the garrison show

saturday night, i received a phone call. i was told that it was important i come to mt. pleasant (a wonderful neighborhood in NW DC) as soon as i could. i’ve never been concerned with details and i didn’t start then. thirty minutes later, i’m parking and walking up to my friends’ house.

i was met on the porch and led down the street. as we turned the corner, i could see bright lights and more than one crowd gathered a couple blocks down the road. as we got closer, it became evident that we were, in fact, walking towards a movie set. i later found out that state of play has been filming in DC for quite some time.

so we continue walking down the sidewalk and now it’s clear that the crew is set up just across the street. they’ve got the big lights with the generators and a couple cameras and tons of people standing around. behind them, you can see the small group of locals gathered around to watch the goings-on. it’s difficult to determine, though,  at this point where the actual set is. it’s late, the street isn’t brightly lit, and it’s hard to distinguish any actors from the people just standing around.

and then he appears.

long hair, slightly paunch, shorter-than-expected, but less than 4 feet away — russell crowe. our eyes meet, we smile at each other, silently acknowledging our respective superlatives. he’s just standing there, waiting for the next take and our presence (i’m accompanied by two girlfriends) feels vaguely intrusive, but we’re all good-natured about it.

as we pass, i can feel that he really wants to reach out to me, to ask for my advice on whether i think his character feels natural yet, what i think of the script. i give him my best “i’d-love-to-but-i-just-don’t-have-the-time-right-now” look and he nods imperceptibly. i hate to disappoint the man, but we all have our limits and i just refuse to work on a saturday night.

we continued walking and made it out of the set in another block or so. we joined the throng of the average who were content just watching from afar. after coming so close and having such intimate nonverbal communication, peering at the spectacle from across the street just didn’t have the same appeal and we soon moved on to dinner.

if anyone has any questions about russell, i’ll be happy to answer them.