Hollywood Reporter #5

A very belated Hollywood Reporter. Actually - we're on number eight already, but I need to work through my backlog.

This time Heike has finished her Instead of Me shoot, and saw Holly Hunter at a screening, and is eagerly awaiting the Charlize Theron viewing (this happened several months ago ...)

This week's HR comes to you from New York!

The IOM (Instead of Me) shoot ended in the early hours of Monday morning, on Sunset Blvd. It had been our longest shooting day as we had started at 07h00 the previous morning. People driving down Sunset on Sunday night seemed to think it was a porno shoot. They kept yelling "asian hookers", "porno" etc at us. Rather sordid. I can't tell you what we were doing, though - you'll have to wait for the premiere for that. Although let me just mention that one driver yelled "Michael Stipe" at me. So someone thinks he saw Michael Stipe on Sunset. About 10 cm's shorter and with hair.

Anyway, I am very excited about the IOM project. It was a 2 camera shoot, so everything was shot from 8 different angles - every set-up gave us two choices - Nicole has about 8 hours of footage for a short film of 15 mins! Watch this space. The premiere is scheduled (sKeduled, if you remember) for February in Hollywood. Then the film will do the rounds and be submitted to Festivals; Cannes, Sundance, Raindance, Deauville, Berlin..whoever will have us.

Oh, but I have to tell you how special I felt during the shoot. The movie is about Zoe - my character is in every single scene. So there was no rest for the wicked, but I had my own entourage of wardrobe and make-up following me around (pulling at my clothes, steaming items of clothing every time I sat down, re-applying make-up and powdering my nose), as well as the AD (assistant director) checking in with me every 10 mins to find out if I needed water, coffee, M&M's - I was treated like royalty and I could ask for anything and people would race off and try to get it for me. I never once had to park my car myself during the shoot - the producers became my valets! The funniest was the AD calling out "first team is on set" whenever I arrived on set with my make-up and wardrobe club in tow. I was the entire "first team" - just 'lil ol' me. We would break to change the set-up (lights and cameras) and they would wrap me in a blanket and usher me into the dressing room and when it was time to return for shooting the call "first team is on set" would ring out. At some point it occurred to me that it would be appropriate for me to throw a tantrum and
be demanding and diva-ish - to really earn the "first team" title. It just felt like the right thing to do. So I told Nicole that I was only going to do one take one the next set-up, take it or leave it; I threatened to have make-up fired if she came near me with a mascara brush again; when the DOP (director of photography) asked me to place myself in a certain spot I replied "make me" and I demanded biscuits (they are called cookies here) mid-take and had everyone
laugh at me for the use of the word. Somehow, no-one felt particularly threatened by my behaviour... hmm, I'm going to have to work on that. My tantrums are not frightening enough yet. (Maybe because I always giggle before I get to the end of the hissy-fit??)

Remember I mentioned I was going to a screening of Holly Hunter's new film "13" and she would be there for a Q & A after? Well, it was great. The movie is hardcore and the performances were really strong. Holly is such a character. She had the most ridiculous interviewer - an utterly inappropriate uptight WASP, asking idiotic questions such as: "Holly, I've always admired your strength. How did you get like that? Or have you always been like that?" Holly paused and then said "hmmmm, I'll have a cheeseburger.... and fries with that..... and...IDON'TKNOW" There were LOADS of people putting their hands up to ask questions and out of nowhere the silly interviewer says:" Last question" to which Holly retorts: "Why? Are they using this space for something now?" Interviewer: "I don't know - they just told me I had to wrap it up." Holly: "Well, if they are not using this for anything else, I can stay." She asks the audience" can you stay?" and of course we all roar in agreement, so she singlehandedly extended the Q & A by 45 mins. She was great and very quirky. I even scraped together the courage to ask her about the rehearsal process.

Next week, I'm going to see "Monster" and meet Charlize Theron. Boy, do I have a question or 5 for her! If I can work up the guts, I'll speak to her in Afrikaans. The only thing is that lately, any Afrikaans sentence I form contains at least 5 French words. That is a problem.

Here's a cute thing that's happening - we are stuck on a bridge in severe traffic and my cab driver is asking for directions from civilians in the car next to us. This is good news for me. It means that I too can be a cab driver in NYC because I don't know my way around either! In London, cabbies have to pass exams on their in-depth knowledge of the city every 2 years or so.. here they'll be asking you how to get places.

Even the guidebook warns you to bring a map (and dictionary) to show the driver as they are often immigrants who can't even speeke Eenglish properly. And to think that the yellow taxis are such icons in the NY landscape - yet the people driving them often don't know the city or the language very well.