The Kill Bill Diary by David Carradine

Author:David Carradine
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Wednesday, September 25

Six o’clock call. I managed to get some sleep—not much, though, after watching the last half of The African Queen, much more fun than Al Gore. I’d like to make a movie like that. Well, who wouldn’t? Pretty much the best work of Bogart, Hepburn, and Huston. Stands up to the years like a Botticelli painting or a Greek sculpture. The footage of the Queen shooting the rapids is awesome, especially considering that there weren’t any special effects involved; they just did it.

Today promised to be a good one. We would finish up the scene with Uma, then go on to the sequence inside the chapel, where I would meet the groom.

First we had to do over that ending. Quentin had decided that, since it had proved so difficult to cut out of our intimate moment, he would just let us stay in it, and let it be simply broken finally by the arrival of the groom. Chris, the special effects makeup guy, who was playing the part, looked hilarious in the role. A shiny, obviously rented tux that almost fit his big frame, fake bow tie hanging sideways, big worker’s boots with a lot of dusty mud on them, and, of course his canary yellow hair and a matching four-day growth of canary yellow beard. Chris was nervous as hell, and wanted my help. I told him he’d do fine, though I did try to give him some pointers from my vast experience as a secretly nervous actor myself.

Long before I ever encountered kung fu, I developed my own meditational tricks to put myself at ease. One effective exercise to calm the heart is to unfocus. I would imagine I was having a flying dream and looking down upon the action I was in, an unbiased observer. A more physiological solution for those whose imaginations are not as accessible as mine is remembering to breathe. When you’re tense, you tend to hold your breath. Take a deep one, let it out all the way till you’ve emptied your lungs, and start over. Whatever you do, don’t go over your lines in your head. If you don’t have it down by now, it’s too late.

I had great fun with this scene, having the opportunity to kind of overact as the character of Bill faking it as the “father” of the bride. Sort of a Daddy Warbucks act. When it came time for Chris’ close-up, I told him, “This is the most important moment of your career. If you blow this, you’ll probably never work again. So, whatever you do, don’t get nervous!” It seemed to help. Took the onus off the moment. Humor—great stuff: healing. Meanwhile, at the back of the church, Bo was towering over everybody, doing his thing as the Reverend Harmony, his voice like thunder, as big as his frame. Great. Just simply right on.

Suddenly, I got a great idea, one that had nothing whatsoever to do with the scene. I went over to the prop guys and asked them if they had any lacquer.

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