Perhaps you missed this recent bulletin from “Entertainment Weekly”:
The previously announced, highly anticipated drama from The Weinstein Company about the adventures of Marco Polo has begun production for Netflix.
The show, which will have a 10-episode first season and premiere on Netflix in late 2014, will follow the famed explorer’s journey as it takes him to the center of a brutal war in 13th century China, “a world replete with exotic martial arts, political skullduggery, spectacular battles and sexual intrigue,” according to the press release.
What it didn’t mention, but which was relatively reliably reported by a cast member, is that the production will cost 120 million dollars, the most expensive TV series in the history of Marcos, Polos, and any number of fabulous khans. When you hear somebody say, “After Venice, we’re going to spend five months in Malaysia,” you begin to get an idea of where some of the money is going. Ditto when you hear that the cast and a batch of the crew are staying at a multi-star hotel whose cheapest room is called “Deluxe” and costs $750 per night. Perhaps they were bunking 18 people per room, like sweatshop immigrants.
But I like our no-star hovel. I could get room service there, too, if I really wanted it.
The world to be depicted will also be replete with scenes staged in Venice two weeks ago, which were made even more replete by Lino and me as extras. As was the case two years ago with the still-MIA film “Effie Gray,” we were engaged to row some old boats and give some credible watery backdrop to whatever was happening on center stage, or street or square.
To be an extra essentially means either moving (walking, running, rowing) or standing still. You might be called on to fake conversations or other normal activities (conversations, I mean — I don’t mean faking them is normal) for a few seconds at a time. I wouldn’t call it acting, but the real actors with lines to speak were faking just as much as we were, when you think about it.
Lino got in a few extra days of work before filming began because somebody needed to teach young Marco Polo (played by a certain Lorenzo Richelmy) how to row in the Venetian way. He says Lorenzo was not only a good sport but not a bad beginner. This is high praise, considering that a ferocious bora (northeast wind) was blowing all week. Not the best weather for learning how to do anything except hold onto your hat.
Here’s what’s fun: The costumes make you look like something from the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event that’s been dug up from under a dead tree. Ditto the make-up. And it’s extreme fun to get up at 3:30 AM to be ready for makeup at 5:00. After which you do nothing for hours.
It’s also fun to try to climb around in a big heavy boat, and even row it, when you’re swaddled in three layers of fabric, plus a long piece of cloth on your head which falls everywhere, especially in front of your face, when you’re trying to do real work. I still have green-gray and dark-brown bruises all over my legs from encounters with wood, stone, wickerwork, and other things that got in my way when I had to get from here to there while also fighting with my personal drapery. I felt as if I’d been wrapped in Miss Ellen’s portieres, before they were made into dresses.
It was less dramatic, but also less interesting, to spend an hour or two out of the boat, joining a small group required to walk over a small bridge, then walk back over it, then walk back over it, then walk back over it, then walk back over it….
But I’m happy. At times in my life I’ve been paid very little to work really hard. To be paid (also very little) to do scarcely anything, and even to do nothing, seems like an excellent way to spend some of my time. In my normal life, I don’t get to stand still and do nothing for any reason, and I certainly don’t get paid for it.
So thank you, Marco Polo, Harvey Weinstein, and all the ships at sea. I can’t wait for the next chance to play dress-up and do nothing. At 3:30 AM.