Yesterday we finished filming the pilot of a new web series “Falling From Grace”.
It all began in February. A friend of mine, who I’d worked with in Dog Sees God before, asked me if I wanted to play a part in a web series he was putting together. HELL YES! In his words, the web series would tell a story of “6 teenagers dealing with traumatic fallout after a party.” He sent me the script and a short description of the character he wanted me portraying. He envisioned Tallulah, (my character), as a “bombshell” who was extremely awkward around guys she was interested in. Hmm, bombshell? Extremely awkward around guys? More like awkward in general! I can certainly do that. Exciting mix 
The first couple months were dedicated to planning. We did a couple of read throughs, discussed the characters, drank coffee and chewed ice. And got a little off subject frequently…All seemed to be going great!
Well, not entirely. You see, the original cast was quite different from the final group of people on the shooting days. We went through a couple of re-casts, and roughly three rotations for a female lead, only because of eternal schedule conflicts. At the last minute, a great friend of mine volunteered to help out with the pilot, and she got the lead! Funny story actually, she knew I was in the web series so when she found out she was casted, she texted me right away and started asking questions. Questions like, who am I playing? Honesty, do you know what character I’m supposed to be? And, I’m serious I don’t know who I’ve been cast as? I guess in the commotion of it all, she somehow had been never given any details Laughing, I told her that she would be playing the title role, and also sent her a copy of my script. Even if our director was a bit too accommodating at first, when the time came to put his foot down and take authority, he lay down a schedule, and we all made time for all days he needed us.
On the final day of shooting, we were filming a house party scene, with everyone in the cast, plus a few extras present. We all live in New York City. So we all are used to tiny apartments. Well, our director’s apartment wasn’t an exception. We all huddled inside and “partied”. There were prop beer bottles everywhere filled with apple juice, and prop “cups of vodka” that were, in fact, water In short, we really did have a good time!
The very last scene was taking place on the steps outside. In the scene, my character had a panic attack and my friend “Ethan” was supposed to help me “calm down”. According to the script, he was supposed to kiss me and I was supposed jolt out of my hyperventilating state. Well, stage kisses aren’t a big deal, and neither was this one, until…. a couple of the extras – who happened to be very close friends of ours – began to rate the kisses on a scale of 1 to 10. It was hard to “act natural” after finding what they were laughing about
But at last, the final scene was finished. The night felt glorious! We all crowded on the sidewalk, our director standing at the top of the steps, screamed “That’s a wrap!”, and we all cheered!
