Ok, ok. I know what you’re all wondering (all 3 of you). How many 5 time Emmy award winners have you worked with before? I know, I get that questions a lot. And the answer is 0. Well, not anymore. 1. The one and only John Larroquette. I don’t think I probably have to explain who he is to any of you, but if so, go check him out on IMDB. I’m fairly certain a few members of our crew were intimidated by having such a big “name” on set with us, but I won’t mention any names. That, and like many, I’ve heard rumors of John being kind of a surly kind of guy, which I want to say just isn’t true. I found John to be a very unassuming, nice and humble guy (he’d have to be to agree to work on a student thesis film for free), and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him and getting to know him a bit. John has a very dry sense of humor, which is great for me, because I’m the exact same way. I thought him to be a very funny guy before hand, and my impression was confirmed in that regard. Regardless of any of that, however, John did a great job as Commander Jenkins. It was the very last role cast, and before we cast it, I was beginning to fear that we weren’t going to get the right person in the role, which turned out to be completely wrong.

We really wanted to get a very recognizable actor in that role, as it’s a really funny cameo and would simply add to the part. We very nearly cast several very famous actors, but in every case, for one reason or another (the most common thing we heard was that they would have done it, except they were in another state or country shooting a film), things just didn’t pan out. I hadn’t even thought of John, mainly because I wasn’t aware of any connection we had to him... but once we got him in there, I can honestly say that I can’t imagine anyone else in that role now (which is high praise considering some of the other high profile actors we were talking to). John was extremely funny, and just really nailed the part, in many cases, adding touches that I never would have even thought of. So, great experience there, and I can’t wait to let you all see that scene.

Couple of other fun things happened on this night. Well, first off, the not so fun. We were outside on a freezing rooftop in the middle of downtown LA. The good part of this is that the view was absolutely spectacular, and looks amazing on film (or the Viper. Whatever.). The bad part is that A) it was freezing and B) We were in LA, which meant circling helicopters every 20 minutes, ruining the sound. Not a huge deal as we still got everything we needed, but it was incredibly annoying to have to sit there and wait for the helicopter to leave (especially when it was just circling).

The cool stuff... my brother, Wes, flew out to play Billy in the movie. For those of you that have known me for a while and have seen all my earliest “films,” you know that Wes was the original leading man in all of my early shorts like “Run Kitty Run,” and “The Ringer”, adding quite a bit of humor to those films. But, once I got to the point of making “real” films, you know, the kind with an actual crew, equipment and actors, I hadn’t had the chance to put Wes in any of my films. So, to have him fly out was pretty cool. I know he was probably nervous, as he’d never acted in a film of this size (read: an actual movie), but he did a great job. He got to work with a prop weapon, act opposite both of the leads, and get hit over the head with a breakaway glass beaker 4 times. Yep, that was pretty fun. And it looked great. Was also another first, as I’d never worked with any sort of breakaway prop (when we were making our movies back in the day, the props didn’t break, but we still hit each other with them). Everyone kept asking Wes if he was ok, not realizing that he’d done far, far worse in my early films. I also think Autumn really enjoyed getting to hit Wes repeatedly. Sure, she acted like she felt bad, but secretly I think she loved it. Although she was probably visualizing the face of the director who was making her stand in freezing weather in a skirt all night.

So, that was cool, and obviously working with John was very cool. Add to that filming Matt Lutz doing a very girly form of ballet at 2 in the morning, and you’ve got yourself a fun night. At this point, we were all pretty tired. Night shoots suck. We were there from 4 to 4 in the morning that night, I believe, and you start to hit the wall after midnight. Gets hard to get performance and keep everyone awake. But Matt did an admirable job of staying awake and dancing on the roof for a few hours. The whole “Cure” scene is going to be really cool... you can check out the song on the Music page if you haven’t heard it yet. But picture Matt dancing a ballet while singing his part of the round and you’ll get an idea of where we’re headed.

We wrapped out at about 4 am and we all went home to get some sleep. The next day was indoors, but we had to schedule it as a night shoot as well, as you legally have to give your crew a 12 hour break between days. And we’d all be exhausted the next day anyway.

NEXT: Adam takes on Godzilla! (or day 8?)