TIME COVERS POT.......and I screw up my first take in Bad Boys II

     .....How I screwed up the first take I was in with Bad Boys 2...Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
    I Called SAG/AFTRA in Miami and asked if anyone was filming...and they said sure...Michael Bay and Will Smith are downtown in Miami doing Bad Boys 2.  They gave me an inside number to call for local casting.
    I went to the office and was immediately hired to be a cop and told to report early the next morning. Next day...
“Don’t talk to the stars” we were being told...don’t make eye contact with them...just pretend they aren’t there”.  Right...Will Smith passes me about ten minutes later and I wink at him and he laughs!  So much for Bay’s rules for extras!
    the first scene is at the police station (an empty floor of the downtown bank building.
    (Plot) Smith and Lawrence are in trouble having just torn up one street and several cars.
    they come up a flight of stairs and are being reamed by the Captain...(guy from the Sopranos).
they pass by me.... I’m at the computer typing and go to the wall with the boss on what they did wrong.
    They called a halt to the scene and had a discussion with the audio guy who had used my desk for his high faulting tape recorder.
    He cam over to me and graciously said “please don’t type...just simulate it.”  I said “sure...sorry.”
    So we start again......no sound from me this time and the audio guy comes and thanks me.
    Then a big problem.  Captain Soprano doesn’t know his lines!  another take and another and Michael Bay is fit to be tied.  He is not a happy man.
    We were still on a break and Martin Laurence is leaning on my desk (but remember I’m not supposed to see him!)
    He’s wearing a football jersey for a great quarterback at Atlanta......and I whispered so...and Martin with a twinkle in his eye says I haven’t seen him is he really that good? 
    “Best new quarterback on pro football!” I answered.  Now we a talking like normal folk.
    “I’m gonna have to check him him out says” Lawrence.
    “He pulls the ball down and runs and nobody can catch him.” I added.
    Martin Lawrence then did a strange thing.  He actually thanked me for chatting with him!  Think about that...it has all kind of implications in the film business.
    However I had broken the cardinal rule for an extra...I talked to the star.
    They didn’t use me again.
    (see earlier write up of sitting a few chairs away from the biggest...hugest...most successful producer in Hollywood, Jerry Bruckheimer...can you say Pirates of the Caribbean...who was all alone reading his morning paper.)
and I was scared to death to even look at him much less try to start a conversation.

(for more...use the little search window and put in Bad Boys II.)

                           ___________________


    Time Magazine looks into “pot”.

for the cover story click below:
 
http://time.com/3858353/the-great-pot-experiment/


stanmajor@aol.com