The Gatsby Diaries: Tales From A Month On Set

After weeks of auditions against industry heavyweights like Tom Ballard and that guy from Packed To The Rafters I received, of all things, an e-mail from one Mr Luhrmann:

“I would be delighted for you to play the part of Klipspringer.”

Well. Holy shit. I accepted the role with the grace of an epileptic ostrich at a fireworks display.

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THE FIRST DAY:

Three humble-brag-filled months later I caught a cab from a “gig” I was playing in the corner of a Pie Face store to Fox Studios, where I was escorted to a large empty soundstage with thirty seats positioned in a circle and a concert piano in the centre. “Mineral water Mr Maclean?”

A lady with glowing red hair, clearly sensing my rookie nerves, squeezed my shoulder like a friendly aunt: “Just have fun honey, you’ll be fine.” More time passed as I filled out the many confidentiality agreements (some of which I’m probably breaking right now). “Oh wow! Lovely Wellies there,” said a young girl in a polite English accent. I wiggled cheerfully in my fluoro-pink glitter gumboots.

Before long the circle seats were filled with bums, and an additional hundreds spots had been occupied by crew, writers, execs and producers — one of whom handed me a script and another form to sign: “Obviously we’ve changed the title on your scripts in case they go missing,” he said. What moron would ever lose a Baz Luhrmann script? (I lost mine four times.)

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE FAMOUS PEOPLES?

Well, here’s the thing I noticed about really, really famous people: you don’t notice them at all. The entire cast had been sitting in the circle for about twenty minutes. The lady who squeezed my shoulder? Isla Fischer. The Wellingtons compliment? Carey Mulligan. And the quiet fellow in the puffy jumper and baseball cap? Well that, my friends, was the man of our dreams — your boy and mine — Leonardo DiCaprio. Or, as Baz affectionately calls him, “Di”.

Throughout my month on set, I learned that if an actor didn’t want to be seen, they were invisible: big glasses, pop-up blinds — at times whole groups of people would be strategically placed to give them a moment’s peace from the incessant badgering from upstarts with no clue of how to handle themselves (i.e me).

During the filming of Gatsby, I was also doing an independent play at The Newtown Theatre in Sydney. I remember thinking how similar the first script reading felt. No matter the names or the money involved, at some point a director will ask their actors to sit like high school students in a group and just read.

The feeling is both clumsy and electric. Nerves flood your body as your line approaches; DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire stood to deliver monologues, and others became so consumed by the performance in front of them that they forgot to even say theirs. And then my part came.

“Go ahead Mr Klipspringer.”

Oh fuck! That piano in the middle of the circle? It was for me. They wanted me to sing the song I had auditioned with weeks ago. I rose and walked tentatively, my hands shaking like ten tiny vibrators set to kill. And there, before hundreds of crew members and Hollywood actors that I wasn’t really sure existed in real life, I began to play.

“In the mornin’, in the evenin’, ain’t we got fun…”

It was a 1920s tune written into the book, which was shot for the film but eventually ended up on the cutting room floor when Jay-Z took over the soundtrack. But I played it well that first day, and the director I had idolised as a child held me by the shoulder and whispered, “Bravo. That was perfect.” (Luhrmann has a way of giving compliments that, just like Gatsby’s famous smile, made you feel believed in “just as you wanted to be believed.” It’s a trait of his that I saw push actors through the longest and most draining days on set.)

When the reading finished, all the cast and crew left busily, without staying for the post-work nibbles. My good friend iOTA — who plays an outrageous party conductor — and I were left with the burden of drinking all the complementary Moet, which had been somewhat shockingly left behind. We drank from the bottle in the park, bemused and unsure that anything that had just happened had, in fact, happened.

That was day one.

THE COSTUMES:

It was a month of firsts for me — and many of them were probably lasts, too.

One morning, while searching under my couch for bus money, the phone rang to tell me that my driver would be around in an hour to take me to my costume fitting. A driver!

The drivers were mostly sweet-natured young people getting their start in film, who sometimes tried to offer you scripts to read or demos of their mates’ bands. If you had a preference, you could pick your own. It was like speed dating, with compatibility usually coming down to radio station preference and how much they wanted to talk at 5am.

Production and Costume Designer Catherine Martin is a force of nature/style. There is nothing on a Baz Luhrmann set that has not passed by her — his wife — before it makes it to film. Her decisions seem to balance between a superior knowledge of genre, era and history, and an emotional reaction to colour, texture and character. In dressing my character of Klipspringer, she studied me and what I wore and found the connection: I would be the 1920s hipster. The tuxedo pants became skin-tight, the tennis shoes became Vans, and the glasses went from reading spectacles to turtle-shell bottle caps. The outfit was complete, but we needed a scarf. Naturally I picked out a rainbow silk number from the rack, but it was too short; without pausing, she snipped it in half, sewed on a slab of green fabric, and put it back together. Like magic my new scarf dragged along the ground precisely how she wanted. (The outfit is now in a glass case in Hollywood.)

THE SET:

Shooting day brought with it 500 extras, two hours in hair and makeup, and a whole lot of awe: walking onto the set, squeezing iOTA’s hand was all I could do not to collapse. It’s not a set; it’s a mansion in a box. It’s so grand — the sweeping chandeliers, the water fountains, the endless columns and marble staircases — but I think it was the detail that struck me most: I witnessed a group of blokes get into an argument about what would make the butterflies sparkle more, diamanties or glitter? Butterflies!

I was sweating before the cameras were even set, but after eight hours of wriggling in my chair trying to act casual next to Gemma Ward and Tobey Macguire, my moment to bash away at the organ finally came. I sat perched at my wurlitzer, which was wrapped with a green screen wall, the camera centimetres from my face. “Action!”

Of everything that happened, this was the part I remember the least; if I’d been trying any harder I might have blacked out. I just kept smashing away at that organ until someone said stop. I think my cigarette fell out halfway through the shot. A makeup artist told me they would just CGI it back in later.

Baz never stops. Even during filming he enthusiastically calls out to the extras, “What are you talking about? What is the latest scandal? Who is sleeping with who?!” — then brings it to silence by shouting “Dialogue!” Music is always playing: trance, hip hop, remixes of classical overtures – instead of asking us to imagine we’re at a party, he just throws one.

Without a doubt the hardest part was waiting to perform. Hours would pass before you even got on set. Whole days would go by, only to have a P.A. pop a head into your trailer (did I mention I had a trailer?): “We won’t be needing you today Mr Maclean.” Pinching golf buggies for joy rides became a custom, and my daily routine of watching Joel Egerton play soccer with his shirt off during lunch kept me aroused amused.

But there were other days when you were never off set. If you’d been caught milling in the back of a party scene you’d find yourself booked on another week for continuity. The set could become quite a melancholy place if you found yourself performing the role of an extra; without a line or a song, your “action” became a series of hand gestures, or a conversation mimed at the wall. One particularly gruelling day I recall feeling completely invisible, until one handsome fellow in a pink Prada suit rested his hand on my shoulder and asked loudly, “Who’s looking after Klips today?”

You can’t play it cool around Leonardo DiCaprio. I tried to say thanks, but all that came out was something that sounded like a broken bicycle horn.

It was a bittersweet moment when, during my fourth week on set, Baz jumped to the microphone and shouted. “Attention please! Attention! We’d like to say thank you to Mr Klipspringer, who has just completed his final day on set!” The 300 or so extras applauded, most likely having no idea I’d been up on the balcony miming on an organ all day.

And that was that. I scraped off my make-up and was unstitched from my pants. I almost broke my neck in the cab home, craning around to catch one final glimpse of the studio as it became a blip on the horizon.

THE AFTERMATH:

A year and a half later, analysis had begun to surface before the film had even come out. Luke Buckmaster from Crikey alone had written a handful of articles and tweets salivating over rumours the film was going to flop, that the production was a mess, that Baz should never have been director. Even though my part had admittedly been whittled down to that of a glorified extra I still loved what we made, and responded with a piece in The Australian. I don’t understand why it’s so hip for Australians to hate our most successful director in recent history. The Herald and Telegraph froth at the chance to tear him down, but would tear off limbs to get an interview; the hypocrisy is mindblowing.

Admittedly, the film has been released now, and the reviews aren’t “mixed”: the negative quite clearly outweighs the positive. But what is also clear are the box office numbers: they’re sensational, exceeding expectations. They’re so good that at premieres Luhrmann has felt compelled to play them down, or say “the numbers don’t count for everything.” I hope that, in a quiet moment, he and Catherine have toasted a royal “up yours” in the direction of all those who tore the film down before the opening titles had even played. I’ve seen it twice now, and both times had me a bit teary. Sure, I get a bonus kick out of seeing my hair swish about on screen, but for all the criticism I believe it is a genuinely rousing movie, the type of flick you’ll to take your friends to on a Saturday night to cheer, sigh and sing to just as so many did with Moulin Rouge. It’s just pure entertainment, Luhrmann style.

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The same evening I wrapped on the film, I performed a play to about 40 people in a local theatre. We didn’t make any money and my performance as an asexual teenage girl didn’t rate a mention in the local paper’s review. After we bumped out, I hauled my sorry arse over to the pub to pick up one more bottle of cheap sparkling. I drank it from the bottle with a friend in the park, trying to repeat the past — and said my fond farewell to an unforgettable moment with Gatsby.

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The Great Gatsby opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday.

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Sydney slashy Brendan Maclean is a singer and an actor, and plays Klipspringer in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. He has also been a casual presenter on triple j for five years.

Images courtesy of The Great Gatsby; image of Klipspringer costume via Hollywood Movies Costumes & Props