August 4, 2004 - Motivation

I'm already trying to figure out what to wear. Yes, my costumes will come from my closet. I don't feel bad about this because I remember seeing the credits on Barbra Striesand's dreadful yet still big-budget "A Star Is Born" and it said something like, "Ms. Striesand's Wardrobe... her own closet," which I thought was oddly tacky, but then here I am doing it--though I doubt I will have such a credit.

I have actually been thinking about my character, who, it turns out, is a lot like me, which isn't surprising, since Jeanne wrote it for me. But it is surprising that I'd run any kind of restaurant since this is actually one of my irrational fears in life--the fear of owning a restaurant. The whole idea makes me want to take a long nap. Perishable products. Picky Patrons. And even things that don't begin with the letter "P."

And yet, I will have to overcome my own fears and do my own stunts, which will involve making coffee, something else I don't do, though in one scene I make tea, which I do believe in, so it balances it out.

I had to figure out why on earth my character would want to have a coffee house, because I, myself, could never dream of it. I came up with many different reasons, all of which work for the character if not for me. The character (coincidentally named DANIEL) sold his house in the Silicon Valley for a ridiculous sum and bought half a block of a tiny little town (very possible). He and his lovely wife (whose character name my own lovely wife may want to change), live upstairs in one of the large, loft-like spaces, and they had all this space downstairs.

Not wanting to be landlords (Why not? Well, that's a long story, something akin to my personally not wanting to own a restaurant), they still want to use the space, so they tried many things, and since people were always dropping by for coffee and tea and the Mrs.'s famous low-carb muffins, we figured would should start charging for them (not our friends, we don't charge them, and you'll notice in the movie we never make anyone pay for anything, which is really the only way I'd want to run a restaurant).

Anyway, I figure that some day the space will be a combination coffee house, gallery, and performance space, since I'd like to start a local theater company there, (or at least my character would), but I just haven't gotten around to it yet (or my character hasn't), because I'm just too mellow a fellow and am happy to keep a blog, which is what I'm doing now, and what I do in the movie, which kind of makes the universes fold in on themselves, which is a little scary, especially because this is precisely the kind of thing that can lead to rifts in the time-space continuum, or so I've been told.

I guess it is a kind of time travel to make a movie, then the time you spent in front of the camera is magically frozen in time (or at least on tape), and can be repeated endlessly, so you can watch yourself over and over and think, "My butt looks big in those pants," until the end of freaking time.

The truth is Actors only watch themselves in movies. They can't help it. And then they mostly only see how they looked. "I look fat," is the normal response to any and every scene, followed closely by, "My hair looks like crap," and the ever-popular, "What am I doing with my face? I look like I smelled something bad."

More about my acting process, wardrobe, and other vital items of interest will come when I feel like writing them, or when I have nothing else to do on the set, or both.

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