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Posted by JB on 9/26/2005, 12:43 pm, in reply to "Joseph...." Thank you for your posting! I'm glad you could see our chemistry. I can only speak for myself, but I had a GREAT time with those people making that film. It was interesting because we came from lots of different places. A lot of the cast members were Brits and had done the show in London or the UK tour, so many of them already knew each other, but there were a few who had never done the show before. I had done the stage production with Donny, and I knew Gerry McIntyre socially, but everyone else was a stranger to me when we started rehearsing in June, 1999. The first thing we did was spend about 10 days learning the music and recording the score. Then there was a two week break, and I came back to the States. Then in late June, I flew back for the bulk of the summer. Next up was dance/staging rehearsals. THAT's when we really started getting to know each other. It's an amazing thing about musical theatre performers. You spend all day in a dance rehearsal partnering, making physical contact, sweating together, acting as brothers, or as husband and wife, and you get very comfortable with each other very fast. I think we spent about two weeks in the rehearsal studio, and then roughly 4-5 weeks shooting at Pinewood Studios. (It's been a while! I'm a little foggy.) I can't remember any special hijinks...we certainly didn't try anything on film like we tried onstage. When you're playing to a live audience of 1800 people who are sitting sort of far away, you can play naughty games onstage to keep yourselves entertained, and no one will notice. But the JOSEPH movie was filmed with 7 or 8 cameras going all the time: in front of us, on the sides, behind, above, or wherever, so there was nowhere to hide!! My fondest memories are all people and food related. The food was amazing on the shoot! My favorite thing was this incredibly moist sweet bread called Malt Loaf. (Something like Raisin Pumpernickel.) And they had this great cheese called Wendesley Dale (sp?) which was a sharp crumbly-type cheese with cranberries or apricots blended in. And then there were traditional English breakfasts: eggs, sausage, beans, stewed tomatoes, etc. I think I gained about 15 pounds eating all that stuff - luckily I lost about 10 pounds doing the Hoedown and Go Go Go Joseph over and over again, so I left only a little pudgier than I arrived. The days were really long. Sometimes we'd be picked up at 5AM. And when we were doing the Egypt scenes, we had the thrill of full body makeup to look forward to! (Yuk!) Usually, I'd get back to my flat around 7 or 8 at night and conk out in front of the TV at around 8:30. I thought I'd being going out and exploring London, seeing plays, etc., but those long film days really knocked me out. It was a great adventure, and I'm so glad to have had the amazing opportunity to live/work there and collaborate with that wonderful group of people. Best- Jeff
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