Mabel and I have both filmed parts for a new show on the Syfy Network called Superstition. Mabel worked on episode 8, playing a rookie cop, and I hope to appear in episodes 10 and 12, playing Diana a Wiccan High Priestess. I dithered over writing about this, since I’ve been disappointed before (Documentary Now! springs to mind). You audition, you get hired, you arrive on the set and get your costume, makeup and hair done, you film your part and when the show finally airs. . . . you are not in it! Not even in the credits. Even though you had so much fun, you made the crew laugh, you were encouraged to improv, the director really seemed to love you, and you had your picture taken with Fred Armisen.
After a really fun day on the set, I’m pretty sure I told everyone in Hennepin county that I was going to be in Documentary Now! I played a skeptical 1960’s housewife, with curlers in my hair, wearing my own vintage blue cat eye glasses and plaid housedress. A hapless door-to-door salesman was trying to sell me a deluxe globe of the earth. The Globe Salesmen episode was filmed in black and white, in St. Louis Park using a lot of Minnesota talent. It was all pretty exciting until it aired and my entire scene had been cut out. Apparently they decided to focus the storyline on Bill Hader and Fred Armisen’s characters. Tony Forsmark (talented LA actor), played the globe salesman that was trying to convince my character to buy a globe, so I was SOL. Sandy Out of Luck.
Acting for film and television is very much a Catch 22. To get offered jobs, people generally like to see your ‘reel’ which is clips of things you’ve appeared in before. But if your performance has been edited out of a show. . . you have no clip to show anyone. Last summer, in a quest for my missing footage, I wrote a letter requesting help to Lorne Michaels intern. Lorne is listed as one of the shows producers, but he is most famous for creating SNL, Saturday night Live. Lorne Michael’s intern never replied. The lost footage from Documentary Now! is my holy grail of film clips.
Superstition airs on Friday nights at 10 P.M., 9 Central, on the Syfy channel. The first episode is available to watch on YouTube. Joel Anderson Thompson and Mario Van Peebles co-created the show, and Mario writes, directs and plays the patriarch of the Hastings family. The Hastings family business is a funeral parlor in La Rochelle, GA., specializing in handling deaths that are impacted by otherworldly forces. In short, it’s Star Trek meets Dark Shadows! It’s a really fun world that’s been created, and I am so excited to see our episodes.
I’m salivating just thinking about it, because the folks at Superstition ate well. In episode 10, written and directed by Laurence Andries of Six Feet Under fame, I had three days on set. Which meant three days of well crafted meals. When I arrived at the studio it was 5:45 A.M. and I had a costume fitting straightaway. Everyone was nice to me, and nice to each other. Someone asked me what I’d like for breakfast, and said I could order what I wanted (within reason) and they’d bring me the food while I sat getting my hair done. I took a cue from the hairstylist and got the oatmeal with fruit and nuts and a side of smoked salmon (which I took home to share with Mabel).
My hair was teased and sprayed into the outer atmosphere, but after a quick rehearsal the hairstylist was asked to deflate my hairdo into a more Hillary Clinton like style. My character Diana was in charge of a whole coven and we got to wear capes! It was so much fun to play in that world. The funeral parlor set is extremely impressive, there’s several Victorian parlors and a dining room, filled with antiques and authentic touches. The crew worked like clockwork and scenes were filmed efficiently.
The time just flew by and when I wasn’t on set, I had a trailer cubicle with my characters name on it that I could use if I’d like. That’s where they’d put my costumes, and contracts. It had a desk, a mirror, cushioned bench seats, working radio and a heater. Filming progressed so quickly I rarely had the chance to sit in the trailer. There were lots of other sets being built and used concurrently, and that was fascinating because many of them looked otherworldly. I’ll elaborate in my next post.