I love this area of Brooklyn -it has an inspiring majesty to it. So after my check-in and wardrobe approval, I walked around and snapped a few photos of the court buildings. There was also a raised bust of Robert F. Kennedy in front of the State Supreme Court building, the internals of which was to double for the New York Times' offices that we would later be populating. I was particularly impressed by the inscription on one of the four sides of RFK's pedestal:
The movie, for which I was cast as a New York Times reporter, was entitled The Normal Heart. It was based on the Larry Kramer play from the 1980's which depicted the difficulties associated with publicizing the AIDS epidemic. Larry himself appeared on the set later in the day. He wore a barrette and a colorful quilt-motif jacket. The director, Ryan Murphy, immediately sat him down by his side.
Larry Kramer
Director Ryan Murphy
As reporters, we were mostly told to either stand around the cubicles and shuffle papers or walk at a hurried pace while Mark Ruffalo and Matt Bomer interact. Mark was friendly and a regular guy -he said "hi" to those near him. His looks reminded me of a young Marlon Brando. There were other big names associated with this production that included Julia Roberts. Unfortunately she was not in this scene. To us extras, it wasn't a difficult set to negotiate but the air kept being inundated by "smoke" from the special effects side of the room. This "smoke" had a certain kind of smell to it that was somewhat affecting us.
Mark Ruffalo
Matt Bomer
Later in the day I was paired up with my friend Joseph, the Russian, whose ongoing funny commentary, albeit in low tones, got the attention of one of the young female PA's. Joseph asked the "special effects guy" what the smoke was made of. He told us that it was one part water and four parts of some type of glycol. I asked if glycol was a form of alcohol. He acknowledged that it was -but that it was safe. We took his word for it as the "smoke machine" was now in full force while the director called "picture's up!". Joseph and I were in direct line of the smoke and started to get silly about it. More comical comments from Joseph, to which I couldn't help but smile and suddenly the young PA was in front of us."You two are talking too much, you'll have to go back to holding..."
Joseph immediately agreed "We would love to go back to holding!"
And away we went as one of the extra women asked us in low tones "What evil sin did you two commit?"
I told her we were "talking... it helped us to survive the effects of the smoke...". She nodded to us with a smirk.
Holding was nice and quiet... and full of oxygen that revived our sensibilities again. Both of us felt a sense of relief from having to continue to breathe in the alcohol-laden "smoke". We whiled away the last hour chatting about movies, chess, philosophy and family. And as the rest of the extras started to return, we were among the first to be checked out. Getting into trouble has its advantages.
The HBO show aired on 5/25/2014....and I managed to be a blur in the NYT scene with Mark's character Ned. I thought they did a terrific job with the historical presentation and education about this worldwide disease. Ned was an inspiration with his fighting spirit and the importance of fighting AIDS needs to be re-emphasized -especially to our future generations.
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