Baywatch Diary – Day 8

Today was a chaotic day, as everyone worked today (except Angelica Bridges, who is arriving tomorrow), and there were scenes with as many as 13 actors in them. Since we all know and like each other, I have to admit that it was hard to get our attention sometimes as we were too busy chatting between takes! We were shooting the scenes where most of us are arriving in Hawaii, so there was alot of meet and greet. There was a ton of press on the set too, and when we werent shooting, we were doing interviews for various television shows. I spent alot of my free time taking photos. Some were “behind the scenes” for you to see (I think they will be on the website in few weeks, as that is when I will be able to get them to Vietly, our webmaster), but most were of the cast and crew that worked with our sound man Hal, who has cancer. Hal recorded sound on Baywatch for almost ten years, and working with the ocean in the background is no easy task! I had them write signs (” Dear Hal, We miss you!” – that kind of thing) and hold them up while I took each of their pictures. David is having all the cast sign a t- shirt for him and then we will send it to him. We miss Hal – he is an avid surfer and Hawaii is just his style.

I want to tell all of you who are David Hasselhoff fans how wonderful he is to work with. He looks fantastic, and is very healthy. David always has a great attitude, and it is soooo important that the star of the show be upbeat, as when the star is grumpy it really makes a set hard to work on. But David is always positive and kind. He told me I could go in his room whenever he wanted to look at dailies (“dailies” are what you shot the day before). That is so generous and also a testament to how comfortable we all are with each other. I wanted to see dailies to see if my acting was as bad as I felt it was my first day of shooting ( it was), how my makeup looked (good), and if my scar was covered up (yes, but I dont look as great in a bikini as Carmen, Stacey, Pamela, Brande etc etc). I am a big admirer of David’s, and am so happy to be working with him again. I have never had a leading man as lively and positive as he.

I am also glad to be working with Yasmine again. Yasmine married her sweetheart, Paul Cerrito, just 3 weeks ago. They met when she was in rehab last year, and I hope they will have a long and healthy life together. They seem to be starting off beautifully, and they have a sense of humor about their recent past: I was chatting with them a few days ago about how hard a time I am having getting auditions and I said something like “I couldnt get arrested last winter” (which, for those of you who dont have English as your first language, is a phrase we use to mean that no one wanted to i.e. audition me). As soon as I said it I said “oops”, because I realized they both had been arrested last winter, for real. They laughed though, and I was relieved. Yasmine and David are very open about their addictions, and I appreciate that. Honesty is the fastest way to healing.

I was able to spend more time with Pamela, which was super. She is very generous with her time in terms of taking photos with fans. Pamela also looks just terrific, the best I have ever seen her look. Maybe it is because she is happy in her life? I hope so. Pamela and Yasmine stayed late by the pool after shooting and talked “girl talk” (I saw them as I was coming home from a dinner with my manager Daniel and his boyfriend, Chris, who both arrived today).

Stacey, who saw me knitting the first day on the set, asked if I would teach her to knit, so I brought my stuff to the set for her, but we didnt see each other as she and I worked on different units all day, However, I found out that John Allen Nelson is a GREAT knitter (he can make sweaters with all these different patterns, while I can only do the simplest scarves and hats), so we will both teach her tomorrow.

We shot around the pool until the sun has set. Alot of yelling and chaos to try and get all our work in before we lost the light. I think we finished but the last closeup had to be lit, as the sky was dark already. Yikes! That wont match the other actors’ closeups in the scene! Maybe they will process that film differently so it will look the same…

We shot 5 1/2 pages today, and that was with 2 units and 3 cameras. When people ask me if it is hard to learn all my lines, I remind them that in tv and film you shoot between 1 and 8 pages a day (the bigger the budget, the fewer the pages), so it is not like a play where you have to know all your lines at once. It is one day at a time around here.

Tomorrow is more party/group scenes. It will be fun but tiring.