I was in a Student Movie

This was back in 2001, in those heady days when I was studying journalism at the University of Florida and the spaceship Discovery was flying to Jupiter to make contact with the monolith. 

I was walking through the journalism building when a piece of paper taped to a metal gate caught my eye. It said something like, "Would you like to act in a movie?" And, being both attention starved and quite stupid, I sort of muttered, "Yeah, I guess I would." So I took one of the little slips of paper and called the number that night. The director of the movie answered, a small Asian man whose name I can't for the goddamn life of me remember, so for the purposes of this story we'll just call him Sergio Leone. 

"Uh, hi," I said. "I saw the ad for the movie." 

"Oh, yes. Uh huh." 

A pause. 

"And, you know, I'm interested." 

"Wonderful," he said. We talked for a minute. Then he said, "Would you be free to audition tomorow?" 

"I guess." 

"Wonderful." 

Sergio and I arranged to meet in an abandoned classroom on campus. 

"Hello," he said as I walked in. He turned to a ridiculously beautiful blonde behind him. "This is Kim." 

I shook Kim's hand and grinned stupidly, admiring her figure. I might like this acting business after all, I began thinking. As Kim and I chatted, Sergio began looking through the scripts. 

"Ok, here's the deal," he said. "The movie is actually broken down in sections, each with a different director and script, but with a unifying theme -- the morning after a one night stand." 

I looked over at Kim. I'm definitely going to like this acting business. 

Sergio handed me the script. 

"You, Joe, are auditioning for the role of Victor." 

I leafed through the script, suddenly puzzled. Victor seemed to have all the lines. Not that I minded, but...

"Victor has had sex with a deaf girl." 

Ah. 

"Only, he doesn't know she's a deaf girl until the morning after." 

I did a double take. Seriously, I remember doing it. 

"He doesn't know she's deaf?" 

Sergio leaned back, a supremely satisfied look on his face. 

"No." 

I turned to the end of the script and began reading a scene where Victor starts yelling at her, still totally unaware she's deaf. I was suddenly fidgeting. Maybe I won't like this acting business after all. I gave a serious thought to leaving. 

But shit, you know. You only live once. I looked up at Sergio and Kim and shrugged. 

"Okay." 

"Wonderful," Sergio said. "Shall we begin?" 

Victor's lines were the worst kind of stupid trash. First he can't believe she's still in the house the morning after all. Then he can't understand why she's being such a huge bitch by not even talking to him. Then he figures out she's deaf, realizes he's a douche, and apologizes. 

THE END 

Seriously. 

Sergio called me that night to tell me I had gotten the part. He specifically cited this scene from Chasing Amy as the reason he cast me, saying he could see me doing that scene (to this day I think it's because at the time, I wore a goatee). Not wanting to point out the mountain of fucking difference between confessing your love to a lesbian and hollering like a dingleberry at a deaf girl you banged without knowing she was deaf, I simply thanked him for giving me the part. 

"The shoot is next Thursday at 9 a.m. See you there, Joe." 

THE SHOOT

The day of the shoot my alarm didn't go off and I overslept. I had gotten a friend to agree to give me a ride, and I quickly called him. 

"Yeah, yeah," he said groggily. "I"m up." 

Then I called Sergio. He seemed perturbed, but only slightly. 

"It's okay," he said. "We've been having problems with our equipment anyway." 

I made a hair and makeup choice and decided not to shower. Besides, I thought, bed head is in character. Then I leapt into some previously arranged clothes, met my friend, and zoomed off to the location -- a shitty house Sergio and his friends had borrowed for someone. 

I walked up to the door and knocked. A bored looking girl with a book in her hand opened. 

"Hey," she said. 

She walked away from the door and back over to a coffee table, where she continued reading. To this day I assume she was the girlfriend of one of the other guys on the set, but I honestly don't know. I never talked to her. 

When I came in, the Director of Photography (DP) and the Sound Guy where having an argument about something while Sergio leaned up against a fireplace, talking to Kim. Suddenly Sergio saw me. 

"Ah, Joe. Wonderful," he said. 

I apologized for being late, but Sergio brushed it off. 

He walked Kim and I into the bedroom, the site of the first scene. 

"Okay," he says. "So you're both sleeping, then she get's up, and she's topless, then she stares out the window and walks out of the room." 

The word -- topless -- hung over the room like a John Goodman fart. I was suddenly too dumb for speech. I looked over at Kim. She laughed. 

"Yeah, they got this thing for me to wear," she said. She held up two wide strips of flesh colored tape. 

"Ah, yes. Of course," I said. "Of course." 

Then the DP came over and started discussing the scene with Sergio. It was very quickly apparent that the DP had done this before, because he started rejecting all of Sergio's ideas. 

"No no no," he said. "It's much better if we do it this way." 

Finally Sergio just gave up. The DP set of the first shot -- Kim getting out of bed "topless" (sadly, I was told to face the opposite wall and saw nothing). For the next shot, when Kim, now in a robe, leaves the bedroom and starts walking around the house, I found myself in a bathroom with Sergio. 

"Uh, shouldn't you be out there?" I said eventually. "I mean, you're the director, right?" 

Sergio sighed. "No, he's got it. It's a long tracking shot. I'd just be in the way." 

I didn't bring up the issue after that. 

The next scene was me getting out of bed -- not topless, but in my underwear -- and walking out of the room and into the kitchen. I was told to play this scene tired and hungover, which frankly didn't take a lot of acting. Then, suddenly, in probably the world's worst ever two-shot, I realize Kim is still there in the apartment and mutter something to the effect of "what is that bitch still doing here?" 

Then I had a few lines where I actually ask her what she's still doing in the apartment. When she doesn't respond, I start yelling. Eventually, I walk right up to her and continue yelling. 

We actually had a hard time figuring out how to convey to the audience that Kim was deaf. I mean, honestly, how do you do that without her literally holding up a sign that says, "I'm deaf, fuckhead"? 

Anyhow, I'm sorry to say I was the one who figured it out: a series of POV shots. First, from my angle talking to her with the sound of my rant ON, then a shot from her POV -- on my face -- with the sound turned OFF.

Seriously, figuring that out took like 45 minutes. 

After that, the only thing left was my "oh sorry, I'm an intolerant jackass, aren't I? I really shouldn't act like this anymore" speech, and then everyone packed up and went home. Kim gave me a ride back to my apartment. She had a very nice car -- a BMW, I believe -- equipped with the first navagation system I ever saw in a car. Before she dropped me off, she invited me to her birthday party, which was going to be on the day of the movie's "premiere." 

"Sure," I said. "I'll be there." 

THE PREMIERE

The premiere was something like two weeks later. Sergio sent me an email. When I went downstairs to put on my shoes one of my roommates, Ryan Wills, was there. He asked me where I was going and I made the mistake of telling him. 

If you read this, Ryan: yeah, sorry. I didn't want you to come. I knew the thing was going to be a fairly serious piece of shit, and I wanted to save you the trouble of smelling it and me the embarassment of having to hear about it. 

But as soon as I told him, he started putting his shoes on, so I knew I was fucked. I distinctly remember having the instinct to run out the door, but I decided against it. So we walked down to the lecture hall where the premiere was and sat down. Kim was a few rows ahead of me, flanked by friends. 

Watching the movie was, for two different reasons, one of the most surreal experiences of my life. First of all, as you can probably guess, it was a phenomenally shitty movie. My own segment was bad enough, but all of the others were just as bad. It is, to this day, one of the shittiest movies I've ever seen. Full of heavy-handed moralizing, bad writing, worse acting (yours truly included) and production values that make Troma movies look like Lawrence of Arabia. 

Secondly, it was incredibly surreal to see myself be part of this oozing cinematic flesh wound. I mean, it's bad enough for something to be bad, but it's another thing entirely to know it's bad and you helped make it bad. You're partially responsible. When it came time for my big, silent close up, I sunk down into my seat and wanted to disappear, sure than someone would see me and point and say something like, "there he is, that guy who sucked!" 

But none of that happened. When the movie was over, Ryan was incredibly diplomatic, because after all even sadists don't kick old, sagging dogs in the balls. 

I left without saying goodbye to Sergio and went to Kim's party. She got incredibly drunk and introduced me to her fiance, a ripped preppy kid. Her mother had come into town for the premiere and I was introduced to her as well, a fit older woman who regarded me suspiciously and didn't mention the movie. 

And then, finally, I went home. Sergio had promised me a copy of the movie, but he never sent it, and to this day I've only seen it that one time. 

Oh, well. It exists better in my memory... one of those weird times where you venture blindly out on a limb for the hell of it... only to have it break and find yourself racing toward the ground, shitting yourself the whole way down.