Must I Say All Your Lines Too? | Cranky Actress Blog

Posts Tagged 'Must I Say All Your Lines Too?'

The Hatwoman Finale

I was thinking maybe I was too hard on the Hatwoman. Maybe she wasn’t so bad. Why did I have this reaction? I didn’t understand, until it was time to do the work.

In one scene we are on the phone together. We really didn’t have to work together at all since we were filmed in different locations. I suggested that we be on the phone for each other when we do our scenes, so we wouldn’t have to ACT like we were on the phone with another person and could be really listening to a human and not dead air.

When it comes time to film her part of the scene I am still in Florida. I am running around cleaning our friend’s house that we have been staying in before we leave for the airport. Cranky gets crazy when she has to make a plane.

My cell phone rings and it is the director from New York. They are ready to film Hatwoman’s part of the scene. I stop what I am doing and go sit on the patio. Hatwoman gets on the phone. We say hello. Then she says, “ Ah, um. I really haven’t had time to focus on these lines. If I forget or anything, would you read them to me?” “Ah, yeah,” I say.

So they yell “ACTION!” in New York and we begin. I have to read all her lines to her over the fucking phone. How do you go to a film set and NOT KNOW YOUR LINES? Huh?

The director says the sound is picking up me saying her lines before she says them. Not good. I hear a scared, “Oh,” from Hatwoman. And then silence. I tell her to just take a long pause before speaking, so they can edit me out saying her lines to her. So this is how we get through it.

When it comes time to do my half of the call she isn’t available, and I have the director out in my stairwell on his cell phone talking to me. Which was fine.

So her whole act bothered me because I knew she was all about being late and big sunglasses and putting on a big show as subterfuge for not knowing a thing about what she’s actually doing. The song and dance of the clueless. You are only allowed to act like this if you once did great work, won awards, and now are famous and are on drugs.