You're on an Airplane

by Parker Posey

  Later I would read Eric Lax’s book about the making of Irrational Man, which talks about this scene and how Woody wanted to cut the introduction when he heard it because he knew it was false once we were rolling. But a big part of being an actor is falling into the projection that a director wants, or being in the director’s subjectivity. “Rita is a lonely woman,” Woody repeated to me a few times, which wasn’t emphasized in the letter. “Lonely woman” has a deeper weight to it than the “unhappy marriage” he’d mentioned in the letter.

  We went into the bulk of the scene, the dialogue, and started with a two-shot. Things were going smoothly and there was good energy in the air. When Emma and I went downstairs as the lighting was being set up for her coverage, she said Woody liked me or he wouldn’t have been hanging around camera. She gave me an assuring nod, like “You better believe it, kiddo.” Emma is savvy and she and Woody had a great rapport, like school chums. They caught up between takes with casual witty banter, like Groucho Marx and Ethel Merman.

  At one point they were talking dessert and I chimed in with “I love meringue,” which is true. “How can a whipped egg white with a little bit of sugar be that delicious?” I might’ve added, if my initial comment hadn’t stopped the conversation.

  I pushed away the thought that meringue could get me fired and thought more of the lonely woman that I was supposed to be. Hitchcock was famous for saying you should treat actors like cattle, but with good directors I’d felt more like a horse, since horses are trained with subtlety and instinct and sometimes deliberate force. I would clomp to lunch like an old mare with Emma, who had the light steady gallop of a young and beautiful Thoroughbred.

  Joaquin was sitting at the cafeteria table alone, like a sexy beast hovering over his script, which was laid out in front of him. He asked if I was able to sleep; he hadn’t but I had. He was already sweating—it was August and hot out—and I showed him my swollen wrist, which made him wince and cower. I could barely move it up or down and the heat agitated it. We told him the morning had gone well and that we were moving on to my coverage after lunch.

  During my coverage, when the cameras turned on me back at the bar, was when it all went to hell in a handbasket. I did twenty takes of the scene, which I’d never done in my life. For one line, it was important not to sound definitive, which could imply that Rita knew Abe was a psychopath. It had the words “crackpot theory” in it and I couldn’t get it to sound the way Woody wanted it to, so he was giving me line readings, which is the biggest blow to an actor’s ego. The hundred extras were there, though, to support my meltdown and to witness the greatest living film director’s frustration at my performance.

  At one point he said I was a terrific actress and a complicated woman but that he didn’t want to see any of that in his movie. I don’t know what I felt in that moment—caught but liberated into unknown territory? I stared into the eyes of the focus puller, who was an arm’s length away, and she smiled to assure me that anything and everything was right in the world—she even gave me a thumbs-up. I guess Parker could die a little and Rita could take over. I’d forget my lines and shout to Virginia to cue me. I was flailing in the water.

  I remembered how I almost drowned in a wave pool as a kid and got pulled out and coughed up water. Emma’s pretty face was gobsmacked and compassionate, and she asked if I needed anything from her. I wanted a lobotomy and a tapeworm. My own thoughts sounded like pig Latin and I felt like I’d be smart to find something else to do for a living. But at the present moment, I would not forget I was being directed by Woody Allen.

  By some miracle, I got the line right in the medium shot, which was met with the relief of a baby being delivered and I was happy to be moving on. I told Woody I felt like I was being chiropracted. He put his hands in a frame shot in front of my face. “Now we’re going in for a close-up, so, you know, don’t do too much moving around,” he told me.

  “I think I remember what a close-up is,” I said. “We can try a few.” It went more smoothly this time around, and he gave direction from the monitor, like “Do anything! Say what you want!” and came over after it was all done and told me which takes he was printing. I’d have to wait for a blue ribbon when I wrapped in five weeks.

  Outside, one of the producers said I reminded him of Sandy Dennis, which was nice of him, and then I got in the van with Emma for the ride back to “holding.” My makeup artist knocked on the door of my trailer and asked if I needed a hug but I said I was fine, which I was, more or less. My hairdresser referred to the ordeal as a “brain fart,” but I knew it was much more than that.

  Suzy breezed by like Thelma Ritter, the dresser for Bette Davis in All About Eve and the wisecracker in many old classic movies, saying Woody always freaks out when he starts to hear his dialogue said for the first time and usually reshoots the first day of work anyway. She said a lot of actresses have had meltdowns in their trailers on the first day of work and she really helped me brush it off further and besides, I knew what a creative process could be. But also, I couldn’t afford to be anxious because I had another scene to do and had to change.

  It was a little scene in which I fantasized about Joaquin taking me away to travel to Europe, “to London even,” anywhere but here. Woody works fast, and I’m like that, too, so I wanted to do it right in the first take; the first take is usually the best one. So we did the first take, but the sound was bad, and then we did another take, which I felt was meh, and Woody came over and said, “That was good, the first take, that was the right temperature, but it was bad for sound so we have to go again.” I told him I was good at looping, and he said he didn’t like looping, so we’d go again.

  He emphasized once more that Rita was “a lonely woman” and in an “unhappy marriage”; I assured him with a nod. He said, “No smiling,” to which I nodded again, smiling. He moves his hands and fingers when he talks, like he’s molding invisible space for you to figure out exactly what it is, to communicate some sensitivity, maybe. That’s my interpretation, anyway. Before he sat back down at the monitor, he shouted out, like an afterthought, “Just make sure your voice doesn’t get too soft, you don’t want to sound too actressy.” It took me aback, and I immediately stood up and took a deep breath like I was going to faint; and fake-stabbed myself in the stomach, letting out an “UGH”; and stuck my tongue out, like a dying possum. “That was deliberate,” he said quickly, and with humor, and I took the fake knife out of my side and put it in the other side and laugh-screamed, “Do it again!” And I knew that moment said we could work together.

  * * *

  –

  I went home that night and talked to my analyst on the phone. My wrist was throbbing, and I couldn’t even turn a doorknob. In denial, I’d bought food for the fridge and brought my knives from home so I could cook. But it was painful just to place my hand around the strap of my purse as it hung on my shoulder, the most natural thing in real life, and I knew I’d have to carry bags and purses in the scene we were shooting on Friday. What was I going to do?

  This was in 2014, when the accusation scandal wasn’t as hot in the climate of the culture, but I read the articles online about the case and can relate to all the players in the story. I wonder if it will be staged as an opera in fifty years. To each his own. Social media would definitely be the chorus, or would it be an oracle? We’re in choppy air—fasten your seat belt.

  I called Helen the next day to see if she’d ask Woody if I could wear the splint for the rest of the five weeks I was working. Since we’d only shot Rita’s final scenes it was conceivable, in the storyline. I was anxious and called Joaquin to get his experienced input. He said Woody was a maestro who I had to trust, and he was right. We talked about Charlotte Rampling in Stardust Memories, how open and beautiful she was, and said good night.

  There’s a documentary from the Criterion Collection that comes with the DVD of Ingmar Bergman’s film Persona, where Liv Ullmann talks about working w
ith him—specifically about a scene with a burning house where he was screaming at her to “get closer to the fire!” and she knew that he was talking to her, not the character. They fell in love when she was twenty-five and he was forty-six, and had a volatile and creative relationship. He was intensely controlling and went so far as to build a stone wall around their house, only letting her leave on Wednesdays (when she’d wash her hair and have a few drinks). But they were dear friends in the end and they kept working together, even after he married someone else.

  I’d think of Claire Bloom’s memoir about her relationship with Philip Roth, and how she expressed her relationship to acting as annihilating. If I hadn’t had a father who was devouring, would I have had the ability to devour stories or be devoured by them? Annihilation in order to take shape all over again? I’m turning my light off.

  To be kept in the dark or in the unknown is to find your way out. You have a more interesting film when you capture characters finding their way. I always loved Nancy Drew—how she tiptoed around those caves with her flashlight, moving carefully forward, listening deeply to her instincts and finding her way out.

  * * *

  –

  Helen called the next day to say it was too late to wear the splint, and I almost started crying, but I played it pretty cool on the phone. It was enough that my hand hurt but being a “difficult actress” was the last thing I wanted to carry around. No, that was not the part I was going to play out.

  “She feels trapped.” That was another thing Woody emphasized about Rita that first day. It was there in the material in the cliff scene with Joaquin, where Rita says she feels trapped in her life as a teacher and wants to run away to Spain.

  I felt trapped by what I did and wanted to run away from it. Maybe that was what Woody saw in me when he cast me: that I was over the hill and the right age for all those feelings, for that particular realization and dissolving of fantasy—that disillusionment. Like Rita, I wanted to flee so I wouldn’t have to face remorse—of another life I could’ve lived.

  * * *

  –

  One night that week, before I’d shot any more scenes, I escorted my broken wrist out to dinner on the wharf in Newport, where I met two nice ladies, one with a broken leg who rode around on a scooter, and her best friend, who was joining her. We had a nice dinner at the bar and talked about how compassionate some people were toward someone with an injury. My splint was a great conversation starter. You’d be surprised how many people want to tell you their own horror stories of falls and breaks, and the PT community is full of a bunch of angel people who are wonderful and doing real hands-on healing stuff. We had a great dinner talking about how miraculously the body heals itself and how humbling the journey of an injury can be—how people get others’ attention and compassion from relating the stories of their own broken bones and recoveries.

  Walking out of the place, I spotted Woody and Soon-Yi on their way to dinner, and I took off my hat and waved as if they were far out in the ocean and couldn’t see me, even though they were just ten feet away. I think I even jumped up and down. It was fortuitous running into him in real life and he gave me a tiny smile, and I quickly apologized to him for Monday’s work and groveled. “Dailies were good, the close-up was nice,” he said. I was relieved and happy that we wouldn’t have to reshoot it, and pumped my hands in the air like “Yay!”

  I introduced myself to Soon-Yi, who wanted to hike the cliffs, and Woody made a gesture like “You two should go together,” but then we found out that we couldn’t, since I had to work and she was leaving town. I told her how bright and sweet Manzie was and mentioned the ocean, how I didn’t care for the beach. “As my mother would say, ‘all that sand,’” I said. I explained I felt more like Geraldine Page in Interiors, with moments staring out at the ocean that started with peace, but could linger into a foreboding feeling, depending on my mood.

  Woody and Soon-Yi were going to the Pearl for their famous crab cakes. It’s clear that they’re right for each other. He shooed me away, joking, “Don’t you have lines to learn for tomorrow?”

  “Oh yes, I have to memorize those lines!” Then I walked away, swiftly, as directed.

  The next morning, Joaquin and I were scheduled to shoot a walk-and-talk outside on the campus. Before the scene, Woody said, in his apologetic manner, “What I wrote isn’t very good, um . . . If you’d like to add anything, please do. Say whatever you want. Make it better, more believable than what I wrote. And you know . . . uh . . .” What he was saying was, be in the reality of this movie he was making. So Joaquin and I did the scene, and afterward, Woody came over and spread his arms out reassuringly between us and said, joking and deliberate, “Neither of you are getting fired.”

  After I knew I wasn’t getting fired, I felt as relaxed and cool with everything as I possibly could. Joaquin would groan loudly in agony and run to Woody to apologize for his performance or ask a question. He was playing a psychopath, and that’s a challenging role. Woody reassured him over and over. “No no no, it was very very good,” he’d say. Or, “Well, for me, it sounded as if people were having a conversation, but uh . . .” Joaquin would scratch his head and brood (the first week is always hard), but later in the shoot he said Woody, directing him in a scene, said he didn’t have to have so much “style,” which I thought was very astute. We laughed about it because he’d never thought of himself that way, and it was so obvious.

  It was a relief having so many scenes with Joaquin, where I wouldn’t have to be the one torturing myself. I liked that he took up that emotional space. I loved his energy and sensitivity and perfectionism. There was another walk-and-talk scene and I was feeling comfortable in my work. In the scene, I invited Joaquin’s character, Abe, up to my house to “smoke some grass.” When he passed on that offer, I said, “That’s cool.” Then Woody stopped the take and said, “That’s terrible! You can’t say that!”

  I started groaning and apologizing and shouted back, “Okay, cool, I won’t say it!” Teachers don’t say “cool” anymore, Woody thought—but they don’t call pot “grass” either, I could’ve said but didn’t.

  * * *

  –

  Later that day I asked Woody about the crab cakes from the night before, if they were as good as he’d heard. I mentioned being from the New Orleans area and brought up Galatoire’s, a place I grew up going to that also had famous crab cakes. We were getting ready to shoot a short but sensitive scene in the rain with my husband; I’d tell him I was leaving him. I’d just met the actor playing my husband that day, and he was so tender and bright that my heart was already breaking. Woody said he liked the crab cakes, and I went to the car to film the scene.

  The scene begins mid-conversation, where Rita’s mentioned a break from the marriage and her desire to travel, “to see other places,” she says. She tries to appease both of their feelings by saying, “Let’s just talk about the details.” After the first take, Woody scampered over, through the fake rain, holding on to his hat. He leaned into the car and said, “That was good. It’s the right temperature. Now you have fifteen minutes to get this right and then you can have your crab cake.” We were done in less than fifteen minutes and I couldn’t have my crab cake because the restaurant was closed on Mondays.

  * * *

  –

  I’d grown up with sardonic wit with my own father, so I was used to it. When I asked my dad what he thought of Superman Returns, he quipped, “At least I wasn’t bored.”

  My favorite night of shooting was a scene with Joaquin where Rita knocks on Abe’s door with two bottles of whiskey. She says she was in the neighborhood, and that she got a bottle for her husband, but she knew how much Abe liked whiskey so she picked one up for him, too. Just a sad, funny bit of dialogue between two lonely grown-ups. “Come in,” he says, as she’s in the room already, and Rita says, “I thought you’d never ask.”

  I was nervous before the scen
e. During rehearsal, Woody stands to watch, like all directors do, but he’s Woody Allen so it’s different. A few minutes earlier, Darius had asked me to come in through the awning of the door quickly, since it shadowed me. So I did. When Woody watched the scene, he was like, “Why are you in such a rush? I don’t understand . . .” I wasn’t going to tattle, so I went back to my “It’s because I’ve never acted before and I don’t know what I’m doing” bit, which felt true enough. Better than “Oh, Darius wanted me to find my light.” How lame would that have sounded? Joaquin had run away to his rented home to rest before we shot, so I couldn’t go to him for assurance or comfort, plus he couldn’t give me that in the scene, either, so he didn’t in real life.

  When we started shooting, the first take was alive and I was “the right temperature,” Woody said. Joaquin hated it so we did it again, but it was bad for sound. Woody came to apologize, and then he said, “Just the tiniest bit of irony when you say ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ Just the tiniest bit.” His hands gesturing in that maestro way, soft and expressing the touch. We did the take, and I heard a groan again, which I didn’t know how to interpret. Disdain? Relief? Boredom?

  The crew started filing out, looking as if they were leaving, which they were. Woody stopped to say, “Mmm . . . It’s cutting together nicely . . . We’ve seen some of the scenes . . . And . . . mhmm.” As in, “Yes.”

  I nodded in a way that said, “Good good good, have a nice dinner, carry on,” which he did. I went across the street to visit Tom, one of my friends from high school, who lived just a few doors down from where we were shooting. We sat on the porch belonging to his neighbors and had a beer and watched the crew wrap up location.