My Sassy Snub

So on Friday we were invited to visit the film set of My Sassy Girl, (which is also a remake of a Korean film), to interview Elisha Cuthbert and film some behind-the-scenes footage. Peter, (who was on filming duty), and myself arrive a little before 2PM, the publicist meets us, and says that Elisha's already on her way. She lead us into the French Embassy where we have fifteen minutes to set up our equipment before Elisha arrives. A Canadian entertainment show is there as well to interview her, so we hang out with them after we finished setting up our stuff. They're really nice, and the Canadian producer looks strikingly like a young Jodie Foster. Fifteen minutes pass and still no sign of Elisha. Another fifteen minutes pass, and finally the publicist comes in again. As Elisha was on her way to us, she suddenly got called to set and now she's filming a scene. In this scene she gets drenched in the rain, and she won't be able to do the interview until she's dry and made up, which pushes our interview slot up to at least 5PM. Peter and I have to be off set by 4PM, so that's not really an option for us. The unit publicist, (who was really very nice, and none of this is really her fault, she's just the messenger in this situation), encouraged us to go down to the set though to film some footage, and hope that we might be able to grab an interview down there.

So we head down to the set with our Canadian buddies, and start setting up our cameras. They have all these rain machines set up, which are basically these sprinklers set on very very high pipes. They were making some pretty convincing weather. In this scene, Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford run through the rain into a building as the doorman meets them at the entrance with an umbrella. And then they do it again and again and again. After filming for a minute or so, the publicist gets a message from someone higher up. Apparently, we're not supposed to film the actors when they're wet... Is this a vanity issue? Is the rain a crucial plot point that will give everything away? I'm not even totally clear on that, especially since from our vantage point we could really only see the back of the actors. We were welcome to film any crew members we wanted though, and we did grab an interview with the director and Elisha's stand-in... We also got some great footage of the neon tent where Elisha and Jesse hung out between takes. I joked that I could go in the tent to interview them while we just filmed the exterior, but it didn't seem like Elisha's publicist would go for that. To be honest, it will be a bit of struggle to make anything resembling a segment out of this. I think Elisha's publicist is joining the C&Q List of Snubbers, who's other members include Renee Zellweger's publicist and the woman who pulled Woody Allen away from us at the premiere of Melinda and Melinda a few years back.

So the day was pretty much a total bust... but we did meet some nice Canadians and the unit publicist felt so bad that she said she would make it up to us. Maybe next time we can cover a movie shooting somewhere tropical?