The Newspaper Scene

There’s something fundamentally absurd about stripping down to your underwear on a public street because your shirt has too many clever slogans on it. That’s where the day started—a film crew had taken over our office, and the wardrobe coordinator took one look at what I was wearing and declared it cinematically impossible. She was equal parts unhinged and genuinely charming, and she handed me replacement clothes while I was still standing on the pavement.

The rest of the shoot involved running back and forth across the second floor doing convincingly normal work things—flipping through magazines, staring at screens—which, not coincidentally, is exactly what I do every day anyway, except this time someone was filming it. Part of the afternoon I spent watching YouTube videos with Caroline Beil, who turned out to be good company. At some point the film’s production assistant commandeered my Mac and lost herself entirely in Photo Booth for the better part of an hour. I didn’t mind.

In one of the early scenes, I throw an entire newspaper clean across the room. Completely by accident. It stays in the cut. At least the catering was decent.