The first scene we shot was at the premiere of "the Lazarus Bowl." They gave us the above programs as well as gold plastic bowls with the movie title's logo printed in gold on the side. The bowls had popcorn in them and we were told to eat and enjoy.
David came in dressed in a tux and looking fabulous! He told us the plot of the episode and then showed us part of 'the Lazarus Bowl." It didn't have sound so David narrated it for us. It showed Tea and Gary as Scully and Mulder making out in a red-lined coffin. They kiss and "Mulder" says something about having waited seven long years. "Scully" says we can't, "Mulder" says why not, "Scully" says I have something to tell you - "I'm in love with Assistant Director Walter Skinner." "Mulder" asks what Skinner has that he doesn't and "Scully" answers "A bigger gun." And that my friends is what the writer, director, and actor of the show told us.
David told us to react to the movie as if it's the greatest movie we'd ever seen. Mitch then came in dressed in a tux and looking spiffy. He sat on the left hand side of the theater in the third row happily chomping on popcorn. His apparant date for the event was a twenty-something model looking girl who looked like she was built rather than born. (That's not a judgement, she's probably a very lovely girl, she just didn't look like she should exsist in real life.)
So as not to bore you with the numerous takes from various angles, I'll just let you know how the scenes unfolds:
Here are the people sitting in Mulder's row: The director of "the Lazarus Bowl," Chris Carter (!!), David Allen Grier (sp?), Minnie Driver, Steve!! (David's stand-in), Tea Leoni, Gary Shandling, two people I don't know, Scully then Mulder.
(BTW - how funny is it that David's stand-in Steve is Tea's date for the premiere. So David is playing Mulder and Steve is playing David!! I love it!!)
The camera pans the above row and when it gets to Mulder he drops his head in his hands. When he looks up, it's toward Skinner. Skinner feels Mulder looking at him and turns around. He is enjoying the movie. Mulder is not. He stands up, turns to Scully and says,
"That's it, I can't take it anymore."
Scully whispers, "Mulder, sit down."
"I want my money back!"
"Mulder, you didn't pay. It's a premiere."
Mulder walks away disgusted and Scully sees Skinner looking at her. Skinner is distracted by barbie girl next to him. The crowd cheers when "Scully" says she's in love with Skinner and in response barbie girl puts her arm around him and kisses him. Skinner however is still trying to look at Scully.
***Clarification*** Several people are confused as to when Mulder storms out. Sorry about that. From the numerous takes this is how I think it will be put together. Mulder stands up when screen Mulder and Scully are making out. The real Mulder and Scully talk and after the "I'm in love with Assistant Director Walter Skinner" line is when Mulder walks out. Now it was filmed several times and several ways. Sometimes the movie wasn't playing and we would simply react how and when David told us to. Sometimes we wouldn't react at all so they could get David and Gillian without the rest of us. But this is how I think it will end up. Hope that helps.***
Gillian looked fabulous of course. She was wearing a sleeveless black dress and had her hair back in an adorable, black, sparkly headband. It may have been a ribbon since it was shoestring thin.
David had a lot of great one liners which many of you have requested so I've written them below. If you want to know anything more just let me know and I'll be happy to answer questions. Some of the highlights of the day for me were when I got to take pictures with David, take pictures in Mulder's office and take pictures in Scully's apartment. It was all very surreal. David changed out of his tux and into jeans and a t-shirt as soon as he finished filming.
Can you please, please tell us MUCH more about the filming of "HAD"? Not so much what happens in the scenes (since we'll see those anyway on TV ;-), but rather, more behind-the-scenes type stuff, bloopery things, anything that happened off-camera & between takes?
Okay, here comes the fun stuff. Please keep in mind that these things are far more interesting if you were actually there or you hear someone who was there tell you. Reading about it just doesn't do it justice. Unfortunately, I can't invite you all over and act it all out for you so reading about it will just have to do. For now anyway. ;-)
***The whole day had a carefree, happy atmosphere. There was a lot of laughing and joking around.
***Shortly after Gillian had come in to film her scenes, David told the extras when to clap and cheer. Unfortunately, most of us couldn't hear him. So David and Gillian did their lines and David as Mulder stormed out of the theatre. It was silent. So Gillian turned to us and said "Clap, guys, clap" which we then, of course, preceeded to do. I wish you could hear how she said it because it was just too damn cute! She also kept giggling.
***David was great as a director. Assistant Directors ususally address the extras but David himself gave us instructions. After one shot that went really well, David stood up and said, "Damn I'm good!" This of course was said with a smile. And let's give the man credit. He wrote the episode, and was now directing and starring in it.
***Someone should have told the Assistant Director that David is a very personal director. Before a scene, David addressed all the extras himself and told us exactly what to do. He then disappeared behind the monitors to watch the scene being filmed. The Assistant Director then came out and gave us the exact same instructions. While he was still talking to us, David stepped out from behind the monitors and watched the AD with a bemused smile. When the AD finished, David stepped forward again to address us and said, "So on this one..." everyone started laughing at the prospect of hearing the same thing for a third time.
***Just before shooting a scene, several people surrounded David to fuss about his apperance. They fixed his hair, touched up his makeup and smoothed out his tux. With a smile David joked, "See how many people it takes to make me look half way descent." He got a laugh from the crowd so he continued his joking. "There are whole teams. It's starts at my house, they're in my car." Again followed by more laughter.
***David had a great line when directing barbie girl how to react to Mitch. He was telling her to put her arm around him, turn his face toward him and give him a little kiss. Then he said, "I'd like to demonstrate but I won't."
***David and Mitch joked around a lot and when David was ready to film, Mitch was still hamming it up. So David (still smiling) stepped back as if to wait and said, "Whenever you're ready, Mitch."
***Mitch wasn't the only person wanting to direct. <g> After David yelled, "Cut, that was a good one", someone else came out from behind the monitors saying, "No, no, no, this is all wrong." It was Gary Shandling annoucing his arrival. The crowd was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed his joke.
***At one point, after David had addressed the extras again he said, "You all look great by the way, thanks for dressing so nicely."
***Okay this one is to show that David is not the unflawed perfect person many people think he is. ;-) After several rehersals and takes, they switched movies from "the Lazarus Bowl" to "Where the Heart Is" with Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd. David addressed the extras again after several more had been brought in. He told us how to react and then said, "Enjoy the movie. It stars Natalie Portman and Rene Russo." Everyone remained silent even though Ashley Judd was staring back at us from the screen. This is when my alternate personality, the obnoxious one, took control of my mouth and I said, "Ashley Judd." He looked over at me and in his best Mulder deadpan said, "Yeah, I'm a big fan." The crowd loved it. Much later after all the big names came in to shoot their cameos, David told them what to do. Then he said, "Enjoy the movie. I don't know what it is but Natalie Portman is in it."
***Another quip after giving directions to the massive amounts of people in the theatre, "I promise not to ask you to do anything you'll regret."
***David had a lot of fun directing the extras. When he shot our reactions to the movie he kept telling us it was the greatest movie we'd ever seen. Then he chose a few people to cry because the movie was such a beautiful love story. A few people he told to hold up the program like they were looking for the name of one of the smaller actors. He told the entire group of us when to clap, when to cheer and when to give the movie a standing ovation. He then chose several people, seemingly at random, to not react at all. He told them to just sit, watch the movie and not react.
***Probably the second time we watched "the Lazarus Bowl" everone reacted violently to Gary and Tea kissing. (The first time we saw it, David was narrating it for us because it had no sound so we were all listening to him.) Anyway, the reason everyone reacted was because we were all grossed out by the fact that Gary was kissing Tea, that David had directed his wife to kiss Gary, and the fact that when they stopped kissing, they were connected by a strand of spit. So a lot of people laughed and a lot of people ewwwwed. David pretented to act hurt and said, "Don't laugh at me!"
***At the end of the day everyone was getting tired (we were there for 13 hours!). Anyway, they'd returned to playing "the Lazarus Bowl" after hours of the other movie and everytime they played the movie in between takes everyone "Ewwww"ed over the kissing and spit. At the beginning of the day there were only 50 or so extras in the first shot. By the time the rest of them came in, they'd switched to showing the Natalie Portman movie so not everyone had seen it. So at the end of the day when they started replaying it, it was the first time most of the extras had seen it. David took it all in stride, after several viewings and several groans, David started anticipating it for us, "Here comes the spittle."
Thank you to all the people who have taken the time to write.
More questions and Answers about HAD can be found here.
Back to my Home Page Back to Shooting Locations