On a recent film, we shot a scene in which a large wedding cake gets ruined. The characters all blame each other for the accident and pieces of the destroyed mass are lobbed back and forth in frustration. The fun part was that we had to shoot some of the aftermath before we shot the cake destruction itself. In order to create the conditions of a cake-fight aftermath, a cake-fight zone was constructed.
The art department commandeered a small room by the kitchen of the rustic hotel we were shooting in. It was the last scene of the day, and after changing into my wardrobe I walked in, ready to be caked. Every surface was covered in clear plastic sheets. It was like something a serial killer would save on Pinterest under “Dream Office.” If you walk into a room like this and you are not shooting a movie: Run, buddy! You are about to be dismembered!
I stood in the middle of the room and the director—a grown man, my creative ally—threw handfuls of heavily buttercreamed cake at me while I shrieked, further tickled by every frosted assault. At one point I started screaming, “Not the face! Not my beautiful face!!” Don’t get too into a bit when you’re wearing four-inch heels and standing in a pile of icing. I lost my balance and crashed to the Saran Wrapped–ground. At this point I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, so I barely noticed. Two members of the art department wearing lab coats (seriously, I was in Dexter’s murderous paradise) helped me up and steadied me. Then they turned me around and held my arms so my boss could throw cake at my back. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to laugh and couldn’t help but think, I am in the world’s weirdest, most precious porno right now.
It Makes You Feel Like What?
I will also sometimes have to fake the use and subsequent effects of illegal substances. Sometimes that is not difficult because I’ve . . . got a good friend I can ask about it. Other times, it’s a drug for which I have no point of reference outside of other actors depicting it on film.
I had to do several lines of fake cocaine in a heavily improvised film, so I asked around about how it would alter me. I’ve been around coke, I’ve been at many a party where I was the only person not doing coke, but I’ve never tried it myself. I once secretly rubbed some residue on my teeth because that’s what people do in movies, but I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t have much to go on. Luckily, most people in LA had experience with it (and lots of places, actually; I remember conferring with other Maine expatriates after the first month of living elsewhere and confirming in disbelief that this was the norm. “Do people do coke where you are? I know!! Who does coke?! Have they not seen ANY movie?!”).
It wasn’t hard to find someone on set to walk me through it. So here’s what I’ve got: cocaine makes you feel like the most important, most interesting person in the room. Why the hell would anyone do this drug? No, listen, it’s your time on earth and I’m not here to judge anyone in this life (except people who don’t like dogs—how do you not like dogs?), but that drug sounds horrible. Self-doubt is healthy! Self-doubt keeps me in check! It’s the rare social interactions when I DON’T hate myself that keep me up at night.
Oh god. I just remembered the time in middle school when I thought I could pull off a wallet chain. I’m just—I’m just gonna crawl under the bed for a while.
Exploding Pig
Jake Szymanski, the director of Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, liked to call out direction during takes so we could work quickly and keep things spontaneous. One night, around four thirty in the morning, everyone in the cast was collectively covered in fake pig guts. The scene didn’t make it into the film, and explaining the setup would take forever, so you’ll just have to go with me here. It had been a long day, it was getting cold, and I don’t know why, but the fake pig guts smelled awful. It was like someone tried to cover the smell of rotting garbage with a full jar of nutmeg, but it didn’t quite work. Luckily, we were supposed to appear disgusted by them, but they really were rancid.
Jake was yelling out increasingly horrifying suggestions from the safety of his director’s chair. They were all hilarious. But when he yelled, “Zac and Anna, get some of the chunks of pig guts in your mouth so you can spit them out!” Alice took over.
Hang on. A note about Alice, my character in Mike and Dave: I don’t usually “take my characters home with me,” which is a method-acting thing, not a sex thing. If it were a sex thing, I would do it. But Alice was a force to be reckoned with. She was hard to control. Maybe it was because we were doing so much improv or because Alice said the things I wasn’t brave enough to say or because she’s such an idiot. I like playing idiots. I tend to play smart, because I look smart. Let’s be clear: it’s not because I AM smart, I just “read” smart on camera. The two things are unrelated in actors.