Recently I've managed to access copies of a couple of movies I acted in during the early part of 2010. They came out much later and I didn't get to see them at the cinema so it's just recently I've been watching them only to discover all my hard efforts have ended up edited out.
The first movie was Yogi Bear 3D: thirteen uncomfortable hours filming outdoors in unseasonably cold winds in Auckland, New Zealand, January 2010.That was the day where, due to a very early casting call, I missed the opportunity to confront my scoundrel French boyfriend who had been stringing me along for two years. Well, blink and you'd miss me. My only appearance reduced to a nanosecond where Yogi and co are at the shopping mall and a plane flies over with a banner. That's me, a shopper, looking up at the plane. Snip!
Yesterday I finally got hold of a copy of ICE, directed by Nick Copus, and starring such big names as NZer Sam Neill, Stephen Moyer (True Blood), Richard Roxburgh, Claire Forlani. According to imdb.com this movie is about:
Environmentalist Prof Thom Archer, warns of a new ice age and points a finger at sinister energy giant Halo. The multi-national is drilling on the Greenland Glacier and causing it to melt. But his warnings are ignored. Then, after a colleague is murdered, Thom realises he must put years of desk-bound theory behind him and fight for his survival and the survival of Earth itself.
They spent a lot of effort on my hair for one scene; sort of a very corporate Princess Leia arrangement on the back of my head because this area of my anatomy was supposed to be important in one shot. Really? Elaborate, odd. I walked across a floor which was supposed to be the British Parliament but was, in fact, the Auckland War Memorial Museum. So many takes and my hair and I don't appear at all, nor does my determined descent down the museum steps, and the scene in the lift with Sam Neill? Horrors, they've chosen the take with a skinny young thing instead of me. I had my doubts at the time as they kept changing their minds as to how they wanted to run it.
It was a bit weird looking at this film and recognising the locations. There was my old workplace, Waitakere City Council (council chambers and external shots), doubling up as some British climate change conference venue (very appropriate as it was NZ's eco-city).
Sam Neill kept to himself and didn't mix with the extras between takes, just reading his newspaper while the huge camera crane swung over the set. I got paid half-peanuts for 12 hours, spent $300 on a suit that never appears and which I could never really fit into again. Ah, the price of being snipped!
I've been snipped many times in my life. Another occasion was when I was appearing in two theatrical productions at the same time. Grease and Camelot. The Camelot audition was really tough and we had to be able to dance on cue. I secured the part of Nimue (Merlins' love interest) and had to create a seductive dance around him to distract him away from King Arthur to be with her, casting my magic. I also had lines to learn but rehearsal times were radically changed and Camelot now conflicted with my performance dates for Grease. I chose to drop out of Grease because I had a more important role in Camelot. Oh disaster! Camelot ran out of funding and was cancelled half way through rehearsals so I ended up with nothing, Snip!
Jean-Claude is facing a snip too. He has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is scheduled for surgery on the 3rd of December. We hope this cancer has been caught in time. Chances are it has, but he'll be out of action for a couple of months at least. There are many surgical techniques but the one he seems to be having is the one with all the holes in the tummy, rather than the perineum or right up the urethra. Risks include permanent incontinence and impotence. A message to the doctors - snip but don't slip!
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