Being a part of this short film was quite an interesting experience. I did not expect to be casted as an extremely masculine male character. However, being that I joined my group a little late, I did not have any control over the role I would take… and so I ended up being casted as Spider, the character no other girl in my group wanted to be.
At first, I was not excited. I knew that my director, Miriam, wanted to draw a beard on me, to make me look as masculine as possible. I even put on makeup before the shoot to try and avoid this. Nevertheless, Miriam and Elizabeth just kept on insisting that I had the beard, so I had to suck it up and allow them to use eyeliner to draw facial hair on my extremely feminine face. Once done, I ran to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror and as soon as I saw my face, I could not help but laugh because of how ridiculous I looked. “Here we go…” I thought to myself as I exited the bathroom and walked into the shooting area to begin acting in this extremely obscure play.
Acting in this film turned out to be more hilarious and fun than I anticipated. Although, I did not want to play as Spider in the beginning, once I started acting in front of the camera, playing this role ended up becoming quite enjoyable to me. It was fun for me to be the comical and vulgar character in this film, and I really liked adding my own sassiness to the role. The most difficult task for me while acting in this film, was being able to spew out the long lines Spider had both precisely and in a fast pace. In the script, Spider often had so much to say, and it was difficult for me to get his lines out all in one take, without making mistakes. In fact, Miriam often had to reshoot me over and over again because of the amount of times I would mess up. However, over time and through practice, I got most of the long lines correct. My favorite moment while shooting this film was when I first entered the shooting area. The reactions Elizabeth, Miriam, and Freda had at the sight of me was hilarious and they really could not take me seriously for the first half-hour. Acting in front of them was really hard at first because it was difficult for them to not laugh at the way I looked. But eventually, they got used to my ways of portraying Spider and then we were able to work through the film diligently and without any distractions.
Overall, being a part of this film was a very fun and interesting experience, and I will always remember it as the one opportunity where I had no choice but to act as a man. Altogether, I think my group and I really pulled the film off, and I’m really happy with the results. I’ll be sure to watch our rendition of “Inhabited” whenever I need a laugh.
