CHAPTER 3
All the courts were cleared in preparation for my scene. I watched as countless pieces of technical gear including expensive looking cameras were arrayed right at the net in Danny’s court where I was to serve. Cameramen, boom operator, key grip and others found their places all just on the other side—and above the net.
While it was an impressive array of people and machines, I wondered just where I was supposed to serve, and if they thought I had such amazing control that I could somehow squeeze my serve carefully between the various heads and camera lenses positioned squarely in harms way.
Just before the first take, the director, standing right opposite me on the baseline handed me a ball and ordered, “Ok. Let me see you serve.”
I was confounded. Was he really asking me to hit my serve smack into the middle of the cameras and crew? His tone said it wasn’t time to ask questions. I tossed the ball and carefully tapped my serve softly into the arrayed mass in front of me.
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” he screamed. “Is that the way you serve? “ He must have thought in that crucial moment that he, indeed, had chosen the wrong man for his English Lord.
“Well, no,” I answered and was about to explain the chaos that would ensue if I actually hit a normal serve, when he ordered, “Move over to that court,” gesturing to the vacant one next to us, “ and show me how you serve.”
I did.
“Ok, Ok. I get it,” he said, and with that screamed at various people, “Get out the nets, and be quick about it.”
It took about 15 minutes to set up protective netting that would ensnare my serve and protect the people and equipment.
And so the shooting began. The camera assistant shouted “Tennis take down. Take 1,” and snapped down the clapstick.
“Uh oh,” I thought. “Tennis take down.”
I connected crisply on the serve, charged to the net and mentally readied myself for the arrival of the ball in my groin. I heard the pop of the gun and waited to feel the contact.
Naturally, the unexpected happened. I barely felt the touch of the ball between my legs. I was so shocked at the absence of feeling. Really. We’d spent hours of preparation on this to insure that I’d not be hurt by the ball, only to find that I almost couldn’t feel it at all.
I was so surprised that I forgot to wince, then groan—or fall. Like the Hollywood rookie I was, I completely destroyed the first take.
“Cut! Cut!” The director ran on the court, amazed that I’d forgotten my one word line—not even a line—just a groan. He decided he’d better review everything with me, his dunce English Lord, one more time. I let him proceed. It seemed far easier than trying to explain my shock at the absence of feeling the impact of the ball.
“Tennis take down. Take two.” Clap!
Serve. Charge. Pop! Anguished groan this time. Fall to my knees. Ball Boys run to my aid. Limp back to the locker room.
“Not bad,” said the director who was watching each take on his computer screen under his tent behind me. “Let’s do another.” And another. And another.
By the fifth take I realized that the problem for me certainly would not be the soft impact of the Nerf ball in my groin. It would be something else entirely, something that totally escaped the scene planners. I’d collapsed on my knees four times now, and they were really starting to hurt. I doubted how many takes my knees could tolerate. I was wondering how I might explain this to an impatient director.
Thankfully, with knees wearing down, take six was a keeper.
I knew it was the one because I heard Danny, who had joined the director under the tent, roaring with laughter as he looked at the screen.
As I walked back to the set from the clubhouse (where the ball boys had taken me) I heard the director calling. “Jim! Jim!” I was amazed that he knew my name.
“Come over here. You gotta see this.”
I walked under the tent. Danny and the director were perched in their elevated canvas chairs, opposite the screen. They invited me to stand between them to cast my eyes upon the incredible results. I looked at the screen as they played back my scene, a rather trite depiction of the most sophomoric potty humor imaginable.
They were laughing together, almost uncontrollably.
So, this was Hollywood.
My scene was “in the can” by 11 o’clock. Back in the changing trailer I peeled off my needless armor and was set free to resume my mundane civilian life.
Later I learned from various club members that the movie crew worked there until dusk, a full twelve hours of filming, leaving the impression that this scene and setting would be a major part of the finished product.
With that promise in mind, I, along with many club members, waited impatiently for the film’s unveiling. A few months later, there was a truly Hollywood style grand opening, with a sponsor even; Michael J. Fox’s Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease.
The event was held appropriately in the heart of Boston’s theater district at the palatial, historic Colonial Theater.
The excitement was palpable. It was our own local red carpet extravaganza. Fox was there in the flesh. So was Danny in a tux, the director and the lead cast members, along with the scene stealer, me, and lots of Longwood’s “background” people; all of us in our finest, some of us even in evening dress as we all anticipated our big scene.
It started as a celebratory night, but as the night—and the movie—trudged on, it became clear that the answer to the title question “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” was, in fact, the movie itself. It was horrible.
Worse, in an ironic turn, after all that time and expense filming at the tennis club, the Longwood scene lasted about twenty seconds, with only a quick shot or two of the club and its members. It must have been one of the most expensive twenty seconds in movie making history. It included just my serve, Danny’s return to my Lordly groin and my collapse and, of course, my groan.
That was it. All the rest of that day’s twelve hours of shooting was on the figurative editing room floor.
It was difficult, but I struggled to stay to the end, to see if I’d be included in the credits. My name in lights as the English Lord.
Never have I watched movie credits so intently–and patiently. Finally, there it was. A credit that read: “Older (at least it wasn’t elder) tennis player: James Baldwin.”
I wondered if the angry cast member whose Hollywood chance I had stolen was feeling better about things as the scene had unfolded.
I am reminded of this star-studded chapter of my life every year when my residual check for the role arrives in the mail. Evidently, any actor who is a member of SAG/AFTRA receives these payments as compensation for their work. The payment is based on some arcane formula that accounts for the size of the role and the number of times the movie is viewed. I’m sure that real actors like Danny and the other Baldwins live quite well on these recurring payments.
To qualify for residuals the actor must have a speaking part. My, “aaaargh!,” the noise I forgot to make on my first take, qualified as a speaking part.
My first check was for around $100. Since the movie was not worthy of much demand, each year my check justifiably diminished along with the movie’s fast fading popularity. This year’s reminder of “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” some 15 years after it’s debut, was for $4.75; $2.75 after tax withholding.
Hollywood. Every year it makes me smile.