| THE MAKING OF "THE PATRIOT" |
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| Mel Gibson's horror is apparent, as Valet Number 2 steals another scene from the megastar.
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June 10th 2000 The Press Kit
My press kit for "The Patriot" arrived today. I called Columbia Pictures and asked for it just as if I was a real press person. I tried to explain to the woman on the phone that I was actually in the movie, but she didn't seem to care.
"Just what is it you want , sir?"
"Well, photos and things."
"You mean a press kit?"
"Uh… yes. Do you have any photos with me in them? I was Lord Cornwallis' valet…"
"Just give me your address, sir. We'll send you a press kit."
Actually, I was Valet Number 2 (a far more important role than Valet Number 1, as it happens) and I was a little disappointed to find that this press kit thing doesn't mention me at all. It's all about Mel Gibson. It is useful in one sense, however. It tells you what the movie is actually about, something of which four days in the company of the director and stars left me in possession of only the haziest notion.
Of course, the haziest notion in a Mel Gibson historical drama is surprisingly adequate. I pretty much guessed the plot of "The Patriot" before I turned up on the set. Mel is a reluctant hero, drawn into the conflict of the Revolutionary War by the unspeakable beastliness of the British. I guessed they killed his wife. Turns out it's his son. Same thing. Anyway, he molds an ill-disciplined bunch of farmers into a potent fighting force and …. Well you can pretty much guess the rest. This doesn't make it a bad film. There are only so many plots out there - it's how you handle them that counts and, from what I saw during my brief brush with stardom, "The Patriot" might be a rather good yarn. So go see it.
Wednesday, September 27th 1999 The Phone Call
I was very surprised when Columbia pictures called. It's been over two months since I stood in line for three hours in the blazing heat outside Winthrop College in Rock Hill. All this to hand in my photograph and social security number in the hope of being an extra in this new movie they're shooting in South Carolina. And now, Shirley Crumley, the Casting Director is on the line wanting me to come down that very afternoon and get fitted up for a costume. Yeah right! I've got a business to run! As if I can drop everything at a moment's notice just to be in a movie. I do of course.
The production office is in an empty building in a mall in Rock Hill. In retrospect, I think my mistake was to go in there without a large sign saying "Not a Movie Person. Haven't Got a Clue. Please Help." Everyone assumes I know what they are talking about. From the chaotic atmosphere, I seriously doubt whether they do. Most of the kids sitting at makeshift desks trying to sound important on the phones are, I gather, students. I am handed a little bit of paper with "Valet Number 2" and a number written on it. I am now part of the cast. I am also given a map with directions towards what seems to be a cow pasture and told to be there at 6 in the morning.
My costume is in the "sissy Redcoat" style. I get to wear a soldier's coat and britches but instead of boots, I have silk stockings and shoes with silver buckles on them. I'm sure all the other Redcoats will laugh at me. I also have a powdered wig, which makes me look like a cross between George Washington and my Granny. There is only one person who could possibly look stupider than me, and that's Valet Number 1.
Thursday September 28th 1999, 6:30 AM
I am in the wrong cow pasture. Valet Number 1, whose name is Robert, and I have just discovered this after 45 minutes of wandering around the tents and trailers wondering where everyone is. It is cold. We're supposed to sign in somewhere, but there's nobody there to sign in with. We go in search of our costumes and at last find someone who tells us they're not there. Finally, we stumble upon a man with a radio and introduce ourselves. He wants to know what the heck we're doing there. Armed with a new map with directions to somewhere marked "Fort Carolina" and an admonishment to get moving, we're on the road again in my truck winding through the backroads of South Carolina. At 9 AM we arrive at another circus of trucks and trailers.
Here everything is different. We are eagerly awaited. We are ushered into a large van, where a nice lady hands us our costumes. An assistant director shows us to the trailer where we have a small changing room. On the way, he tells us the surprising reason behind the morning's confusion. We are special. Those idiots at the production office didn't realize just how special we were. They sent us to the place where all the regular extras change into their costumes, the kind of extras who merge into the general carnage of the battle scenes - not the kind of extras with silver buckles on their shoes.
Actually, this turns out to be true. Because of the scenes we are in, we are the only extras who get to change with the stars. Our changing room (more of a closet, really) is next to their trailers. We will be sharing hair and make-up with Mel and the rest of them. In the "Hair" trailer a nice lady from Charleston slaps glue all over my head and a wig on top of that. Then we rush through make-up. We are late, and everyone is most anxious that we should not keep Roland waiting. Who's Roland?" I ask. This provokes gasps and incredulous stares. He's the director, as it turns out, but how the hell am I supposed to know that? Nobody tells me anything, except the way to the wrong cow pasture.
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Jason Isaacs, the dastardly Colonel Tavington
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One of the Assistant Directors ushers us into a van and we are off to the set. This is in another cow pasture. We drive up a dirt road to a brick mansion on top of a small hill. It's flanked on one side by a wooden stockade and on the other by trucks and tents. As we approach, I see that the building only has three sides. The back consists of scaffolding. In the stockade, a lot of men in red coats are hanging around, leaning on muskets.
We get off the bus and hurry into the stockade. We arrive just in time to stand around for an hour or so and then head back down the road for lunch.
After lunch, it's back up to the stockade, and my first glimpse of the action. They are filming a scene in which Mel Gibson rides into the stockade, gets off his horse and has some harsh words to say to a British officer.
I ask one of the redcoats what's going on. The officer, he tells me, is called Tavington and he's really, really nasty, although in real life he's a British actor, Jason Isaacs, and he's really, really nice. Mel Gibson is, of course, the good guy. As I watch, Tavington takes four or five steps towards Mel Gibson and, to my surprise, appears to be sinking into the ground. Surely the stockade is not built on quicksand! Suddenly, all becomes clear, the tallish Jason Isaacs is walking into a trench that brings him eye to eye with the smallish Gibson for an intense glaring-at- each-other session. Ah the magic of movies! Then it's back on to the horse for Mel and out through the gates of the stockade, followed after a moment or two by two huge great danes.
The buckles on my shoes and my spotless red coat are coming in for some stick from the grubby soldiers. So is the wig. I am grateful for the fact that Valet Number 1 is much prettier than me. This takes some of the heat off. Then suddenly we are rescued from our discomfort by an Assistant Director, who informs us that at last, we have been summoned into the presence of the great man.
Shirley, the casting director joins us as we climb up the steps to the mansion. She seems nervous. It seems that the valets have to make a good impression. She reveals to me that the director picked me from all those thousands of photographs, because he "loves my face." She seems confident about me. It's number 1 she's worried about. He got the job because he happened to be walking past the Production Office when they needed a valet
Director Roland Emmerich - Loved my face.
Roland is a slender, bird-like man. His movements are languid. His gray hair clashes with a youthful face. He is sitting at a large table surrounded by equipment. People come and go, hand him things, exchange a few words. After a couple of minutes, the Assistant Director catches his eye. Our moment has arrived. He smiles at us, nods his head and turns away again. This, it will turn out, is the high point of my social interaction with director Roland Emmerich. I will spend much of my four days as a famous movie actor standing next to him, watching the tapes with him, loitering on the fringes of his conversations with the stars, but I will never exchange a word with him. Even in the apparently informal world of the movies, there is a hierarchy.
For the moment however, I am still coming to terms with the revelation that he "loved" my face. There are those of whom people say "His face is his fortune." Then there are others, whose faces are, judged by any objective aesthetic criteria, frankly more of a misfortune. Even those who love me would, if pressed, unhesitatingly place me in the latter category. Shirley explains that I have an "eighteenth century face." Hmmm.
An eighteenth century face.
That, it turns out, is it for the day. Two and a half hours drive to the wrong cow pasture, another hour finding my way to the right one, hair make-up, costume - it was all just to be sure the director still loved my face. Now, I'm driving back up route 321 to North Carolina at 9 o'clock at night, tired, hungry and with glue in my hair. This must be what they mean by suffering for your art.
When I get home, my wife looks at me closely and wonders at the odds of two people loving a face like that in a lifetime.
Friday, September 30th, 1999
There is a lot more goes into movies than you would ever think. This is becoming plain to me as I sit in the Hair Department trailer having my wig re-installed for Day 2. The nice lady smearing my head with sticky stuff is telling me about the dogs. The movie features two great danes, highly trained, professional animals, whose obedience to commands is vital to the shoot. A few days before, one of the beasts, in a display of artistic temperament, stopped cooperating. He was, in the words of the assistant director, "just not focused." An understudy was required. However, the understudy had white markings, while the unfocused dog was black all over. So the assistant director turned up with the two-tone version and a request to spray paint it black. The matter was eventually resolved
with some hair dye. I ask if this is the strangest job she has ever had to tackle. Not by a long shot. How about putting curlers in a horse's mane? I get the impression there are a lot more stories here, but I have to get a move on. I'm due on set.
For me, as an actor, "The Patriot" is opening a lot of doors. No, I mean literally. Valet Number 1 and I spend the whole day opening two large doors through which a succession of actors strides purposefully and repeatedly. This is not as easy as it might sound. Well, all right, it's almost as easy as it sounds, but there is some skill involved. This is especially true in my case, as I am the valet entrusted with the job of taking Tavington's hat. While this is an honor and definitely one in the eye for Valet Number 1, it is fraught with difficulties. Tavington is a man of action and, furthermore, in an ugly mood. He therefore strides very fast, and considerable agility is required to grab the hat, open the door, step back, step forward and close the door again without colliding with anyone or tripping up a highly paid actor. I am grateful for the stark contrast between the real Jason Isaacs and his screen persona, as he patiently rehearses the routine with me. When we shoot the scene, I rise to the challenge, and everything goes smoothly, right down to closing the doors silently and without them creaking open again. (More astute movie-goers equipped with telescopes or opera-glasses might spot a finger holding the doors closed).
Valet Number 1 and I have lunch with the officers. There are about ten of these, whose job is to stand around in groups and make the set look like a military headquarters. Like many of the extras, they are re-enactors or other enthusiasts of military history. Many are ex-military. Some have scathing remarks to make about the lack of historical accuracy in the production. Tavington's coat has too much red and not enough green, wouldn't I agree. I nod and mumble disapproving noises through my barbecued chicken. Tut, tut. Shocking! My thoughts are on the food. Movie people eat well.
After lunch, I meet Tom Wilkinson, the veteran English actor who will be playing Lord Cornwallis. Tom is probably best known in the US for his role in "The Full Monty," but he is an accomplished stage actor and his performance in the amazing BBC production of Dickens' Matin Chuzzlewit is possibly the most wonderful acting I have ever seen on the small screen. With all due respect to Mel Gibson, this is the star I've been looking forward to meeting. It's his first day on the set and he is sitting alone in the sunshine in front of the house, looking ill at ease in his general's uniform and powdered wig.
Tom Wilkinson as Lord Cornwallis - "has been to Edinburgh
He picks up my accent and asks if I live here now. I tell him I moved here from Edinburgh. He stares at me and asks with what seems genuine astonishment and concern, "Why?"
"I love it here," I reply. "It's so beautiful."
"Is it?" he asks. " Is it really?"
"Uh, yes."
"I've been to Edinburgh," he says.
He smiles again and we stand in silence for a while, neither of us able to think of anything else to say, me because I am somewhat in awe of the man and he, I think, because he is shy.
Saturday September 31st, 1999.
I almost ran over a racoon this morning, right outside my house. I have never seen one in the neighborhood before, but then I'm not often on the road at 4 in the morning. I need several coffee stops on my way through Newton, Maiden, Gastonia, York and Chester, arriving at Fort Carolina at 6.25.
I stand in the cow pasture with Valet Number 1 drinking coffee. There are no cows although there is occasional evidence on the ground of their previous occupancy. The smell mingles strangely with a distant scent of marijuana. It's cold. People move around in clouds of steam. We are already in costume and make-up. This morning I sat next to Jason Isaacs in the make-up trailer. He struck me as a friendly down to earth chap, and I felt guilty about not ever having heard of him before.
We've been standing around now for about an hour outside the trailers, when an Assistant Director stumbles upon us. He seems astonished to see us there and practically shoves us into a van. We are wanted urgently up at the house. Our acting career is about to begin in earnest.
As I hurry up the steps and into the house, I am surprised to find that someone has thrust an old-fashioned cut-throat razor into my hands. Tom Wilkinson is sitting in an ornate wooden chair. On a table beside him, there is a porcelain bowl, a towel and a mirror. Roland is there, of course, fussing about the light. Several people are carefully positioning a camera in front of the chair.
In the unlikely event that Roland Emmerich is reading this, I would like to make a suggestion. Ro, if you're going to ask an extra to shave a leading character with a cut-throat razor (even a blunt one), give him more than 30 seconds warning. Someone, in my panic I didn't register who it was, possibly an assistant assistant director, took my fingers and wrapped them round the razor, muttering a few encouraging words about how I would soon get the hang of it.
I didn't get the hang of it. What I got was cramp in my fingers and a few dirty looks for almost shaving off Tom Wilkinson's nose. The situation was retrieved by one of the hair ladies, who actually knew how a cut-throat razor should be held. In a few seconds, she had me brandishing the darned thing like a trained barber, thereby saving my face and probably large chunks of Tom's.
The cast watches in admiration as Valet Number 2 wields a cut throat razor.
Keen students of film will notice that the valet's shaving style improves markedly as this scene progresses, changing from short nervous jabs to long smooth confident strokes. By the end, I am one with my razor, man and blade in perfect harmony. I wish we could start again. We can't of course. Got to move on.
While the set is being rearranged for the next scene, I spend some time clearing up a misconception that has somehow taken hold that my name is Gilbert. Kim, the 1st Assistant Director, an otherwise brilliant and charming man seems incapable of remembering the name Gavin. He is most apologetic, but he still calls me Gilbert. This has confused Tom Wilkinson. "If your name's not Gilbert, why did you let him call you that."
"Oh, I don't know. It didn't seem worth holding up the whole scene until he got it right."
He nods his head gravely, but then adds, "I wouldn't have let him call me Gilbert."
Ironically, now everyone except Kim thinks my name is Gilbert. This is because he has been the one giving me all my directions: "You stand here, Gilbert….longer strokes with the razor, Gilbert." This is at least partially due to Roland's technique of directing extras, which consists of referring to them only in the third person and indicating his wishes through an assistant, even if he is standing next to you and the assistant is on the other side of the set. "Ze valet should stand here" - he gestures with his cigarette - "and zen move across here vith the shaving brush."
The next scene takes place in Lord Cornwallis' dining room. For fans of Valet Number 2 (my wife, my daughters and my mother) this is the highlight of the movie. But first, there is a lot of work to be done. Lights have to be moved, both inside the building and out. The technicians move with incredible speed. Seeing what has to be done, I anticipate a leisurely lunch, but I hardly have time to gulp down my barbecued pork before we're back at work.
The scene involves Jason Isaacs (the beastly Tavington), Tom Wilkinson (the aristocratic but also fairly beastly Lord Cornwallis) and Gavin Sinclair (the handsome but silent Valet Number 2). My role is to stand behind Cornwallis as he has dinner, holding a napkin and trying not to laugh. I am aware that there is no reason for laughter. Despite His Lordship's extravagant dressing gown, this is a serious scene, full of the most dastardly dialogue. The only explanation I can find for my explosive desire to burst out into raucous guffaws is the knowledge that managing not to laugh is about my only contribution to the scene. At a certain moment, Cornwallis motions me to leave. I bow slightly and exit with dignity, wondering why so many of the crew are rolling their eyes and clasping their foreheads. Ten minutes later, with rubber attached to the soles of my shoes, we try again. This time I exit with silent dignity, concentrating so hard on not making a noise that I walk straight into a screen that is stretched in front of one of the lights. An assistant director catches me before I fall on the seat of my pristine white britches.
This is a long scene, and we shoot it many times from many different angles. This gives me an extended chance to observe two fine actors at work. There is an impressive stature and presence about them, and a seriousness about the way they approach the work. Isaacs jokes between scenes, and if he realizes he has fluffed his lines he continues for a few seconds, substituting witty gibberish for the script. But in the moment before a take, you see his brow furrow in concentration as he composes himself. Wilkinson doesn't joke. He is all concentration and when he speaks it is with a Shakespearean grandeur. Before they even start shooting, the two men have rapidly analyzed the psychology of the scene together. There is an important turning point, where Tavington realizes he has the upper hand. Isaacs proposes to emphasize this by walking over to Cornwallis' drinks table and helping himself to a glass of wine,
before turning with a sinister smile on his face. It requires a complete repositioning of lights and laying down tracks for the camera, but it is provides a moment of drama that makes the scene vibrate with menace.
Shooting finishes for the day and we make our way back down the road to the trailers. I chat some more with Tom Wilkinson as we sit having the wigs pried from our heads. "Goodnight, Gilbert," he says.
Sunday October 31st, 1999
There is no filming today. The real crew has a softball game in Rock Hill. Those of us who inhabit a twilight world between anonymity and hob-nobbing with the stars are not invited. Good! I'm exhausted by successive 20 hour days. Only one more to go. My wife asks if I have met Mel Gibson yet. I tell her I probably won't meet him at all.
Monday November 1st, 1999
Sat next to Mel Gibson in the hair trailer this morning. Well not exactly next to him. He has his own hair stylist and had pretty much finished when I came in. Still, we exchanged a few words, so I can tell my wife, and all the others who keep asking, that I met him.
Mel enthuses to Ro about
Sharing the hair trailer with Valet Nunber 2
Up at the big house, it's door-opening time again. This morning, Valet Number 1 and I are opening the doors for Mel Gibson, as he is escorted under a flag of truce to a parlay with Cornwallis. Gibson, who likes to go under the alias of Dr. Seymour Poon while on location, smokes and swears a lot and forgets his lines. There's a lot of standing around and it's hard on the feet. I'm grateful to Peter Woodward, playing O'Hara, one of Cornwallis' Generals, when he organizes some chairs for us to sit on between takes. It's a generous gesture towards the most insignificant people on the set.
I have plenty of time to reflect on the strangeness of the situation. Valet Number 1 and I are the only people involved in the shooting of these scenes who are not highly paid stars or movie professionals. We are totally replaceable and owe our participation purely to luck. I have an eighteenth century face, Robert just happened to be in the vicinity of the Production Office when they needed a valet. Between takes, I stand next to Roland as he directs, listen to Mel Gibson telling stories about Sean Connery and generally float about on the fringes of the beautiful people.
Valet Number 1 and I might owe our participation to luck. Others owe theirs to good old fashioned nepotism. Not only are the first and second Assistant Directors brothers, but they have arranged for their father to make a cameo appearance as one of a group of Generals milling around Cornwallis' HQ. Well, why not? He looks the part and is, it turns out, a most charming man, clearly very proud of his sons.
During the day, the number of stars present on set dwindles, but there's still plenty of door opening to be done. Finally, as evening approaches, all the human stars have gone and Valet Number 1 and I are opening the doors for the dogs. In the movie, they follow Mel Gibson out of the house. In reality, of course, they follow their handler, responding to precise commands of when to get up and when to run towards the camera. Well, eventually they do. Everyone is tired, including the dogs and it takes them ages to get it right. We are in danger of losing the light altogether, when at last Roland is satisfied and the valets and the dogs can go.
It's a strange way to end my movie career, opening doors for dogs. I feel deflated as I hand in my costume for the last time. Michael, the Assistant Director, thanks me for my work as he signs my time card. I thank him back and climb wearily into my truck for the long drive home in the dark. Three hours later, I'm lying on my bed when the phone rings. It's Michael.
"We screwed up," he says. We need you tomorrow.
"I can't," I say. "I have appointments the whole day. For my real job. There's a guy coming in from Switzerland. I can't stand him up."
Silence. Michael is thinking. "You know, I think it will be all right. Cornwallis could easily have had lots of valets. We can get someone else."
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