What’s the Irish for ‘Stanislavski’?*

There’s a story that’s been doing the rounds about Michael Douglas for some time now. No, not that one. It stems from back when he was filming smut-kill film "Basic Instinct". Paul Verhoven’s script required a club scene in which various beautiful types dance in a turn-of-the-nineties underground club. The club is populated with young, hip extras, all having the (simulated) time of their lives. Then, out of no-where, the ancient ‘son of Kirk’ arrives, looming out of the crowd like the spectre in Masque of the Red Death.

Instead of being openly mocked by ‘Ver Kids’ ("here, I thought you told your dad not to come in," etc) he proceeds to pounce on the most attractive murderess in the room, despite his weathered appearance. Rumour has it that when he arrived to film the scene, he dismissed wardrobe’s suggestions instead choosing his own ‘hip threads’ – comically – nothing of the sort.

I felt an uncommon empathy with Mr Douglas recently when I took the role of an extra for an Irish Language ‘Teen Drama’ (Imagine a Gaelic Hollyoaks if you will). I was informed it was a bar scene, and just to ‘wear what you normally would, no logos please’ so I did. Roused from my slumber at an ungodly hour by the frantic director and cursing the name of Alexander Graham Bell I perused my ‘floordrobe’ and settled on a combo consisting of jeans, leather jacket and that long sleeved red shirt that makes me look like one of the expendable security ‘red shirts’ from the original series of Star Trek. If the director needed someone to be wiped out by an energy being, I was bound to be first in line.

Sadly this wasn’t necessary. What I discovered when I arrived was that it was in fact a ‘club’ scene. And I was plainly underdressed – the other participants sporting (dependent on gender) pressed striped shirts or posh party frocks. The smell of various balms, perfumes and eaus told me that character acting was being taken very seriously by the stereotypically earnest young actors. (Can I just ask if there is anyone more earnest than a young actor? Being cast as Orphan Annie/ Orphan Oliver 12 years ago obviously has some deep psychological impact). I attempted my own Stanislavskian interpretation – I would play the part of someone who had turned up at said club somewhat worse for wear from the previous night’s exertions – a part I had prepared for the previous night by exerting myself somewhat in a local hostelry.

And so the fun began – "Quiet on the set, take 1 and cue music, lots of dancing cut music, keep dancing and action!" – lots of Indie-lite, (Mr Brightside, the Kooks – you know, student music), and about half the extras they’d anticipated – led to the dispiriting sight of a poorly attended club, and here I was expected to feign joy. I thought back to the stories of the Hacienda scenes in "24 Hour Party People" – the hedonistic rewinding of the clock in a converted warehouse in Manchester tricked out to look like the iconic nightspot. Of how all the old heads got back together to relive their glory days of acid house. Like them, my glory days of clubbing are long over, borne out by the fact that I was the oldest person there by a good 5 years, and I find it hard to feign interest in even a fully functioning, fully stocked (both with booze and beautiful babies) club. And I would challenge anyone to pretend to dance for 7 solid hours without the aid of unnatural stimulants without either:

  1. Getting bored
  2. Getting tired
  3. Getting really sweaty, especially when you can’t take your leather jacket off because of continuity.

I addressed the boredom issue by altering my dancing methods – the Charleston, the Twist. The Mashed Potato, The Monkey, The Mr Bez and the Voodoo Crispy. I think I may well have ‘reached for the lasers’ at some point ‘giving it stacks’ towards the ‘DJ’ who was pulling off the no mean feat of mixing sans headphones (a situation I have found myself in, but enough of that for now).

Tiredness really can’t be combated in these situations, and when I tried to take my jacket off I was shouted at. Now this is quite a disconcerting position for a man of 26 to be in. I had not been yelled at for some time. And the same between takes – silence was called by the director and her assistants seemingly every five seconds. This wasn’t in the bargain; I was giving up my day off and here I was being scolded. If I had have wanted to be shouted at by uptight Irish women I would have gotten myself pregnant in the 60’s and sent to a Magdalene Laundry.

4 hours later we break for lunch. I ignore the soup and sandwiches in order to pursue some character acting of my own – several beers in a local hostelry – only to be blanked by the ‘Talent’ who were treated to a slap up meal. I felt some small echo of the humiliation heaped weekly upon Ricky Gervais’ Andy Millman. One day was enough. I returned, read The Guardian, danced a bit more and stole all the good biscuits.

* Stanislavski – obviously.