Actor Eccentricities, Part One

It's a well known fact for crew people that actors can be impossible. They can also be devastatingly charming and funny, but actors at a certain level tend to think that they know better than the crew.

This is rarely true.

Take the issue of costumes. I realize that when an actor does a show like Lion King for 4+ hours a show, 8 shows a week, they are likely wearing their costumes more than they wear any other single piece of their personal clothing. This makes them feel like the costume belongs to them and they should be able to do anything in it that they would do in their street clothes.

And you know, call us crazy, but when a costume costs $4000 we would prefer that you not eat fried chicken while wearing it. Or birthday cake. Or drink coffee. Or paint your nails.

Weird, I know.

Despite this, actors are known to do whatever they want to do and if they are talented, the producers let it go and just suck up the cost of replacing the ruined costume.

So last year, the actor who played Scar was a chain smoker. The kind of smoker who can't go for 3+ hours without a cigarette. Now if you think we tend to get hysterical about grease stains and icing smears, imagine our dismay at the prospect of smoke smells and burn holes. However, he refused to wait until the end of the show for a cigarette break.

So the show in San Francisco found Scar on the street in front of the theatre at intermission, mingling with the theatre goers in his full costume and orange makeup, wig, headress, corset and the long claws he wears over his fingers, having his intermission cigarette and chatting everybody up.

Can you imagine driving down Market Street and seeing this?

Except it was San Francisco, so really, that might be the least weird thing you were likely to run into that night...