The thing with Vinnie is that sex embarrasses him. Sex that involves him, that is. Maybe just sex that involves him verbally; I have no reason to suspect his sex life is other than normal, and I believe he has a girl currently living with him.
Well, he tried to talk to Irving. His directorial method consisted of telling Irving haltingly that perhaps Irving wasn’t reading his lines with expression. We tried it again, and Irving sounded as though he was a kid in second grade who had been told to read with expression. It certainly sounded as though he was reading, by George. He had everything memorized, but if you closed your eyes you could just see him holding the book in front of him.
I went over and whispered to Pluto, who suggested that maybe it didn’t matter.
“Maybe nothing matters,” I said, “but I think we have to pretend otherwise.”
“He’s a complete lecher, Jack. And I know he’s really dying to screw what’s-her-name, Sophie. And he opens his mouth and you lose all of that.”
“I know.”
I went over and talked with Irving, who was very distressed that he seemed to be giving everybody the shivering shits with his debut. I hit at the point that he had to be natural, just be himself, blah blah blah, and so help me God, he nudged me in the ribs with his elbow, and grinned a lecherous grin, and his eyes sparkled. Then we all moved on inside to try out one of the bits that go on inside the apartment, although that was not something we could film yet because we had Sophie in her Old Lady makeup, but just trying it on for size figuring that Irving might be less uptight in the apartment than in the hallway, and he fucked it up the same as ever.
Time was beginning to be a factor. Irving had taken the morning off for the filming but he had to be somewhere at twelve-thirty. Also, we wanted to have the afternoon for the other scenes at the apartment. Vinnie was talking to me about bringing Irving back and shooting his scenes at night, or possibly recruiting another Irving, which he didn’t really want to do because this Irving was so perfect physically, and also because this would hurt Irving’s feelings and that bothered Vinnie. He’s too softhearted to be a director, I think.
Meanwhile, Sophie was whispering to Alan, who nodded. Then she asked all of us except Irving to clear out. She said he was uptight acting in front of other people, but that if the two of them could go over their lines privately she was sure it would work out all right. I figured that made as much sense as anything else, which was not saying a hell of a lot for it, but what the hell. We all filed out, camera crew, Vinnie, Pluto, Alan, script girl, and me.
In the hallway, Alan told us what was up.
“Her idea,” he said. “Sophie. She’s going to fuck him.”
“Huh.”
“He’s hot as hell for her, but he gets nervous about it and he can’t get it across. So she’s going to go through a couple of lines with him and then she’s going to ask him does he want to fuck her. And they’ll make it, and it ought to relax him.”
“But it’s a nonsexual part,” Pluto said.
“Well, we’re not gonna film it. She’ll throw him a quickie and it should relax him.”
“Or give him a coronary.”
Alan’s face fell. He hadn’t thought of that.
What can I tell you?
It worked.
We stood around in the corridor having an inane conversation for about fifteen minutes. Then Sophie opened the door, grinning like the cat that swallowed the cream, and I use the image advisedly. She assured us Irving had a better grip on the part now, and I’d just as soon leave that one on the plate, friends, but she turned out to be right. We shot all his scenes one right after the other. He had the script down pat which hadn’t been the problem originally and he also emerged as a sly, droll, lecherous old cocker. He’s not going to get a Best Supporting Actor nomination out of it, nothing like that, but he did a damned good job and made it all work on the first take.
Go figure it out. In the beginning he couldn’t act horny because he was horny. Then Sophie did her number to dehorn him, and thus prepared, he was able to act.
He’s a lovely foil for Sophie. Dammit, I find myself admitting that Vinnie was right about the Irving character. His scenes are useful.
They’re good for a couple of reasons, including one I should have appreciated before. Namely that it is going to provide some nice balance to have Sophie shown as the object of someone else’s unfulfilled desires in addition to having ungratified desires of her own.
But one I couldn’t have foreseen is that our Sophie is at her best in scenes when she’s putting somebody down. She’s very effective in this capacity, which bodes well for the rest of the picture, as she gets to put people down a lot. I was worried, for example, that she might have trouble with the Rasputin scene. She has to deliver a lot of lines without being impossibly off-putting as a castrating bitch. I didn’t know how well she would be able to handle this. Now I feel a little more confident.
I didn’t care for her quite as much in her scenes with Pluto. It will be interesting to see how those look. He does overshadow her, no way around it, but he also carries her to an extent. In their first scene together, after his appearance when she goes down on the lamp, there’s the bit where he explains the terms of the contract to her. I thought she was very wooden in it. I would have liked to go for another take on it, but everybody else seemed happy, so I decided to keep my mouth shut. Probably just as well.
There was one scene where you really believed she was an actress. It’s a solo number. She’s in the apartment after the failure of the orgy scene, going through everything, throwing all her sexual artifacts in the garbage. There’s a really subtle play of emotions on her face. She shows it all — defeat, nostalgia, everything. I just hope Vinnie got in close on her at the right moments. She went through it several times so we could cover it from different angles and she was really good all the way through.
She may not be a bad actress. She’s best at reacting. She moves well and uses her face nicely. I wish she used her voice as well as she uses the rest of herself.
People pick strange times to get inhibited. For example, the most interesting thing that happened all day was her bit with Irving, balling him while we all waited outside. Afterward, the incident was not discussed in her presence, not before Irving left and not afterward either. We all knew she had made it with him, and she knew we knew, yet nobody said word one about it. We did talk about how Irving performed better, and recognized without voicing it that she had been responsible for his sudden emergence as a dramatic talent, but that was as far as it went.
Pluto and I had dinner together. He told me a lot of stories about show business types who have to have sex before they go on. One very famous singer has a call girl appear in his dressing room before he goes on. He gives her a couple of bills to fellate him before the performance. They don’t clear the dressing room or anything. He’ll sit around on the couch, maybe talking on the phone, maybe not, maybe having a drink, and his agent’s there, or some of his buddies, and the girl’s on her knees giving him head. He doesn’t even make her take off her clothes. She blows him until he comes, and then one of his flunkies gives her whatever the price is and she goes away, and he goes on stage and sings torch songs.
Well, people with artistic temperament need special consideration. And writers are no exception. I’ve got a lady friend coming over tonight to help me rehearse my scene for the film. We’re going to do it without dialogue, just so I can get the moves down pat. We may have to have quite a few takes before we get it right, too.