Finally, Kitty called it quits at nine o’clock. I’d put in a 14-hour day and was starving; I would have to talk to Caryn about getting me food. But today I was more focused on helping Kitty get caught up with the shooting schedule Laurent had messed up this morning.
◊◊◊
I’d just gotten back to my room when people started to show up. I put Caryn and Fritz in charge while I took a shower. The water pressure again reminded me of LA. Southern California is big on conserving water and put flow restrictors on faucets and shower heads. I think the plumbing was just old here. The good news was the air conditioner was working.
Caryn ordered room service for all my people. Paul had gotten Cedro to bring in a round table for poker. We could comfortably sit six people around it. Paul had found the cards and poker chips. When the food arrived, everyone else did too. Stewart brought the booze, and Heath flipped through the videos with Kimberly to decide what we were watching tonight. They picked The Shawshank Redemption.
More people showed up, including Roger and Kitty, who played poker with us. Cassidy had invited several of the crew, who at first acted nervous. Heath and I made sure they were welcome.
Stewart got busy and made ‘Little Lies’ for everyone. I decided to have a couple to help me relax.
Cassidy claimed a seat on my knee because she wanted to learn to play poker. We were just playing nickel, dime, quarter. Even so, I ended up losing thirty bucks, mostly because someone didn’t have a poker face and would get excited when I had a hand.
It was close to midnight when Cassidy pointed out the window. My room faced downtown Havana.
“Is that a fire?” she asked.
Everyone gathered by the window to see a cloud billowing up between buildings in the distance.
“It looks like it’s moving,” Fritz said.
“You know what that is?” Stewart asked. “They’re spraying for mosquitos.”
Now that he said it, it made sense. That was why the source of the cloud seemed to be moving.
“Can you imagine if they did that at home?” Paul asked.
None of us could.
◊◊◊
Chapter 2 – Perfected Her Craft Wednesday May 18
Laurent was back and as big a jerk as ever. The only difference was he actually gave direction. This reduced the number of takes to fewer than ten per shot, which was still not great, but better than 90-plus. I made a concerted effort to ignore his smart remarks and focus on what he wanted. His suggestions were warranted, which made them more palatable.
The other good news was that someone from the studio was on set. Caryn had pointed him out. Saul had complained, which had precipitated the move. I’m sure it wasn’t just Saul—because when your director walks off the set, it’s a problem—but try to tell that to Saul.
We broke for lunch, and I went to one of the restaurants in the hotel. Caryn and Paul joined me. Fritz and Cassidy had the day off and decided to be tourists.
We’d just ordered when Anita entered the restaurant and looked around. When she spotted me, she hurried over.
“There’ve been some rewrites for this afternoon’s scenes,” she said and handed me a large stack of papers.
I offered her a weak smile as she hurried off to give updates to the other actors. I flipped through the pages and then froze.
“Son of a …” I hissed.
“What is it?” Caryn asked.
I just handed her the page. It was sheet music to Rock and Roll Cowboy. I’d forgotten that Lord Jackson had had a brief singing career. I would bet I was as bad a singer as he was. Caryn gave me a confused look. I grabbed my phone and called Saul.
“Saul Gessler’s office.”
“This is David Dawson. I need to speak to Mr. Gessler,” I said.
“I’m sorry, but Mr. Gessler is in a meeting.”
“Look, just get Saul on the phone. I promise that I’ll be quick.”
“Mr. Gessler cannot be disturbed.”
“Can you do me a favor? Can you look up Thelma Yates’s number? I believe she’s with UTA,” I said.
“Oh … uh … yeah, can you hold one moment, please, while I look that up?”
Caryn looked at me with concern, but I held up my hand to fend her off.
“Why the hell would you need Thelma Yates’s number when I’m your agent?” Saul’s voice boomed over the phone.
“She’ll at least take my call when I’m on a movie set and have a problem,” I shot back.
I heard him take a deep breath and then slowly let it out.
“Sorry, what’s wrong?”
“They want me to sing a song. I’m not a singer.”
“But you are an actor,” Saul said.
“Up yours, Saul. I’m not going to embarrass myself like that. I seriously suck at singing.”
“Dammit, David! This is just Laurent’s way of getting you to breach your contract. Unless he asks you to do gay porn, you’re obligated to do it,” Saul reasoned.
I handed the phone to Caryn. When I left, she was red in the face and shouting at Saul. I needed to calm down, or Laurent would win. From what I gathered from Caryn yelling at Saul, I was stuck doing the scene.
I took the elevator up to my room to grab my laptop to see how bad this song was. My search turned up a video showing Lord Jackson on American Bandstand. I had to laugh because he looked awfully young in the video clip. After hearing his version of it, I wasn’t as worried. His voice wasn’t much better than mine.
I gave myself a mental pep talk and reminded myself that I could do this. All I needed was to embrace ‘shower David,’ who thought he was a rock star. I would bet he had better moves than Rick had in the video.
◊◊◊
Scene: The Royal Palm Ballroom. All the players are present: Cuban government and military officials, Russian military, American Mafia, British MI6, and American CIA. The focus in this scene is on Mike Carter (CIA) and Callum Ascot (MI6), as well as Rick Jackson. It’s Carter’s task to distract everyone else while Ascot obtains missile location plans from the Russian and Cuban military staff they’re meeting in the hotel. Carter uses Jackson as a diversion to get the crowd’s attention. Rick sings Rock and Roll Cowboy for his date, Cici.
Laurent first took an establishing shot to take in the ballroom and give the movie audience a feel for the space. He then did a sequence shot following Rick and Cici as they made their way to their table. Laurent did medium shots to show the different players at their tables as they tracked the young couple entering the room.
He used an over-the-shoulder angle to show Mike talking to the bandleader. As each shot was completed, the time for me to make a fool out of myself was drawing nearer. Laurent was obviously enjoying the hell out of this. He made sure the maximum number of production crew and actors would witness my first attempt at singing.
What totally sucked was Laurent didn’t want us to rehearse the song; he wanted it ‘to feel spontaneous.’ I wanted to throw up.
Laurent decided on three different camera angles to film the scene. That meant I had to sing the song three times. He wanted a low angle so it looked like you were there watching me from your table. He needed a long shot that took in everyone in the ballroom. Finally, he wanted an arc shot, where the camera would circle me as I sang.
Bandleader: ‘I hear we have a singer in the audience. Let’s give a warm welcome to Rick Jackson and see if we can’t encourage him to sing his hit single, Rock and Roll Cowboy.’
Cici: ‘I didn’t know you could sing.’
Rick: ‘I really can’t.’
Action: Crowd encourages Rick to take the stage.
Rick: ‘I apologize in advance. They can make you sound a lot better in the studio.’