| A common goal I hear from students is “to be less nervous.” The obvious irony is that my most widely seen role is as the Nervous Accountant in No Country for Old Men, a role I earned through an anxiety-ridden audition. |  |
I was surprised, however, by my lack of nerves on the day of the shoot. The Coens’ assured craft and easy-going nature trickled down throughout the set. Besides, I was there to do the thing I love to do most in the world, and on this day I would get to do it with some outstanding playmates. As I sat next to Stephen Root in the makeup trailer and watched Javier Bardem’s disheveled hair being brushed into Chigurh’s distinctive mop, I could only think, “Man, this is going to be fun.”
The first shot was mildly complicated: Javier enters and, as he raises his shotgun, Stephen scrambles for a gun in his desk drawer, but he’s too late and BLAM! He’s blown back by the force of the shot. I rise out of my chair as Javier crosses to look at Stephen as he dies. It’s shot with a camera on a dolly on a tight stage set, so we do a few rehearsals to make sure it all works. Stephen is careful in planning his fall when he gets shot; you can tell he’s looking forward to it.
When we’re ready to shoot, someone offers me earplugs. “No, thanks, I’ll be okay.” “Um, no you won’t. That silencer? Is just a prop. Put these in.”
Now I’m bracing for a loud bang and psyched to starting filming, so my pulse is starting to climb. Stephen and I have been joking that maybe I’m in his office because he is about to fire me, making his murder a sort of good news, bad news situation for me. Trying to rid my body of its tense anticipation, I lean into that dumb joke as we mumble some silly lines while they call “roll sound, roll camera, . . . action!”
Javier enters. I know the blast is coming. Stephen looks panicked and scrambles for the gun. Oh, man, I know it’s coming! Stephen stands, preparing to throw himself backward at the blast. Here it comes! Javier fires and . . . click.
The gun doesn’t fire. “Cut!” Someone comes in to check the gun, suss out the problem. Okay, he’s fixed it. “Back to one!”
And again I try in vain to be calm, try not to predict the blast, as Javier enters, Stephen scrambles, the gun is raised, Stephen prepares for the blast, Javier fires and . . . click.
Cut! Props guy has a look. Not sure what happened there, but it’s fixed now. We should be good. Okay, back to one.
Javier enters, Stephen scrambles, shotgun’s raised, and . . . click.
And the room deflates once more. Settling back into his chair, Stephen says, “It’s like he’s killing me a little bit each time.”
They switch out the gun. Or they take it away and fix it. Something is being done. We wait, chat a bit, take it easy.
Once we’re ready to go again, the tension is long gone from my body; I’m just having fun hanging out on this set. “Action!” Bad guy enters, other guy scrambles, gun goes up and . . . BLAM!
Holy. God. Is it loud. It is so, so loud. And so, so close.
My stomach falls to the floor while every nerve in my body catches fire. My heart jumps into my throat as my fight or flight instinct loudly chants “Flight! Flight! Flight! Flight!”.
I somehow manage to simply stand up cautiously as Javier crosses the room, and “Cut!”. The scene is done. We take a break so they can clear the dolly and I can regain control of my bodily functions.
It’s fun. Hanging out by craft services, trying not to snack too much, hearing Stephen’s stories about doing regional theater pretty much everywhere in the U.S. By the time we’re called back to set, I’ve almost forgotten the panicked mess I was at the end of the last take.
But that’s where the next shot picks up. So I’m faced with the unusual dilemma of needing to make myself a lot more nervous.
Luckily, my physical theater training has given me some body awareness so I don’t need goofy actor tricks like affective memory. Though if I did need to call on a memory, I might’ve used that time when a guy shot a gun right next to my head.
I tighten and speed up my breath, I tense my shoulder muscles, and I play. Working with Javier Bardem is just as great as you think it would be. His back is to me for half the scene, and when he turns to face me, I can feel his stare push me in the chest. “Are you going to shoot me?” feels genuinely like the only reasonable thing to say. “That depends. Do you see me?”
What the hell does that mean? I’ve read the script thousands of times and prepared for this six line scene for three months, but when he asks it, I’m truly baffled. But wait - I get it. There’s only one possible answer: “No.”
That last line was cut from the final film, an edit so smart that I can’t resent any lost screen time. But on the day, I told him no, over and over again, and he always made me feel the weight of my answer.
Typically, that “no” was followed by, “Cut!” and resetting for a new take. But on one take, Ethan let it roll.
“Do you see me?”
(pause)
“No.”
(pause. He raises his eyebrows, smirks, and stares into my soul)
“Do you see me?”
(pause. Okay, now I’m nervous. “No” had to be the correct answer, right? I almost say “Yes?”, but instead I raise my voice in a kind of confused whine and . . . )
“No!”
And cut. Ethan cracks up. We start to reset. Javier smiles and wraps his arm around me, all lovely and European.
Our “improv” was just repeating the two lines we had just said, but it thrills me like a carnival ride. I’ve spent many hundreds of hours on stage and many thousands in rehearsals, and that simple “no” instantly ranks in top moments as an actor.
When the film comes out, I see they’ve named my character “Nervous Accountant,” but that hardly seems fair. If you had heard that gun, if you had seen Chigurh’s eyes, you would know there is a better description: “Accountant Who Responds in a Perfectly Reasonable Fashion, Considering the Circumstances.”
These stories do have a point, I promise. All acting technique is really just reverse engineering the moments where great things come to you naturally, and in part three, I’ll explore what this audition and shoot taught me about nerves, and how to make them your friend.
When we’re ready to shoot, someone offers me earplugs. “No, thanks, I’ll be okay.” “Um, no you won’t. That silencer? Is just a prop. Put these in.”
Now I’m bracing for a loud bang and psyched to starting filming, so my pulse is starting to climb. Stephen and I have been joking that maybe I’m in his office because he is about to fire me, making his murder a sort of good news, bad news situation for me. Trying to rid my body of its tense anticipation, I lean into that dumb joke as we mumble some silly lines while they call “roll sound, roll camera, . . . action!”
Javier enters. I know the blast is coming. Stephen looks panicked and scrambles for the gun. Oh, man, I know it’s coming! Stephen stands, preparing to throw himself backward at the blast. Here it comes! Javier fires and . . . click.
The gun doesn’t fire. “Cut!” Someone comes in to check the gun, suss out the problem. Okay, he’s fixed it. “Back to one!”
And again I try in vain to be calm, try not to predict the blast, as Javier enters, Stephen scrambles, the gun is raised, Stephen prepares for the blast, Javier fires and . . . click.
Cut! Props guy has a look. Not sure what happened there, but it’s fixed now. We should be good. Okay, back to one.
Javier enters, Stephen scrambles, shotgun’s raised, and . . . click.
And the room deflates once more. Settling back into his chair, Stephen says, “It’s like he’s killing me a little bit each time.”
They switch out the gun. Or they take it away and fix it. Something is being done. We wait, chat a bit, take it easy.
Once we’re ready to go again, the tension is long gone from my body; I’m just having fun hanging out on this set. “Action!” Bad guy enters, other guy scrambles, gun goes up and . . . BLAM!
Holy. God. Is it loud. It is so, so loud. And so, so close.
My stomach falls to the floor while every nerve in my body catches fire. My heart jumps into my throat as my fight or flight instinct loudly chants “Flight! Flight! Flight! Flight!”.
I somehow manage to simply stand up cautiously as Javier crosses the room, and “Cut!”. The scene is done. We take a break so they can clear the dolly and I can regain control of my bodily functions.
It’s fun. Hanging out by craft services, trying not to snack too much, hearing Stephen’s stories about doing regional theater pretty much everywhere in the U.S. By the time we’re called back to set, I’ve almost forgotten the panicked mess I was at the end of the last take.
But that’s where the next shot picks up. So I’m faced with the unusual dilemma of needing to make myself a lot more nervous.
Luckily, my physical theater training has given me some body awareness so I don’t need goofy actor tricks like affective memory. Though if I did need to call on a memory, I might’ve used that time when a guy shot a gun right next to my head.
I tighten and speed up my breath, I tense my shoulder muscles, and I play. Working with Javier Bardem is just as great as you think it would be. His back is to me for half the scene, and when he turns to face me, I can feel his stare push me in the chest. “Are you going to shoot me?” feels genuinely like the only reasonable thing to say. “That depends. Do you see me?”
What the hell does that mean? I’ve read the script thousands of times and prepared for this six line scene for three months, but when he asks it, I’m truly baffled. But wait - I get it. There’s only one possible answer: “No.”
That last line was cut from the final film, an edit so smart that I can’t resent any lost screen time. But on the day, I told him no, over and over again, and he always made me feel the weight of my answer.
Typically, that “no” was followed by, “Cut!” and resetting for a new take. But on one take, Ethan let it roll.
“Do you see me?”
(pause)
“No.”
(pause. He raises his eyebrows, smirks, and stares into my soul)
“Do you see me?”
(pause. Okay, now I’m nervous. “No” had to be the correct answer, right? I almost say “Yes?”, but instead I raise my voice in a kind of confused whine and . . . )
“No!”
And cut. Ethan cracks up. We start to reset. Javier smiles and wraps his arm around me, all lovely and European.
Our “improv” was just repeating the two lines we had just said, but it thrills me like a carnival ride. I’ve spent many hundreds of hours on stage and many thousands in rehearsals, and that simple “no” instantly ranks in top moments as an actor.
When the film comes out, I see they’ve named my character “Nervous Accountant,” but that hardly seems fair. If you had heard that gun, if you had seen Chigurh’s eyes, you would know there is a better description: “Accountant Who Responds in a Perfectly Reasonable Fashion, Considering the Circumstances.”
These stories do have a point, I promise. All acting technique is really just reverse engineering the moments where great things come to you naturally, and in part three, I’ll explore what this audition and shoot taught me about nerves, and how to make them your friend.