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Stories From The Set
From: LATimes
Hey, Sean, Did You Enjoy Being Roomies or Was It All Just an Act?
By JOSEPH HANANIA, Special to The Times
Dear Sean:
Sure, I confess. It was a kick in the pants to be your sort-of
roommate. So we shared an apartment for only eight days,
including the time it took your crew to move you in and out. That
still counts, doesn't? The news that you wanted to move in came
in a call from my landlord, Pat Cramer. "How'd you like to
be in the movies?" his voice boomed over the phone. OK, it
wasn't really me who was going to Writer Joseph Hanania's Santa
Monica apartment was used as a set for the upcoming film "I
Am Sam," starring Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer. be in
your newest movie, "I Am Sam," directed by Jessie
Nelson; it was my apartment. Why split hairs? My apartment's
"unusual" qualifications for the role, according to the
film's location manager, Russ Sega: My bedroom window overlooks
the window of neighbor Carl Wied above a garden walkway. Both
apartments also look out on the street. The idea was that you
would move into my apartment, Dianne Wiest into Carl's.
Playing a mentally challenged man seeking to retain custody of
his little girl, you would enviously stare through my window at
Dianne's warm home life. Along the way, you would so frustrate
your high-powered lawyer, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, that she
would storm your apartment and kick in your/my front door.
And so, barely 24 hours after my landlord's call, about 20 crew
members--the film is an Avery Pix production for New Line
Cinema--were standing on a traffic island, all seemingly looking
straight up at my windows. And then, they all arrived to inspect
my apartment, whispering about that kicked-in door. I guess I
wasn't supposed to find out becauseotherwise I might freak.
And then they were gone, leaving an apartment which suddenly felt
empty. Had it--had I--landed you as my roommate? Or had my
contact high with Hollywood already produced my first letdown? I
needn't have worried. This, I learned, had been my apartment's
second audition. During the first, my landlord and the location
manager had knocked on my door while my maid was cleaning and
explained their mission. She had let them in but, believing that
any talk of your wanting to move in must be another Hollywood
fantasy, she had never even told me about the visit. And so it
came about that your crew decided that yes, indeed, my apartment
would be perfect for you.
The question, then, was how much to charge for you to move in.
There is no standard rate for renting out a home, says Morrie
Goldman, spokesman for the Entertainment Industry Development Co
rp., which coordinates on-location filming throughout Los
Angeles. Mostly, it's catch as catch can, with the rate partially
determined by a location's uniqueness, its frequency of use and
the film's budget.
In Santa Monica, where permit requirements are generally tighter,
a film company must also get written permission from the manager
or owner of any affected residence, which mostly means those
whose street parking spaces are blocked by those ubiquitous movie
trucks, says city permit coordinator Vee Gomez. So my landlord,
as well as the owners of nearby buildings, were undoubtedly
negotiating sweet deals for themselves. But I was still none the
wiser about how much to ask for.
Although you were scheduled to move into my apartment for only
two days, those two days would not be consecutive; rather, they
would be separated by a three-week stretch. To cut down on
preparation time, the film company's assistant location manager
proposed that I allow my home to remain, for those weeks, as your
apartment. In short, my Tiffany-style lamps would give way to
your character's Woolworth-style lamps, my pearl white walls to
your dark gray ones and so forth. Thus, his pitch went, I would
get to "live in Sean Penn's apartment."
Still, before you could move in, I went through intense
negotiations for your planned stay, negotiations concluded less
than 24 hours before the first set designers were due to arrive
on Feb. 21, transforming my bedroom into yours. My fee: $7,000,
plus what became a five-day expenses-paid vacation for two, first
at Shutters on the Beach, later at the Fairmont Miramar.
It was a very sweet deal, but as the days went on, something
gnawed at me. I missed having breakfast at my own table. I missed
being able to walk two blocks over to my local tennis courts,
without first having a valet get my car. Most of all, though, I
missed the regularity of my work. And so, I began sneaking home
to interview people from my phone in the study, even as crew
members popped their heads in, clearly wondering who I was.
Despite the chaos in my apartment, however, some changes your
film crew made were clearly for the better. For example, my
apartment building is called The Wonder Palms, that wonder
consisting of two scraggly courtyard palms. By the time you had
moved in though, my building was surrounded by planter boxes full
of palms. Opening my study window, I could, for the first time,
actually touch a palm leaf.
What's more, my landlord was moved to replace the rotting wooden
trellis above the garden-walkway, which your film crew painted a
glorious white. Now my building boasts the Wonder Palms Sean Penn
Memorial trellis. By the day of the shoot, then, the Wonder Palms
had completed its Cinderella-like transformation, from a slightly
rundown building to a miniature Garden of Eden, its courtyard
palm trees laden, "Survivor"-like, with cameras and
ladders, lights and filters. My living room furniture, on the
other hand, was in storage, replaced by three directors' chairs,
all\par facing the front door Michelle would kick in.
But we hadn't met yet, and when I told members of your crew that
I hoped to get a picture with you in front of our shared
apartment, they just shook their heads. In rather colorful
language, they forewarned me that you have, to put it mildly, a
negative reaction to cameras. Rather strange, I thought, for
someone whose job largely consists of making moving pictures.
Still, wanting to start our relationship on the right note, I put
away my camera and stood with the film crew on the second floor
walkway, watching you act. In the scene, you dropped off an
amazingly well-behaved baby girl at Dianne's apartment, started
walking away, then bent over to wave a final goodbye through a
nearly closed window shade. Your performance, Sean, was
affecting, that of a simple man in pain, fighting for what's his.
True, Carl/Dianne's front door would not stay closed after you
dropped off the girl, and the director repeatedly called out to
you not to worry about it--a trifle overly solicitous, I thought.
But hey, snafus happen; all eyes were on you; and other than the
crew's apparent edginess around you, I saw no evidence of your
"bad boy" rep. So, after the scene had been shot, I
walked over and introduced myself. I was, I said, the man whose
apartment you were renting. I was also writing up the experience
of renting my place to the movies for this paper. Instantly, your
face contorted with rage. A reporter with this paper, you
shouted, had told "lies" about you. Only if I got him
fired would you consider talking to me. Then you stomped off.
A couple of days later, the movers had hauled my furniture back
in, the crew had given me keys for my newly changed locks, the
painters had repainted your gray bedroom to its original white; I
was, once again, at home. Nor would we have to repeat the whole
shtick weeks later. Apparently, you had gotten enough shots
inside the apartment that first day. So, when you came back
Wednesday to shoot a final scene--this one in which you sit at a
fake "bus stop" in front of the apartment--your film
crew merely replaced my white blinds with your gray ones, making
it seem as if the apartment were still yours. But it wasn't,
Sean, not really.
This time, you stayed in your trailer down the street. Then,
smoking a cigarette, you arrived at the "bus stop" and
prepared for your scene. Looking at me from 12 feet away, you
didn't even nod hello. A few minutes later, your crew chased me
off. My watching, they said, was "disturbing" you. And
so, as unexpectedly as you had moved into my life without a
hello, a goodbye or even a thank-you, you moved out. But if you
ever want to drop by, you know where I live.
Words from one of the actors working on the film, Richard (The West Wing) Schiff, who plays the attorney opposing Sean Penn's custody appeal.
From: NYPOST
According to Schiff, "Actors ruled the set" on "Sam I Am." Director Jessie Nelson "is from the theater," he notes, "and the actors were free to improv -- especially Sean. He was playing someone mentally challenged, the kind of person who is emotionally and expressively free, who hasn't been socialized and who has no internal editors. That's the way Sean played the character in each and every take. While filming the necessities of the scene, he felt free to comment on whatever came into his mind. It was awesome."
Thanks to Jennifer for passing on the following story that is making the rounds in the Australian media, about Michelle on set. It may or may not be true, but here it is anyway:
Apparentlly there was a crew member with a T-shirt that had written on it "I love lesbians " and one of the children on the set asked what was a lesbian. No-one on set answered and finally Michelle spoke up and said it was a women. The child replied " so you're a lesbian " with a few snickers to be heard in the background. Michelle then expained to the child that it was a women who loved and shared her life with another women, taking the time to explain all to the child and being sure that there was no confusion. The article then went on the say that it showed once again that Michelle was a class act and that the crew were left astounded by her manner & class in handling the situation. The crew were said to have been in awe afterwards.
