Integrity vs Hollywood
I was one of the only people to be sacked from Pirates of the Caribbean 5 this time last year.
Would I repeat my ‘unacceptable behaviour’ again? Absolutely!
My crime was the fact that I dared to call-out an assistant director for his abject rudeness. In this instance, his title means very little. He was basically in charge of ‘herding’ extras to and from holding areas. The problem was his. It seemed that he was struggling with being a ‘minion shepherd’ and the only way he could cope with the debilitating feeling was to throw his weight around with the extras. This was his first day on set. We had all been there since February!
When you’ve been working from 3 am through to 6 pm, trussed up like a turkey in a corset, wearing bloody uncomfortable shoes on cobbles ( we all had blisters, bleeding sores etc)all you want to do is get to wardrobe and get it all off!
So, it was June 5th. My birthday as it happened. All day on set with some terrifically wonderful new friends and old ones too. ‘That’s a wrap!’. Time to get all the clobber off.
The run-in with the AD happened in the hair and make-up line which he was in-charge of. When he saw that I had removed my hair pieces and had them in my up-turned bonnet he read me the riot act. Now, a little history. We all knew the hair and make-up staff well and they were always so grateful that some of us with over 100 bobby pins in our wigs and hair pieces, took them out for them. It saved them a lot of time. They wanted to get home too. I politely tried explaining to the ranting AD that we had been doing this since February. That just made matters worse. ‘Are you arguing with me?’ ‘Do you know who I am?’ Quite frankly no, I have no idea who you are.
Cutting a long rant short he told me, in no uncertain terms and publicly in-front of a long line of people, ‘You are nothing special.’ Having taken everything else he had thrown at me this was the straw that broke this camels back. I knew as soon as I opened my mouth I would be for the high-jump but, I will NEVER take that kind of shit from anyone — my self-worth is more important than any Hollywood film or peck-sniff AD.
I very calmly told him, that I was ‘special’ and so was everyone else working as an extra on this film. I told him he had absoltely no right to talk to me or anyone else like we were ‘minions’. He went very red in his thin, long body and ‘warned’ me! I told him to ‘pull your fucking head in and get off your power trip’.
Do I regret standing-up for myself? No. I would have regretted not standing-up for myself and remaining on set for the next 8 days though.
