WATCH OUT FOR NUMBER ONE
Everyone knows you need excellent scripts, directors, cast, crew and luck if you’re going to make successful film and TV. But all those things are MEANINGLESS if your number one is an arsehole. For those not in the business, your “number one” is your star. It refers to the number one on the call sheet (daily schedule). Each member of the cast is allocated a number on the call sheet from one through to how ever many actors there are in the production. And the mood of the whole operation takes its lead, directly or indirectly, from the number one.
Now, this is the part where some cine-files will want to list all the great films featuring badly behaved stars as if a badly behaved star is an essential ingredient. Those films are the exception, not the rule. The way more common story is how a production team and crew lost its will to live because a recalcitrant number one poisoned the shoot and, along with it, the end product.
But here’s the rub: it’s hard to finance a film or TV show without a big name. And I’m guessing around 23 percent of “big names” are monsters. The stats are higher than other professions because never being told “no” has a strange effect on humans. Now, in order to have a salable product, an emerging producer might take a punt on a monster. They might think, “How much damage can a monster really do in three months?” If a producer is thinking that, then they’re clearly a virgin when it comes to being forced to eat shit from an actor who equates getting away with bad behaviour with power. These number ones will push the limits by being absurdly late, abusive, manipulative, off-the-charts demanding, sleazy, or all of the above. And if you don’t think a crew’s misery shows on the screen, then you haven’t been in the business that long.
But… BUT… if your number one shows up on time and is polite, respectful, knows their lines, knows the names of at least three of the 100 crew members they’ll be working intimately with over the duration of the shoot, then you can get stuff done. In fact, you might even make something great.
Next time, I’ll talk about the joys of acting again after I thought I’d retired.