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Sunday, November 27, 2011

If there's one thing I've learnt from more than nine years of blogging, it's that Mulled Whines wouldn't be half the blog it is without regular updates from my sister. In the past four years alone, she's...
I could have chosen any number of links for that last one.

But I think this time she's surpassed even her own highly comic standards. She texted me last weekend to say that she was busy shooting a film with the bloke from Harry Potter. I said "Daniel Radcliffe?", she said "Who?", and we left it at that.

It transpired, however, that a friend of hers had been charged (possibly in a criminal sense) with producing a series of training videos for a chain of care homes, and was looking for talented young actors to play the roles of the residents. When he failed to find any, he called Big Sis, and having offered her sixty quid to go mental, she was straight down the M4 towards London to put a bit of method into madness by acting the part of a patient.

Her co-star turned out to be an experienced actor who'd done the walk-throughs for three Harry Potter films. If you're not sure what a walk-through is, it's like a walk-on, but with less screen time. Think 'Extras' but without the fame. As Sis said to me at the time, via a message from the movie set, "My role is a self-harming, agitated patient in a care home". I told her that sounded well within her capabilities.

Principal photography took only four hours, but for a method actor like Sis, the resulting pain can last a lifetime. She texted me on the Friday night with these hauntingly evocative words:

"My finger has teeth marks in it and hurts after today's episodes!"

It was the same for Leonardo DiCaprio in 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape'. Except he didn't have to spend his entire fee on petrol to get home.

Anyway, having heard the glowing reviews from the film set, I've naturally been anxious (but not as anxious as Big Sis's character) to see the resulting footage. So it was with great excitement that we returned home from Shoreham yesterday afternoon to find an e-mail from Sis with a link to the first clip of her burgeoning movie career. And here it is. You might want to put your hand over your face before clicking on 'play'...


It's a focused and powerful performance. Not from Sis, obviously, but from the bloke at the front. Let's face it, it can't be easy ignoring what's going on behind him. I'd have been wetting myself laughing.

Within an hour of receiving that clip, we'd watched it a dozen times (mostly through our fingers), and managed to compose ourselves sufficiently to regain the power of speech. At which point Lisa said "I'm glad my sister's never done anything like that". I've told Sis they can put that on the film poster.

With our levels of hysteria down to a manageable level, Lisa then went out for the evening, leaving Amelie and I alone to create our own powerful version of a modern movie classic...


It may not have the biting impact of the original, but it was recorded in one take and with no rehearsals. So they probably have that in common.

After watching her all-encompassing performance, you might think that there's nowhere left to go with that character, but according to Sis, there are three more episodes to come. We can only imagine what they might contain. Having seen the way she captured the subtle nuances of mental illness, I've told Sis I won't be happy unless she blacks up and comes rolling on in a wheelchair.

6 comments:

Dave said...

Who wrote the script?  What does it mean?

Phil's Mum said...

That's more or less what I said, Dave!

Phil said...

I think there's a lot of subtext.

jon the bassist said...

I suspect that things will get better, when the new character of the whistle blowing manager is introduced in the subsequent episodes?

Anonymous said...

Been a while since I've had blog reading space... and I come back to find this.  Big Sis might have had more fun on the Dad Dancing set.  (google: dad dancing movember).  But I await the next episodes, it wasnt too much to go on in the first one really.  I might sell all my properties near Devizes though. 

And why did you change to the new commenting system that takes for ages to load and throws you right up the top of the page each time?

BS6 said...

And Happy Christmas!  BS6