CHAPTER 1
“Hey, you wanna be in the movies?”
It was the sprightly voice of my friend and tennis partner calling on my cell. Given his well-deserved reputation as a prankster, I heard his words more as a warning than an invitation.
“Oh sure,” I retorted. “I’ve always wanted to be famous.”
“Well here’s your chance.”
“Right,” I said.
As well as a prankster Leif is a craftsman who builds sets for video production companies. He works on television commercials and even movies for major Hollywood producers. He once told me he could make anything, provided it was fake.
On this bright summer day, he explained excitedly that he was building a set on Charles Street in Boston for a movie in production entitled “What’s the Worst That Could Happen,” as things turned out, an apt name for this adventure, starring Danny DeVito.
While working on the set, Leif had overheard the director explaining to his casting manager that they needed someone from outside their existing crew for an upcoming scene. The scene called for an older Caucasian male, ideally tall with grey hair—someone who might look like an English Lord, and, most important, could play tennis.
Thinking immediately of me, Leif stopped his work and approached the director to suggest, “I think I’ve got just the guy for you!”
After a brief discussion, the director asked him to connect with me to see if I was interested.
When Leif relayed all this to me it sounded plausible, but I had deep respect for his famous ability to make mischief. My suspicion grew when he outlined that the next step, should I be interested in becoming a Hollywood star, would be to get myself down to the set on Charles Street within the next few hours to meet with the director for an extemporaneous casting call.
This had all the earmarks of a carefully constructed Leif prank. Surely, I would arrive at the scene to find a dumpster overloaded with last week’s trash, maybe the Boston police or, more likely, nothing at all. But the allure of Hollywood was too tempting, and it overcame my suspicion. So with trepidation, I mounted my bicycle, and rode from my office in Harvard Square to the filming site, very curious but still expecting that I’d been set up.
As I grew closer to the site my doubts began to subside. Charles Street was blocked off to traffic. When I looked down the street, I saw a crowd of people gathered around the major intersection with Mount Vernon Street, large movie cameras and elevated floodlights. This was clearly a working movie set.
Still a bit uncertain, I stood my bike at a nearby lamppost. It was easy to identify the director in the midst of the crowd. He was the one with arms flailing, shouting instructions, organizing the next scene.
Having no experience with this situation, I attempted to look as respectful as possible and slowly, yet casually, approach the director. As I came closer he gave me a disgusted, impatient glance that seemed to be saying, “Who are you, and why are you bothering me while I’m creating?”
But this look was quickly followed with a sly smile. He recognized me as his missing English Lord, extended his hand and welcomed me. (Directors can recognize talent from afar, I’m told.)
I commenced with a dutiful explanation of my unlikely presence on his set, but he cut me off quickly. “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You’re the guy our set builder sent to us, right?”
Trying not to appear intimidated I simply nodded in the affirmative.
He stepped back and assessed me. I watched his eyes study me from head to toe. Evidently, I passed this initial evaluation, and we moved quickly to step two.
With very little explanation of my scene, he asked me to imagine that he was about to hit me with a haymaker to my stomach. I was to act out what my reaction would be. He assured me that he wouldn’t really hit me, but he would take an imaginary swing, right then, right there, and I was to show him my acting chops by reacting to the blow.
Afterwards I realized that my excitement had obscured all judgment. When I should have been concerned about what the nature of my scene might be and what bodily harm might come of it, I was, instead, blinded by the lights of Hollywood.
I decided that this was my moment. The Hollywood career of another Baldwin stood in the balance. My reaction to his blow would launch my career…or end it, right there on Charles Street.
Fist clenched, he drew his arm back and brought it forward to my stomach stopping just short of contact. I doubled over and uttered a deep, loud, groaning exhale.
“Perfect! Perfect!” he exclaimed. “You’re just right for the role.”
“What role?” I might have asked, but having just passed my first screen test with flying colors I wasn’t about to start asking questions. Whatever the role, I was all in.
The director summoned one of his minions and instructed her to escort me to “the trailer.” The trailer was a few hundred feet down the street from the set. It housed some administrative people, myriad costumes and, fortunately, some vague answers to my questions about my scene.
I had two stops to make in the trailer. The first was administrative. In order to participate in the movie, I had to first become a member of SAG/AFTRA, the labor union of radio and screen performers. This required a simple form fill-out and my signature. They also asked for my contact information so as to advise me of when and where I had to be on the day of filming.
Then I moved on to the costume director where things got interesting. First, she asked me for a brief description of my scene. Having few details, I responded a bit sheepishly that I thought I was to be a tennis playing English Lord. Fortunately, that met with immediate and total recognition. Of course, I was a tennis playing English Lord. Could there be any doubt?
She asked me to stand, pulled out her tape and began measuring me paying particular attention to my waist and those regions immediately below it.
A bit concerned about what was going on down there, I offered to help. “I play a lot of tennis. I do have tennis clothes,” I suggested.
“ Oh no no. Those won’t do,” she said. “We can’t have logos of any kind showing. That could get us in all kinds of trademark trouble. We need you in all white. No logos.”
Then she added, “We’ll also have to equip you with a special cup.” I thought immediately of Leif, of course. Something requiring a protective cup could definitely be his doing.
“Are you familiar with those?” she asked. I assured her that I was, but that I was not familiar with just why I might need one for this scene.
At this point the scene was briefly outlined to me with some potentially worrisome details just glossed over in the description.
I was to be an imperious English Lord who’d lowered my standards to allow Danny DeVito’s rascal character to play tennis with me at my fancy grass court club. I would hit a serve to him, rush to the net and be hit directly in a man’s most sensitive area by Danny’s stealthily placed return.
But I was assured not to worry. The ball would be a completely harmless Nerf ball painted to look like a tennis ball. It would be shot from a gun, the gun aimed directly at what she euphemistically termed “my lower abdomen.” All this would be done by a stage-hand manning the artillery under the camera on the other side of the net.
“There is no way the ball could hurt you,” she assured, “but we’ll have you fully protected anyway.”
If there was no way the ball could hurt me, why did I have to be fully protected, I wondered, but held the question back. For some reason I felt a need to be cooperative.
It was further explained that my protection and costume would be waiting for me in this very trailer on the day of the shoot, and they would give me plenty of notice as to when and where. I would arrive in plenty of time, change in another trailer and proceed to the set.
With all the preliminaries completed, I left the trailer in what I will admit was a bit of a buoyant mood. This was not a Leif prank after all. I was about to be in the movies.