I received payment this week for a bit of my work on "The Other Boleyn Girl'.
Anyway, having received some of the money that Boleyn Productions Ltd of Pinewood (aka Sony/Columbia Pictures) owe me, I feel able to recount a lighter moment from this film...
On the last day of filming at Chalfield Manor near Bath, the weather was fairly grim. If it wasn't raining, it was getting ready to... The day wore on , running late, constant interrupts to the shoot. Multiple changes of hot-water bottles for the stars, Scarlet Johannsen, Natalie Portman, Eric Bana. For the director/assistant directors, crew.., life increasingly tense. Though not for the extras ....
Most days the background actors had crowded into the cow-shed. However, on this last day there was just 8..., 5 manservants and 3 woman-servants. We rested in the manor tea-room. Warm, cosy, convivial, coffee, biscuits. Snug as bugs in a very large rug. As life got darker and colder outside, and dark, damp, brooding figures carrying film equipment trudged past in the mud, they would gaze in as the jokes and the laughter grew.
With us was the costumier .., Jacqi. Impassive, done this work for 30 years, part of the roving band of location filmspeople.., half of life spent in edge-of-town hotels. Impassive at first, but she gradually opened up, and told a little story.
Once upon a time, there was a big budget Hollywood production somewhere in the U.S. The actors included Cameron Diaz. Jacqui and various other Brits were in the crew.
One evening, at the end of the day's shoot, Diaz returned to her trailer. She opened the door, and right in front of her she saw that someone had laid an absolutely giant turd. Beautifully formed, almost steaming, and with a lovely curly, piggy-tail on top. Needless to say, this caused great consternation and...
Next morning, the American producer gathered the whole crew together. This was serious, the famous American sense of humour had failed. "I think you all know why I am speaking to you today. This is a very serious matter, and I want the person who did this to step forward.."
And as his voice echoed out over the assembly, little speech bubbles formed above the heads .. "I did it..", "No,it was me.." , "No, no it wasn't him,I did it..". And.., well no.
Cameron Diaz took it all quite well, apparently.
