“Yes, sir, Kurt.”
“I heard your spiel earlier—when you were loading the tourists onto the tram.”
“Oh, I hope I wasn’t making too much noise.”
“Not at all. It was hysterical. You’re hysterical. How’d you like to be in my movie?”
“Really? Which movie are we talking about?”
He laughed. “See? You crack me up. We need a bunch of kids your age to fill out the background. You’d be in all the crowd scenes, so you’d have to miss a couple weeks of school. But don’t worry. We’ll have on-set tutors to make sure you keep up with your studies.”
Missing school while being in a movie?
Hello?
Twist my arm.
“I’d love to do it,” I said.
And then I took a gamble.
“And so would my two friends Gloria and Pinky.”
“Is Pinky the guy on guitar?” Kurt asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Amazing Irish tenor voice. We’ll put him in the chorus. What about Gloria?”
“She’s extremely savvy when it comes to business.”
“Tell you what—Gloria can be an extra with you. Or if she’s interested, we’ll make her a production intern, have her work with Dawn Foxworth’s folks in the business office.”
“I’m sure she’d love that, sir…I mean, Kurt!”
And that’s why the first day of the Wonderland Studio Tours was also the last.
The three of us were changing careers.
We were all going into the movie business!
On Monday morning, I was in the “holding” area with a bunch of other “background” actors.
“They used to call us extras,” explained one of the older kids. “But that made us sound so super-fluous, you know what I mean?”
I nodded, even though I didn’t.
I went over to what movie people call the craft services table.
I was expecting to find felt, scissors, and maybe some yarn. You know—crafts. Instead, I found all sorts of free snacks and drinks. Turns out if you’re one of the “crafts” working on a movie, they have to feed you all day long. In the morning, the table was loaded down with bagels, doughnuts, breakfast burritos, cereal, cinnamon buns, oatmeal, sliced salmon, papaya. You name it. If it’s ever been a breakfast food anywhere in the world, it was there under that tent.
Cassie came over to pour a cup of hot tea.
“This is fantastic,” I said with my mouth full of food. “I mean, for me and my friends. I guess you must be used to it.”
“No,” she said with a smile. “It’s still pretty fantastic.”
“Miss McGinty?” said Gloria, coming over with a clipboard and looking extremely official with a walkie-talkie clipped to the belt of her cargo shorts. She’d opted for the production intern post. “They need you in makeup.”
“Then I’d better go. Catch you guys later.”
Cassie hurried off to one of the first-floor production rooms.
“You too, P.T.,” said Gloria.
“Huh?” My mouth was still full of food. She caught me in mid-jelly-doughnut chomp.
“You need to go to makeup.”
“Nah. In case you’ve never noticed, I don’t wear makeup.”
“P.T.? This is a movie. Everybody wears makeup. Otherwise, the lights will make you look all pale and pasty.”
“Oh. Okay. Where do I go?”
Gloria checked her clipboard. “Stars are doing makeup and hair in rooms 111 and 112. Extras—”
“You mean background actors.”
“Right. You should report to the tent they set up over by the Muffler Man.”
“Great.”
“Catch you later. I need to check in with Aidan Tyler. Dawn wants me to ‘shadow’ him today.”
She took off.
I headed to the makeup tent, where Pinky was hanging out with a bunch of the other singers in the chorus. All of a sudden, he snapped his fingers, and they launched into an amazing four-part-harmony a cappella pop song from that movie Pitch Perfect.
After the group hit (and held for, like, forever) their last high note, everybody sat down so the makeup people could smear our faces with something they called pancake.
When a wet spongeful of it hit my face, I understood why. It felt like the cold glop you get when you mix Bisquick with tap water.
After I was all made up and in my costume (Hawaiian shirt, baggy swimsuit, flip-flops), Mom and Mr. Ortega came over, excited about the first day of shooting.
“This is amazing, P.T.!” said Mom. “I never knew it took so many people to make a movie.”
“Well,” said Mr. Ortega, “in the words of the immortal Yogi Berra, ‘you can observe a lot by just watching.’ ”
We all laughed.
Until we heard Aidan Tyler screaming.
At Gloria!
“I told you, girl—don’t let those nasty blue M&M’s melt all over the green ones!”
Aidan threw a fistful of candy to the ground near the ice machine. He was surrounded by his entourage—a group of flunkies who did stuff for him. One was in charge of his hair, another his face, a third his costume. The other six hangers-on just seemed to be there in case he needed anything else. All of them were scowling at Gloria.
She just stood there. Scowling back. Hard.
“You called me out of my trailer too soon, fool. That’s why my M&M’s are making a chocolaty mess and disrespecting me. That cuts deep, man.”
“I called you when the director told me to call you,” said Gloria, not backing down an inch.
“We should go over there,” I said to Mom and Mr. Ortega. “Protect her.”
Mr. Ortega held up his hand to stop me. “We’ll blow the whistle and toss a penalty flag if we need to. But, P.T.? Gloria knows how to handle herself. Just watch.”
“What’s your problem, anyway?” Gloria snapped at Aidan. “Every single M&M tastes exactly the same, no matter what color!”
“Who do you think you’re hating on, girl? I’m Aidan Tyler. The Tyes. You’re just my gofer. When I want something, you go fer it.”
“Actually,” said Gloria, “my official title is production intern and—”
“Hey, Aidan,” said Cassie, strolling over.
I could tell the Tyes just realized an Academy Award–winning actress had witnessed his entire M&M’s meltdown.
“Oh, hey, Cee McG.”
“Problem?”
“For real. This girl. She’s, like, messing with my head space.”
“Gloria?” said Cassie. “No way. She’s the best production intern I’ve ever worked with. And I’ve worked on, oh, two dozen movies. This is what? Your first?”
“Yeah,” mumbled Aidan.
I saw some of the crew members grin. Apparently, they were all familiar with our male star’s temper tantrums. Two lighting guys working near me started swapping stories:
“I hear he locked his producer inside the men’s room of a recording studio once,” whispered one. “For three days.”
“I hear he punched his fist straight through a birthday cake,” whispered the other. “At Chuck E. Cheese’s. And it wasn’t his cake or his birthday.”
“You want me to grab you some fresh M&M’s?” Cassie asked Aidan. “I have some in my trailer.”
“Nah,” said Aidan. “I appreciate you, Cee McG, but no worries. I’m good.”
“You guys ready to shoot this first scene or what?” asked Gloria.
“Yeah,” said Aidan. “I guess.”
“Cool,” said Cassie. “Let’s go.”
Gloria led the two stars toward the swimming pool.
“See?” said Mr. Ortega. “Poor boy never had a chance.”
Okay—here’s a quick synopsis of the script for Beach Party Surf Monkey.
It’s a funny story about the most famous monkey in the surfing world helping his friend Polly Pureheart (played by Cassie McGinty) find true love.
While hanging out on St. Pete Beach duri
ng Spring Break 1966, Polly, who’s a hippie, and all her hippie friends meet Eric Von Wipple (Aidan Tyler), who’s a snooty preppy (he wears a blazer and bow tie with his lime-green shorts) from some rich-kid boarding school up north.
Preppies and hippies are like coconut oil suntan lotion and water. They don’t mix well together.
Pinky and I are playing some of the kids hanging out at the Wonderland Motel when Polly, Surf Monkey, and their hippie friends meet Eric Von Wipple and his prepster pals for the first time.
Pinky is singing with the hippie choir. I stand in the background, taking up space.
One other thing: when they make a movie, they don’t shoot the story in order, so it’s kind of random and confusing.
We were going to start with a big scene in which Aidan’s preppy meets Cassie’s hippie for the first time while everybody else sings and dances and Kevin the Monkey rides a Jet Ski around the swimming pool.
J.J., from the primate sanctuary, walked Kevin (who was wearing board shorts) to the pool and helped him onto his tiny Jet Ski, which looked sort of like a floating bumper car with handlebars.
One thing I learned before the first take?
When you’re an actor in a movie, it’s different from when you’re in a home video.
You’re never supposed to wave at the camera.
“Quiet on the set!” shouted the assistant director, a big, burly bear of a guy named Steve, who everybody called Dawg.
“Scene 701,” said a lady holding a clapper board in front of the camera lens. “Take one.”
“No waving, people!” Dawg hollered, and, yes, he was looking straight at me.
Kurt, the director, pointed at Aidan Tyler.
“Aaaaaand…action!”
Aidan and his group of preppies strutted up to the pool.
“Like, pardon me, man,” mumbled Aidan.
“Cut!” cried Kurt. “Aidan? You can’t mumble your lines. And there’s no ‘like’ in the script.”
“Sorry, man.”
“No ‘man,’ either.”
“For reals?”
“Yeah.”
“Awesome. Let’s try that again.”
We did. Eleven more times.
Finally, forty minutes later, on take twelve, Aidan was able to say his whole first line.
He sounded stiff, the way I had in my third-grade Healthy Vegetables pageant, when I played the pumpkin.
Then he gestured at Kevin.
With an arm jab.
After he finished talking.
Behind the camera, the director was tugging at the hair on both sides of his head.
Fortunately, it was Cassie’s turn to talk.
“That’s no motor scooter,” she said. “It’s a boogie bike! And that’s no gorilla. That’s Surf Monkey!”
I was in the background, ten feet behind Cassie, but I could tell, by checking the angle of the camera lens, that I might be in the shot. Sort of. It was possible that people all over the world would see my elbow. It wasn’t much, but it was my first step on the road to worldwide fame!
“Hey, dudes, surf’s up!” cried Pinky, because, yes, they had actually given him a real line.
“Far out, man!” shouted all the hippies.
Humongous speakers blasted the playback of a rocking Surf Monkey song while everybody launched into a big dance number.
Aidan Tyler? He just sort of stood there, bobbing his head from side to side.
The special effects team sent Kevin the Monkey flying around our swimming pool on his miniature Jet Ski. He rode it up a ramp and shot over our frog slide! It was awesome.
What made it even cooler?
When they played back the first take on a big video monitor, I could totally see my elbow!
I was in the movie!
After take twelve, Cassie, Kurt, Aidan, and Dawg huddled around the playback monitor.
“We got that, bro!” said Aidan. He raised his right palm to slap somebody a high five.
Kurt and Cassie left him hanging. Dawg, too.
“It’s missing something,” I heard Kurt mutter. “We can cut around Aidan, smooth out his line reading in post. But…”
“But what?” snapped Aidan.
“It needs another bit of business,” said Cassie. “A kicker. A final punch.”
“How about I wink at the camera?” suggested Aidan. “Chicks dig it when I wink at ’em.”
Aidan winked.
Everybody behind the camera just stared at him.
Finally, Cassie said, “It needs a button. One final joke. Something silly…”
Aidan raised both hands and backed up a step. “Aiyyo. My manager specifically said he didn’t want me doin’ nothing silly. Nobody wants to buy love songs from a clown, man.”
Kurt leaned back in his director’s chair.
I thought he was looking at me.
All of a sudden, Cassie started looking where Kurt was looking.
“P.T. would be perfect!” said Cassie.
Then she leaned in and whispered something in Kurt’s ear.
“Love it! J.J.?” he called to the animal trainer, who joined the video monitor cluster with Kevin the Monkey riding on her shoulder. “Can Kevin do that jump over anything?”
“Sure. We just need to move the underwater ramp.”
“Excellent,” said Kurt. “Move it to the far end of the pool near the diving board. Dawg?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“We’re going to upgrade a background player. The kid in the funny-looking swim trunks over there.”
Hey, I might’ve been wearing my loudest bathing suit, but that doesn’t mean it was funny-looking. It just had swirling purple paisleys that made me look like I had bruised amoebas swimming up my legs. It was the same suit I’d worn when I won that cannonball contest.
Which is what they wanted me to do now—because Cassie McGinty remembered the story we’d told her over lunch. Fact: sometimes all you need is a good story to take you from an elbow in the background to a featured actor in the scene.
The A.D., Dawg, came over, took me by my famous elbow, and guided me toward the diving board end of the pool.
“Think you can re-create your famous championship cannonball dive for us?” he asked.
“Sure. I guess.”
“Great. We need you to do it right before Kevin the Monkey circles the pool and hits his jump ramp. You hop into the pool…”
“And he flies through my humongous splash?”
“Exactly. Everybody thinks it’ll be funnier than the jump over the frog slide. It’s stunt work. And you’ll get wet. So you’ll get paid extra. Do you have an agent?”
“Yes,” said Gloria, stepping forward. “But I won’t charge you the standard ten percent commission, P.T.”
“Thanks.”
“We’ll work out the details after we wrap,” said Dawg. “If that’s okay with your agent.”
“In this instance, yes,” said Gloria.
“Cool. You ready to do this thing, P.T.?”
“Yeah!”
“Shout ‘cowabunga’ when you dive in,” cried the director.
Wow. I had a scene and a line.
Well, a word, anyway.
This was definitely my big break! I was on my way to movie stardom.
“And cut!” shouted the A.D. when they were finished shooting the scene.
I climbed out of the pool and everybody applauded!
(Well, everybody except Aidan Tyler. He was busy checking texts and tweets on his phone.)
“Way to go, P.T.,” said Cassie.
“Hysterical, man,” added Pinky.
“Let’s reset!” cried the A.D. “Wardrobe? Dry P.T. down so he can go again!”
About six people attacked me with towels and whirring hair dryers.
“Um, are we going to do that whole thing again?” I asked.
The wardrobe gang laughed.
“Yes,” said one of the guys blasting me with a hot-air gun. “About eight hundred times.”
> “Welcome to show biz, kid!” said a lady with a towel.
“Let’s get him a fresh set of clothes,” said Kurt through his bullhorn. “And, P.T.?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Do it exactly the same—only, this time, make it even funnier.”
“Yes, sir!”
I hurried to one of the wardrobe RVs so I could change into a dry swimsuit and a fresh Hawaiian shirt. Gloria met me there. She was holding a stack of brightly colored swim trunks.
“I ran down the block to the Surf Shack,” she told me. “If one of their swimsuits ends up in the movie, both of us get free sunblock for a year.”
“Huh?”
“It’s called product placement, P.T. Hurry up. They’re waiting for you on set.”
I changed clothes in the RV.
When I came out in my new costume, Mr. Conch and a guy in a yellow construction helmet who looked like Bob the Builder’s ugly brother were in the parking lot, gesturing at our spaceship.
“That hunk of junk’s definitely gotta go,” said Mr. Conch. “Get it outta here!”
“No problem, chief,” said the construction guy.
“Oh, hi, Petey,” said Mr. Conch, crinkling his nose at me. “Nice outfit. Those your swim trunks?”
“It’s for the movie. What are you guys doing here?”
“Thinking. Planning. Brainstorming quality hospitality improvements. It’s what I always do, kid. Twenty-four-seven.”
“But we’re not selling our property to you.”
Mr. Conch laughed. “You hear that, Darryl? They’re not selling.”
The construction guy laughed.
“Kids,” said Mr. Conch. “Am I right?”
“Fuhgeddaboudit,” said Darryl.
“Seriously, sir,” I said. “This movie will make the Wonderland so famous—”
“P.T.?” a voice boomed through a megaphone. It was Dawg, the A.D. “We needed you on set five minutes ago!”
“Have fun, Petey,” said Mr. Conch as he and the construction guy ambled over to talk about burying the garden patch where Mom grows rosebushes.
“P.T.?” Dawg’s voice boomed again.
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