An Unexpected Clown Opportunity
You really never know when or where they are gonna come from.
BzZzzzZzzzz
Bzzzzz
BzzZzZZZZZzzZZZZzZZ!!!
The phone lit up in my hand while I was mid-scroll
Stephen King Simmons
My paw hovered over the screen. Why was Stephen calling me? Last we talked, he was making a movie and invited me to fly out to Utah to play a lead part. But… that project must have fallen through during the funds-raising phase, for I hadn’t heard about it since I agreed to be pinned to it. And the goal for the start date had passed…
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!
I jolted out of my curled-up procrastination, leaving my seat at the dining table and starting for the backdoor. If I am to be on the phone, I also need to be pacing. This is a most reliable fragment of my identity.
I clicked that big green button and sunk my bare toes in the grass. My backyard playing the part of my phone-meeting-and-pacing sanctuary.
“Hey, Stephen!”
“Joooliaaaa…” The horror director kindly and apologetically led the conversation, explaining why the last promised project fell through. As someone who has worked in the film industry for a decade, I am quite used to the grand assurances and common fall-throughs of it by now. I am entirely capable of being completely on board while being totally unattached. It’s definitely a skill that is learned, not natural. But that’s just the name of the game, babe! I assured him all was well therein.
“…So that didn’t work out. BUT THEN, I completed this new script, and upon delivering it, my investors were immediately on board…”
Stephen went on about the film. It sounded exactly like him, and I am so glad he is getting to make his second feature. While there isn’t a big part for me, there is a tiny part involving clowns based on a childhood experience of his. It is a childhood experience that he has actually already used as primary source material for a narrative device in an old short film of his. One I am actually already familiar with because I was in that very short film. Playing my first-ever clown! In one of my first-ever acting experiences. A catalyst role to what would become the meat of my life. Clown!
Hahaha…. how circular things can be.
I am so glad Stephen felt compelled to need me, thousands of miles away, to still play his clown. It would be more of a decorative role than a narrative one, but jee, am I grateful my clown partner Alan was down to pull this one off with me for an old colleague. Alan’s immediate, gung-ho agreement to help shoot this remotely and be in it himself with zero financial gain is the kinda support that gives my soul the space to exhale. Without hesitation and with an unspoken recognition that this small project would be fulfilling in some other, intrinsic way, he texted back a heck yeah.
Heck yeah.
So, we did it! And while we had the set-up going in our little dining room, we decided to create an extrinsic thing to fulfill for ourselves, too. So, we grabbed some odds and ends around the house and improvised something to send our nieces and nephews.
Alan and I have a one-take style, and I am very impressed with what he did with our one-take in the editing room.
Now that we’ve shared it with our family, I’d like to share it with you! My sweet substack subscribers. Thank you so much for your readership. I hope this little ditty brings a smile to your soul.