This is a sentence I never thought I’d write: last night, Jim Belushi teased me.
I was at a talkback hosted by several actors in the cast of Born Yesterday—which opens on Sunday at the Cort Theater—and the completely charming, unguarded actor made a crack about my general coloring and appearance. It was awesome. (Currently: filing that away for epic, repeated retellings that will make my grandchildren want to plug their ears.)
ANYWAY! Moving on…
The best part of all this, of course, is that the joke occurred in the middle of an utterly awesome conversation. Mr. Belushi was amazingly candid, genuine, and totally interested in helping us get anything and everything we needed to write. He totally charmed our pants off. And he probably would have talked to us for hours. Which is pretty impressive when you consider that the man probs had lots of awesome things he could have been doing in Manhattan at that very moment. You know, besides spending time with a bunch of writers. Below, some things we learned.
Six Fun Facts from Last Night:
- The actors are, in fact, wearing entirely period undergarments. (Yes. I asked.)
- When in character as Harry Brock, Belushi often pictures himself as either his uncle or his father. The same two men his brother John used for the Cheeseburger Skit on SNL decades ago.
- To preserve her voice—and she’s doing something cool with it on stage—Nina Arianda isn’t speaking much when she’s offstage.
- Patricia Hodges frequently changes the faces she makes in her big scene, and said her choices arise from living in the situation and reacting naturally.
- Belushi has somehow managed to fall in love with the NYC Subway system, which he uses to get to and from work every day, though he has a driver available to him. He’s totally into the process of sorting out the right car to ride in and the perfect door to exit in order to be closest to the best stairway to the street.
- The set gets entrance applause basically every night.
{ 0 comments… add one }