Flying With Firefly

Tuesday, November 7, 2006 3:34 AM

Early in 2002 I booked myself to work on the pilot episode of a show called, "Firefly". They specifically wanted people with their own Middle Eastern clothing. I showed up wearing my formal Gypsy outfit and they loved it. I was sent to make-up where a huge Oriental tattoo was applied to my neck. I was then given the biggest rifle Man has had the nerve to manufacture and was told to act as a lovely lady's escort.

We worked all day on the shoot - the scene was an open air marketplace / spaceport - and at the end of the day I went home and forgot about it.

In September of 2002 I was cast in "Pirates of the Caribbean - Curse of the Black Pearl" as one of Jack Sparrow's crew. Between shooting dates for "Pirates" I continued to book myself on other shows. In November or December, I found myself working on "Firefly" once again.

The episode was called, "The Message" but I believe it never aired. This time it was a two-day shoot and it was at the Fox studio. It was a strange atmosphere as everyone knew the show was cancelled but we had to finish the episode. I say strange because some people were somber or tense, but some were still making with the jokes and pranks.

One that stands out was when Morena Baccarin (Inara) gave Nathan Fillion (Mal) an "Aw, we're not gonna work together anymore" hug, she stuck a sign on his back that read, "Kick Me. We're Cancelled!"

The bit where you can see me most clearly is when Jayne is reading the letter from his mother (and wearing his new hat!). I'm the only other person in that scene. I'm in the background, doing some shopping. I'm bald this time, thanks to my working on "Pirates", and this time the tattoo they gave me was a huge tribal one that covered half of my head. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I was just an uncredited extra but I did notice that Joss framed the scene so that Jayne was on one side of the screen and I was on the other to give it a kind of visual balance. At the time I had no idea he was doing that, but when I saw it, I thought it was damned decent of him. It made me feel like I was "more" a part of the show.

In a way, I feel like I'm a part of the Firefly "family" because I was there at the beginning and I was there at the end but I didn't do any of the episodes in between. I mentioned this to Ron Glass (Book) and he was nice enough to say, "Well that's probably why we were cancelled."

COMMENTS: 2

Back to Blog Roll