shifting gears

So sleepy today.  Went to bed so late and then woke up at 6 AM.  Couldn’t fall back into my sleep wave so I went downstairs and read the character info my sister sent me and then got inspired to start working on my own. 

I’ve never done an improv movie.  Actually, I didn’t know such a thing exists.  Not quite sure how the whole thing works.  I guess I’ll find out as we go along. 

Hard to believe that I’m going to be in Cannes in around two weeks, hanging out with Jenny, acting.  It’s weird.  A mix of feelings.  Been so long since I’ve done this kind of stuff.  Not sure how I feel.  On one hand, I’m excited to spend the time with Jenny, free-falling into the work. 

On the other hand, it’s all very well to be content with being forty-eight years old and all that goes with it, but do I really want it to be documented, photographed and blown up to the gargantuan size that is required to fill a movie screen?  What forty-eight year old woman in her right mind would be jumping up and down saying “Yes!“ ?

Not only that, but will I be able to fly along at the same rate as the other actors, none of whom have taken a fourteen year hiatus?  Many of them have done these improv movies before with the director. 

And how does this whole, no concrete script, no written dialogue thing work?  Even though it seems to me, that there is a freedom in it, because the camera is just rolling and the scene unfolds however it does.  There is a sense that maybe the character will feel more like it is mine.  Rather than a chess piece being moved about.  But it’s an odd feeling too.  I am so used to finding clues about the back-story from the script.  With this project, each person writes their own back-story. 

And then I wonder, since they don’t know what they are going to have until it comes out of everybody’s mouths, how will they know how to cover it?  Will they be able to cut it?  And then I think, It’s none of your business, Meg.  And I try to let it go.

I called my old acting agent, Ilene, today, and we talked about the logistics, when they needed me, where I would be staying, and it was wonderful to hear her voice, to be chatting like old times and at the same time, it was sort of strange too, how there is the familiarity and yet a huge hunk of time has passed.  Everything the same, but different.

What an interesting life I have.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, April 27, 2008 in Chewing the Fat