Adventures in Austenland #6
Whenever the actors weren’t inside doing their bits, they congregated outside with the crew, and with no sound to record, we were free to laugh out loud as we watched the filming on screens.
That whole day had a “last day of school” feeling, the teachers not taking roll, students wandering the halls, and just so much laughter.
APPRECIATING EVERY MOMENT
Not everything was sausage rolls and Fairyland laugh-fests.
For example, after those magical night shoots?
I was covered with mosquito bites. They went right through my pants, knees down, and all over my hands and face.
I am assured that England doesn’t have a mosquito problem.
And in that case, I ask you—WHAT BIT ME?
At times it was just plain physically uncomfortable to sit for hours in that camp chair.
And at other times, when the chair that I used was needed elsewhere (like for an important set visitor), it was just plain physically uncomfortable standing for hours.
We were usually outside, and the ground was usually damp, so it was stand all day or sit on the grass and feel a puddle seep through my trousers.
And there were more serious down moments.
Existential down moments. Even just hinting at the low moments, Anxiety Brain pipes up to yell: You better not complain about a movie based on your book or you will be an INGRATE!
And old A.B. isn’t wrong. But the truth is, being the noob on a movie set—and the writer, who once filming has begun is often viewed as nonessential—brought back more junior high-esque insecurities than my thirty-seven-year-old self anticipated.
I felt like the awkward friend of a friend invited to the wedding who nobody really knows or wants to talk to but had to be included because she owns the venue, and where else are they going to find a place this late in the season?
I once overheard someone ask if they should include me in some interviews, and a head honcho replied, “No one cares about the author.” This was a person with the power to send me home if they perceived me stepping out of line, but not being sure where the lines were, I began to try to anticipate every possible location of proverbial lines while constantly tuned in to the staticky frequency of anxiety, all while internally my junior high self fretted: Do they want me here?
Am I a burden? If I say or do the wrong thing, will I be sent away? How small can I make myself?
And some of the lows came from worrying I was causing trauma for the kids I’d left at home. Despite the emails, phone calls, and video calls, I ached with missing them.
In one email home to my seven-year-old, Max, I said that we worked eleven hours a day to make just two minutes of movie. Max wrote back, “Maybe in the future you could work two minutes to make two minutes of the movie, just so you know what I think.” Smart kid.
Moviemaking is such a unique form of storytelling. Here’s the general flow:
Set up the scene.
Film multiple takes of the same scene.
Reset the cameras.
Film the same scene again from a different angle.
And once you have all your coverage, reset for the next scene, which may include: location changes, hair-costume-makeup changes, new set dressings, etc.
For much of the crew it’s: sit quietly for a long time, SCRAMBLE AS FAST AS YOU CAN TO GET READY FOR THE NEXT BIT, and then sit quietly again.
But for me, it was just, sit quietly all day long, as I had no reason for scrambling.
For a busy writer mom, that kind of inactivity felt like the bed rest kind of rest.
But also, I needed to love my experience.
I’d sacrificed to be there. My family had sacrificed to let me go.
Frankly, I must relish every second in order to stave off terrible, unquenchable Guilt.
I would have loved to be the kind of person who was totally Zen, leaning back and appreciating every moment.
But the ol’ anxiety disorder was like a drill sergeant constantly screaming in my face, APPRECIATE EVERY MOMENT OR ELSE! !!
Sometimes my deeper self was able to hum along—let’s appreciate every moment, shall we?
The upshot of not having a job was that I was free to soak it all in.
Take after take: The hair person was watching the actors’ hair, the sound engineer was listening to sound quality, the script supervisor was following the script, etc.
I was the only person present who could be purely present. I was the lone audience member.
Often when the actors exited the set for a break, they passed near my chair, and I got to lavish praise on them. That was fun, because it was sincere.
“You were marvelous. That delivery, that inflection, that expression. It was hilarious.”
With stage acting, actors get an immediate reaction—applause, laughter, the present energy of people engaging with your storytelling.
But on a movie set, audience reaction is almost as delayed as it is for a book writer, and I so empathized with that.
It must be hard to act your guts out to no audience at all and sometimes wonder: Am I any good?
Do I exist at all? SHOULD I GIVE UP ACTING AND GO BECOME A PHARMACIST? ??
So I made it my mission—my honor—to admire their work. Half of my family was far away, but this at least was some good mama energy I could put into the world.
A teeny frog was hopping in the long grasses and miniature daisies. Because someone else was using my chair that day, I happened to be standing where I would notice it. Delicately, I caught it and showed it to the small child of one of the actors. Some things are too wondrous not to share.
THE MARVELS OF ENGLAND
For the seven weeks of Austenland, I lived in a flat in Windsor, and on days off I took my babies and nanny Kayla around the town, touring the castle and the parks.
We went for walks and discovered thick blackberry brambles tangled into the trees and shrubs.
They were full of ripe berries, a dragon’s hoard of jewels.
We filled the double stroller’s cupholders.
One Sunday, Jane Seymour invited us to Bath to tour her former home, St. Catherine’s Court, a Grade I listed building (the highest possible). Talk about surreal. Jane was also a twin mom, and she carried my babies and showed us where Henry VIII had stayed.
Jennifer Coolidge came, too, and we both indulged our mutual Anglophilia. When we toured a large barn, Jane told us about parties she’d thrown there, inviting Earth, Wind & Fire among other bands.
Jennifer turned to me and said, “You’ve probably had Earth, Wind & Fire at your author parties, too, right?”
I said, “Oh no, it’s a common misconception that authors are fancy and rich, but I never could do anything like that.”
Jennifer shook her head. “No, I was doing that thing you do, where you say an outrageous thing completely seriously.”
First I felt foolish that I hadn’t realized she was kidding.
But then, an amazing gratification took over.
Jennifer Coolidge had noticed my often off-putting humor!
It is sort of a problem for me. One time I told my sister that I was going to be interviewed by a prominent journalist on NPR, and she said, “Remember, don’t try to be funny. She’ll think you’re serious.”
INCOGNITO AT THE BALL
The story of my time on set, just like a good fairy tale, is all leading up to the ball. The ball! Dancing and music and love in the air . . .
Jerusha had invited me to have a little cameo in the movie, and I chose the ball because, of course.
And also, gowns. Early that morning, I went to the costume trailer, ready to live a bit of my own Austen fantasy.
Despite my burned hair, I was still longing to feel pretty—and not just mommy-pretty, but Regency pretty.
Bonus: Since I was nursing twins, I thought I might actually have the goods to fill out a Regency corset.
When I tried on the corset, I laced it up around my ribs as tight as I could, and there was still a five-inch gap.
“There’s no way this is going to do up,” I told the costumer, Annie. “I need a larger size.”
Nope. She managed to pull it tight enough to close.
Corsets are brutal. For the first hour, I had trouble breathing, but eventually my innards must have adjusted, and it felt kind of nice in its security and posture support.
But by the end of the twelve-hour day, I was very uncomfortable, and the next morning, I ached.
It was a useful experiment to convince me that I do not want to live in the pre–sweat pants era.
The dress was stiff and itchy. The empire waist normally would be fitted tight around the smallest part of a woman’s torso, but since I’m tall-ish, they gave me a large dress.
The empire waist was not fitted and instead hit too high, lining around the then-largest part of my torso: my bust. From there it hung down on me like a tent.
Extras—or “supporting artists” to the Brits—don’t get tailored dresses.
There were so many costumed extras for the ball, they set up a tent full of temporary hairdressers.
The crew gave me a good tip to request Marc.
Fried locks still look great in a professional updo.
However, I wasn’t given makeup. None of the supporting artists were.
After all, if the merest amount of blush or mascara touched my face, surely I’d draw focus away from Keri Russell . . . thought no one ever.
After wardrobe and hair, I got in the minibus with the other supporting artists and went up to set.
As I walked onto the grounds, crew members kept doing double takes.
I was with a mob of extras in full hair and costume, and yet I had a familiar face.
I felt extremely silly. Exposed. Like I was flaunting my secret obsession.
Now everybody would know my embarrassing fantasy to enter Austen’s world!