ImpossibleFX - photography | filmmaking

August 5, 2007

So I’m shooting production stills for a movie being shot here in the Valley called The Battle and they must have run out of extras because one of the wranglers asked me if I would play The Drunk. I said “sure” and they whisked me over to the makeup/wardrobe trailer. I was given a shirt to change into, they fussed up my hair and gave me plenty of circles around my eyes.

My scene involved standing next to the hero about to get into his first underground street fight with a big, masked French dude called Eiffel Tower. His Yoda and best friend are standing there too. I’m the drunk dude who stumbles around with a glass of tequila wrapped in a big paper bag and is pretty much in favor of anything exciting. I had three lines. When they mention Eiffel Tower I say “he’s undefeated!” Later, the hero grabs the paper bag from my hand and I say “hey!” And as the hero, wearing the paper bag as a mask for himself, calls himself Tequila Power, I say “yeah! Tequila Power!” I then take a big, long chug of tea in a “Jac Dani” bottle (the filmmakers blacked out certain letters from the logo) and right as I’m beginning to enjoy it, I pretend to pass out, taking a heavy backward spill into a safety mat.

We did two takes. On the second, I bit my tongue, but everyone was laughing. The actors and crew people were excited at how funny it was. In particular was Eiffel Tower. Through his thick accent he was telling me how good I looked as a drunk and the fall I took was great. I told him about the bleeding tongue and he was like “yeah, I know how that is”. Overall, the night was pretty sweet. I guess now I have an excuse to buy the movie when it comes out. Look for it. The movie is tentatively called The Battle and is being distributed by Laguna Productions. The director is Paul Miller.