Frankly, the most fun I had was lunch. Ok, that’s not exactly right, but, see, the way they do it over there, across the pond, they have the catering truck for lunch, just like we do, where you put your food on a plate, but instead of eating in a tent or some adjoining room, you eat in a converted double-decker bus. I know. Weird. And very cute. Isn’t it? Ye Olde Double-deckere Busse. But that’s just how they do it. Always have. And you know how they are about tradition. They redo the interiour (UK spelling) of the bus with little tables, and then you stoop your way to an available seat, and you eat on the up and the down levels of a double-decker bus. Oh, those English. Oops, they don’t like that. Oh, those British. Oh dear, maybe they don’t like that either. Oh, those UKish.

The experience of doing this film was Terrifying. First of all we get a 200 page script, start with that. And since the British roles in the script were of government positions we don’t have, you know, like the Common Minister to the Exchequer of something….I don’t know. Anyway the titles were titles of governmental positions we don’t have, and I had never heard of,so I didn’t really understand any of the Brit’s jobs in the script, nor their relation to each other. I was so confused, that the night before I flew to Londoun (UK spelling) I called Anna Chlumsky in a panic, asking “Who is Toby again? What does he do?’ omygod.

Ok, so we get a 200 page script ( a normal one is 123 pages ). It is huge. Takes three days to read. Can’t get it. I am not really sure who anybody is in the script, but we were told the Brits were coming and we were to report for rehearsal. Ok. Go there, hotel conference room, and there is Gandolfini and, of course, everyone is pooping in their pants because we are all sitting there with Tony Soprano and we know we could get iced at any moment. So we read a scene, and then Armando — wait, I have to explain.

See the British (UKish) give no quarter when it comes to anglicizing a name, so instead of giving the slightest nod to Italy and pronounce his name Armando, the second “a” sounding like the “o” in bond, like we do, and really as one should, oh no, they couldn’t do that, so his name is pronounced Armando, with the second “a” sounding like the ‘a’ in the word ‘can.’ It’s the same thing Churchill did in WWII with Nays-eye in stead of Nazi, remember? They just will not budge.

Anyway, so we read the scene and then the director, Armando (rimes with commando), says, let’s improvise. Ok, I don’t know what is going on in the scene because I know nothing about UK government positions, but ok, we’ll improvise. I stand with the group. Ok.

Well, not only had the Brits been rehearsing for weeks, not only had they known each other for weeks if not years, not only were they countrymen, but some of them were on the TV show on which the movie was based, so they had been doing their characters for literally years. They then launched into a brilliant improvisation, based on the text, and my contribution was to stand with confidence. I find that in a really tight circumstance, that will fool them. Just stand with confidence. It seemed to have worked. I may have mumbled some inanity, but I was dying inside. Good, good, they said. The writers who were there were madly scribbling. Good good.

I went home, immediately called my manager, and told him I was certain they were going to fire me.

Well, turns out that every single American actor, that night, went home and called his or her manager and told them they also expected to be fired. Add to that (so I hear) that the Brits got together that same night and were so amazed by the skill of the American actors, that the were afraid they would be eclipsed in the final edit and could neve keep up. So everyone thought everyone else was better than they were, and/or were afraid of getting fired. An auspicious beginning.

That all changed when we got to the set. By then we had all discovered that we had, in fact, not been fired (those who actually had been fired had discovered that they had actually been fired, but there weren’t any of those) and we had had time to think and dream and prepare, so by the time we got to the set, everyone was ready. Really ready.

The fur flew. We laughed, we thought, we rehearsed, tried it this way, that way. We worked very long days, but who cared. We had a ball, finding the scenes, finding new things in the scenes. The schedule was very heavy—many scenes were shot in a day, but I think we all agree it was arguably the most fun we had ever had on a movie.

First of all, the dialogue was superb. So funny, so clever, so witty, often so inane. I had everything. Sight gags, verbal gymnastics, illogic, really bad lying — everything you would want in a script. Absolutely delightful And the rythyms were there in the text, so you weren’t madly dashing around trying to change the lines to make them better. They were already better. Terrific writing.

But also.the way they shot was, they had two cameras, and the operators agreed before we rolled on where each would be situated on the set so that they wouldn’t accidentally include the other camera in the frame. We rehearsed maybe once, twice, not too much, and then they just rolled. And you knew you couldn’t screw up, because if you went to a new spot on the set, it didn’t matter.

So the cameras rolled, and we went at it. This cast was so damn funny, that many, many is the time when it was all you could do to stifle a laugh, because the other person in the scene was being so hysterically funny, you could scarce hold it.

Then the cameras would cut, and Armando (rimes with Last Tango) would appear with a beatific smile, we would ask how it went, and he would chirp, good, good. A smiling sphinx, he was. And we would move on. He knew what he wanted.

Oh, I forgot to say. When the scene as written was completed to Armando’s (rimes with Ann Rambo) satisfaction, he would say, “Now let’s loosen it up a bit.” That was the signal to do or say any frigging thing you wanted to. You could do the scene but in different words, you could do the words in a different order, you could do all different words, you could do a scene from Richard II if you wanted to. It was heaven, and those were the times when it was hardest not to laugh, when another actor surprised you with something hysterical. I must add, almost none of the attempts to do Richard II got into the actual film. Almost none.

So that’s the way it was shot. Then Armando (rimes with Fandango) took the 4 ½ hours of footage, and began to chip away until he got the film he wanted.

We are all very proud. We hope you enjoy it.