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Guest Western

Our reporter gets into scruffy character to check out the making of The Claim.

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By Daniel Fierman

Daniel Fierman

Daniel Fierman is a staff writer for EW

Michael Winterbottom is odd,'' unit publicist Phil Parks warns me. ''You're going to have a bit of a day, I'm afraid.'' By the time I had stripped near naked in the back of a freezing trailer, that much had become obvious. But it wasn't until I was tossed ragged wool pants and a blue tunic and told to smeardirt on my face that it became clear why: I was going to be an extra in the filmmaker's latest, the gold rush drama The Claim, an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Hardly standard set-visit protocol, to be sure, but blinded by the giddy thought of the call home -- Guess what, Ma? I'm in a major motion picture from United Artists! -- I'm willing to roll with it. Parks cheerfully explains that Winterbottom -- the 40-year-old British director of acclaimed art-house fare Jude (also based on Hardy), Welcome to Sarajevo, and Wonderland -- was worried that ''civilian'' duds would upset the actors' focus. So an edict was issued: All visitors to the set -- today, a ramshackle barn a 50-minute drive north of Calgary -- had to be in costume. (This mandate apparently did not extend to Winterbottom -- sporting a smart black turtleneck and jeans -- or to his crew.)

So I saunter into the saloon/brothel, looking like the freshest-scrubbed Jewish cowboy in the Old West. Sidling up to the bar, I order a beer from an extra who offers a bored, you-know-this-is-just-a-movie-right? stare and then bum a pleasingly Eastwoodesque cigar. Making bang-bang noises with a two-fingered six-shooter and demanding ''Dance, you varmints, dance!'' I elicit only awkward silence.

Soon Winterbottom calls ''Action!'' and Sarah Polley -- who costars as a woman reunited with her dad (Peter Mullan) two decades after he sold her and her mom for a gold mine -- recites a poem to the ornery crowd of hookers and drunks. After every take, Polley rests her head in her hands, then hugs a blanket around her shoulders and flashes a queasy look. Wes Bentley, who plays the railroad surveyor she falls for, is sympathetic. ''We've got a plague here,'' he says, referring to the flu epidemic that had landed him in the hospital a week earlier.

Given the subzero conditions on set, it's a wonder it isn't hypothermia. The smoke pouring from equipment, lanterns, and cigars required throwing the windows and doors open, for fear the haze would asphyxiate everyone. ''CO gas,'' mutters production designer Ken Rempel. ''But it looks good, eh?''

Cold comfort, but he was right. With beeswax-candle chandeliers casting yellow light off tin ceilings, everything is bathed in a warm, buttery glow. Feeling slightly dizzy -- and slightly concerned about feeling slightly dizzy -- I duck outside for a cup of coffee and find sometime model Milla Jovovich, who plays the cathouse owner, ignoring lecherous gazes from some extras. She saunters up with a pleading look and a smoke. ''You're from New York?'' she says. ''Thank God! Come with me.'' She hooks her arm under mine and leads me away -- chattering about SoHo restaurants and Brooklyn bars -- as, goggle-eyed, I tell her I'm going to be in the movie.

That was when, with my first performance under my belt and a gorgeous actress on my arm, it dawned on me: This writing stuff is totally for the birds.