There were also two small fires on set that no one seemed to be that worried about. I do mean small, but still. A scrim and a prop lantern (which was not built for actual flames) caught on fire, and there was no real sense of hustle. This was a big-budget film; there was a department for that. This is how a roomful of adults ends up staring at a rapidly growing fire with their mouths open.
The previous year, I’d been shooting the movie Happy Christmas with a total of six crew members and about four principal actors. If there’d been a fire, all ten of us would have run to a water source. (Unless it was a grease fire; we’re filmmakers, not idiots.I)
When you’re on an independent film, you have to wear more hats. It isn’t stressful, though, because you start to feel capable and relish the responsibility. Happy Christmas was shot in eleven days for eighty thousand dollars (for perspective, that’s 1/262nd the budget of Silver Linings Playbook). There was no script, no paper involved whatsoever. And we didn’t tell anyone we were doing it.
Aspiring filmmakers: Isn’t it great news that you can make a movie for so little, and, more important, that you don’t need to ask permission? It was the happiest and most productive set I’ve ever been on. I’m not saying small-scale movies are always better off on the whole—I don’t want the next Bond film to be improvised and shot handheld. You can’t make a movie about an alien-werewolf invasion with ten people and eighty grand. And I want to see Fur from the Sky by 2018.
Wardrobe
I’ve wanted to work on a period piece for as long as I can remember. A fantasy period piece even more so. I got my wish with Into the Woods, and it was everything I dreamed it could be. And a little less. Turns out, authentically made corsets are quite small. They seemed bearable in my fitting, but any woman who’s ever tried on shoes in a store knows that you can think something is perfectly comfortable only to wind up begging for mercy at the end of your first day in them.
In between scenes, I could ask to have my corset loosened and get some relief (I couldn’t do it myself because of how it was made), but inevitably, it had to get laced up again. This led to an unusual dynamic between Asia, the on-set dresser, and me. I adored Asia. She was funny, hardworking, and sweet. But she was responsible for putting me in a moderate degree of physical distress. If your best friend gave you a charley horse ten times a day, you’d feel weird about her, too. So after a few weeks, whenever I saw Asia (Lovely Asia! Whom I really liked!) it struck fear into my heart. We would eye each other across the set, awaiting the telltale signs of camera readiness. This equally tiny blonde and I would get locked in a stare-down like bull and matador. Eventually, I’d lose focus and Asia would creep up behind me.
“Oh, hi, Asia, are we sure they’re ready? I thought we were waiting on the animal wrangler to bring the cow?” I said, stalling.
“Nope”—tug, tug, tug—“the cow’s already set.” Tug, tug, tug. “Dion’s just swinging a lens and then picture’s up.”
I’d get desperate. “Oh”—tug, tug, tug—“I feel like the cow always runs away a couple times before we actually shoot, though, so maybe just a few more minutes—”
But she was the matador, and she skewered me every time.
Our legendary costume designer, Colleen Atwood, had every piece that we wore custom-made, and she handpicked the perfect fabrics, laces, and buttons. Even the shoes were made by hand. The skirt on Cinderella’s “rags” was a dusty-blue linen. It was humble but lovely—the perfect choice for Cinders—but linen is a fabric that wrinkles like Jack Nicholson’s balls without Botox.
So I’m working in a corset and heels for sixteen-hour days, but every single time I sit—just sit down and have a little rest in between takes—someone has to steam my skirt, because it now has some minor wrinkles in it. I’m Cinderella, by the way. My body, my hair, every part of my costume has been painstakingly covered in soot and grime and grass. God forbid my skirt isn’t freshly pressed.
The most annoying part was that Colleen was right; it really did look better smooth. Dirty and disheveled added to the aesthetic, but wrinkled was distracting. It was this major production, Disney’s Christmas tentpole, and I couldn’t even sit down. So in between takes I’d walk over to a chair or a bench and just look at it. Longingly. Sometimes I’d lean on it. Or circle it like a cat. People on that set probably thought I had hemorrhoids.