Saturday, February 5, 2011

The most amazing experience ................














































Finally finished the film yesterday and wow what an amazing adventure...I would not have believed anyone 2 months ago telling me I would feature in a movie .....even more surprising is the news that apparently I am a great actress .....as told to me by both the Director Brillante Mendoza (Best Director Cannes 2010) and Isabelle Huppert award winning french actress http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabelle_Huppert . Apparently I did scenes that moved everyone on set including The Director and the very experienced actors - I believe it was all down to the magic of Brilliante. There is no script and you never know whats happening until u shoot. The actors are told to stay in character and then react to the situations you are placed in. There was constant surprises and we seemed to be for ever dodging bullets and explosions. My character had to be scared and emotional ...well that was not hard, believe me as, u never knew when the next squib would explode or you would be dragged off to a new camp in the jungle ....
We saw a tiny tiny section of the film last night at the cast party and it looks amazing - everyone expects it to do well at Cannes this year in May. The film will be very scary I think and definitely x rated - I spent most of the film screaming and being chased through the jungle...but also spent 5 days at sea with my fellow captives. It helped that our abductors were all gorgeous to look at ...as for a long time that's all we could do .
I made a whole new set of wonderful friends . The bond between everyone on set was very very close partially as we had to live together for weeks. At night there was a lot of fun and letting our hair down together, but once back on set we all assumed our roles again .....and our drinking pals from the night before would once again become the hardened terrorists ....
The film itself was french financed and a very big project ....I don't think we are supposed to share too many details or pictures until the film is actually released but in the few photos here, u see Marc and I at the end, after his sad demise via a bullet to the chest ...hence all the blood.
Iam rescued by the solders and fly away at sunset in the helicopter ......theres also a picture of us all eating lunch in the jungle watched by the ever present audience that followed us wherever we went. As many of the cast are very famous here we got used to lots of people screaming at us and signing autographs (people just assumed we were famous hollywoods actors I think :)
I had to work as much as I could whilst filming so a regular sight on set was me at my laptop....I have to thank everyone at work for letting me do this and of course the kids for being so patient and Rishita and Fedra for moving into our house to look after them. They had a ball at weekends when they were brought to the set. The locations for the shoots were so beautiful and Marc and I saw some amazing scenery that we would not have ever visited by ourselves as hidden away in the jungle. One of the most spectacular sights in Subic was 1000s of huge fruit bats ( and I mean huge) flying in the beautiful sunset. When I can I will post more pictures and information
The only shame was that I was made to look so terrible for the movie. Everyday in makeup they would add years to me and cover me in mud, mosquito bites, cuts and brusies .....it didnt help that many of the actresses were so dam good looking, particually the beautiful Mercedes who I was roped to for days.....http://www.facebook.com/mercedes.cabral