My casting on Community 12/15-12/16
So It's another one of the "I got casted on Community" postings...If these bore any of you let me know!
I got the call on Monday telling me that I was casted on "Community" for Tuesday. I was actually very nervous considering this was the first time I was casted by myself. Every other time I was casted, I was always casted with my sister, but not this time. There were only 14 extras needed and somehow I made the cut into the those 14 but my sister didn't. It really was just luck of the draw.
On top of that, I was filming on Location! Not on the normal lot, so to say I was out of my comfort zone would be an understatement.
I barely got any sleep that night as I had to be awake at 3 and leave by 4 because I had a 6 AM call time, and I had to be shuttled to set. I got to Paramount Studios early, even after driving around frickin' Hollywood trying to find an open gas station just so I could by some gum! God forbid if someone wants some juicy fruit before 6 AM!
I was early, so I figured "What the hell?" I have to ride the shuttle anyways, so I get down to the place where I'm supposed to meet the shuttle and there are 3 shuttles lined up. I walk up to the guy standing near the first shuttle, and he tells me he's the new AD Brock, and checks me in. I then see him pop his head into the shuttle, then gives me kind of a weird look and he goes "I know it's cold, but would you mind waiting for the next shuttle?" What was I supposed to say? So of course, I'm like "Sure" I figured there are 3 vans there, so I wouldn't have to wait long, when I hear a voice come from inside the van, and I recognize it immediately as Chevy, "Don't make the poor girl wait out in the cold, we have plenty of room in here!" Brock like looks at me with this look, and I just shrugged. I knew the cast was being shuttled up there also, but I assumed they would be meeting somewhere else or something. So Brock opens the door, and I'm standing there in shock. There are only 2 seats left in the whole damn van! There are 3 rows of 3 seats, so in the back back is "Starburns" and Ken Jeong, the middle is Yvette, Gillian, and Joel, and in the first seat is Donald Glover and Chevy, and the open seat is between them. I turn back to Brock and I go "I'll wait..." when Chevy goes "Nonsense! We have room!" as Brock just nods for me to climb in.
I took a deep breath, trying to swallow my redness as I climb into the van, moving my fat ass over Donald Glover ( Which I apologized for) as I stated "Big girl coming through!" Donald Glover just gave me the ol' "Don't say that!" as I finally sit down between him and Chevy. To say this was uncomfortable would be an understatement, so I pulled out my phone and tweeted about how weird this was. I leaned forward in my seat and I ask the driver "How long is the ride?", only to feel Chevy Chase put his arm around my shoulders and pull me back to the seat as he goes "Relax, we'll get there..." I don't think I was barely breathing, as I sat there. The cast making small talk as I was just trying to stay calm. We're riding in silence when "Starburns" goes "It's too quiet in here", when all of a sudden Joel goes "Wanna hear an impression?" and immediately my mind flies back to the first time I was casted. I remember the impression he did, and before he could even start Gillian goes "Don't you even do it!" Joel just starts laughing over this. This must be something that happens alot, Joel must do his 'Everyone in the world throwing up at the same time' impression alot when there is silence!
After a little more silence, Chevy speaks up and he's speaking to me! He goes "You know who you look like?" I looked over to him as I nodded 'no'. (Now honestly, I had an idea who he was gonna say, about once a month someone will come up to me and tell me I look like this same actress, even though I don't see it at all!) Chevy goes "Jodie Foster" I simply nodded my head yes when he goes "heard that before?" I nodded my head as Donald Glover looks over to me and goes "yeah, you do!" I simply shook my head 'no' saying "I don't think so." Fighting my skin to turn back to normal color, and like the voice of god I hear the deep voice of Joel in the van "Hey! Look at me!" (To say this didn't make me nervous would be a lie!) so I slowly turn around in my seat and look at him, my face as red as can be when he smiles and goes "She does!" I simply turned around and faced forward for the rest of the trip. (15 different people ended up telling me the same thing over the course of the filming.)
We pulled into set, and after climbing out of the van I run into Spyder, the other AD. He gives me this weird look watching the whole cast climb out of the shuttle, then me, all I could do is shrug! He just stares at me more when I spoke nervously "They made me!" as Spyder starts to smile, Chevy climbs out of the van and puts his arm around my shoulders and goes "We kidnapped her..." Spyder just laughs a bit, as he waves for me to follow him to holding.
This morning was insane, and I was just starting. I sat in holding for a bit, working on a Sudoku, trying not to freak out anymore. I looked at the other extras trying to recognize someone. I met a couple other extras and soon enough this other extra 'Joey' walked in. I was so happy to see him! I knew him because we had worked together before! Literally only 10 minutes after being checked in by Spyder we were sent to Props, where I got myself a nice blue messenger skull bag, and then got brought to set.
I'm just gonna say this...For being on location, they worked us hard! Usually when on location, the extras are in holding for majority of the time, but they had us on set 99% of the time while we were there.
So we got brought to set, and of course I say something totally stupid. I had heard in holding that there was a boat in the episode, so as we're all standing in front of the boat waiting to be placed I turn to 'Joey' and go "I hear there's a boat in this episode!" He looked at me like I was stupid! I turned so red as I said "that probably would of been more impressive had I said that while we were in holding huh?" Joey just nods and smiles.
We did some scenes and everything was fine, when Brock tells everyone we are on a 5 minute break, and if you had to use the restroom to go do it now! So I had to use the restroom so I walk up to Brock and ask where the restroom was, now little did I know this little question was gonna change everything!
So I ask him, and unannounced to me Brock's earpiece is on way too loud in his ears. Remember when you were kids and you had the headphones on way too loud and you go to talk to someone...remember what happens? Yeah...so Brock turns to me and yells "YOU HAVE TO USE THE RESTROOM?" I was so embarassed...I turned red as I said in a lower tone "Yes!" Before Brock starts telling me where the restrooms are, I hear Chevy yell "SHE HAS TO USE THE RESTROOM?" Oh my god I was so embarassed! Of course the other extras are laughing hysterically, the crew is dying. When Donald pipes up and yells "WHO HAS TO USE THE RESTROOM?" Luckily one of the extras pointed me to the way of the restroom, as I began walking away I hear Chevy yell "SHE HAS TO USE THE RESTROOM!" I glance back and see Chevy pointing to me as everyone is just dying at this point, and I know my face must be redder than ever. I continue walking when I hear Chevy again "IS IT NUMBER ONE OR NUMBER TWO?" I was laughing, but I was still so embarassed, as I walked faster to the bathroom. The last thing I remember hearing was Joel yelling "Leave her alone Chevy! She's red enough as it is!"
So I finish my business, splash my face with some water, some of my color had returned. I was thinking how sweet that was of Joel, as my ovaries jumped a bit higher thinking how nice that was of him. I wasn't upset or anything, I was laughing. So I walk back to set, and as soon as I walk on set I hear Joel McHale, the guy who saved me earlier yell across the set "HEY! DID YOU USE THE RESTROOM?" Which of course just made everyone laugh all over again, as I just nodded my head and returned to my spot. Talk about embarassing!
We get to lunch, and I'm standing in line for my food, talking to 'Joey' and trying to forget about the embarassment of earlier. When I feel a hand on my shoulder, I'm thinking it's 'Joey' so I turn around and run right into Chevy. I looked at him kind of weird when he goes "Sweetie, I just wanted to apologize, I didn't mean to turn you that red earlier...I hope your not mad at me" and get this...he pulled me into a hug. I assured him I was fine and not upset at all. When I noticed Donald Glover was standing next to Chevy, (truth be told I noticed because he reached over and stole like 3 grapes off of my plate! I was thinking like "uh, get your own!" anyways) Donald goes "You have a sister huh?" and all I could think about was Dawn's 'ball dropping' line last time on set. I said "Yeah, we're usually casted together!" and Donald goes "yeah! The sisters! We're always talking about the sisters! Tell her I said hi!" (Which kind of scares me...)
It seriously seemed like everyone that day asked me 'where my sister was?' which is a good sign, and on top of that Spyder knew me by name, and I was the only extra that was called by name the whole day!
When we returned to set was when I realized the man playing the instructor was a guest star and who he was. I won't say who it is, but I will say he is an older actor, think 60+ in age. I honestly didn't recognize him until someone pointed it out to me, then literally 5 minutes later the guy I was paired with goes "Is that f'in *********? " It was exciting, I know who the guy is, even though he's before my time, but when I told my father and step mom they were beyond excited! My dad even called my uncle to tell him who I worked with.
Of course filming on location has it's issues, we had to deal with 2 people who just felt the need to delay production. We had a cable guy on a building across the street who refused to duck down for 30 seconds so we could finish the shot! Finally, after 20 minutes of arguing with him, he finally ducked down and let us finish. In addition, we had one guy pull up and park and blare spanish rap music from his car. When the AD's asked him to turn down his music so we could film, he replied "I won't turn it down until you get more brown people on the show!" To which Donald Glover goes "What am I?" and the guy goes "Your black not brown!" (Those we're his exact words folks, not mine!) It took the crew 30 minutes to explain to him that they don't do the casting, and they can't do anything about it. He finally left. On top of that we had 3 paparazzi photographers wandering near the set, I don't know what they were taking photos of, but they were snapping alot! My step mother suggested they were taking photos of the guest star since he hasn't done much in a while.
So after the first day, as we are being signed out Spyder tells us there is a good chance we will be recalled for another day. (Which means they will call us all back for another day of work). We had no idea what was going on, so after being signed out for the day I went to dinner with 'Joey' then headed home. I found out about 9 that I was in fact recalled for the next day with a call time of 6:30 AM.
The next day I arrived early again, I actually gave 'Joey' a ride, so we went together. No cast shuttle this time, some of the cast actually chose to drive to set since there were different call times. We got to set, and checked in, I was talking to Spyder about Dawn not being casted and he told me "I'd rather have you and Dawn anyday then half of these people on this list!" which was nice I must say.
I go to the truck to get myself some coffee and as I'm pouring my coffee what do I hear "Hey there, one half of the sisters!" I turn around and Donald Glover is standing next to me pouring his coffee. I smiled as I said "Hi! Oh and my sister says "Hi!" Donald smiled wide when he goes "She knows who I am?" I rolled my eyes as I said "yes! I hope we didn't offend you last time!" I spoke sheepishly, when Donald looked at me kind of confused. I continued "In the cafeteria" I watched as his eyes grew wide and he just starts laughing. He laughs for a bit then goes "Nah, it takes more than that to offend me, plus that was a great line!" then headed back to his trailer.
We get to set and watch as they set up a classroom scene, Spyder picks me to be in the scene, as I'm sitting in the classroom I look over and see a girl I didn't recognize from yesterday. So I politely start talking to her, she kept looking at me weird though (remember this...it comes in handy later)
Well I get cut from the scene because they need more room for lights, which sucked. So we're filming another scene that involves Chevy and a canoe. The director tells Spyder he wants to do 3 featured. I didn't know what that meant til Spyder calls me over and asks if I would be one of the featured. Let me explain what this was:
Basically the director wanted to get a close up shot of someone walking by Chevy, he wanted to capture the reaction of the person in a close angle. So Spyder picked 3 extras, we were told to rehearse it a couple times, so the director could tell you "faster, slower, " whatever he needed so it would look good on camera, then you filmed it once. I went first and rehearsed it and everything went fine. Chevy didn't say a thing as I walked by. The director told me though "don't listen to anything he's gonna yell at you! Don't pay any attention to anything he does, just keep that expression on your face the whole time ok?"
So I agreed and I hear the director yell action, and after a quick pat on the back from Spyder I'm on my way, of course I'm trying to stay focused, and I can just see the slight smile on Chevy's face as I'm walking towards him. We're doing the scene, he's yelling all sorts of things at me, and I'm ignoring him. But then, he starts using his hat, filling it with water and throwing it on me! I mean he is just pummeling me with water, as I'm ignoring him and keeping that expression while he's just pummeling me with water again and again. By the time, the director calls "Cut!" I'm almost soaked, my hair is completely drenched!
They're re-setting the scene, and the director goes "Chevy! Look what you did to that poor girl!" Chevy just looks at me and smiles...as I try to dry my face off a bit. I honestly wasn't upset, I mean it's just water. So I'm standing over to the side, watching the next girl film her scene when Spyder goes "Melissa, follow me..." I follow him into the tent, where Yvette, Gillian, Donald and the guest star were sitting waiting for their cue. The hair and make-up people were in there, Spyder goes "We're gonna try to dry you real quick, because you can't work if your soaked it won't make sense. " I nod my head when the make-up lady goes "Strip down to the barest you can get sweetie!" My first thought is "Well at least it's not in front of Joel", my second thought is brought to mine when I hear Donald Glover go "Yeah, don't mind me!" as he closes his macbook, and starts watching me.
I strip down to my jeans and a tanktop I have on under my shirts, any barer and I would of been in my bra and panties. So the make-up lady hands me a towel, as the hair people are trying to dry my clothes and hair with the hair dryer. I'm standing there trying to towel dry my hair when I hear Yvette go "Sweetie, I would of kicked his ass!" which I just smiled and continued to dry myself off. About 10 minutes later, I was fully dry, and I had a brand new Pudding cup that Yvette had given to me from Kraft service because she heard my stomach growl, and was back on set filming.
After lunch we were filming and some idiot decided he was gonna protest the filming. This guy comes out of the building as were filming, he's not one of us extras just some random guy, and he starts screaming on top of his lungs "NBC has millions of dollars to do this filming, but you can't spend a few cents to blah blah blah" I mean he was pissed. I don't know what got him all pissed but he was in an uproar. The crew asked him to leave like 4 times and finally on the 5th time, security got involved, and a few minutes later the guy was carted way in handcuffs.
Soon enough the sun was setting and many of us extras were sitting around waiting for the next shot. Like it usually does, we all started talking and telling old horror stories, when I was telling one about my sister, the girl who looked at me weird earlier speaks up "Who's your sister?" Now at this point I have no idea who in the hell this chick is, so I go "Oh you don't know her, she usually gets casted with me" when the girl goes " No, who's your sister?" it wasn't until right then that I remembered when Dawn got casted for the first time on "Community" without me, she told me that she made friends with a girl named 'Lisa' that helped her learn the ropes real quick. Going out on a limb I spoke "Are you Lisa?" and she smiles wide and goes "Your Dawn's sister!" as we both smiled wide. I texted Dawn telling her that I had met Lisa, and Lisa tells me "When you first walked in, the first thing I thought was Dawn! but then I realized Dawn has blonde hair and you don't! It took me all day to figure out where I recognized your face from, then I remembered Dawn had a sister she talked about..." So that was a bit of a small world moment for sure...
Afterthat we're all chatting about old moments, and I'm telling a particularly funny story, while the AD and Joel McHale are rehearsing a scene. True most of my time I was watching Mr. McHale walking around looking OH So Good! So I get to the punchline of the story, and the whole group starts laughing loudly, when the AD yells back "Quiet!" as everyone is now looking at our whole group. Joel looks over with a wide smile on his face and goes "Yeah! Who do you think you are? It's my job to make people laugh?" At this point, the whole group splits like the red flippin sea, and leaves me standing there by myself with a red face. I sheepishly yell back "Sorry!" when Joel smiles even wider and with a serious tone goes "I'm watching you!" and points back before laughing to himself, as I blushed harder than before.
I was signed out soon after that, simply because there were using some of the extras cars and the ones who's cars were being used couldn't leave til after the scene, and I was unfoturnately one of the ones sent home at that time. It didn't matter too much though, they were only filming for another hour and had it been by choice I would of stayed as long as possible.
So that's basically it, I wish I could give more details but honestly I don't want to ruin it for you guys. This episode is gonna be pretty funny, I mean we were all just laughing thinking about the scenes they were filming at that point.
Again let me know if this bores you and I'll keep my mindless blabber about being casted to myself :)