One scene down, one to go

One sex scene down and one to go.  It’s not glamorous or sexy or even remotely erotic.  I have rug burns on my knees and my scene partner had a headache through the last hour.

As I was leaving the house, Admiral Fubar asked, “Are you okay with this?”

I saw a little bit of the brotherly concern on his face and for a moment was touched that he was worried.

“What do you mean? I’m fine.”

“I just mean… well, you know, Maggie Gyllenhaal was really upset about one of her sex scenes.”

“I know which one you’re refereeing to, but we’re also talking about the chick who played in the Secretary and let a guy spank her till he jizzed himself.” I hugged him. “Thank you.” I smiled. “This is totally within my comfort zone.”

But it wasn’t.

Not in the way I thought it would be.  Once I got there and discovered that the guy I would be attacking was ten years younger, and far more – shall we say, inexperienced… I admit – it threw me. I was expecting someone to know how to grab me so I could respond, or move me so I could reciprocate – and it suddenly occurred to me, that I might be fine – but maybe he wasn’t and that was enough to make me really uncomfortable…

I don’t know what that’s about.

I also had trouble getting into character for the drunken part of the scene.

I simply don’t have the feelings in my emotional bank of being completely out of control drunk – and it showed on screen – and that bothered me too.  Knowing I was acting rather than feeling left me with a sickening knowledge that I didn’t nail the scene.  This contributed to a downward spiral of frustration that I felt throughout the rest of my shoots, and sadly, I’m sure that will show on screen too.

So in short. I sucked. I suck hard and it pisses me off.

There was a lot of laughing and joking around and I made my scene partner agree to a safety word that we would both abide by so that as we threw each other around the room, there was a knowledge that anything was a “go” until the safety word was used.

Still, I walked away feeling like failure.  A fraud. A terrible actress. 

As opposed to last night when I went home on air at 2 am thinking I’d done pretty good.

I went to Thai with Admrial Fubar to relax and unwind tonight, and it came up over dinner that I’d been laughing most of the shoot.

“And here I was at home worrying about my sister.”

“Why were you worried about me?” I asked.

“Well, you know. I didn’t know if this was something you felt like you had to do for your career and that you wouldn’t be able to sleep with yourself at night about.”

I started laughing. “You sound so, Utah, right now. I didn’t do this because I thought I had to, or I thought it would advance my career.  I’m doing it because it’s fun. Fun. And I don’t have hang-ups with the sex – my biggest issue was that I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be.  I can be a better storyteller and I know it. So I don’t care if someone saw my twat, I care whether I was convincing…”

And that’s what it boils down to.  I’m not okay.  I wont sleep well tonight, not because I had a fake sex session with a guy who’s ten years younger (which is kind of cool, really) or that my snatch is now on film for posterity, or that my knees are rug burned and my back is sore – I wont sleep well tonight because I’ll be wondering how I could have done a better job.  I’ll be wondering how I can improve so I never walk away from a set feeling like I wasn’t in my character’s skin and thereby I let everyone down.

Thursday is my next scene and I am determined – I will do better.