One leg folded like a dark and laid-back crane

[serai]

.
I might have mentioned this at some point, but in case I never did, here's the story of my own encounter with Josh Hartnett (if you can call it that), whom I actually knew about before anyone had seen his work:

I came back to L.A. in '95 because I wanted to give acting a shot. I did - no success, really. Either I wasn't a very good actress, or I didn't fit any of their templates. 'Sokay, I had fun. ANYWAY...

A very good, small background casting agency was getting me quite a bit of work in '97. One of my regular gigs was working on Cracker, the series with Robert Pastorelli. (RIP, *sob* - he was a decent guy.) This is the first thing Josh did professionally (unless he did some stage before, but I doubt it), so nobody knew who he was.

About the third day I was there, when I was hanging around the monitor area (which I used to do because I love learning anything about film that I can), I saw this lanky drink of water sitting in his foldup chair looking at the script. The first thing I thought was, "That has to be Tommy Lee Jones's son," because...DAMN. He really looked like Jones back then. He had the same small, deep-set eyes under prominent brows, and the raw-boned look to his face that I associate with the older actor.

He seemed like a nice enough kid, but since I had nothing to hang an opinion on, he came off as just a nice-seeming kid. I got to see some of his work on the monitors when I wasn't on - his sections of the series and mine were completely apart, so I was never working on camera at the same time as he was - and I wasn't terribly impressed. But then again, he was a kid, and his not being much of a dick outweighed his not being much of a thespian. Know what I mean? Unfortunately, I never actually spoke to or interacted with him, in the end. But then again, I don't know what I would have had to say to him, as he was so much younger than me. (Not quite two decades, if you really want to know.) He wasn't attractive to me anyway, so he just kind of slipped out of my consciousness once the job was over.

Now, I know this sounds a little odd, but when you're actually doing this kind of work, the whole fannish thing just doesn't come up. It's a job, though I found it a really fun one. (Which most background people don't, by the way - they do an awful lot of bitching for people getting paid money to just sit around and shoot the shit 90% of the time). I felt no impulse to think about who he might turn out to be eventually, as I never got past just being grateful he wasn't a high-maintenance shit who'd make things tense. That was definitely enough for me to think well of him as a person. (Believe me, you do not want to run into one of those tantrum brats.) He showed up on time, did his work and didn't make anyone crazy - an excellent foundation for getting more work.

When the series finally made it to the air, I liked what he did well enough. He was a fairly callow kid playing a fairly callow kid, so there wasn't any real stretching there. (Though being tied up and threatened with death by electrocution did get some brief but pretty good emotional work out of him). The majority of his work took place during the first pair of episodes, which explains why I didn't see him around much after the first couple of weeks, and the series never got far enough to give him any real arc. Too bad, because it would have been interesting to see what he'd do with it. But hey, we have The Faculty, which happened right after Cracker, so it's all good. :)


P.S. When I went back and looked at Cracker this week, the aforementioned torture scene answered the question of why he almost never peeled down for the camera. Now, I haven't seen a lot of his stuff, so I don't know if he's been dropping trou more recently, but I have a very real suspicion that it's about his physique - he has a very narrow chest and abdomen, enough that it kind of throws off his proportions. This got confirmed when I noticed that the few times he did doff his shirt in the films I'm looking at, the camera would shoot him at oblique angles or in such a manner that you never really get a good look at that part of him. Maybe somebody said something about it on that first job, either in his hearing or not, and made him self-conscious. Regardless, he seems to have gotten over it now!

Comments

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

I saw him in Cracker after I saw The Faculty and thought he did okay for a young kid. He's come a long way since then.

It was fun n to read about your own experiences in the business.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

He has, indeed. Mm, mm, mm.

It was fun while it lasted. Relevant to our interests, during my time as a background actor, I got to see both Josh and Elijah, as I did background on one of the scenes in Deep Impact. (That was my one-and-a-half-seconds of fame, as I got an actual camera shot in that one.) I already knew who he was, of course, and it was really interesting to see him at that stage, where so many child actors fall out of the business. It was tough to keep my mind on what I was doing, I was so fascinated by listening to what he was doing. Over and over, by the way - it took two days to film the scene, in the Santa Monica Mountains in January, with all of us dressed in skimpy summer clothes, of course. I got the flu the first night and almost didn't go the next day. It was lucky I pulled myself up and shoved myself out the door, because the second day was when I got my shot. (Seeing myself on the big screen, even for a moment, was pretty bizarre, I can tell you.)

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

That's so cool! What scene were you in? I have the DVD and I'll play the movie and watch for you.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Heehee. I was in the big going-to-the-caves sequence, when Leo and his family arrive on the bus. It was supposed to take place in Tennessee, but they filmed it up in the Santa Monicas, like I said, pretty close to where I used to go for the Renaissance Faire back in the 80's. I'm passing in the background during the part where Leo says he's going back and his dad gives him swag to trade. The dark-haired woman with the short-sleeved beige shirt looking around - that's me. I'm just there for a couple of seconds, but it was great.

Little acting trick: a friend of mine at the time told me about doing background on The Truman Show, and how Peter Weir insisted that all his background people actually act, and not just take up space. So when I did the Deep Impact job, I decided that I had lost my family in the big shuffle and I was desperate to find them. So I acted that in a small way - because you NEVER want to draw focus when you're background - just to give the impression that these were actual people and not zombies. I guess it must have been fine, because nobody told me not to do it, and it ended up in the film, yay.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's wonderful to know. I'll look for you in that scene. DI is one of my favorite movies anyway, so it'll be good to watch it again.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

I just watched Speed with my ten-year-old nephew Diego yesterday, and I think I'm going to take DI over there next time. I think he'd like the story a lot, and it'll be fun to see if he catches me in the shot.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

That should be fun. Have a good time.

[aliensouldream.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD. I am jiggling with excitement that you had that encounter with real Josh (and then I sroll down and see you worked with real Elijah too)!!!

That is incredible because it is beyond a fan encounter - it is a professional encounter! You were their acting colleague (bliss). I loved hearing your impressions of young Josh, how he was nice even then. (I saw him in real life at the stage door after 'Rain Man' in London and he was so gorgeous, that was many years later. I can only imagine how fresh and lissome looked in RL as a young teen - yum). And LOL he has more than made up for any body-shyness since then, he is almost always starkers at some point :-)

It's incredible that you are so close to their actual experiences on films, having shared some of them yourself. What tempted you away from acting? Did you have any more stand out experiences when you were doing it?

PLEASE can you tell more - all you can remember - of seeing Elijah working on Deep Impact? I am going to watch for you in that scene. Amazing that you are linked on film with him forever xxx

[serai1.livejournal.com]

LOL. You're making me blush. Yeah, it was fun doing the acting thing for a while. I did get some "real" work, as opposed to background, but it was in tiny little things that nobody saw, like student films. Plus I did stage at the Bilingual Playhouse here in L.A. Like I said, I enjoyed the experiences I had, but it never went anywhere. Why, I couldn't tell you - one thing about the acting game, you never learn why they don't want you. You just have to accept that you're not right for whatever reason, and it usually has absolutely nothing to do with what you're doing - it's about the way you look, or the way you'd look with the other actors they've cast, or about not being quite the right age, or whatever. Best not to take it personally, and I didn't. It's why I can look back at it as fun and not some horribly disappointing failure.

Besides, it turned out that even though I'd dreamt of acting in films, the real experience wasn't for me. It just didn't feel or add up to what I'd anticipated, and I was seriously turned off by the backstage machinations and backbiting politics. Ugh, no thanks. But I learned an ENORMOUS amount during that time, and used it when I did find my niche, which was/is storytelling. That's where my talent lies. I did that for a few years and had more fun doing it than with any other thing I've ever done. I'm hoping to get back into it somehow.

As to Elijah, I wish I could tell you more. Background people are corralled away from the "real" actors (gods, what horseshit, we're all real actors), especially on a huge set like that one, so other than the time the cameras were rolling, I didn't see him around at all. (I didn't even know he was in the movie they were shooting until I actually saw him at the set just before the scene rolled. I was all "Wait, Elijah Wood is in this? COOL.) But it was wonderful to watch him (surreptitiously, of course) during the scene. I'd been enjoying his films since he was a wee little thing, and had really been expecting that he would fade off like damn near every other child actor. (Transitioning to adult roles is unbelievably hard for a child actor in Hollywood; I give props to his mom for having navigated his career in such a way that the transition wasn't bumpy for him.) He was the way you see him in the film: pretty and dewy and quite serious when he was working. I remember thinking Damn, I hope I run into YOU in ten years. We did that part of the scene at least six times, going through it and then taking a break while the cameras and lights were moved around, then "back to one" to start over. I'd noted the camera positioning and how the bit was shaped physically the first time we did it, and snagged a place where I knew I'd get on camera eventually. So every time they called back to one, I made damn sure I was back there again. And sure enough, about the fourth time, I was right in the camera's path, huzzah! It was one little moment, but it was pretty damn cool seeing it in the theater. :)

[aliensouldream.livejournal.com]

That is so freakin cool, having acted in both Josh and Elijah's movies. And even though it was glimpses of Elijah, it was when he was actually working, just when he was all 'notable' from being in the Ice Storm and just before The Faculty! You basically got within feet of them both at their young-hot-coolest, while in their element, and during an exciting time in your own life. You did it right, bigtime. May I touch you for luck? *g*

And I love storytelling. Was it for children? I always love to see that done well and know what a lot of imagination and energy has to go into a real story performance. I hope you get to do it again.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

The memories of seeing these two lovely young creatures are among my favorites, to be sure. I have other memories of tiny little encounters with or glimpses of people I've admired - Tim Curry, Tom Arnold, Jodie Foster. Even a couple of actual flirtations, lol - maybe I'll post about those sometime.

As to the storytelling, the jobs that were getting me actual income were for children, doing shows around the Southland for the public school and library systems. Those paid incredibly well, about $200 a show, and made it possible for me to take time and really concentrate on improving my performance, since just a handful of shows a month would set me up. My target audience was between 7-10 years old, old enough to understand the stories but not old enough to be jaded and resistant. It was an amazing experience getting to influence minds that young and open. I still treasure the two "books" of notes from a pair of elementary school classes that I told to that summer - they came in the mail completely unexpectedly, page after page of thanks written in big childish hands on that hugely lined "learning to write" paper, some with little drawings. The day I told there, I was surrounded afterwards by all the kids who wanted to hug me and say thanks. It's just an indescribable feeling.

I also occasionally did shows for adult audiences, and much as I loved telling to kids, this is where my heart really was. In telling for adults, I could really let loose and use all the tools I'd learned in the acting I did. I would act in my children's shows too, of course - the kids LOVED that - but I couldn't hit any real depth there. In the adult shows I did, however. You know what my fics are like, now imagine seeing someone telling you stories like that with full-bore emotional interpretation. I did some very heavy stuff, including a re-interpretation of the story of the Levite's concubine from the biblical book Judges, and my own greatly expanded dramatic re-telling of Jabberwocky, from the point of the view of the little boy who kills the monster. Jesus, it was SO MUCH FUN to draw an audience in, spin them around and around and then sock them in the gut. It was glorious, holding them in the palm of my hand. Yes, I hope against hope I'll be able to do that again.

I'm lucky that I actually have a recording of one of my shows. Now that I have a little bit of money, I'm thinking I'll send the tape to a guy I know who does DVD conversions, so I can be sure it survives. If that ends up happening, I'll probably convert the show to .avi and post it so people can see what I was doing back then.