21/12 The 12 Days of XMAS - Day 8
LIBRARY artefact #037
ON THE 8th DAY OF XMAS…
Ewww! There are eight maids, and it looks like they’re all a-milking! When’s Farmer Giles de Rais going to put a stop to this disgraceful business? Move along! Nothing to see here folks, except for the openly declared magnificence of the Happy! Production diaries PART THE SECOND!..
Wednesday February 8th
Woke feeling grungy. Coffee helped.
GALLERY artefact #035
New York, February 2017
It was actually warm today. Got 15 minutes soaking up sun on the balcony. Then long ride to Harlem and the brownstone where Nick kills Prawn Man and the Smootchie Bros (these guys look great).
Here, in the floodlit empty shell of what will be a $7 million apartment in a month’s time. Hustle and bustle, grips and shit. Upstairs, rehearsals commence. Tired. See how I hold up. Early start, hope it’s an early end. Hah!
3.34. Fell asleep during Scaramucci gunfight. Super-tired. Had to chug a couple of espressos. The Bros look great I have to say. The tone is perfect and it’s weird to see the basic crime drama aspect of the show playing out so well before Happy even turns up. Comfy chair in the heat. Deadly. Hopefully this coffee hit should stop my eyelids slamming down.
Buzz of activity all around. I’m here as a purely symbolic presence. Totally unnecessary. Not even a figurehead. I’m barely a ghost. Just observing mostly, adding a few thoughts here and there but nothing Brian couldn’t add. Looking forward to Prawn scene. Hardcore Prawn! Prawnography!
The Prawn’s double – a fresher-faced version of the real deal sits in a green dressing gown.
‘I’ve never done death before. Do I jerk around?’
Time is passing very slowly today. 3.34. The more tired I am, the slower it passes. I fantasise about going home, like looking forward to the holidays.
Chatting to Joe Perrino, the guy who’s playing Pal Scaramucci. He’s got something – a kind of soulful, genuine quality.
It’s 18. 10. I got it wrong above when I thought it was only twenty to four!
18.51 and fuck all has happened. Lots of milling around and prep. Prawn Man understudy all bloodsed up in his pants and vest awaiting the explosive revolving office chair gag.
Here in the video village, lights are super-bright. Easier to stay awake than on the sofa upstairs.
I shouldn’t be so excited, but snow has stopped play tomorrow. Looking forward to taking it easy for a day. Woo-hoo!
So Chris Meloni arrives and yet again sets fire to the screen. He’s so compelling to watch. All the little details of his performance, the perfect percussive timing. It’s Sax doing his death machine hitman scene with the Scaramucci boys. People won’t be able to take their eyes off Meloni when this goes out.
Lunch a little earlier at 9.30 – salad and teriyaki steak and a slice of cheesecake. So much salad – feel like I’ve munched my way through a section of rainforest the size of Wales.
Prawn Man seems to be a completely different actor – don’t know what happened to the original guy. Probably saw himself in the suit and headed for the horizon at warp speed.
Second half of the night. Wonder when it’ll wrap. 3, I’m guessing.
Lili turns up, bored staying home. Sit talking to her while upstairs Nick Sax shoots Disco Mikey.
Prawn Man turns up for his fitting. The Scaramucci boys troop downstairs having died, blood-spotted they descend back to life, to remove protective knee pads, tap phone screens. Angel screams overhead, rehearsing.
There’s something very enriching about being surrounded by all these talented people. To be part of something this big – a thought from my head unfolded into this huge collaborative circus.
We’re all just sitting around now – waiting for the dawn of the Prawn.
2.06 am. Just watched Prawn Man doing his shtick – utterly fucked-up and weird, we’ve entered new and bizarre territory with this one. The guy who’s playing him – Glenn – is genuinely, fascinatingly peculiar. My mind is reeling, seeing him in the suit, the glasses. And Hannah looks incredible as Angel with her wing tattoos, pink boots and white mesh.
Glenn’s barely coherent, barely following instructions, which makes him utterly perfect for the part.
Meloni has a cold. A few people seem to have colds, in fact and I hope I don’t get one just in time for Kristan to arrive. Hopefully I’m eating too well to catch a cold.
Shit. That sequence was a synapse-frier. I can’t think of anything else like it. We, as Brendan the first AD says every night, are geniuses. SO pleased and proud to be part of this.
4.20. Home. The bags under my eyes are halfway down my cheeks, heading for the centre of the Earth.
Today was pretty amazing though. Hannah was really good as Angel.
‘It’s you I most wanted to impress,’ she told me with a hug.
Meloni brilliant in every scene. The buzz and camaraderie. Home with the snow streaming against the van window. New York nighttime 24-hour delis. I feel at home now, a working part of the city.
Tuesday December 14th Valentine’s Day
Big overnight shoot begins. This should be the last of the gruelling days (I’m pulling out of tomorrow night on account of this terrible cold).
Cold intensified as the night crept slowly on – time grinds exceeding snailish when you feel like shit.
Kristan and I sat in the chill concrete halls of an empty building which will one day be a multi-million-dollar studio apartment in Harlem etc. Lots of waiting while the crew brought the tech. Today was Mikey’s death scene with Angel and Sax. Sax heart attack. McCarthy finds his unconscious body in the snow. I missed most of it. We generally stayed put as I trended more and more miserable.
The best bit was when Kristan and I retired to our warm trailer with a bottle of wine and celebrated Valentine’s Day with curative booze. The trailer was a couple of blocks away however and cosy as it was, we couldn’t really stay there for too long. The wine fortified us for a little while. Back to the shell for another great chat with Sam about the nature of the universe, psychedelics etc. Then the happy drunk haze began to dissipate – nose streaming, eyes red-rimmed and sore, coughing.
Chris Meloni arrived, stumbling in the door to greet Kristan. Prawn Man’s double turned up, then Zabryna and Lili arrived (bearing a lovely card for me – ‘One of the kindest souls I’ve ever met’ - wow. When did that happen?) More deep talk with Hannah and Gus on the subject of Prez Trump and the Russian connection – ‘It’s treason!’ Gus insisted.
By the time we got to lunch in that huge, floodlit canteen – the reform school dining hall from Hell – I felt truly fucked. Didn’t want or enjoy food for the first time. Came back feeling sick.
The video village was moved outside into the freezing car park, which was just too much for me. I sat where I was, scarf round my face, hat on. I couldn’t breathe properly and began to feel I was having a heart attack what with the shortness of breath and tight chest pain (probably more a result of the wracking coughs than anything else) Tom caught sight of me in all my pomp and misery and told me to go home.
I was only too glad to accept his offer and soon we were in a van, heading back. I felt like SHIT. Gratefully fell into bed somewhere around 1am while the shoot went on into the wee hours. Sorry to miss the scene with Lili and Chris but not so sorry that bed didn’t seem a much better option.
Deep sleep.
Thursday February 16th
Hard to imagine after all these epic nights but we’ve finally reached the LAST DAY OF SHOOTING!
Happy I missed last night’s freezing cold shoot in the Bronx, under the el.
More weird dreams. Woke feeling tense and odd again after dreaming I was having my blood pressure taken by a weird German Hollywood doctor – ‘Drugs?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Look. This is Hollywood…we’ve heard it all before. Cocaine?’
‘I’ve never taken cocaine. I have no interest in cocaine…’ I insisted, this following my inadvertent appearance in some ‘Hangover’ sequel I didn’t know was being filmed.
He’s strapping some Sellotaped excuse for a blood pressure cuff onto my arm as I lay half-on, half-off of a bed, awkward and panicky, realizing my blood pressure would register through the roof.
Maybe I need to get it checked when I get home. I FEEL weird, hyper, pushed to my limits.
So here we are. 16.45 with another night ahead and then done.
There are only two actual scenes left to do – Scaramuccis in the restaurant and Sax blowing his head off. These two should take us through to midnight, I reckon. The rest is short, sharp, VfX stuff.
Here we go. Launch…
16.55
Scaramuccis in place – overhead table shot. ‘SUPERCOP’S WALK OF SHAME’ news headline. These boys are great. ‘Bumfights looking muthFUCKA!’ Sam spits, authentic Jersey asshole. We imagine an upcoming episode where they’re rehearsing their boy band, the Fantastic Four Assholes.
17.42. 3 bells. Here we go.
I could watch these guys doing Scaramuccis all day. There’s not a dull moment in the whole thing.
‘He’s in a chair so we can scootch him back until he looks good.’
18.42.
It continues.
19.10.
Going through stills on Gonzalo’s screen.
‘Feels like 5 months ago…’ says grey-haired Peaches.
Feels like years to me. Those early days.
‘Light’s good.’
‘You get used to the faces. Shapes of the faces,’ says Gonzalo.
We’re almost done here. Time to move onto the next stage.
After lunch now. 11 pm.
We’re in a different studio. Watched the Sax green screen elevator drop, Looney Tunes style. Then shifted to a colder, cavernous space to do the final Sax scene which is actually the first appearance of the character in the pilot, puking up blood and fantasizing blowing his own head off while dancing girls and a go-go boy get to work under the spinning disco ball. The models we chose almost randomly from a sheet on the first scout day are here – one girl looks like she’d happily kill everyone in the room without remorse.
GALLERY artefact #036
New York, February 2017
‘4-Delt Take 2 Stick 6’?
The dream is real – we’re shooting a scene of blood vomiting into urinal.
Murderous long wait for all the bathroom green screen work to be done but the pay-off was amazing – Meloni dancing with his guns and sexy mad elves.
Everybody turned up; Ritchie, Lili, Zabryna. Disco ball spinning. Hysterical laughter. Selfies. Appraisals of the models…
‘They found him curled around a toilet.’
‘Below 250 bucks, you’re paying em in drugs’
Great buzz and camaraderie.
GALLERY artefact #037
New York, February 2017
Then the actors were gone.
Only Gus remains for his window fall. The party atmosphere drained away. 2 in the morning. Let’s hope we’re all together again in San Diego, under billboards the size of buildings.
4 nearly 5. Brian is shooting individual fucked-up Barbie dolls! Realms of the unwell! Dangling homunculi!
‘Is he fucking with me?’ says Tom, checking his watch. The only correct answer is yes…
4.47. Finis?
Two dangling legs remain – ‘That was the best one!’ says Brian of literally the last leg. The final shot. Then done.
Farewell to all until next time…