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Photo: Sony Pictures/Everett Collection.
Photo: Sony Pictures/Everett Collection. Colorization by Gluekit.
I lay down in the backseat and pulled my knees to my chest, telling everyone my back hurt.
Thats from holding in laughter, Eugene Levy said, sounding old hat, like a vaudevillian actor.
I took a bath that night and cried from the shock of the day.
Most films have a script, with the characters dialogue written for them.
Actors learn the lines and figure out the subtext, whats under the line.
Chris says, when directing, Dont feel like you have to say anything.
And, you’ve got the option to take your time and have space between your thoughts.
He exudes this in real life, too.
I mean, Jesus, hes a lord.
His full name, to be properly Anglo-Saxon about it, is Lord Christopher Haden-Guest.
The auditions were held in the high school.
Bob Balaban had just arrived to play the musical director, as well as one of the judges.
Id never met him.
I knew him fromClose Encounters of the Third Kind,and he seemed very serious and intimidating.
Catherine told me she was actually nervous, and I said, Yeah, me too!
It was their idea to sing Midnight at the Oasis and incorporate the coffee commercial into the song.
Chriss friend David Nichtern had written the song, so getting the rights was easy.
It was Lewis Arquettes choice to wear jazz shoes with his overalls.
Where and how would this man, who worked as a taxidermist, dig up jazz shoes?
That was the best.
Bob babysat the Arquette kids in Chicago, so they went way back.
I think that the Arquettes had vaudeville genes and the Balabans ran theaters in Chicago.
Bobs character was a beekeeper, and he had researched and prepared all this stuff.
I seem to recall his entering rehearsals wearing a beekeepers suit.
Its absurd that none of this stuff was striking us as funny while we were rehearsing it.
It was more like realizing that people are really interesting and more odd than we think.
Catherine and I were crying, holding each other and the gifts and flowers wed brought.
This sort of understated subtlety runs throughout the movie.
What person would park their wheelchair in a handicapped parking spot and be able to leave it?
I didnt notice it, either, and I was there when we shot it.
TheGuffmancast really felt like a family, a good comfortable family.
I was very sad the last day of the shoot, because Id never see Corky again.
I cried in the van and Chris held my hand.
I remember seeing my first gray hairs on that film.
I was so happy to see Corky that I called Chris to tell him.
Id call down to passersby that I was running for mayor and then hide to watch them look around.
Best in Showis a movie everyone loves.
Im always shocked when I hear, The person you played is my sister!
or Shes just like my wife!
I mean, thats nuts!
I guess we all get to that point sometimes, though?
I have, obviously.
Probably the best compliment I ever received was in the parking lot of a Lowes in upstate New York.
I mean, done.
Nothing makes me happier than a 5-year-old boy laughing at a grown woman acting like a 5-year-old.
Michael Hitchcock played my husband, Hamilton, inBest in Show.I played Meg Swan.
The script outline described them as a catalogue couple with nothing in their homes that was personal to them.
They fell in love at Starbucks.
Theyre very nervous because they very much want Beatrice to win Best in Show.
When it comes time to shoot, the characters fill in the blanks with the history and details.
So much is cut, like a scene in which Beatrice had pooped in Hams slipper to punish us.
I held the slipper and showed it to my maid.
Do you see this?
Why did she do this?
Why arent you answering me?
Were you here when it happened?
What happened tell me!
Dont I pay you?
Why arent you speaking?
Hitchcock and I were like, Mmmhmmm,yeah, okay.
I caught myself being in character.
People are so funny when they dont know what theyre saying.
People are really like this.
Chris doesnt do the awards circuits, so great performances worthy of them are left to legacy.
Im thinking of Catherine inFor Your Consideration she was so funny and painful, just genius.
I have four of those medals and a few Oscars of my own.
Theyre the souvenir-size ones from LAX, but still, its something.
Copyright (c) 2018 by Parker Posey.
