Spoiled On the Job?

Recently Will Smith got a lot of criticism for his 1,150-square-foot double-decker trailer nicknamed “The Heat.” While filming Men in Black III, Smith was forced to move “The Heat” from a street in New York City’s SoHo shopping district to a private lot. Apparently, the trailer includes a lounge, a movie room with a 100-inch screen, marble floors throughout, offices for his assistants and writing staff, a large bedroom and all-granite bathroom. It measures about 53 feet long, has 22 wheels and weighs in at around 30 tons. He even has a separate trailer for his private gym.

This is not the first time we’ve heard reports about actors being spoiled on the job, with cushy accommodations and excessive on-set demands. However, these kinds of stories can make everyone forget about the everyday actor, who sometimes finds herself in a room/closet that smells like feces.

        Allow me to elaborate. It was my first day of work on a month-long project. I was guided to one of six doors on a trailer, my character’s name marked in sharpie on blue masking tape. With the naive excitement of starting a new project, I hopped up four little iron steps and opened the door to what should have been my little haven during this month-long adventure. I swung open the door to find a room the size of a closet. An educated guess placed it at a luxurious 3 feet by 10 feet in size, most of which was taken up by a worn-down, built-in bench seat. The cozy room/closet included a tiny sink that did not work and an elegant retractable accordion door that separated it from an identically elegant room/closet on the other side. The added bonus was that my room/closet was located directly next to the public restroom, peppering my room/closet with the faint smell of human waste and chemicals.

Generally, when an actor reports to a set, they are either sent to a dressing room or trailer. The kind of accommodations an actor gets is determined ahead of time by contract and is usually dictated by the size of role and the amount of time the actor will be working on the given project.

    The trailer where I was placed is called a honeywagon. Honey-wagons are generally assigned to co-stars or day-players, actors who are on a project for a very short time and essentially just use them as dressing rooms. An actor might also be assigned to what is known as a triple banger, which is one-third of a trailer and usually includes a personal bathroom. Then, there are doubles, full-trailers, and “The Heat.”

My contract dictated a triple-banger. While I contemplated saying something, the crew and production team were scrambling to figure out a game plan for a rainy day of mostly exterior shots. So, instead of making a stink, I settled for the stink in my closet-room, where I sat waiting for five hours.

Again, we are used to hearing about stars and the craziness of what happens within their trailers: the affairs, the drugs, the demands for puppies and long-stem roses. In my reality, an actor’s trailer is where she goes to rest after working in 90-degree heat for 3 hours. It’s also where she would go to run my lines in private, emotionally prepare for the next scene, or have a private phone conversation with a loved one whom she hasn’t seen in weeks. This was not going to be possible in my room/closet with the plastic accordion wall.

The next day, I knew in my gut I had to say something. The production team was techincally in breach of my contract by putting me in this smelly room/closet. However, this put me in a sticky situation. Would I come off as one of those spoiled actresses we are all so used to hearing about? Would this put the production team in a bind to have to find somewhere to put me? Would I then be treated differently and become known as the high-maintenance actress for the whole month? I struggled with this for another few days until I returned to my closet/room one morning to find that the stench from the bathroom next door had increased exponentially. I basically couldn’t breathe.

It was time to talk to my people.

After days of calls, emails, and awkward conversations, I was put in a much larger room. I understand that putting together a production costs money and there are many more elements that ar much more important than my trailer. A part of me felt bad, but no part of me missed the room/closet or the smell of feces. I mean, it’s not so bad, right? I wasn’t asking for “The Heat.”