Various Acting Experiences by Alumni:
You are not allowed to take pix's on set. Besides I was busy thru the whole shoot. I was never in my trialer to be able to shoot anything. Harrison and Brendon dissappeared for lunch @ an undisclosed location away from the public and there was a crowd protected by the police @ the shoot location. People just hung around waiting to see who would drive by in one of the location vans or from the building we were shooting in.
In short: Harrison is all work. You don't have a conversation with him. He asks you questions and you answer but you don't start up a conversation with him. He watched all of my takes and treated me as an equal. I handled everything he threw @ me and I think he appreciated it. I didn't know it @ the time but Harrison requested me to be cast. He would come up to me, between takes and ask me questions about my character. He did not expect the answers I gave him. I think he was testing me.I passed. I think too, he stayed in character all the time. That is his acting process I think.
Brendon however is the polar opposite. Polar. He's goofy and fools around all the time. He will be playing with his I-Pod right before "action" is called and then bounce into character. I would ask him to stop fooling around but he would do it more. Plus he figured out that I am ALOT like him so he kept testing me to see how fast I would get into character. I think sometimes we offended some of the crew with our butt humor. I hope I didn't get myself into any trouble. Brendon and I also have some friends in common so we would have conversations.
So you can see I was tossed around with two very different acting techniques. It was crazy. I tell you, an inexperienced actor could have not handled this at all. They had me going for about 15 hours.
The director was great with me. He encouraged me to adlib which he knew I could do. I was added into alot of other scenes. We will see what ends up on the screen however. It's amazing what ends up on the editing floor.
I don't know if there is a web site. The working title right now is: "The Untitled Crowley Project". It's CBS Films and Harrison Ford is one of the producers. I found that out while I was shooting. The whole film is being shot in Oregon and the rap is sometimes in June.
Bye for now,
Mouth (Sharon McLean '68)
UPDATE: Movie Title is "Extraordinary Measures" and Sharon is listed as Sharonlee McLean and she play's Harrison's Secretary.
Dear Fellow Friends!!
This is soooooo funny........I did a lot of film work when I lived in NYC.....small parts and extra stuff (I'm really a singer), however, my SAG card got me into a lot of fun things..........I, too, did a film with Harrison Ford!!!! "Working Girl" with Melanie Griffith.......but unlike our 'star', my part was quite different!
There's a scene in the film where Harrison and Melanie are walking down the street, and Harrison grabs a hot dog from a street vendor. My scene was (and it took 4 hours to shoot!) that I was a pedestrian walking along side of them and giving Harrison a really 'ugly' face as I watched him scarf down a hot dog that was absolutely LOADED with everything you could imagine on a hot dog.......usually in a scene such as this one, there is a production assistant who follows the actor with a 'spit bag' so that the actor is not actually swallowing food....not in this case! I watched as he kept eating , and eating and eating....each take needed a new hot dog!.........When the movie came out, I went to see it with a whole group of friends...we had a party before going to the film, went to the theater, and anxiously awaited my scene.............when the scene came up, I said to everyone, 'here it comes, here it comes'......Harrison ate the hotdog, ......and I ended up on the cutting room floor!!!!!! No one believed that I was in the film!!!!!! The next time you see Harrison, ask him if he wants a hot dog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Barbi (Goldman) Starken, Class of '65
Dear Heidelbergers,
Bruce Wood ('69) and I had the same experience as Barbara. At spring
break in 1970, I was visiting Bruce at Harvard. He came back one
morning from a quick trip to the library and announced that some film
was being shot in Harvard Yard. What really caught Bruce's eye were the
tables laden with food to be served to the cast and crew. To get behind
the barricades that had been set up, we went into the nearest building
and walked down the steps at precisely the moment the scene was being
shot. And someone just waved us into action and thus we became extras.
We spent the morning walking down those steps and eating pastries; then
we got to eat a wonderful deli lunch. Sadly, when "Love Story" was
released, we too discovered that we had been relegated to the cutting
room floor. I'm still waiting to see if we make the director's cut
edition (if it ever comes out).
Donald R. Dickson '69
Some years ago while a cast member of" the ghosts of the globe" show at the globe theater at busch gardens the old country I got the chance to be involved in shooting a national commercial. I was in elizabethan garb and had a hat with a feather plume on top. The shoot took most of the afternoon and I was moving from here to there waving my sword about while downing a tankard of faux ale. I was sooo proud. When the commercial aired the only part of me to be seen was the plume on top of my hat. No bragging rights, but I did cash the check with pride!
Mike diana class of 69
I'm loving these stories!!!!! I can picture the Elizabethan garb very easily....One of my first gigs in the USA after getting back from Europe was performing for one month at Bush Gardens as a strolling troubadour playing the guitar, singing Elizabethan ballads in a full length velvet dress in the month of August with a huge headdress to match! Not only was I sweating profusely, but the guitar kept slipping against the velvet! AAhhhh, what we do for our art! Barbara Starken '65
I just found out that Les Loo '66 has been an Extra on "Lost". When I find out more, I'll post more! **Please see Les Loo's My Space Page Link on the Alumni Links Page**
Hi Lane, I wanted to tell a story that might fit on "actors among us" in the heidelberg 66 website. In 1986 in Tarboro NC my 12 year old daughter Jessica was chosen to be in a movie called Summer Heat, with Anthony Edwards, Kathy Bates, Lori Singer, Bruce Abbot and Clu Galligar ( He was the sheriff in the Virginian). She played the sister of Lori Singer, which was a fairly important role. The movie didn't do that well, but it was a cool experience. I was in a couple of flashbacks as Lori Singers mother who had died long ago, which was really fun, but they decided to cut all the flashbacks out. I'll never forget it. Every now and then I've been able to find a vhs copy in a used video store. Alisa Kelsh '70
Actor Peter Weller HHS Class of '65. Peter and his brother Michael were in Heidelberg in '62/63 but left for texas in '63 so the DNG Peter's pictureis in the '62 Hoheit. Look in the Photobucket Old Picture Page 2 for a picture!
John Vaughn '69
70 Years Ago Today
July 20, 1944 in Berlin.
The German Army officer, Col. Graf von Stauffenberg
tried to kill Adolf Hitler with a bomb, in Hitler's Headguarters.
In 2008, Tom Cruise made a movie about this event.
The film was called "OPERATION WALKRE", filmed in Berlin.
I worked as a film "extra" in this movie, cast as a wounded
German officer, in a Military Hospital. I shared a "room"
with Tom Cruise ( also wounded ) in this scene. He Is standing behind the
curtain in the Hospital room, putting on his uniform jacket.
I am dying in my bed and a picture of Hitler is on the wall.
If you rent the DVD, this scene starts in the 14th minute of the film.
It was really fun to do and Tom Cruise is a real Gentleman
|
