure and compact, concentrated mis-en-scene astutely underline the lonesome self-sabotage involved when self-relaince becomes an armor against intimacy...

...in other words, a small, performance-driven human drama. Right up my alley.

Second, and more important: this could me MY film. It's not one of the splashy, must-see, "event" films of the festival, but it made it to the party nonetheless; this film had been CHOSEN, dammit, culled from those thousands of entries, that needle-in-a-haystack independent that had nothing going for it but merit and (hopefully) heart.

I have to go. In truth, I'm kind of dying to go. Isn't this, after all, the whole point of film festivals-- of independent film, really?

So we go. It's my friend's first night in park City, and You Won't Miss Me will be her first-ever Sundance film. Thirty minutes into the film, we walk out.

Please know this: I have not walked out of a film in years. And I tried, really I did, to like the film. To give it a chance. So what was it, exactly, that pushed me over the edge? That caused me so much frustration that I willingly braved the wrath of my row-mates, as well as everyone behind me, and overcame my fear of being recognized ("...hey, isn't that Peter Kelley-- the "Acting Guy"-- walking out? What a tool..."), and left?

Well, let's see.

Was it the horrid acting and loose, pointless, wandering dialogue (oops, sorry... "fresh, improvisational feel")? Nope. Was it the endless endless ENDLESS, bad film-school, drunken-hookup-with-loser scene? (Heroine, to Loser: "What's that on your arm-- are you OK?" Loser: "oh.... I think it's a zit." Long Meaningless Pause. "Maybe I should pop it." Long Meaningless Pause.) Nope, that wasn't it. Was it the cliche-ridden Audition for the Off-Off Broadway Play, complete with narcissistic gay director, orgasm improv, and all? Nope. Was it the late-night drunken parental phone call, with its slurred, teary, "where are you, MOM?! I had a bad audition and I NEED YOU but you're never there.... MOM!!"

Actually..... no. In the end, it was this: I know this woman, the heroine of the film; in fact, I've known lots of her. They pop up every now and then in an acting class of mine, and here's what I've learned: this woman doesn't have a problem. She just needs to grow up. So why should I, or anyone, care? Why should we spend an hour and a half of our lives committed to her self-indulgent saga of delayed adolescence?

(By contrast, watch Frozen River, last year's prize winner. From the very start, Melissa Leo's character has problems-- real, unimaginable problems that require a succession of hard choices that only get harder, and the power of her performance lies in her never once allowing herself the emotional collapse she deserves, even though we feel it inside her. As a result, her performance stays with you long after the film has ended.)

So we leave. But in my haste (and in a typical jackass-PK move) I leave my brand-new scarf behind; I observe that returning for the scarf is best done in the few minutes of confusion between when the film ends and when the hated Q-and-A begins. We pass the ensuing hour in a restaurant nursing beers while discussing not just the film, not just our disappointment, but this: the vague, angry frustration that we both feel.

She's frustrated, I tell her, because the actress who was cast just wasn't that good. Me? I'm mad because... that film got in.

There is really no feeling quite like the frustration that arises from injustice, for It's an emotion fueled by impotence. You perceive a wrong and are powerless to make it right.

Over time, that impotent frustration grows in a person, as it has done and will always do to so many of you in this business. It's OK that the Hot Chick gets the role instead of you, or the producer's nephew or the Actor of the Moment or whomever... provided they're AT LEAST AS GOOD AS YOU. But if they're not, and you wanted that role...

That's the thing about injustice: the experiencing of it feels so much worse than we imagine. You hear the sentence "...let me introduce the star of this extraordinary film", and while you'd braced yourself for how badly you wanted that person to be YOU, we're entirely unprepared for that feeling after having endured a bad film. Every handclap of applause is a slap in the face, a confirmation that, you know what? Maybe this isn't the business for us.

To survive, one must reach a point where one can separate jealous admiration from the frustration of injustice.

Jealousy -- good jealousy-- occurs during those moments of core honesty when you realize that, by comparison, others may be better at the thing you so love. Like this: I am sitting in a theatre in DC somewhere (this is a few years back), watching Samuel Jackson empty a Smith & Wesson forty-four into some kid-- when suddenly that image smash-cuts to a shaven-head Bruce WIllis staring RIGHT AT ME just as the cannon-fire gunshots are replaced by the smooth, haunting opening of "Let's Stay Together". And all I can think is:

"how did Quentin come up with that? How? How???"

Maybe, Pete, at least today... he's, uhm... better than you. And we mature, as artists, by learning how to replace our jealousy with admiration and learn from our betters.

And if it had been his film here at Prospector Square tonight, all I'd feel is: I get it. I get why he got in. Good for him. And I like to think I'd be inspired to get back to work, and work a little harder, and get a little better. And I'd silently thank Quentin for the wake-up call.

But this.... sitting in a packed theatre in Park City, cringing at something more poorly-shot and poorly-acted than most of what we do in class, and knowing the adulation that awaits the creator of this... whatever... there is nothing I can teach you here, for this is a lesson for which there is no shortcut to learning:

Injustice is harder than you can imagine. It may, in fact, be the truest test of how badly one wants a thing: the continual decision to stay in the game, knowing how it may turn out-- worse, that how it may turn out has little to do with merit or desire or discipline or any of those things we've been taught, rightly, to respect. (Still want in? Are you sure? OK then.)

Even so, in the thin, rapidly-cooling night air, I see a silver lining in the experience: movie-wise, I've got no place to go but UP.

And I get my scarf back! I take it as a sign.

NUMBER TWO: THE BLOCKBUSTER

I Love You Phillip Morris is one of the blockbuster titles of the festival, one of the "must see" films that's impossible get into. Thankfully, Cragslist has become something of a Sundance Equalizer, and I happen to log on at the right time and score a pair of tickets to the film.

Even though we arrive stupidly early, the Ticket Holder line already fills the snaky, cattle-pen gates that have been set up. By the time we're let in, it will extend the length of the theatre and around the corner into darkness.

After what we've come to call The Unmentionable Film (see above), we decide that whenever possible it's aisle seats for us, and we manage to snag a couple in a good spot, and settle in. Shortly before showtime, Jim Carey and Ewan MacGregor are hustled in, surrounded by a scrum of security-- and are immediately assaulted by seemingly half the theatre, all armed with digital cameras. Watching this awful spectacle -- I would guess, conservatively, that five hundred photographs of the stars are taken in the ensuing three minutes-- all I can wonder is, how do the paparazzi make any money at all? What are the odds that a "professional" photo is better than all of those hundreds of shots? But I digress.

The house lights dim. I Love You Phillip Morris is a difficult film to categorize-- Jim Carrey and Ewan MacGregor play gay men who meet in prison and fall in love-- but whatever it is, it's everything that The Unmentionable Film is not. They've spent money on this film, and spent it well; it feels professional, and smooth, it moves, it surprises.... and about halfway in, it has a Moment.

I love Moments. More, I think, than almost anything. I won't ruin this particular Moment beyond saying it involves Jim and Ewan, sharing a prison cell at night, dancing to "Chances Are"-- when suddenly everything works, and the film... elevates. It rises to that magical place that films can take us and so seldom do. It's romantic and sweet and yet tears are streaming down my face I'm laughing so hard... and I'm back. In Park City.

For this moment, these filmmakers are better than me. So many things had to work so perfectly to make this moment, and every one of them does. The moment is un-improvable, and they've got me. I'm in. I'll go wherever the cast and filmmakers want to take me.

Problem is, they try to take me to too many places. They want to make two movies, which might be OK, except that one of them is a Jim Carrey movie.... and the other one isn't. One is a Gay Comedy, John Waters gay, and the other one isn't. And my finely tuned dog-ears can hear the thoughts of the buyers, sprinkled throughout the theatre: "What do we do with this?"-- and later: "There's nothing we can do with this."

There's nothing we can do with this. Jim Carrey, folks. The twenty-million dollar man. With Obi-Wan, no less. A 1200-seat theatre, filled to capacity. Wild applause.

As of this writing, I Love You Phillip Morris has not sold.

LESSON: there are no guarantees in this business. None.

NUMBER THREE: PROSPECTOR SQUARE, AGAIN

So I'm at the Variety party (you knew there had to be a few parties, right?) and I see Emerson Bruns, an old business friend from New York. We're talking films, and it ends up that another friend is somehow involved with Once More With Feeling, which is screening the following afternoon at Prospector Square. There are no tickets to be had, but one generally has a better shot at wait-listing daytime events (especially with this weather!!), so I go.

The film stars Chazz Palmintieri, Drea DeMateo, and Linda Fiorentino; not surprisingly, it's a Quirky-Family Film about how dreams and romance never die. This from the Sundance catalog:

...brimming with heart, and music, and featuring fine performances from its ensemble cast, Once More With Feeling perfectly captures the strength of family bonds in the face of life's temptations and trials.

Where to start with Once More With Feeling?

How 'bout with the fact that the viewer is treated to... Chazz Palmintieri Sings! And sings again! And again! There is, conservatively, an album's worth of Chaz singing in this film-- and no "a few bars then cut to the next scene," no...these are full songs.

Or maybe it's the fact that we're asked to buy into a simmering Chazz Pamintieri - Linda Fiorentino romance that leads, cringingly, to The Big Kiss (and Chazz, of course, is a Married Man, and Linda, of course, is single). Full Disclosure: after The Last Seduction (IMDB it), there was a period where Linda Fiorentino played a major role in my fantasy life-- and to see my Linda like this, buckled into the front seat of a car, in a stiffly-written and awkwardly staged scene where she is meant to wait, aching, for friggin' Chazz Palmintieri to lean across and make his move... how times change, all I can say.

With this one, we can't leave. I have friends in the audience, and since we got in from the God-help-me WAITING LINE, we were the last to be seated and I have no way of knowing where they are. So here we are again, asking how did this get in? Except this time, there's an answer: the director, that's how.

Jeff Lipsky is something of a legend in Park City: a well-known and well-repsected producer who, it must be said, helped shape and nurture the entire independent film movement in America. So: a pedigree director, an indie-film all-star cast... what's not to love?

The film, that's what. Sadly, none of it really worked, starting with the script. The cast struggled mightily to bring the words off the page but in the end, and lacking the presence of a strong director (and even that may not have helped), there was simply nothing to be done.

In the men's room afterward, a publicist at the urinal next to me: "well, that's two hours we won't get back-- can you believe what a piece of garbage that was? So disappointing, my GOD..."

He does not notice that one of the stars (not Chazz, thankfully) has sidled up to the urinal on the other side. Ahh, Sundance.

LESSON(S): I see two here. 1) Just because you WANT to direct doesn't mean you CAN direct. No one is immune to this, not even if you're a legendary producer, and 2) I've said it before and I'll say it again: great movies --all of 'em, every single one-- come from GREAT SCRIPTS. No exceptions. None. This movie was DOA before the first frame of film was shot.

NUMBER FOUR: FINALLY, A SUNDANCE FILM

Back at the Eccles on Monday night.

The Messenger is not an easy film; worse (for the filmmakers), it's an Iraq film, attempting to find a foothold in a tough market at a point when Iraq Film Fatigue is a known phenomenon.

It's a simple pitch: Ben Foster is an Iraq combat vet who's sent back to the states to serve the remainder of his tour, where he's partnered with Woody Harrelson, and Woody's job is to teach Ben to be an "Angel of Death"-- Ben and Woody are the First Notifiers of the relatives of soldiers killed in duty. (Note to my Monday Night peeps: throughout the film, I'm thinking that I could have made the same movie with Conan McCarty and young Tim Rouhana. Or Eddie M and Tim, or Chris Coffey. Or Gerry Urcioli.)

And that's it. Sure, there's a love interest (Samantha Morton, brilliant in the Laura Heisler Role as a widow who begins a quiet relationship with Ben), and sure there are stories of friendship and dislocation-- but like any beautiful small film, descriptions really don't do it justice.

Even so, two moments stand out so much:

The first is pretty much smack in the middle of the film, and is the core of one of the film's story lines-- the developing relationship between Ben and Samantha. Ben, a mechanic, has helped repair Samantha's car, and she invites him in for coffee.

And we watch. We watch these two quiet souls move slowly, respectfully closer, negotiating propriety with desire, trying to figure out what they should do and what they want to do. They kiss... they stop. They talk a little, they stop. They hug, they stop. It feels, as I'm fond of saying, just like life. Oh, and did I mention it's covered in a single wide shot?

The other is near the end of the film. Woody has finally confessed the truth to Ben-- that while he was indeed sent to Desert Storm, he never saw action. In response, Ben finally tells the wrenching story of what happened to him in Iraq, how he came to be wounded and receive his medal. It's direct, underplayed to the point of plainness, and powerful. After a silence (they're sitting side-by-side in Ben's living room), Woody asks for a beer. Ben goes to get it and, once alone, Woody starts crying. Tears that turn into silent, wracking sobs. This is never explained. Better... we cut to Ben, closing the fridge, hearing something... then peeking around the corner into the living room and seeing Woody in tears. He ducks back and remains in the kitchen, silent, holding Woody's beer. Waiting for the storm to pass.

Every man in the theatre is devastated by this. By not just Woody, but Ben, standing in the kitchen. It's a moment of power and honesty that one so seldom sees on film, an emotionally courageous moment that affects me still. Every man wants to turn to any woman in earshot and say: "THIS is what it's like to be a man-- all this silence, all this isolation, all this pain-- and there's a part of this that you will never, ever understand."

To which the woman might reply: "maybe I understand it a little better, now."

Which is why we make movies. They tell us, sometimes, what we can't tell one another.

And this film will never find its way into a theatre. It'll air on cable somewhere, and when it does, see it, please. Make the effort.

We stay for the Q-and-A. I want to see the director, to hear what he has to say (interestingly, he's a bald israeli dude who towers over both Woody and Ben). Anyone who's sat through a few Q-and-A sessions learns quickly to expect the worst-- the stupid questions, the rambling pretentious questions, the inevitable "what was your budget?" question. So I'm pleasantly surprised when:

"how long was the kitchen scene?" (the Ben-and-Samantha scene I mentioned above) The answer: nine minutes.

I'm stunned. Oh, it was long --daringly so-- but I had no idea. On 35mm film, the longest roll you can get has about eleven minutes worth of film. They had one take per roll. It's ballsy, and I'm impressed with this director.

Question two, a follow-up: "how many takes of that did you shoot?"

Two-- well, three, really.

Question number three is the best yet: "...so which take did we see?"

Before you read the answer... guess. Go ahead.

Think you've got it? OK...

"Well, I didn't tell the actors, but we rolled on the rehearsal. That's the take we used."

The rehearsal. They used the rehearsal.

LESSON: this is why I train FIRST TAKE ACTORS. Because your best stuff is so often THE REHEARSAL and if it's not RECORDED ON FILM then it DOESN'T COUNT.

Got it? Good.

FINALLY... THE FILM THAT WASN'T

An Education was the film at Park City I most wanted to see. It's from a Nick Hornby novel (About a Boy or High Fidelity, etc), stars Peter Saarsgard and Alfred Molina, and the buzz was that the female lead would break out with this performance. Two problems: A) this was premiering at the Egyptian, the smallest of the Park City venues, and B) I only have one ticket, and my friend expressed an interest in seeing it as well. Bummer. But, again, it's a daytime screening (did I mention the weather is wonderful?) So I head down to the Egyptian to wait in the standby ticket line.

I arrive over two hours early. There are already sixty-seven people in the line; the theatre seats about 280; this is one of the "big buzz" films at all of Sundance this year. You do the math.

I decide to be the Good Friend and repay the Scarf Karma by offering her the single seat. As the screening approaches, I offer to be the BETTER friend and actually hold a place in the line (she's "getting ready."). But I'm clear: it's a 3PM screening and they'll start letting people in at 2:30 SHARP. The line will move at 2:30 SHARP.

2:30 sharp: the line begins to move. I immediately send a text.

2:38: I am at the front of the line. I text again. No word back, so I've got no choice but to cringe and let people behind me in line go ahead. As each one passes, they look at me, at the ticket in my hand; they glance up with expressions of confusion and pity.

2:44: the line stops. That's cool, though, because A) I'm about six people away from the front of the line, and B) they always do this, to get a seat count at crunch time, and C) my friend is JUST NOW ARRIVING.

We swap places. I loiter around the front of the theatre, just to check out the scene, and... oh, to to hell with it. I'm not going to drag this out: two more people are let inside. My friend isn't one of them.

Remember: I let about THIRTY people pass in front of me.

LESSON: sometimes in life the fine print counts. In this case: A TICKET DOES NOT GUARANTEE ADMISSION.

So there you go. Beautiful weather, and a few films. Not bad. Not bad at all.

PK

Muscle Memory, the Pledge of Allegiance, and learning your DAMNED LINES!

2009-01-05T18:18:00.000-08:00

I was first introduced to the concept of muscle memory in, not surprisingly, a fitness magazine.

While it seemed to my scientific mind like a "muscle-headed" concept at the time (ahem), I've been reading, and thinking, about Muscle Memory again, and how it applies to the ongoing issue of memorization.

FOR THE UNINITIATED, "Muscle Memory" refers to how a formerly fit person's body gets back into shape after time away from the gym. According to the theory, the muscles of a formerly buff, in-shape bodybuilder "remember" their previous state of, well, "jacked-ness;" as a result, a fit person will get back into shape in less time than a novice would require to achieve the same level of fitness, since the fromerly-fit person's muscles carry a sort of "memory" of being in shape.

See what I mean? Hair-brained.

On another level, though, it had a degree of anecdotal truth: I knew from my own experience as a runner that I'd "get it back", after an absence from running, in much less time than a beginner would require to reach my level of fitness. Still, I chalked much of that up to experience and psychology, assumed it was a mind-over-matter thing, and otherwise thought little of it.

But now Muscle Memory is back. Recent research into soft-tissue structure and functioning is providing some interesting, and startling, insights, and may even be proving the muscleheads right. No, I'm not going to get all scientific on you, but consider: all the mushy stuff inside you (well, most of it, anyway) is tissue. Brain? Tissue. Muscles? Tissue. Intestines, stomach, etc? You guess it-- tissue. Yet, organ-wise, we've been brought up to think that all of our thought and awareness and memory occurs, and is stored, solely in our brain. In other words, our brain tissue is somehow fundamentally different than all the other tissue in our bodies.

But what if it isn't? Think: how does your stomach "remember" what to do? How does a bone "remember" what it felt like before you slipped and broke it? Researchers are exploring the idea that brain tissue may not be the only place in our bodies where what we think of as "memory" is stored after all.

"Well, duh. "

I hope that's what you're thinking as you read this, because every actor should innately understand the link between muscular activity and memorization.

Why? Because speaking is a physical activity. You speak with your muscles as much as your mind. The muscular activity involved in speaking is subtle, yes, but so is surgery, and certainly no one would underestimate the importance of motor skills to the guy who does your gums. And it's always seemed to me, even back in my own acting days, that deep concentration never led to quicker memorization-- and now scientific thought supports what I've been saying to many of you for years: you carry the memory of your lines in your mouth as much as your brain.

Think not? Then try this simple test: say the Pledge of Allegience.
Right now, out loud. DON'T THINK-- look away from your I-phone or laptop or whatever RIGHT NOW and do it.

GO.

•

•

•

•

Done? How'd you do?

Here's what I know: if you didn't say it perfectly, you at least came pretty damned close. Now some of you have seen this exercise done in my class-- if you were lucky, you witnessed a fellow actor, fully insistent on the futility of the exercise, growing more amazed as strange words came out of their mouth that they were absolutely certain no longer existed there. Me, every time I watch this exercise I think I'm witnessing something of a miracle. Here's why:

Chances are, you haven't thought of those words in years. for many of you, it's been DECADES since you last spoke them. More, you didn't wake up this morning thinking about your "big Pledge of Allegiance audition." In fact, you didn't "rehearse" the words at all-- you just looked up and started speaking. And out they came.

So where were they? In what corner of your brain were they sitting, assumedly forgotten, waiting to be instantly called up? I think there's something to the possibility that they were lodged somewhere in your muscle fiber.

The lesson is clear: whether you've got two weeks or two hours or twenty minutes, your focus during memorization should be on Muscle Memory. I've long maintained that memorizing is an athletic activity-- and as with any athletic activity, one can be in, or out of, shape. Like any exercise, you become a better memorizer by working the muscle of memorization.

How? Mainly by simply speaking, not "acting," your lines OUT LOUD again and again and again. And again.

Most of you may be familiar with the "speed through"-- the up-tempo running of lines with regard for little but speed. (Back when I was acting, this was sometimes called an "Italian" run-- we guessed that it had to do with the notion that Italians speak quickly, which is certainly true; others theorized that it had something to do with opera, but no one was really sure. And I digress.)

If done properly, the "speed-through" may be the most efficient way I know of to quickly internalize text. But keep in mind that diction CANNOT be a casualty of the speed-through. If you're speaking so quickly that you begin to mumble, slow it down. If anything, it will help to over-pronounce during the speed-through. Lines get lodged in your mouth muscles when you work them, hard.

Why does this work? Because by focusing on tempo... you, the actor, free yourself from worry about performance. You're not trying to be good, you're trying to be fast. And here's secret number #1 about the speed-through: a little performance creeps in anyway.

Secret #2? When left alone to rehearse, actors tend to weigh a scene down with Meaningful Pauses. What actors don't notice, during the speed-through, is that some of their pauses creep in anyway-- but only those that are necessary to the scene. There's no time for the others, and they rightfully fall away. So remember:

1) STOL. In other words, Six Times Out Loud. This should be an Actor Law, especially as relates to auditions: when you go in to audition, it should be AT LEAST the sixth time you've read the scene OUT LOUD.

2) OUT LOUD means FULL VOICE, whatever that may be. This is my least favorite thing: watching actors eagerly run off to their fifteen minutes of prep, and on those occasions that I may pass them on my way to the restroom, I find them deep in thought, script in hand-- and SILENT. They'we wasting incredibly precious time THINKING about something they should be SPEAKING about.

So when approaching memorization, focus on putting the words in your jaw muscles, not your brain. And if you were a jock in high school, and not a brainiac? Ends up you might be the better memorizer, after all. Who'da thunk it?

A working Christmas

2008-12-28T17:17:00.000-08:00

On my birthday, I wake up at noon. But I have an excuse for this.

To make sense of it, let's back up a few days.

On Tuesday I'm in LA, on the set of a new series, working with my client and friend Eliza as she to pours herself into an enormous role. She's in almost every scene of this 63-page mountain of a script, courtesy of the young writers Jed and Maurissa (more on them later...). As if that weren't enough, Eliza's playing a recently deceased 55-year-old woman who's been put into her young body (it's complicated) and must return to her own home, as a young stranger, and endure the quite painful and unexpected things that are said to her, about her-- all while trying to unearth a truth without being found out. Like I said, it's complicated.

Thing is, my original trip to LA was intended to be one of my quick out-and-back jobs; fortunately, I'm able to rearrange things to remain in LA for the duration of the shoot. I've only got one commitment that I simply won't bail out on (yes, a class...). But the scheduling gods are smiling: class day, Wednesday, is the lightest on the schedule, so... if I leave Wednesday on a God-help-me 8AM flight out of LAX, I can arrive in NYC in time to do what I've got to do; then, if I can drag myself onto an 8AM flight back the next morning...

On Wednesday, traffic to LAX is light, thank God... I make my flight, which lands at JFK on time... arrive at my office at 5:30 to find a private client waiting and ready to go. I work with the client, then interview two potential new students before finally, at seven, teach what is my last class of the year. I'm back in my apartment at about 11:30... and can't sleep. I force myself into bed a little after midnight.

_______________________________________________

So, Thursday. To keep things simple let's do this in LA time:

I'm up at 4 AM (7AM East Coast), and in a cab at 4:20AM, back out to JFK for my return.... no upgrade (dammit!), but at least the flight's smooth, and on schedule. I'm in LAX by noon, pick up the rental car, head to Eliza's house... where I learn that, due to their late night on Wednesday, call time has been pushed. Sa-weet! I'm not due on set until 3PM, and Eliza's first scene goes off at four.

But but but... "set," in this case, is at a rural ranch about an hour out of LA, so as soon as I'm unpacked, I leave. I think they exaggerate about the drive, but no-- it's a solid hour before I turn into a remote ranch somewhere in Ventura county. Ends up they're doing pickups until the sun goes down, so there's little to do but work some scenes, run some lines, wander the property, relax.

I am reminded from time to time how California has its own beauty. The distant hills, bare save for a lone tree here and there, remind me of... something, something... a memory from high school, I think. I am, for a moment, completely dislocated. Or maybe that's fatigue.

Darkness comes and we head inside the stables, and as the night progresses I am again reminded of the work I do with so many of you in New York.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: what's happening on this set here (LA) is really no different than what we do there (NYC). Bigger crews and better cameras (and craft services!), that's about it. For this first scene, a bench has been placed along the wall dividing two stables, its smooth newness feeling out of place against the worn boards of the stables. But no matter-- most of the scene will be covered in close-up so the bench won't really stand out. The director sets up the scene-- "Jordan, you come in from over there--" she points to a vague location off camera-- "and Eliza, you're... no, why don't you both walk up to the bench and sit down."

So. The two actors step back a few steps, wait for "rehearsal... action!", then walk up, sit down, and play this important scene in which truths are revealed that move the story forward. That's all-- two actors, sittin on a bench, covered by two close-ups, one per side. They run it just once before clearing out for the crew to descend on the space and prep the scene, at which point we'll come back and quickly shoot it.

Sound familiar?

I am struck again and again by the... unlikeliness of this thing, this making of movies and television. Really, it shouldn't work: there are too many people, it's too disjointed; most of all, though, all of their work focuses on performers who perform (sometimes in rented horse stables in the middle of the night)without an audience. They only way it works - when it works - is through some alchemy of aligning desires and trust. So many people must be so proficient at their jobs (...a "boom guy?" Really? But, ya know, it's a talent, and it's important...), and must all desire quality above even, say, job security-- more, they all must trust that the others involved are equally committed and good at their own peculiar jobs. And the strangest job of all, of course, is held by those in front of the camera, those who must both forget the small army of tired, anxious, concentrated faces staring at them... and yet not. Those who must believe only in the intimacy of an imagined moment but don't tilt your head because you'll block the light!

As frustrated as I can get, folks-- I do respect the job a film actor does. (my constant question: do you?)

Anyway. Southern California is in the midst of a cold spell-- and out here, in the inland foothills, the temperature has dropped below forty degrees. Sure, it doesn't sound like much, but when you're under-dressed and standing around... I flip open my cel phone: 9PM. Friday on the East Coast. Happy Birthday to me, I think to myself as I gaze at the moon for a few seconds more before heading back inside.

The "bench scene" comes and goes. As we move on, I'm reminded again about the difficulty of "Be Good Now."

For those unfamiliar with the term, "Be Good Now" is, as those who study with me say, a" PK-ism". For me, Be Good Now refers to a particular challenge: one of the talents required to act on film is the ability to do wonderful, truthful work when we need you to do it. It matters not at all how good you were yesterday, or in rehearsal, or in your trailer, or even during the run-through fifteen minutes ago-- all that matters is your ability to dliver the goods when we call action. Theatre actors don't have this problem, as much-- they know when they need to Be Good (it usually begins a few minutes after 8 at night), and can set their emotional performance clock, their prep rituals, accordingly (Think not, Theatre Person? Imagine if the stage manager, even once, would walk into the dressing rooms at 7:45 and say "hey, guys? The audience is really late, so we're gonna push curtain to 10:30."). But the film actor....

The value I add on a set comes from the fact that I prioritize one thing, and one thing only: my client's performance in that monitor. I'm not looking at the focus, or the light; I'm not even looking at my watch. And what I see in that monitor is the moment of Now. And the way I see it, the film actor's job? Be Good Now. That's the point of all of it: the casting, the rehearsals, the re-writing, the re-lighting... and if the actor can't bring it, RIGHT THEN, in a chilly stable smelling of horse manure and hay... then, really, what's the point? Of all of this?

When everyone's fresh and there's plenty of time, my job is easy(ish), and rewarding. But as we move toward midnight, a crew of twenty in a cold, cramped horse stall... the pressure to allow the B+, to say sure, good enough, skyrockets.

The truth? Sometimes, just once in a while... we do it, Eliza and I. We allow the B+. Because we have to-- there's a flicker in her eyes, just a glance between us, and we both know it-- after hours of takes and re-takes, new angles, and all that waiting... her tank is dry. She is something of an all-star at Be Good Now, Eliza is-- but like all seasoned pros she's also had to develop a pretty damned good B+ as well. And sometimes it literally saves the day.

In my experience, the novice film actor has no B+. They just kinda fall apart.

MIDNIGHT passes, west-coast midnight... cast and crew have passed "cold and tired" a while ago... but thankfully, we end with a fight scene. Here's the thing: location doesn't matter, age doesn't matter-- Boy Actors the world over love them their Fight Scenes. The energy perks, the DP goes hand-held, which picks up the pace. Still, we go right up to twelve-hour before wrapping at almost 3.

The 101 freeway is empty, but I resist the temptation to go too crazy on the drive back --the last thing we need is a chance encounter with the CHP-- and we're back at about 3:40AM. I've been awake for almost 24 hours, most of it in transit. For my birthday I decide to allow myself a some sleep.

SO now you know.

_________________________________________________

When I wake up (at noon), good news: today we're "on the lot," and at about one PM Eliza and I commence the tag-team drive down the hill to Fox.

I will always have a fondness for the fact that Eliza is one of the few drivers consistently more aggressive than I; as we slalom down Coldwater Canyon, however, it occurs to me that she doesn't realize that a pretty starlet is likely to receive far different treatment from the Beverly Hills PD than some dude with an out-of-state license. (actually, in my speeding experience, having a New York City driver's license adds an all-or-nothing element to the proceedings: if the cop's from anywhere at all in New York, provided I can talk intelligently about the Yankees my license becomes a get-out-of-jail-free card. Otherwise, it's: "well I don't know how they drive in NEW YORK CITY...") (But I digress.)

So I've lost Eliza by the time I turn into the main gate. once there, I lie and tell the guard that I've never been here before. Why? Because no matter how many times I do this (and I had my first drive-on to the Fox lot in the late eighties), I never tire of the following:

Guard: "You been here before?"
Me: "Nope-- first time."
Guard: "OK. you're gonna go past New York Street, make a right at Star Wars, then right again..."

Make a right at Star Wars. For me that never gets old.

We've got four more long, long days before the episode is over. Four days of craft service, rehearsing in a trailer, running lines during the one-hundred-yard van trip from trailer to set; four days of staring at monitors and trying to keep the work fresh through that push-pull of waiting-acting-waiting-acting that is the Television Shoot.

I get to know Jed and Marissa, the young couple who've written the episode, pretty well; Jed, in particular, is attentive to all the goings-on. We talk acting, and though he still sometimes analyzes moments in terms of "shouldn't he do it like (line reading)?", he's getting the hang of trusting the actors to do some of the work he needs the script to do. He'll direct soon, and be good at it.

Provided, of course, he stops bursting into song. He's given to spasms of impromptu musical creativity, like the following after a scene is shot:

We're checking-- the gate!
We're checking-- the gate!
We're checking,
ch-checking,
ch-checking-- the gate!

And then we'll-- move OONNNNN!!!

Really, Jed should just get it over with and write that Broadway musical that's inside him, yearning to breathe free. Maurissa, his partner, is supportive of this-- I want to tell her to stop enabling him! when suddenly she kicks in with a harmony on some Monty Python piece. Funny thing, love. And for no reason that I can explain, that reminds me of the AWESOME Pecan Pie Bars that are at Crafty. I'm off!

The days go on like this. As is common on TV, day and night become attached not to the movement of the sun but to call times, and meals. Finally, at eight one night, we're done. Eliza's got a commitment and she dashes off; I check into some non-descript motel, and crash.

Good thing, too. I'm awoken by my phone - it's Eliza, on the set. The next episode has begun. We were both too burnt out to work it the night before, and her first shot goes off at nine. ACTORS, pay attention: new character, new script. Twelve hours later. I badly want to return to the set, but for personal reasons I've got to head east. I can delay no longer.

Christmas asserts itself in funny ways in Southern California. Out here, one has to be reminded of the season; for me, that's done by the radio. Over the past week I've heard all my favorites, save for one: "Christmastime is Here," the choral theme to the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. I'm not ashamed to admit that I own not only the Special itself (on VHS and DVD) but Vince Grimaldi's classic soundtrack CD as well. So I'm about a mile from the Alamo place -- and I swear I do not make this up, I mean I'm two minutes from dropping off the car-- when on comes that chorus of young voices: "Christmas tiiiime is herrre...." I've got a few minutes to spare, so why not: I take a right and spin through the neighborhood for a minute, letting the song play out as I note the surprising quality and ambition of the lawn decor in this modest neighborhood.

Driving past one candy-cane-festooned walkway, I get it: this is all one needs, really-- a few quiet minutes in Inglewood, driving your rented Pontiac, listening to Charlie Brown while taking a self-guided tour of the Best of Southern California Holiday decor. The Holiday spirit is upon me at last.

So now a week has passed and it's Christmas Eve. After returning to New York, I've driven through the snow to Vermont, to Boston, and back; I've gone to one funeral, and another wake; it's raining, and I've got strepp throat. LA already feels a million miles away.

Or maybe not. By the time I leave my apartment to head to midnight mass, it's warmed up to sixty degrees-- with the rain, it's almost exactly the weather of my last night in LA. As I hustle through the rain, sprinting against the light across Houston Street, I marvel at a God that allows such a life.

Truly, I do. And as I'm thinking about that, and about my time in LA and being here now, it hits me: it was my birthday then. It's His birthday now. Happy Birthday to you, Lord.

PK

On Imagination, and Boredom: a letter to my class

2008-11-11T17:24:00.000-08:00

This was written after a long class one night.

I've been thinking about class last Wednesday, and what we've got ahead of us.... and, in truth, I'm worried that we won't be ready to shoot next week. Oh, sure, I can get it all on film; we pretty much know what we're doing, who's going where, all that.

That's not my point. My point is that I left last night feeling that a number of the scenes lacked the connection, commitment and forward motion essential to the material. So I wrote this little note.... that turned into something of a missive. I tend to do that.

I think most of these scenes need another week. Normally, we'd just have to chalk this up to a learning experience and move on, but since this is the last session of the year we've got some wiggle room. As for what follows: be warned that some of it is a little tough-love, and read on.

AFTER CLASS, a few of you commented that watching me "step in" and run a little of the scene with Paula really helped. So let's talk about what you saw.

Like so many people in this business, I started out as an actor. I still love the doing of it. More, I respect the doing of it. And while I am not even beginning to suggest that I'm God's gift to the craft, I do know one thing: I am constitutionally unable to allow myself to be bored while I'm acting. Honestly, that is unthinkable to me. I can't imagine faking emotion. I can't imagine writing those silly notes about "line delivery" in my script.

The INSTANT I'm bored when acting... I'll do something. I'll think weird thoughts. I'll push, I'll stretch, I'll invent.

Every time I act I do this. Every single time I work with a private client, every single time I read with one of you in my office, I personalize (in other words, believe in YOU), I commit; I push you with the deep-rooted hope that you will, God-help-me, PUSH BACK. When and if you do, I start having fun.

So what, exactly, did I do when I read with Paula? Simple. First, I began with reality:

1) I know Paula.
2) I have a birthday. (I do!)

Then, all I had to do was use the MIRACLE POWERS OF MY IMAGINATION to believe that:

1) my birthday is tomorrow.
2) Paula gave me a crappy gift last year -- one of those gifts that SHE likes but no one else really does. (here, I realize, I can reference a family member who has a talent for this)
3) Paula isn't as good a friend as she thinks she is. And I want her to notice, respect, and deal with what I'm feeling.

Finally... I up the stakes:

I'm FUCKING SICK of her not noticing what I'm feeling. I'm FUCKING sick of that attitude, and if she was a FRIEND she'd notice that something's going on with me and she'd STOP PLAYING THAT STUPID GAME.

And that's it. I'm off to the races. All my energy is on Paula. If she indulges herself, I won't be patient, I'll CUT HER OFF OR JUMP HER LINE because this is MY LUNCH too, dammit (please note I'm no longer even thinking "scene"), and I'm not here to mark time while she looks around. Or, maybe I'll use what she's doing as fuel for the fire I'm feeling. Either way, I ain't bored. I am in the moment, and human moments are always, always, compelling.

To stay committed - to move, and to be moved by another - this is the point of acting, the challenge of it, the fun of it.

It's the talent.

And developing that talent is why you're in my class. Right?

Guys: we know we can speak English. We know how scripts work, basically: you say all of these words, the other actor says all of those words. Before we even got started in class I knew you all could do that.

So if that's all I see you doing... I love ya, but I'm bored.

I'm bored because, honestly? You're bored. Worse, you're doing something that you can only get away with in class: you're asking the audience to work harder than you are. You're asking US to care more, to believe more; you're asking US to push, to feel, to commit.... precisely those things we need you to do for us. That's your job. And you can never, ever get away with phoning it in out in the world; you shouldn't ever do it in class. And whenever your work or someone else's work feels slow, or draggy, "speeding up" won't help. Caring more will.

And, yes, last week was meant to be about the practical, but still.

Story for you:

About fifteen years ago (ouch), I was the artistic director of a theatre company in Boston, and I directed the Boston premiere of Execution of Justice, a play about the Harvey Milk assassination and the subsequent trial of Dan White. It's an epic script. There are twenty four listed cast members in the play, and I didn't double up a single one of them. (Because that's the Peter Kelley way, dammit!) It was an all-consuming, draining, impossible project. In short, I loved every minute of it.

Until opening night. The house was full, all the major Boston papers were there, hopes and expectations were high-- and somehow ("why" is still very much a mystery to me) one of the very first actors to speak... took a nice... long... pause before doing so. What we used to call a truck-driver pause (as in: "you could back a truck through that pause"). And all I could do was stand, horrified, as pause-itis spread like friggin' Herpes through the TWENTY-FOUR PERSON cast.

They added almost twenty minutes to the run time of the play that night. A two-hour, fifty-minute play that asked a lot of the audience to begin with. I knew that the famous Boston press was not, to put it mildly, going to be kind to us. I wanted to kill the cast. The stage manager did, too, so we called the cast into the house for a meeting after the audience had left, before the cast party was to begin. (No lethargy about getting to THAT, I imagined).

Me: "So, uhm.... what happened tonight?"

One actor, a leader of the bunch, all morning-talk-show contemplative: "it felt a little... off. It was slow."

Then another, nodding thoughtfully in agreement: "it definitely felt slow."

I was stunned. All this nodding, this clinical, objective assessment, as if I was in front of a panel of scientists discussing a far-off phenomenon that had nothing to do with them. As if the long long LONG, self-indulgent, bad community-theatre, spirit-killing pace that a PAYING AUDIENCE had just been forced to sit through to had not been their doing.

Me: ".......hey, GUYS?..."

I was later told several cast members felt certain I was going to hit them.

"THERE IS NO 'IT.' YOU are 'IT.' 'It was slow,' 'it was off,' 'it dragged...

WRONG.

YOU were slow. YOU were off. YOU dragged. Because YOU didn't care. PERIOD."

We were, for the most part, slaughtered in the press. Even remembering it, I gotta take a few deep breaths.

"OK, I see your point," you're thinking, "but what if you don't like (or maybe don't get) the script?"

Ahhhh, yes. Blaming The Script. Second story:

THERE'S an old Pledge of Allegiance exercise we did (no, not the one I sometimes do in class) back when I was studying acting. The exercise is simply this: say the Pledge of Allegiance... but as a monologue.

So, naturally, like any monologue, you are saying it to someone (of your imaginative creation) for a reason (of your imaginative creation).

That's it. That's the exercise. It's a choice-making exercise, it's a commitment exercise, it's an exercise meant to illustrate a baseline truth about (good) acting: never let the words do the work. YOU do the work. You can decide that you're using the Pledge to seduce someone, to cajole someone, whatever.

So this one woman, well... as she started in, she was terrified. She was slow, halting, and...pleading? She fought back (real) tears; it seemed for a moment is if she wasn't going to make it through. Though we didn't know what was happening, everyone in the class was riveted.

What had she invented? This: someone was holding onto her cute, tiny, four-year-old daughter... and if she didn't say the Pledge perfectly, word for word, that person was going to snap her little girl's neck off.

Brilliant. Why?

1) The stakes could not have been higher. More, the stakes were specific. I have mentioned the essential importance of specificity to some of you so many times, but I will do it again: as a choice, "someone is going to hurt my daughter" is vague, and therefore boring, and therefore useless. "That huge man with the thick forearms is going to snap my daughter's neck right off" is evocative, it's specific, and it's kind of horrifying.

See the difference?

2) the unlikeliness of failure. The thought that suddenly, with the stakes that high, she might screw up this simplest of things, and how the thought of screwing up paralyzed her. This is quite similar to people with fear of heights -- if they approach a high ledge they are gripped with an irrational fear that the laws of gravity might suddenly be reversed, or that they themselves might fail at standing. Standing. That simplest of things that they do every day suddenly becomes a precarious act.

The actor's complete belief in those two truths, in combination, made drama out of the speaking a set of words we've all heard hundreds of times. And, remember: she didn't even have another actor to work off of. All she had - all she needed - was her imagination and her ability to care.

Now I'm not suggesting that you have to make crazy-assed choices in your scene. I AM suggesting that even a crazy-assed choice is better than not being connected, and if you're not connected, hey, give it a shot.

Do you guys understand how severely, how impossibly, how laughably the odds are against you in this business? Why make them even worse by not caring?

Last point.

People ask me sometimes if I can "tell" talent. Those same people also (and mainly) want to know whether I could have "told" that the stars I worked with were going to make it when I first began working with them. Here's the thing: the people who ask may think these two questions are one and the same, but in reality they are only marginally related. Unfair, yes. But true.

First thing I will tell you: yes, I can see talent. It is as immediately apparent to me as beauty. (no, you may not ask me about yours)

The second thing I will tell you: none of the "famous" actors I have worked with was initially the most talented person in their acting class or the standout at the audition. None. Not one. (Actually, that's not true: there was one. But only one. And no, I'm not telling.)

Think about that for a second before you obsess about your level of talent.

What they all had in common was drive. They were driven to the point of being boring (they mostly wanted to talk about their careers, which gets old for an acting teacher pretty quick), and they were competitive to a point that was almost unhealthy.

Translation: they wanted to be the best person in the class. Every time. Every scene. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't. No matter-- each time, they gave it their very best shot.

Do you?

So there you go. Hope it wasn't too harsh, but then, hey, I'm an acting teacher-- I gotta blow it out now and then. Part of the job.
Thanks for listening.

PK

Park City Diaries, Vol. 2: a pilgrimage, indeed.

2008-01-31T18:08:00.000-08:00

"It'll take about fifteen minutes, right?"

It's my first question as I climb into the cab. It's six AM, and my flight out of La Guardia's at 7:05. And that's not good.

Yes, it's true: I'm headed back to Park City. This year, I won't be there with a film; this year, I'm accompanying my friend and client Eliza Dushku, a Park-City novice who's appearing in a film in competition. Way back in December, when I found out her film got in, I was surprised to learn that no one had urged Eliza to attend the festival; now, five weeks and dozens of phone calls later, the crew has grown to four, including Eliza's agent, manager, and brother in addition to myself. I fear this makes me part of an entourage but I decide to refer to us all only as a crew. In truth, I'm not sure what to expect. Her team promises me that we're gonna do Park City right-- parties, swag, all of it.

So again I'm on a Pilgrimage. Some of you may remember that on last year's Pilgrimage I broke road warrior rule #1: Never, Ever, Check Luggage. Due to the last-minute nature of my travel plans, this year I'm violating Rule #2: Never, Ever, Book a Connecting Flight. Worse, I think to myself as our battered minivan bounces over the Williamsburg bridge (why do I always manage to flag down the hated minivan?): here it is I'm already late. The thought triggers a deja vu: I was late last year, as well, I think-- and I'm remembering that unlike my customary JFK-LAX route I can't simply "take the next flight" if I miss this one. But no worries: my cab driver is dangerously fast (my favorite!), and I'm there by twenty-five past six. LaGuardia is, praise Jesus, uncrowded.

As some of you may remember from last year, the one taste of The Good Life I allow myself is my Big Kahuna status on American Airlines. No endless line, no kiosk for me, no, I simply stride up to the first executive-class check-in agent I see and ask about my upgrade request. This morning it's Diane. Diane is impressively perky for 6:25 AM.

"Well let's just take a look, Mr. Kelley... (taptaptaptaptap)....OK, I can help you out to Dallas (taptaptap) and to Salt Lake..." Tap tap tap...

...all at once her face goes slack. It's as if somehow the Zapruder film has begun playing on her computer screen. She's hypnotized by what she sees, and mutters to herself:

"Oh my... wow."

I deduce that I won't be flying first class on the flight into Salt Lake, and tell her as such. She chuckles.

"No. That flight is..." --she runs her finger down the screen, still enthralled-- "forty nine seats oversold. Wow."

She glances at me, then back at the screen. Makes an executive decision. "OK, I'm gonna..." She resumes furiously tapping. A boarding pass spits out. She sneaks a conspiratorial smile.

"I stole an exit row for you on that Salt Lake flight." She slides me the boarding pass, and I actually detect a note of fear in her voice as she whispers: "Don't lose this."

Then, as I'm leaving she adds: "You know, it's a holiday weekend. Martin Luther King Day. That's what it is."

Well, not quite.

The remainder of my time in La Guardia is calm, and flight number one departs without incident. Thing is, though, I'm sick. My head throbs, my gut aches, every blink seems to scratch my eyeballs; I feel wickedly hung over without even having had the pleasure, as it were, the night before. The back of my throat has become Normandy Beach: I feel endless waves of virus storming my body's beachead defenses, and those bunkers ain't holding. Once onboard, I cannot nod off for more than five minutes without coughing myself awake. This sleep-cough-moan cycle repeats itself for the entire flight.

Eventually we touch down in Dallas. I cannot remember that last time I saw this broad an expanse of sky without at least a saw-toothed edge of mountains to define it. We taxi... and taxi... and taxi... our route even takes us up and down a slight hill, and I am certain I have never experienced that in an airliner before. I am, simply, overwhelmed by this airport: Kennedy is more crowded, sure, but it is dwarfed by the endless landscape of runways that seem to stretch all the way to that flat Texas horizon. Where am I?

Ends up I'm in a sovereign state known to its residents only as DFW. As I step off the jetway and get my bearings, I notice an odd feeling, a discomfort that takes me a moment to place: as a New Yorker, I am distrustful of the shiny and spacious and clean, and DFW is all three. Or maybe it's just that I'm still sick. I have almost four hours to wait in DFW and I am achy and exhausted and generally miserable. But as lug my roll-on in the general direction of my next gate (a TWENTY MINUTE walk, I am told), a pair of glowing, frosted-glass doors beckon to my left:

The Admiral's Club. Well, why not. I'm a mucky-muck, after all, might as well make use of it. I head inside.

"You're Platinum so you get a discount. It's forty dollars for a Day Pass."

This from Joan, behind the marble counter. We're alone in the lobby, and her hushed tone adds to the sanctuary feel of the place. Sensing my hesitation at the price, Joan begins to list the amenities that lie at the end of the hallway behind her: the club chairs, the internet access, the free beverages, blah blah blah. No sale, that's what I'm thinking-- but like any good real-estate agent, Joan's saved her fastball for last:

"We also have private showers. The ones here are new and really nice."

Suddenly, Joan and I are speaking the same language, and it has nothing to do with scoring a nooner with an American Airlines employee. I fork over the forty bucks and immediately head for the shower.

I am in shower suite #1, which is softly lit and roughly the size of a New York studio apartment. As I strip naked, I notice that the room is utterly silent. Every sound - the thunk of my carry-on as I drop it onto the rosewood luggage rack, the padding of my bare feet across the stone floor - is amplified. Or maybe I've been living in New York City for too long and am simply unaccustomed to peace.

One could drown under the sheer volume of warm water that cascades out of the rainforest showerhead. Isn't Texas in something of a draught? No matter. I am so tired, and this feels so good, I wonder if it isn't possible to sleep in a shower.

Well, it isn't. Not quite. Oh, it's comfortable enough, and warm enough, and there's something hedonistically ancient-Rome about curling into a fetal position on a warm-tile floor as you're gently massaged with hot water, but every time I start to nod off some primal, fear-of-drowning thing keeps me from the blissful nap I so desire. Suddenly, inspiration strikes. I step out of the shower, turn the water as hot is it can go, block the heat vent and stick a towel under the door (those old druggie skills put to use!)-- and in a few minutes I am in my own steam room. I drape the last pillowy white towel across the teak bench, and sleep. On reflection, I think it fair to say that I've not slept naked and blanket-less before in my life. At least not sober.

Out into the lounge, refreshed. I settle into a plush leather club chair and look around.

I am in the land of middle-aged White Dudes. It's so perfect, so uniform, it could be an exhibit in some exotic zoo, or one of those dioramas in a natural history museum. Funny thing, though: no one's wearing a suit here. All the Middle-Aged White Dudes are dressed to travel. Ill-fitting jeans (or pleated khakis) cinched too tight (and didn't those thin, black-and-chrome belts go out in the eighties?), with a polo shirt or black long-sleeved sweater up top.

Oh, and the Bluetooth. All of 'em. Every single one, yammering away, and as I listen to them I marvel, again, at the inefficiency and pomposity of American corporate culture (an oxymoron, yes?). I actually hear the following shouted into a Bluetooth with neither humor nor irony: "...yeah, Jeff emailed me that they've already got boots on the ground at the convention, so are we there in an overlay capacity?..."

'Are we there in an overlay capacity??' I want to tell this guy, who appears to be single, that the black-shoes-and-wide-jeans look he's rocking, coupled with that attitude... well, throw that Bluetooth in the mix and it's pretty much guaranteed that he will never, ever get laid without the aid of a credit card. But he's on a rap, so I decide it best not to interrupt his Flow.

As any Pilgrim knows, all rest stops must end, and it's time for me to get myself to Salt Lake. Off I go, to E-23.

The mob surrounding E-23, anxious and quiet, is not a good sign. Just as I'm near the gate, the standby list flashes on: still over forty names on standby for this flight. But I've got a boarding pass (thanks, Diane!) so I'm cool, and am not at all tempted by the announcement that passengers willing to give up their seat will get five hundred dollars (!) worth of free travel. Soon, the flight is called (on schedule!), and I'm on the plane. Seat 8A. Not a Big Seat, but not bad. And and and... my immune system seems to be beating back this cold. Things are looking up.

But as I'm gazing out the window, thinking thoughts of Park City, the voice of our Captain From the Flight Deck (do they all attend the same Airline Pilot voice-over school in the Midwest?):

"Hi folks-- well, we felt a little thud up here while we were gettin' our cargo loaded on-- as you can see, we've got a full flight, lots of bags, lots of skis... I had our first officer take a walk around the aircraft, do a visual inspection... aaaaand it looks like we've got a minor puncture in the skin. So, uhm, what all this means is... I'm gonna have to ask you all to get off the plane, because we're gonna take it out of service."

Why, oh why, did I break rule number two? NEVER, EVER, TAKE A CONNECTING FLIGHT. NEVER. EVER.

I am instantly in crisis mode. While my fellow passengers sit, stunned in a momentary haze of shock and denial, I am out of my seat like a shot, and within thirty seconds am grilling the gate agent on the situation. Ends up they're looking for a spare plane (...a spare plane? Like, "yeah, take the old DC-10 out back, keys are under the visor, should have about half a tank???"), and the relentlessly optimistic Gate Lady says she can "squeeze me onto a 9:10 PM flight." No good. But she assures me that there is no better place in the world to get a spare plane (again: a SPARE PLANE) than Dallas.

Amazingly, she's right. Less than an hour later and I'm back in a new seat 8A, on a shiny new plane at the very next gate over (and... are those passengers I see, boarding our old plane? Suckers.) All we need to do is push back.

...and get there.
And get the rental car.
And get to Park City.
And figure out where, exactly, I'm staying.
And go to Eliza's dinner and, afterward, the film's premiere.
At 8:30 PM. I glance at my cell phone: it's 2:50PM, Mountain Standard Time.

I suddenly wish I could take another shower.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Remarkably, the rest of the journey is incident-free.

Or had been, I think while sitting in my rented SUV, at a dead stop, staring at the endless stream of taillights leading into Park City. I still have heard no word from Eliza. It occurs to me that perhaps I won't. That's OK. I look up at the mountain ridges rising on either side of me, their high snowpack now purple with the very last of the light, and it hits me, again:

God, it's beautiful here. Maybe all these delays have a point. Maybe even this traffic jam. See, people ask me sometimes why I'm religious, more so now then when I was younger.

Maybe it's this: in the end, our life (all of us, Our Lives) is nothing more or less than what we do. Not what we hope for, or talk about, or fear; not what we want to do, or absolutely plan on doing, but the cumulative results of what we actually do. For me, more and more often I find I'm not at all sure of the results of a thing at the moment that I do the thing. But sometimes in those moments, those left-or-right, stop-or-go seconds right before a decision, there's a deep, quiet feeling, not so much that the action I choose is the right thing to do, but that it's the only thing to do. More: it's the only thing I can do. And sometimes, underneath that quiet feeling (if I look for it) is deeper feeling still, all but undetectable among the noise of my own vanities or doubts or fears, but it's there: a kind of trust that this thing I do will be the right thing. Even if I don't know what the right thing is.

It's that feeling that I have come to call Faith.

So it is with my being in Park City, in this SUV, in traffic. An act of faith.

I speak truth when I tell you that these are my thoughts as I make the (illegal) left turn onto Main Street... and my phone rings. Eliza.

"Pete, where are you? I just put your name at the door for the cast dinner, but we're sitting down-- how soon can you get here?"

Fifteen minutes later and still in my hiking boots and travel clothes and I'm seated between Eliza and her agent at a table elegantly set for a three course dinner. As goblets of wine are poured, our host points out that our meal is courtesy of one of the seven master sushi chefs in America. He then asks us to lift our appetizer plates-- underneath each of our plates are room key holders for the Venetian Lake Tahoe, and we're all thrilled-- until he informs us that only one holder actually contains a working key-- ends up Alan Rickman is the holder of the lucky key. Then discussion of business while enjoying the lobster truffles, the Kobe beef sirloin tips in a caramelized Wasabe marinade, the macadamia souffle with champagne sauce, then it's off to the premiere. Eliza goes to walk the press line; our crew has swelled to six, and there's a little bluffing, a little palming of tickets required to get us all in... finally, at eight-thirty, I'm sitting next to Eliza as the lights go down.

"What do you think, Pete?"

Eliza whispers the question in my ear. To this day, she is the only person I allow to call me "Pete."

I want to tell her that this is my favorite time. These few seconds, so, so precious: this magic time between when the lights have gone down, the chattering's stopped, and the movie's about to start. It is my favorite time in the world. I exist in these few seconds so fully that the rest of my life is balanced out - the disappointments, the growing questions, the growing fears. I think it may be my fate to be addicted to these seconds. I prize them more than money, or sex; more than the sense of security (that I so utterly lack) that I value more with age. These feelings are a voice, an articulate confirmation that this is why I'm here. I want to tell her how lucky we are to have a Favorite Thing, and to know it, that the years will teach her how many people spend their entire lives searching unsuccessfully for that thing. I want to tell her that this, just this, this moment, is why I crawled out of bed in New York City and into a cab and onto a plane and onto another plane and into a rental car to find myself in a movie theatre in the Utah mountains, thousands of miles from where I woke up. And I want to tell her that this moment would have been a little... less, somehow, if our journey to get here had required nothing more than a cabride uptown.

"I think it's pretty cool," I whisper back. "And I'm proud of you."

And it occurs to me that it's a good thing I took that shower. But that, I keep to myself.

A Christmas Story, Hollywood Style

2007-12-29T17:50:00.000-08:00

As always: I do not make this up.

So it's Christmastime.

Even at my age, I still love the season; I love the feeling when the days get short and everything in New York City, it seems, winds down. Classes are done for the year, holiday events are past; all I could ask for to make my Christmas season complete is a little snow. This year I've got no plans for the holiday, so I can relax and enjoy the season. A quiet week awaits.

This is what I'm thinking, anyway, on the morning of the eighteenth.

The call comes in at around around 2PM. Client #1, wondering if it'd be possible for me to attend the major management meeting that's scheduled in Beverly Hills the next day. I'm sensing this is something I should attend, but, really... tomorrow? A week before Christmas? C'mon. Then, later, as I'm in the midst of my last email-check of the night, an incoming message: Client #2, and do I happen to be in LA and could I coach for a few hours on a film tomorrow? His director meeting's at 3:30, so could I work at, maybe, 2?

I dutifully call American Airlines, wondering, just for fun, what the fare might be for a no-advance-purchase, cross-country round trip the week before Christmas.

"Oooh, yeah, that's.... ouch. But let's take a look." I love these reservation ladies at American Airlines, with their flat Midwestern accents and their "roll-up-our-sleeves-and-get-to-work" attitude. I hear rapid keyboard taps from some grim workstation in some call center I can only imagine, when... "Well, now, hold on... huh. Here's what I got..."

She quotes a fare that is in fact remarkably low, considering that the flight's departing, you know, tomorrow. I grab it and head to bed, amazed at my luck. I'm gonna make the 12:30 meeting, and Big Client #2 has secured the EXACT SAME conference room (he's with the same Management company!), so we can work there from 1:30 to 3, at which time I'll rejoin Client #1 and attend the remainder of the day's Publicist meetings.

I'm up at 5:30 the next morning, and traffic to JFK is remarkably light. I'm there by 6:20-- a quick breeze through security, over to the Starbucks (no line!) where I decide to splurge on a festive holiday Pepperment Latte, and just as I'm back at the gate they've begun to board. We push back just a hair after 7:30.

Perfect. This has all gone just perfectly. And during the dreaded Peak Holiday Travel Season, no less. After two decades of this, I may finally be bi-coastal. I'm Cruising like Tom. I'm so golden I glow. Just then, from The Flight Deck:

"Hi, folks, your captain here... I'm getting kind of a funny read on one of the fuel pump gauges... ahhhww, it's probably nothing but, ahhhww, I'm gonna just pull us back into the nearest gate and have a mechanic take a look at it. Shouldn't be more than a few minutes and we'll have you all back on your way."

I'm not concerned. Really, I'm not. I'm crusing like Tom, remember? Even so, I've got a window seat where it's possible to see the door, so I watch.

It's fifteen minutes before a beat-up pickup truck pulls up alongside the plane and an aging, ponytailed roadie from the last Greatful Dead tour climbs out. No, wait: that's our mechanic. He climbs the stairs and boards. Five minutes later, he climbs down.

"Ahhw, this is your captain again... we got maintenance here, and they're just going to talke a look at those pumps, get us on our way. Shouldn't be more than...... fifteen, twenty minutes."

I'm certinaly no longer golden. Silver, maybe. But no lower, no bronze for me, no way. At least that's what I say to the ominous quease in my gut. Then this: "In case you're wondering, folks, nothing to be concerned about - we've actually got six fuel pumps on this plane, and even though it's safe to fly with five, I, ahhhww, just wanted to get that sixth one checked out."

Wait. Waitwaitwait. Let me see if I've got this straight: FIVE working fuel pumps (and probably all six) were not good enough for goodie-two-shoes in the pilot's seat?

Twenty-five minutes later the Roadie lumbers back up the stairs. Lumbers down a few minutes later and drives off. Silence.

Finally: "Hi folks-- well, good news is the pumps were all fine (!), and we're set to go. Bad news is... we burned off a lot of fuel sittin' here, so, ahhhww.... we're gonna wait and get ourselves topped off. Just as soon as we get a fuel truck out here it shouldn't be more than... another ten mintues. Thank you for your patience." And I'm thinking: no need to thank, Asshole, for I am not patient. I am seething. I am doing the awful time-crunch math and realize that what little cushion I had for the day is gone. If we leave now, and I mean RIGHT NOW, I can still make my day as planned in LA.

It is another half-hour before the truck arrives, fuels, and leaves. We do not move.

"Hi folks... your captain again... so we're fueled up and ready to go... but all our ground crews are a little tied up right now getting other planes out to the runway, so, ahhhww.... soon as we get a crew to push us back we'll be on our way."

Yeah, well, now it's FUCKING JFK RUSH HOUR, pal. As you know. A fact which you do not want to share with your passengers because of your now-justified fear that we might mutiny.

Finally, at 9:10, we push back-- and head to a more distant runway, for by now the wind has shifted. But but but but but.....by the time we get there (You-know-who is the most conservative pilot out here, and we lose position in line to not only those maniacs from Jet Blue --two of 'em!-- but, worse, to a fucking UPS cargo plane), and we're FINALLY Number One For Departure...

...the wind shifts. And we are routed clear back across JFK, one of the largest airports in the WORLD, to our original runway.

Remember: I do not make this up.

Our Leader, of course, does not have the courage to tell the other passengers this, to do the right thing and get on that PA and say: "ahhw, well, folks, if I'd been just a LITTLE LESS OF A PUSSY it would've been us taking off right now instead of those UPS boys, but since I'm -- well, ME-- I'm going to have to drive you all back across JFK where maybe, just maybe, I'll have to DO MY JOB AND ACTUALLY TAKE THIS PLANE OFF."

My 7:30 flight leaves the ground at 9:49. I have been on this plane for almost three hours, and there's a-six-hour flight ahead of us.

_________________________________________

IT'S RAINING when we touch down at LAX and we have made up no time whatsoever, but at least we're here. Unfortunately, by this point my inner "Golden Tom" has been replaced by New England Irish Catholic, "It's-always-something" Pete, and Irish Catholic Pete will not be happy until he's actually off this God-forsaken plane and sprinting through LAX Terminal 4.

And with good reason, for as soon as the plane swings off the runway... we stop.

I laugh. The hard, bitter laugh of the psychotic and the damned. The lady next to me is certain I am crazy, and she may at this moment be correct-- save for the fact that, unlike her, I Know. I have earned my Executive Platinum status, forged it through years of enduring every airline screw-up possible, and one thing I've learned is this: when it comes to Hell Trips, when it rains, it pours. At that very moment, as if reading my mind...

"Well folks... ahhhww..."

The swagger is gone from Our Leader's voice, replaced, in an amazing display of horrific people skills, by his "joking" voice as he attempts to make light of the LIVING HELL HE HAS CREATED: "you're not going to believe this (oh yes we are), but... looks like the jetway at our gate isn't functioning, heh-heh-heh... Don't really have a free gate right now (since we're TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATE FOR NO GOOD REASON) so we're just gonna taxi out past the gate area to keep things clear and just as soon as they find a gate for us we'll get you right back in there."

We taxi through a steady rain to the farthest corner of the airport. I think we may pass a shanty-town in some remote backwater of LAX before coming to a stop in a place best used for drug deals or gangland executions.

I stare out miserably at the pools of rain. Asshole has won. He knew he had the advantage on me, buckled into seat 24A; he understood my impotence against the sheer force of his incompetance. Over the past nine hours he has beaten the rage right out of me.

______________________________________________________________

And I think he senses this, for without fanfare we are moving again, and a little after 1PM I'm back on land. I want nothing more than to collapse onto some barstool and forget this TEN HOURS OF HELL, but I must dig deep and draw upon my inner reserves and remind myself that I'm HERE now. My time in LA just beginning.

I text everyone, lying that I'm in a cab and on my way... then sprint down the concourse in a fulll-out, broken-field run (I'm Tom Cruise again! Running through an airport!)... dodging Holiday Walruses lugging their rollaway "carry-ons" the size of steamer trunks... I'm FINALLY out the door...

...and there's a cab line. And, ya know, that's cool, I'm a new Yorker so no big deal-- except that there are no cabs. And, as I quickly realize, folks here in LA are a little fuzzy on the concept of the "cab line".

There are about half a dozen travelers forming a sort-of-line by a small, neglected Taxi sign. It's a far cry from the rough efficiency of the cab lines back at JFK, but I am nothing if not fair about these things, so I get in line. Problem: I don't see any cabs, and Cab Drought tends to threaten the order of the cab line. Fearing a Donner-Party Tragedy, the group in front of me leaves. I am now Officaly And According to Me #1 in the cab line.

But not for long, for now, from my left, comes a scrum of tourists. Midwesterners, my guess. They make furtive eye contact with me... they see the taxi sign... then their gaze shifts and I watch as they scan the clusterfuck of holiday traffic and spot the lone cab veering our way. The Chubby Dad sneaks a glance back my way (yes I fucking SEE you) before faux-innocently walking out, raising his hand, "oblivious" to me--

"--yeah hey THERE'S A LINE. " That was me. They notice me now.

The Midwesterners are startled at the hostility in my outburst. 'Another New Yorker,' that's what they're thinking as they glance my way and play-act "noticing" the taxi sign. God-dammed right, I want to tell them, but no time: I'm on a mission.

_______________________________________

One thing I've come to realize in my history of cab-riding in Los Angeles is, how do I put this... the remarkable flexibility of the lisencing process here. Provided it has four tires, as far as I can tell any shitbox that can get up to freeway speed can be a cab in LA. No time to ponder, though, since it's 1:20 when I climb into the minivan that's pulled up (why do I ALWAYS get the minivan?) and scrape the door closed.

"How long to Century City?" I demand. It comes out as something of a bark.

"Oh, forty-five minutes."

"WHAT?! How is that possible??"

"Well you know the rain. Everyone drive crazy."

And I finally, finally snap. Snap like a twig.

"How do you people DO it how DO you do it how does ANYONE live here? I HATE it here I HATE it here I fucking HATE it here."

My driver just chuckles. I ask him his name.

"Erhhrv-fha". He seems Hatian to me, so I decide it's Herve.

I choke back stinging tears of frustration as I settle in for more travel torture. But I am wrong, for Herve is posessed. He pilots his jalopy, this exhaust-belching rattlerap, at seventy miles per hour down the god-help-me BREAKDOWN LANE on the 405; he changes lanes with the blind confidence of shitbox drivers the world over (their motto: 'what are ya gonna do - hit me?!'); best of all, he waits waaaay too long to cut into the backed-up line of cars at the Santa Monica Boulevard offramp. This being LA, very few people honk, and though I can sense their seething looks, I don't really care.

It's a heroic effort, and he makes better time than expected (*under-promise, over-deliver," someone told me once, and I think it's true), and I'm in front of 1600 Century Park East at 1:40. Out of the cab and into the lobby and up the elevator and I sprint into the lobby of Untitled Entertainment at 1:45.

I assess the damage as I try to unwind. As a result of the frantic calling and texting session in the cab, I know that I have missed the Big Meeting with Client #1. However, they've pushed two of the publicist meetings back and will return here before taking those last two meetings. Nothing to be done about that. Good news: Client #2 has pushed his director meeting back, and I'm just in time to get to work.

I'm shown into the conference room. It's the first time I've worked with Client #2 in a while, and our session is productive. It's great, actually. My pent-up agression is perfect to pour into the material. I read like a man possessed... and, ya know, I relax, a little... and just as me and Client #2 are ending our session, Jason, the crazy young savant who runs the place, bursts in and greets me like an old friend: "You made it! Good to see you, man! You sure you don't want an office here?"

He's joking, but still.

I did it. I'm here. The work session and that thirty-second chat with Jason was all I needed, really. I am at this moment a yacht out to sea, blown almost underwater by gale-force winds... when, without warning, the winds calm and my whole life rights itself. Just like that.

My phone rings. Client number one, and can I run down so they can pick me up out front and we can head off to the publicity meetings? I'm down, and we're off. Ends up our first stop is at the building that housed not only my first agent ever, but also the restaurant Maple Drive. Both are no more. My agency I knew about; Maple Drive was a surprise. Oh, what a scene it had been, in its day.

I have a moment, just a moment, of loving all of this. I guess I have a life, a history, stories to tell, after all. The meeting goes well, and before long we're off to meeting #2, this one at the Four Seasons...

...and all of a sudden it's six-thirty and we're done. The manager's got a dinner with another client, and my client (#1) is due on the set tomorrow and has a long drive home. Their days are done.

Me? I am in Beverly Hills with no car and no plans and no place to stay for the night. Barely twenty-four hours have elapsed since the idea of this trip was first mentioned. I head to The Mondrian, the hotel on the Sunset Strip which has been my crash pad over the years. The flirty guest services manager is the daughter of an acting coach. We chat a bit and she assures me she'll "take care of the rate. And the room."

That she does. I am given a one-bedroom suite almost as large as my apartment in New York, domintated by a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a breathtaking panorama of Los Angeles at night. All of Hollywood falls away at my feet.

Confession: in my love for New York I forget, sometimes, that LA has its own beauty, a beauty rooted in a kind of crazy hope. There are moments when I, even old cynical I, allow myself this silly thought: anything can happen here. Hollywood is so.... possible from the tenth floor.

How did I get here? Truly, how?

_____________________________________

This trip has been so rushed I have neglected to call any of my LA acquaintances; strangely, I feel no urge to now. Mostly, I want to walk.

I go outside and turn right, heading east on Sunset Bouelvard. The rain has stopped, and a serious cold front has slid in behind it. This is about as cold as Southern California gets-- which, for me, is perfect.

Loud and touristy as it is, one thing I've always loved about The Strip is that it is one of the few places in Los Angeles with pedestrian traffic. But tonight, I walk alone. There are some places in the world that need humanity, places that lose some of their essence when the world is elsewhere. Tonight, The Strip is one of them, and the street feels almost sad: no yellow Ferraris driven by exotic men and their hooker-hot, sort-of-model girlfriends, not even the occaisional Mustang bearing out-of-state plates, crowded with thrilled teenagers. Just me and the occasional car gliding by. I walk past The Standard (too hipster)... past the Chateau Marmont (should I...?)... but no. I know where I'm going.

The California Pizza Kitchen at Sunset and Crescent Heights is surprsingly full, so much so that I simply head to the counter and grab a seat.

I hear a whisper and a giggle from the teenagers at the far end of the counter and realize that it's about me. Who is he, they wonder, that loser guy sitting at the counter of the CPK, reading Variety, alone during the height of the holiday season?

"Kids," I want to say, "you have no idea."

I know this because I really don't have much of an idea myself. But at least for tonight, here at the counter of the CPK in West Hollywood, I'm OK with that.

_________________________________________________

Oh, and P.S.:

My return flight, two days later, is in the afternoon; with nothing to do that morning, I decide to walk from the Mondrian down to the West Hollywood post office to mail some Christmas cards.

There's a kind of morning quiet in LA that I miss. You can miss it even if you live here, actually, if you're not a morning person. There's a whole world that exists here before the city fills with traffic: the clean, wide streets belong to the healthy retirees, with their tanned faces and white Reeboks, and those in recovery who've learned to find a similar high in coffee and sunshine that they once found in tequila and the night. This morning it's even more peaceful, for Los Angeles is not a place one comes to for the holidays; on the contrary, Los Angeles is a place one leaves. No one, it seems, is here. There's even a lonliness to the boutiques that line Sunset Plaza, empty save for the salesgirls who keep watch over racks of neglected clothes. Which is kind of romantic, in its own way.

It's a bright, crisp, chilly morning, an East-Coast morning here in LA, a rare clear day on which it's true: you really can see forever. As I'm walking back to the hotel I can see, in the distance, mountains: the San Gabriels, a good twenty miles away.

All that rain that I'd cursed when I arrived? It fell in the mountains as snow. They're covered in it.

Here in Hollywood, at ten AM on the Sunset Strip, I get my White Christmas after all. Merry Christmas.

Academy Awards Night: toiling in Heaven, a Gown, and the Mystery of Faith

2007-03-06T13:02:00.000-08:00

You see, the thing of it is... she bought a gown.

My assistant Ashley Avis informs me of this on Saturday afternoon. I'd stopped by her hotel room, having left her on her own while I went for a couple of "hi-hello" meetings, and...

...Let's back up.

I was in LA for a short trip over Oscar weekend. Just three days prior, Ashley had expressed her jealousy about my trip, and I'd tossed off a casual "you should come if you want..." and now, in that way that she has, here she was. She'd neglected to rent a car, so we'd pretty much been joined at the hip so far. After lunch I'd dropped her off at Sunset Plaza; her stated plan had been simply to "just hang out with a book." Instead, she'd ended up buying The Gown.

In truth, I have mixed feelings about "making the scene" this weekend. I love coming to LA during the winter; I care little for the temperature, actually preferring those chilly LA winter days that carry a little bite in the air and give all Angelinos an excuse to break out their chic winter leftovers from previous lives on the East Coast. That same wind that brings the chill brings rare clarity to the sky, and one is reminded that Los Angeles is, in fact, a beautiful place. I'd felt a sort of spa-weekend relaxation coming on, and I found myself looking forward to reconnecting with some good friends and laying low.

Nonetheless, I'd already made a few brief party inquiries on Ashley's behalf, but since out here The Oscars represent Christmas and Chanukah and The Fourth of July all rolled into one, well... it's a lot to ask, especially at the eleventh-and-a-half hour. I neither expected nor particularly desired success.

So the Gown. I'm thinking, you know, "gown" is such a broad word; maybe she simply bought a long-ish dress. She offers to try it on, and I'm hoping in some odd way to be underwhelmed. Moments later she emerges from the bathroom...

It's exquisite. It's breathtaking. It looks as if an Italian lady had spent a week making it specifically for her. The Gown is Ashley all the way, and she knows it.

And as I'm looking at her all I can think, truly, is this: where the hell is she going to wear that?

I decide to let it go. Big mistake.

______________________________________________________________________________

I began the next morning as I do most mornings: lying in bed, thinking. The previous night, I'd been in touch with a composer friend; he'd confessed that while he very much wanted to meet up, he had some scoring due the following week so for him the weekend would be best spent working. I don't think he knew how much his simple statement-- "I'm working this weekend"-- had affected me. Let me explain.

There is a profound, never-spoken truth which guides every soul who toils in this business: we don't HAVE to work; we are ALLOWED to work. We work only when asked. And to work-- no, to be asked to work-- is a privilege. It's heaven. And no matter how I spun it, there was no way around the troubling fact that while my friend was toiling in Heaven last night, I'd been at Bar Marmont with my assistant. As I lay in bed that Osacr morning, contemplating the mercurial happiness of work in the film business, I had something of an epiphany:

I was not meant to party this weekend, at all. That will be for later. I found myself looking forward to watching the Academy Awards with a few friends; I imagined our gossip, our spirited rants on the obvious injustice of the inevitable poor choices, and suddenly I was happy. Maybe, I thought, true epiphanies can only occur on pilgrimages. Maybe it has to do with nothing more than breathing strange air.

I inform Ashley of The Epiphany at brunch. I rhapsodize about the writing I should be doing and the acting she hopes to do. I try to mentor her as best I can by suggesting that all of this-- the parties and the limos and the bling and the swag and the overblown, red-carpeted glory of it all-- are not why we're here.

Back in the car, silence. I assume Ashley, like I, is contemplating The Epiphany. Finally, she speaks.

"Sooo... did anyone get back to you about any parties tonight?"

My heart sinks. Ash had understood nothing about The Epiphany. Or, more likely, the whispered promise of The Gown was simply too strong.

Me: "Ashley, didn't you get any of it at all? Was my entire rap wasted?? These parties are not the point! It's the work!!"

Ashley: "But how do you know that you won't get work done a party?? How do you know we won't meet someone that will change your life?"

"Because I've been to these things, and they're always, always disappoining--"

"--but you never know unless you--"

"--Ashley!"

"OK! That's fine!"

More silence in the car. Then, Ashley again: "I don't know, maybe we could just... " She throws a pleading gaze at me. "Are you sure you couldn't just....?"

She leaves the plea just hanging there. She blinks a few times, swallows, forces a grin. There is an air of such sadness in the car that I feel as if I just told her she wasn't getting a pony.

Know this: Ashley is the sort who gets the pony. Problem is, it's after three o'clock. Out of time and ideas, I blurt out: "Well, for Chrissakes. I really don't care, but if you want to go to something so badly why don't you just look on Craigslist?"

Five minutes later, as the sun sets on a beautiful Oscar Sunday, I find myself in an abandoned Starbucks on Olympic Boulevard as Ashley hunches over my laptop, scrolling through Craigslist. To my surprise (and Ashley's disappointment) there are a grand total of two items. The first: two awards ceremony tickets, which include two tickets to the Governor's Ball. Price? Forty thousand dollars. The second is this: ACADEMY AWARDS PARTY TICKETS-- ESQUIRE PARTY ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY. After a little blah blah puffery, there's a # to call, and a price: $5000 a ticket. Yeah, whatever. Just before we leave Ashley hits the refresh button. See if there's anything new. Nothing, except this:

ACADEMY AWARDS PARTY TICKETS-- ESQUIRE PARTY ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY Only now, $2000 a ticket.

Huh. Ashley takes the number down.

We head to the apartment of a friend to watch the awards. As the ceremony begins, we engage in a discussion of the worth to Ashley of the Esquire tickets: one hundred dollars apiece? Two? Three? This feels high to me, but what the hell; I tell her to make the call. It's agreed that she'll offer a far, far far lower amount for the pair. I urge her to make me the Bad Cop, and she leaves a message claiming she's calling for me. Sure enough, sixty seconds later her phone rings: It's "Albert", saying yes, the tickets are still available. As Ashley runs into the other room to talk I urge her to stick to the script we'd rehearsed. "Albert" was offended at her offer, Ashley tells us when she returns.

The awards ceremony is long. But... just as The Departed is announced as the best picture of the year... the phone rings. It's "Albert."

______________________________________________________________________________

The party's at The Abbey, Robertson at Santa Monica. There's a celebrity entrance to the event, Klieg lites and a red carpet. And I know how these things work, and Ashley looks like, well, Someone... so the shot is just to hit the carpet. Sure enough, as soon as we step onto the red carpet a photographer begins snapping away. As we head into the party, here's what I figure: Ash has walked a red carpet and an Academy Awards party, she's worn the gown, she even got a little paparazzi action. If nothing else, that alone makes the tickets worthwhile.

It's clear when we get in that we are on the late end of an early party. I scan the room: a few familiar faces.... there's some of the "Entourage" crew... I see a couple of "Former Students"... and then, behind Ashley, I see my client and friend, Rick Fox.

"PEEEE---KAAAYYYY!!!"

He screams this as he takes me into a bear hug. And at 6' 6", Rick can take even a grown man into a hell of a bear hug.

"Oh Man this is perfect!!! Hey, listen, I want you to meet..." and he introduces me to a Senior William Morris Agent, who's helping package some of Rick's projects and is the head of William Morris Independent, a division of the esteemed agency.

After an impromptu pitch of a script Rick and I had developed some time back ("OK, there's a serial killer in the NBA..."), I ask Rick: "So... what are you guys up to later?" Rick seems genuinely pleased at the prospect of hanging out. "Well, we're going to Prince's thing.... then we're going to Patrick Whitesell's party. You going?"

Patrick Whitesell is one of the power agents behind Endeavor and his party, with Rick Yorn, is THE after-party (post-Vanity Fair) on Oscar Night.

Rick again: "Yeah yeah-- let's all go up to Patrick's. This is great! See ya later PK. See ya later Ashley." And he's off.

Sure. Just go to Patrick Whitesell's party. As long as I know him, Rick will never understand that life functions differently for the rest of us.

Ashley is triumphant. "See? See???" I tell her that this scenario is unlikely but she is unfazed by this. There is a Master Plan, she is convinced, that is coming together.

_____________________________________________________

Like all Hollywood Hills parties, it is not possible to drive to this event; you've got to park at an "undisclosed location" from where shuttle buses will take you up. After spending a little more time at Esquire, we decide that the thing to do is to drive by the Secret parking area, just to check it out. As we approach, I head into the right lane to get a look... and suddenly there's a Sheriff in front of me, impatiently "flashlinghting" me into the parking lot. OK. Change of plans.

Once we pull in the car is immediately surrounded by a scrum of valets and whisked away, to its own undisclosed location... and we're ushered along a gated line to check-in to claim our wristbands. No matter who you are, no matter how bright your star, this is a wristband event. You can't even get into the shuttle vans without one. This is bad. I approach the mellowest looking kid, and announce: "Dude, don't even look at your list. Trust me, we ain't on it. Rick Fox is my client, and we saw him and (William Morris Agent) at the Esquire party and they invited us and told me they'd call you guys."

The kid offers no hope. "Yeah.... Rick... we love him, but.. it's really bad this year. Celebrities are only like plus one or maybe plus two. So, you'll have to wait for him, but..." he glances around...I'd like to, but..."

The sixth-sensing boss immediately hustles over. "Are you on the list?" No, we're not. "Then you'll have to move on." Some metal gates are separated and we're back in the valet area. I offer up my valet ticket, and we wait.

And wait. And it's getting chilly, so I give Ashley my coat. As I look around, I observe to Ashley that this is kind of a Hollywood experience, too.

There is no crack in Ashley's armor. "Yep! Maybe there's a reason. We'll see!" She says this as if I am silly and maybe weak to doubt Fate. I miss that quality in myself, that religious certainty common to The Young.

Maybe there's a reason, I'm thinking, for the fact that we still don't have our car. A search party of valets is sent out after our initial guy, and while I'm watching all this unfold... my phone. It's a text message from Rick:

JUST GOT DONE SPEAKING WITH (BIG PRODUCER) AND MY AGENT PITCHED HIM THE MOVIE AND HE LOVED IT.

Huh. His AGENT pitched it. Huh.

I text Rick back that we're at the parking lot, and there's no way we're gettin' up the hill. A moment later, just as the familiar headlights of my rented Pontiac swing into the lot....

My phone again. Another text, from Rick: CALL THIS # 310 123 4567 THAT'S MY DRIVER HE WILL TAKE YOU UP.

I dial the number.
The Pontiac pulls up.
The valet gets out, holds open the door.
The phone's ringing. We're holding up the line. The valets are getting imapatient.
Suddenly, on the street just next to the lot... a chauffeur outside a black Escalade limo, looking right at us, waving his cell phone.

"Put the car back," I tell the valet. "We're goin' up."

______________________________________________________________________________

At the house, more Sheriffs. More paparazzi. As soon as we step out of the car things move veryvery fast:

HUGE Dude #1: "where are your wristbands?"--
Me: "We were told just to come up--"
--Huge Dude #2: "You're gonna have to go back down and get them--"
--Ashley now: "call Rick, just call him--"
--Now a Sheriff: "Sir you're gonna have to MOVE THAT VEHICLE--"
--and now another voice: "Rick Fox Rick Fox!!" It's our driver, window down, shouting it at still another list-keeper as he madly points at me--
--now the List-Keeper looks at me-- "What's you're name?"
--I tell him. He looks at Ash. "And, you're... Ashley?"

He produces a pair of wristbands.

The walk up the driveway is quiet. Attendants on either side discreetly shine small, LCD flashlights down at the driveway, pointing out the cracks, illuminating our steps. A ballet of tiny blue fireflies, guiding us. As we finally enter the space, I think: now this is more like it.

There's a DJ, kicking a very dance-able seventies mix with a cool techno thing underneath. Among the ladies, an awful lot of gowns. And, of course, the walls: floor-to-ceiling glass with the obligatory jaw-dropping views of LA at night, twinkling out to infinity. It's almost 1 AM, and one gets the feeling that this thing is just getting started.

First order of business: find Rick and The Producer, and let's seal this deal. The first bar we come to is relatively quiet, but I do recognize the man leaning there as Peter Farrelly, one of the Farrelly brothers of comedy-film fame. I've got a nodding acquaintance with Peter, and when he glances at me with that look of vague recognition I decide I should say Hi. The night had finally clicked into place. The next few hours are a blur of...

...Ashley repeatedly getting bar-jostled by Paris Hilton.... Jon Bon Jovi, looking great but, a little lost, until Sean Penn grabs him from behind in a bear hug. (Lost no more... some kid in a t-shirt and baseball cap reaching in front of me-- "excuse me-- Djimon! Djimon, come here! There's someone I want you to meet!" Ends up the baseball-capped kid is Leonardo DiCaprio, reaching for his Blood Diamond costar....

... and finally, Rick. In truth, not hard to spot. He's in Party mode and The Producer's not to be found, but we discuss the meeting, the pitch, and it's agreed that I need to buff up the script within a week, since Big Producer won't stay hot for the project for long.

The night continues like this. Ashley, being helpful, suggests that maybe I should meet "some director types." I suggest that there are few director types I'd really need to meet.

"What about that Scorcese fellow? I bumped into him on the way to the bathroom."

Wait. Waitwaitwait. You. Ashley, you... "bumped into" one of my few living heroes?

I launch into a rap about how this house, this beautiful place that holds all these beautiful people on this beautiful night, is not really built on a concrete slab, not really... it's built on the work of people like him. This is Oscar night, after all, and no one gathers to celebrate the commercial success of Kangaroo Jack. We are all here to celebrate the making of films of meaning. He, and those like him, have done that, and are the reason for all of this. Him, I want to meet. But he's moved on from where Ashley saw him last, and when we finally do see him he's surrounded by a crowd of admirers. I decide that, for tonight, this is enough; our work here is done.

But as we prepare to head out.... a scent, faint yet unmistakable. Breakfast. They're cooking breakfast. And it's 4:30 AM, and Ashley's hungry.

The kitchen area is crowded indeed, but more than that... there's something odd about the crowd, which takes me a second to figure: Ashley, who stands 6' 2" in her heels... is the shortest woman in the room. I point this out to Ashley, who instantly snaps back: "I know that. I don't. LIKE IT."

I don't know why, but this cracks me up and may be my favorite memory of the night. Except for this:

As I'm jockeying for counter position near the food, I catch a glimpse of something set on the counter in front of the short, tuxedoed man in front of me. Something gold. It's a statue.

I tap the gentleman on the shoulder, who is with a woman so short I'd not even seen her amongst the Amazonian Throng.

"Excuse me..." I point to the statue. "What did you win for?"

The man, in a heavy Spanish accent: "Art direction. Pan's Labyrinth." The woman smiles, and nods.

"Oh, my god! Congratulations!!! What you did was so... just wonderful, wonderful, really." I launch into a little congratulatory small talk; they're happy for the praise. Inspiration strikes. "Listen... my assistant's never held one of those... would you mind?"

They both smile. Of course. Please. They offer me the statue. I turn to Ashley.

Ashley takes it and begins to hyperventilate. She clutches Oscar with one hand by the waist, and instinctively puts her other hand underneath the base... and the Spaniards are laughing, and I'm smiling, and Ash is standing there in her gown, clutching an Academy award, finally speechless. Behind her, the sky above Hollywood is just beginning to glow with the dawn.

Woody Allen is right: so much of life is simply showing up. I think of sitting at Shutters with Ashley that same morning, trying to talk some sense into her and let her down easy. I think of the impossible chain of events that led in a remarkably straight line from that moment to this one. Standing here, laughing with two wonderful Spaniards, as my assistant clutches an Oscar surrounded by waffle-eating supermodels. In the adjoining room, screams of joy erupt from the dance floor as "Love Rollercoaster" kicks in.

Rollercoaster, indeed. I prefer to think of it as the mystery of faith. All that is left is to go back down the hill, and sleep.