The SoCal Years 35: Movie Sets and Jumbo Jets

The Riveting Adventures of A Filipina-American Actor-Girl in the Southern California Jungle

The SoCal Years hubs comprise a series of narrative essays from the late 1990s, pre-9/11, immediately after grad school when, knowing she would run screaming back to the East Coast in the end, a young-ish Pinay New Yorker, armed with her new Drama MFA, decided nonetheless to dip her toes into the Hollywood swamp.

Two weeks, really? It's been a complete whirlwind haze. But here I am in Fargo, North Dakota. It's like being in the twilight zone. I feel as though I never left. ("Yes, we do have internet access. Oh, sorry, should've mentioned that the ancient Powerbooks with the ancient operating systems only support Netscape 2.02.")

Next time I'll write about what in the world I'm doing here.

My trailer is shaking. Gigantic planes thunder down the runway a hundred yards away, the whine building as they taxi to takeoff. One seemed to lift into the air right on the bumper of the van that transported me, Stand-In Mike, and a pouty actor (a TV lead, and therefore not to be mentioned here) to the film set. (Mike, we discover on the set, is his stand-in.)

"Wow," said Stand-In Mike when the jet took off behind us as we gaped, awestruck.

"Cool," said I.

Pouty Actor (we'll call him Dale—though I realize that if you see the film next year, you'll know who I mean) was pouty because he'd wanted to drive his Beemer onto the set and park it there. LAX Airport Security would not be having that—this from Head Transport Man. So we drove all the way back to the holding lot so he could park and join us, pouting, in the van.

He is taller, tanner and cuter than on television. But pouty.

I am shown by Production Assistant Diana to my very own trailer. Well, it's a room in a trailer. But it is mine.

"Cool," I think, though the room reeks of ammonia. It is my very first solo dressing room, and I feel like a star. "Cool."

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Wardrobe Ladies knock and stand patiently outside the trailer as I unload my bag. I let them in and display for their perusal the items they have requested that I bring—three casual shirts and a pair of jeans, from which to choose wardrobe that a newsstand cashier would wear. They reject every item.

They themselves have brought a plethora of outfits for me. Two of the shirts are very appealing and make me look swanky. They put me in the third, of course—hideous, in a geometric pattern of various blue and gray shades. Short sleeves, a polo collar.

I don't really mind, because I have my own trailer, you know, and the Wardrobe Ladies are attending to me.

PA Diana takes me to hair and makeup and I am pampered some more. There in front of the lighted mirror, Viv lightly dabs concealer on the pimples that have sprouted in the last week. My skin has not been so awful in a decade. An excess of wine in the last two weeks, mis-combining at meals, ingesting toxins left and right, has done it in.

That'll learn me.

Viv tells me she wants a natural look for me. Later on she changes her mind and piles on liner and mascara. I look like a racoon.

But I am a happy Actor, with my very own trailer.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

We don't shoot before lunch. I begin to feel a bit lonely in my trailer, but I have brought work to prepare for Fargo, and I lie around in costume and read a book on Improv Comedy. I am teaching Advanced Improvisation in Fargo in a few days, and am attempting to mitigate my apprehension.

("Well of course I can teach Advanced Improv, Bill, I can teach anything—anything at all.")

I am sent to lunch with the crew. At the entree table I introduce myself to Kat, a beautiful, blond Aussie who plays the French model girlfriend of Pouty Actor Dale. She is coolly personable, shakes my hand.

I opt for pasta, red and green peppers, sundried tomatoes. A little ethnic chef tosses them together with some pesto in a skillet. Fresh and hot. I remember from my two months of background work that the catering is inevitably the highlight of a day on a film set.

I eat in a section of the terminal lobby cordoned off for the cast and crew. Finish just as the background players wander in. Experience a wave of nostalgia. They have bonded as extras do, laughing and joking with each other. I make a quip at the dessert table about the spoon which we've put into service for cutting the cakes.

What an odd thing to feel outside of their circle. Because now I'm an Actor, and they are still Extras. I contemplate inviting some of them into my trailer, but I know they could never accept. And I couldn't join them in their Holding Area, because PA Diana would scold me for wandering off.

I still love my trailer—pungent with its aroma of cleaning liquid—but now I am bored in my solitude, with nary a laptop-and-Netscape to keep me occupied. So I wander out onto the runway to watch the jumbo jets, sleek and silver, roar off into the sky.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Late in the afternoon I am called onto the set for rehearsal. My scene is with Pouty Actor Dale and Beautiful Aussie Kat. But the film's lead, you might as well know, is TV Star CC. Who is skin and bones and might blow away if one so much as exhaled in her general direction.

TV Star CC, I hear, is a friend of the screenwriter. Perhaps she asked her to write it. The script is terrific—a fun, engaging read. If it's handled well, the film could be a hit. Hair Lady Rose mentioned earlier that the script has been just as funny on its feet.

TV Star CC is affable, if not effusive. She comments on how long my hair is. A nice girl, but I want to give her the Twix Bar I left in my trailer, and make her eat it while I watch. Though I might not want to know what transpires in her trailer loo thereafter, when I am not watching.

Director Richard is a doll. He greeted me when I came in and calls me by name now. The rehearsal goes quite smoothly. Someone takes a polaroid of me, while a long man with a nice face asks if the shirt I'm wearing is the shirt I'll be wearing. He makes an icky face when I reply in the affirmative. I want to giggle.

Instead I go back and tell the Wardrobe Ladies that someone on the set doesn't like the shirt, that I don't know who, and that if they haven't heard anything then it probably doesn't matter. They worry and cluck about it, regardless.

They choose another outfit—the dark red twinset that I drooled over earlier to myself. I thank my planets and manipulative capabilities.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

The nice man who made the icky face at my first costume turns out to be Head Prop Guy Walt—sweet, but no one of import where my costume is concerned. It seems, however, that he'd had the polaroid taken of me for an ID badge that I was to wear over it. And my new shirt is approximately the same color as the badge.

Nevertheless, I look better now, so I keep my mouth shut. At any rate, Head Prop Guy Walt doesn't see it as much of a problem.

I kick myself for not taking my Ephoto onto the set to sneak some shots. I imagine, however, that it would be confiscated and CapriCat fired without ceremony, so perhaps it's just as well.

We are shooting at a W.H. Smith in the International Terminal at LAX, and the place is crawling with security. We require escorts between the trailers and the set, and each trip back and forth requires us to go through the x-ray stations.

The scene goes well. Pouty Actor Dale turns out to be Flirtatious Pouty Actor Dale, and Beautiful Aussie Kat turns out to be Jealous Beautiful Aussie Kat. She chucks at me, during every reset, the prop that we exchange.

W.H. Smith turns out to be more of a gift shop than a newstand. I'd envisioned one of those kiosks like a closet that opened up like a horizontal Murphy bed, along the wall of the concourse. But this is much classier. I am glad I've changed into a more flattering costume.

Real passengers keep wandering into the gift shop between takes, and try to buy things from me. The Assistant Directors tell them I am not a real cashier. I offer to take their money anyhow.

From two camera angles, about two or three times each, I bag a magazine, say "Next please," hand Kat some rolling papers, watch her storm off, tell Dale "a dollar ninety-nine," take two bills from him and watch him run after Kat. It takes approximately forty-five minutes, and then I'm done.

First AD Bill has the crew say goodbye to Dale, Kat, and myself, as this is our last day. We are applauded in turn. I sneak a handshake from Director Richard, who is indulgent and kind. I hope he does not sacrifice my tiny scene during the editing.

After returning my wardrobe, I gather my things and say goodbye to my trailer. On the drive through the runway—among the big metal birds, and their piercing, wheezing whistles—back to the holding lot, where my little grey Mazda waits to take me back to my little studio, I reflect with satisfaction that this has been a lovely way to make a few hundred bucks.

Maybe there'll be another soon... ◊

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