"Don't be THAT person...."
"I am thankful for the difficult people I've met. They have shown me exactly who I don't want to be."
We've all met them at some point in our lives, people who have certain qualities that make you cringe. It can be a quick temper, it can be a snotty attitude, it can be a constant negativity or gossiping of others. It immediately triggers a visceral reaction deep within you, maybe that gut instinct ingrained in humanity from survival cave-man days, that tells you "This person is a loose cannon that eventually will self-destruct. I don't need to be around them."
One of the earliest projects I worked on, I saw that almost every time I was on set. Mostly from other actors who treated the production as THEIR time to shine or THEIR time to be noticed at all costs. I was the new kid on the block, so my main concern was to 1.) Not get kicked off set and collect my paycheck, and 2.) Don't do anything embarrassing that would reflect bad on Paul Archer and Henry Smith III, my two friends who had helped me get this gig who had been acting and on this show all of season one already.
While on set, I try and strike up conversations with anyone who will chat, because we all know the drill of hurry-up-and-wait nature of showbiz gets very boring between takes. This was before smartphones, so the only thing to keep you entertained was a good book to read or getting to know people. Being that most actors only talked about their careers, their agents, who they knew in the industry, etc etc etc....I started gravitating more to the crew and production people.
With them, you could at least learn what it takes to make a production successful. When I asked them during lunch one day (I didn't know at the time that production and crew had different time and food than actors, so I ate like a king! Ha.) what's the best advise you can give me? One of the cameramen said "No matter what, don't mess up the director's shot. Do exactly what the PAs or Directors tell you because every time we have to reset the cameras or do a scene over, it can cost upwards to $5,000 to the production company!" Coincidentally, I saw that play out in a big way only a few days later from one of the main actors themselves!
We had a pretty big scene with a lot of background actors involved and it was driving the crew to the limit to try and keep on schedule. We did one or two takes, and then we had to break for lunch but we were given specific instructions "We are losing light quick, we can't shoot this particular scene at night, so be ready to come back as soon as lunch is done!" One of the main characters in the scene though did not like the lunch plate they were served and demanded something else. After 20 mins, they brought them something freshly cooked within the parameters of what they had asked and they rejected that plate in a very public and Prima Donna manner. I was a few feet away with my own lunch plate looking around like that little boy in the meme looking back and forth in a worried manner thinking to myself "wrong place, wrong time for me to be standing right here."
After causing a scene and demeaning some of the poor crew assigned to keep them happy, they walked off set and said "I'm going to get something myself at Subway!!" With their significant other and friends in tow who were visiting from out of town (and seemed to be enjoying every minute of the diva-like outburst), they disappeared for over two hours. The fallout behind the scenes was epic from what I heard and they were almost fired from the show that same night, since that actor cost production an entire day and tens of thousands of dollars on cast, crew, and actor's paychecks for a reshoot. For the longest time after that, projects were hard to come by for that actor since word gets around quick in a small community like Hollywood productions.
Glad to say that as for me, production loved my work ethic, professionalism and demeanor on that show, and I didn't embarrass either of my friends. But that day, along with tons of other examples I've learned from being on sets since then, I learned a valuable lesson: being an actor is a job, and every time you are on set is an interview for the next job and the next one and the next one. Like any other endeavor in life, if you want to be successful, don't be THAT person. The one that is hard to work with and no one wants to be around because they dampen your day or in this case.....cost production thousands of dollars being difficult to work with and unprofessional.
We've all met them at some point in our lives, people who have certain qualities that make you cringe. It can be a quick temper, it can be a snotty attitude, it can be a constant negativity or gossiping of others. It immediately triggers a visceral reaction deep within you, maybe that gut instinct ingrained in humanity from survival cave-man days, that tells you "This person is a loose cannon that eventually will self-destruct. I don't need to be around them."
One of the earliest projects I worked on, I saw that almost every time I was on set. Mostly from other actors who treated the production as THEIR time to shine or THEIR time to be noticed at all costs. I was the new kid on the block, so my main concern was to 1.) Not get kicked off set and collect my paycheck, and 2.) Don't do anything embarrassing that would reflect bad on Paul Archer and Henry Smith III, my two friends who had helped me get this gig who had been acting and on this show all of season one already.
While on set, I try and strike up conversations with anyone who will chat, because we all know the drill of hurry-up-and-wait nature of showbiz gets very boring between takes. This was before smartphones, so the only thing to keep you entertained was a good book to read or getting to know people. Being that most actors only talked about their careers, their agents, who they knew in the industry, etc etc etc....I started gravitating more to the crew and production people.
With them, you could at least learn what it takes to make a production successful. When I asked them during lunch one day (I didn't know at the time that production and crew had different time and food than actors, so I ate like a king! Ha.) what's the best advise you can give me? One of the cameramen said "No matter what, don't mess up the director's shot. Do exactly what the PAs or Directors tell you because every time we have to reset the cameras or do a scene over, it can cost upwards to $5,000 to the production company!" Coincidentally, I saw that play out in a big way only a few days later from one of the main actors themselves!
We had a pretty big scene with a lot of background actors involved and it was driving the crew to the limit to try and keep on schedule. We did one or two takes, and then we had to break for lunch but we were given specific instructions "We are losing light quick, we can't shoot this particular scene at night, so be ready to come back as soon as lunch is done!" One of the main characters in the scene though did not like the lunch plate they were served and demanded something else. After 20 mins, they brought them something freshly cooked within the parameters of what they had asked and they rejected that plate in a very public and Prima Donna manner. I was a few feet away with my own lunch plate looking around like that little boy in the meme looking back and forth in a worried manner thinking to myself "wrong place, wrong time for me to be standing right here."
After causing a scene and demeaning some of the poor crew assigned to keep them happy, they walked off set and said "I'm going to get something myself at Subway!!" With their significant other and friends in tow who were visiting from out of town (and seemed to be enjoying every minute of the diva-like outburst), they disappeared for over two hours. The fallout behind the scenes was epic from what I heard and they were almost fired from the show that same night, since that actor cost production an entire day and tens of thousands of dollars on cast, crew, and actor's paychecks for a reshoot. For the longest time after that, projects were hard to come by for that actor since word gets around quick in a small community like Hollywood productions.
Glad to say that as for me, production loved my work ethic, professionalism and demeanor on that show, and I didn't embarrass either of my friends. But that day, along with tons of other examples I've learned from being on sets since then, I learned a valuable lesson: being an actor is a job, and every time you are on set is an interview for the next job and the next one and the next one. Like any other endeavor in life, if you want to be successful, don't be THAT person. The one that is hard to work with and no one wants to be around because they dampen your day or in this case.....cost production thousands of dollars being difficult to work with and unprofessional.
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