I put on Miles Sklar's suit and attitude today for my part of a three page scene where I got to be a serious douchebag. We did a lot of takes on the scene, and over the course of six hours I noticed that it's equally easy for me to commit to being a kind, sensitive, vulnerable person as it is for me to commit to being a complete and total douche. The thing is . . . playing a douche is really a lot more fun.
The camera was pretty far away from me, on a long lens, and the director was watching feeds from two cameras in video village while we shot, so I didn't get any direct feedback between takes. There was a time when this would have made me feel like I was doing something wrong, but I've done this enough now to know that if they're not telling me to do something different, then whatever I'm doing is making them happy.
After we finished the master, a couple of tighter overs, and my close up, the director walked over to me. Background actors headed out of the set, camera dollies were moved around us, and assistant directors talked to each other on their walkies.
He had a big smile on his face when he arrived, and he told me how happy he was with my work. He singled out a couple of acting choices I'd made, and talked at length about how much he liked them. He said, more than once, that I was doing a great job bringing this character to life.
The thing is, directors just don't do this when you're working in television. They usually don't have time to chat with the actors between setups, and they just don't bother praising us, because if we're not fucking up royally, we're doing the job we were hired to do.
So it meant a lot to me that he made the effort to single out some of the choices I made. He didn't have to do that, and it was an incredibly kind thing to do.
Later in the day, I met one of the writers from the show, who is as big a geek as I am. He even reads my blog! We talked about how cool the set was (they've built a scale model of Comic-Con, with a level of detail that should win an Emmy, or at least a Nerdy) and geeked out at each other about the comics we love. It turns out that he convinced the executives to do this episode by showing them Planetary, among other books. How awesome is that?
Tomorrow is my last day. I move from the convention to the interrogation room, and I get to work with Rob Morrow, which should be pretty awesome. Goddamn, I am having so much fun on this show.
