STRICTLY ON BACKGROUND, PT. 60: "THE CROWDED ROOM"

 I never expected to spend time in the slammer, but that's where I found myself in the summer of 2022. Lucky for me it was for only two days and the place was no longer a functioning prison. 

The Arthur Kill Correctional Facility (what happened to straight-to-the-point names like Alcatraz or Sing-Sing?), in operation on Staten Island from 1976 to 2011, was where I spent those August days working on The Crowded Room, a streaming series on Apple+. 

It wasn't my first time there, having worked on an episode of another Apple+ series, Extrapolations, a year earlier. The difference then was that the scene I worked on then was in a studio built on the grounds by Broadway Stages, which regularly rents out the former prison for other productions. (Don't bother looking for me on Extrapolations; I'm nowhere to be found in the final edit. You'd think sitting behind Judd Hirsch would have given me a leg up.)

This area was roped off from us, as if we were
actually going to use it.

The scenes for The Crowded Room, though, were filmed inside the prison itself, which was standing in for Riker's Island. Have you ever been inside a real, honest-to-Pete prison? Believe me, it's everything you'd expect and less. Less color, less interesting architecture, less privacy... It managed to be even more depressing than when I worked for five days on a production filmed in a former psychiatric hospital somewhere in the wilds of New Jersey in the middle of winter, an experience I'll write about once all the major participants are dead.

Heeerrrre's Johnny's suit!

The Crowded Room took place in the 1970s, meaning I got to wear a typically hideous bell-bottomed suit of the time. The inner tag identified it as part of the long-gone Johnny Carson Collection, giving me the urge to tell allegedly risqué jokes and sneak a cigarette between takes. The role I had been assigned was "parole officer", but it was changed to "lawyer" by the time I arrived in stir. This made absolutely no difference since I was equally unqualified for both professions. 

As with many productions, The Crowded Room was filming under a code name, this one being Ever's Blueberry. Usually, this is to keep away rabid fans of the project -- or, likely in this case, the star, Tom Holland. I didn't share any scenes with him, although I saw him when we were setting up a shot where he was walking into a room to meet his lawyer, played by Amanda Seyfried, whose name I can never remember and whom I continually confuse with Emma Stone. Good thing I'm not running for president, hunh?

On the right, trying to catch up Amanda.

I was in three scenes with Seyfried (using the word "with" advisedly), one of which was cut and the other trimmed. (In the latter, I can be glimpsed only in the reflection of a window. That is, I can glimpse myself.) 

I had better luck in the other scene, when I walked behind her as we were walking outside from building to another. With each take, I was instructed to walk a little faster. By the final take, my arms were swinging like Jack Benny's, which, unfortunately, is often how I walk in real life. 

Keeping my arms down for a change.

Of the half dozen or so scenes I was in, only one other made it to air. I'm one of the many
lawyers visiting our clients, presumably with the bad news that they've lost their appeal and will continue to use the open bathroom and showers. Maybe if they had gone to law school like me, they wouldn't be in the joint. 

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