The website hasn’t been too busy because we’ve been busy doing a lot of shit behind the scenes.  Filming is still going on, as is editing, and I’ve been neglecting much of that partly because of an obnoxious personal schedule, and partly because the more chefs we tend to have in the kitchen the more likely the soup is to get sidetracked and talk about sex and drinking.  We actually learned a lot from the mistakes we made in season 1 and have really streamlined and increased overall productivity while making season 2.  But much more on that later.

With the two most highly talked about Oscar nominations belonging to a dead guy and a guy whose career was left for dead, much of my Winners related thoughts have revolved around actors and acting in general.

There tends to be this unspoken consensus among people with no experience working with actors that acting is pretty fucking easy.  It seems that, while no Nicholson, people tend to consider themselves fairly well equipped to jump in front of a camera.  This couldn’t be more wrong.

I have been on camera twice now for Winners, and both times it is striking how awkward it is.  Some might consider that strange for a person whose own girlfriend refers to as selfish, and needing to be the center of attention, but the act of being in front of a camera being asked to repeat the same thing with the same mannerisms and cadence multiple times and to come off natural and to convey a certain level of emotion and comedic timing each and every time immediately separates the amateur from the professional.

We tend to stick pretty close to the actual shooting scripts when we film but every now and then a scene allows for a certain level of improvisation. Most of the time this is because Christiaan just keeps the camera rolling and forces everyone in the scene to keep going, but other times the script might call for a joke which offers the chance for the actors to get creative.  When this happens, seeing it live is truly incredible.

Fernando (the actor who plays Rob), to my knowledge, has never memorized a script.  He must skim it and reduce it down to the essential message then decide on the spot which jokes he wants to do.  No two takes with him are the same yet he manages to still come off natural and funny.  Ironically, Rob’s character has also been the most polarizing.  I’ve heard a lot of people say the character is not realistic, yet I’ve had this actual quote said to me about him:

“Bro, c’mon, wife beater, Yankee hat, talks about fucking guys, bro why you basing characters off of me.”

Most people, however, tend to focus on how real Winners is.  The jokes and the conflicts and the story lines are conversations that they have had or things they’ve been through.  The majority of that stems from the writing, but once again with our actors being relatively close to the ages they portray, it allows them to channel real life experience–as they live it–into how they act.  And the result is tremendous.

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