One film sent me to lessons on a horse farm for weeks. I wasn’t learning to ride a horse, though, I was learning to sit behind someone riding a horse and not fall off. There wasn’t actually a lot of skill involved. All you had to do was learn to spend an extended period of time clutching at someone’s torso for dear life while galloping full speed, sans saddle or stirrups, on the aft of a sentient being (who weighed a literal half-ton and most days had a comically large erection).
I panicked during my first lesson because something was digging into my thigh and none of the instructors seemed that bothered about it. Saddles aren’t made to have a passenger behind them, so when I mentioned my discomfort, there was a general attitude of “Yeah, that’ll happen.” When I pointed out the culprit, a metal ring about the circumference of a golf ball attached to the back of the saddle, my teacher frowned at it, gave it a tug, and said she’d try to take it off for my next lesson. Before you ask (believe it or not), I’m not the kind of gal who knows what purpose a metal ring might serve on the back of an English saddle, so no, I don’t know what it was.
“It’s just really digging into my leg, man. I’m not sure I can keep going.”
“Well, I’m supposed to take you on at least five more runs. Do you want to take a five-minute break first? Maybe drink some water?” By the time I got home, I had a bruise on my thigh the size and color of a rotting mango.
At one point a renowned rider was brought in to work with me. A muscle-bound Spaniard who spoke almost no English, his connection with these horses seemed to transcend the laws of nature. On our first ride together we galloped past the stables through the rolling, sunlit hills. We took in the majesty of the countryside, and he turned back to me.
“Beautiful,” he said.
“Yes, beautiful,” I echoed.
He cast his dark eyes away from me and gave the horse a kick. I gripped his chest and buried my face in his neck as we picked up speed, all the while thinking, When is this asshole gonna let me go home so I can ICE MY VAGINA?!
The day of my big horse scene, as I perfected my mount and dismount, the director said, “You know what, I’m never going to use that. I’m going to end the scene before you get on the horse.”
So I hadn’t learned to ride a horse, and as it turned out, there was no reason to spend all that time training my inner thighs to endure blunt force. But it wasn’t a total waste. I got to be outside in pretty weather, and I’ve got a head start if I ever get into S&M.
I once played a chef, and although I did not get cooking lessons per se, I was sent to a knife skills course so that I’d look like I’d taken cooking lessons. In fact, I was flown from LA to Atlanta, more than once, on days that I didn’t shoot anything, solely for more lessons. I chopped piles of herbs, diced mountains of onions, cored bushels of apples. I got confident but not especially good. This became clear when I sliced off a fingernail halfway through a pile of cilantro. Given the choice, I’d take a metal ring to the thigh any day.
When we set up the shot for my vegetable massacre, the director took a look at the monitor and called out, “Hey, Anna, don’t worry about the chopping. We can’t see your hands.”
I’ve never driven a stick shift. Sidenote: I don’t know why people act so superior about this. I don’t churn my own butter, either; let’s not act like I’m a dick for doing the easier thing. I was, however, asked if I would learn for the movie The Voices. The film was being shot in Germany, and the car that the producer chose, like most European cars, was manual. I expressed some hesitation but said that of course, if that’s what needed to happen, I’d learn. For three days, before and after work, I drove a beat-up stick shift around a former Nazi airbase with a patient stuntwoman. Why a stuntwoman? I have no idea. The scene demanded that I start the car, then drive precisely ten feet, just out of frame. Not exactly “The Driver” from The Driver.
I joked to the producer that I was mostly worried about the other actress in the car. My scene partner, Gemma Arterton, happens to be a great beauty and a class-A broad, and the world would be cheated if we lost her to my poor driving skills.
“You’re learning to drive a stick for that one shot?” The producer furrowed his brow. “That’s ridiculous.”
I was confused. Didn’t he know that? Surely the days of lessons and the dozens of emails coordinating them couldn’t have happened without the producer’s knowledge. An hour later, I got an email saying that a nearly identical car, with automatic transmission, would be used for my driving scene. I am now pretty annoying about cutting out the middle man, a.k.a. ignoring the chain of command and bothering the person in charge of an entire film set about every little problem I have.
Cake Attack