Background actor David Hancock portrays an arraignee for “Law and Order.”
I was playing an arraignee for “Law and Order” and they paired me with a young lawyer to sit in the background while the main actors talked to the judge. They told us to ignore the action up there and confer with our lawyers as we waited for our cases to come up. I like to have a scenario in my mind, so while they were setting up the shot, I told Boris that I was accused of bilking dementia patients out of their estates. “Hey, they’re in their beds in diapers, what do they need the money for?” I told him he was a young lawyer who thought I was a scumbag, but hey money is money. And that I probably had bad breath. In the first take, I turned to Boris and whispered “When will our case come up, blah, blah, blah” which he found amusing because he broke into a grin while the camera was rolling. Maybe we weren’t in the camera view because nobody said anything to us. But I told Boris that if he did that again “I will fuck you up.” I keep a little acting journal where I describe that day’s gig and any tips I’ve gleaned. One of my tips is to not let amateurs drag your game down. You occasionally get paired with acting tourists who are kidding around or wisecracking in your ear. I have learned to shut that shit down.
That night I dreamt I was back at The Miami Herald – the most vivid period of my life – and had a cub reporter (Boris) tailing me while I checked out reports that our biggest Miami transplant, Madonna, was dead/doing drugs/filming a blue movie. We interviewed a porn actress who told us scornfully that Madonna was so out of it that she couldn’t perform on the first days of filming. At around midnight (the last moments to get something in the next day’s paper) we were having coffee in a bar. Boris was gung-ho for us to do something. I explained to Boris that we couldn’t build a story around just one interview, especially a porn actress who might have questionable motives for what she was telling us. Someone must have told her reporters were asking about her, because in comes Madonna who says “hey there” to me. She looked fine and I gave Boris a look that said aren’t you glad we didn’t do a flimsy story on her.
