The call sheet was intense: Brad Pitt, Uma, Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson. Living legends, longtime icons, pillars of American pop culture—and all stars of Quentin Tarantino’s movies. His Once Upon a Time in Hollywood sequel, called Death Drive, will be directed not by him but by David Fincher, for Netflix, and not for theaters. Tarantino likely made $20 million from the deal; the movie begins shooting in July. Or December. I’m not sure, and I’m in it.
Confused? Yeah, huh. I know: I’m a rooster. Not a human, not a household pet, not a cartoon character, a real live wild red-haired fiery tempered no good sonofabitch rooster, and I’m in the movies. It’s better to burn out than to fade away, hey hey my my, but in the cinema, you do both. I’m a nobody and I’m already burnt out. Do you know what it’s like to do 100 takes walking through a door without any dialogue? The camera isn’t even moving. What does Mr. Fincher want? “Better than that.” And so on. It begins to make you question whether or not you walk through doors properly in the first place. On one of my first jobs, background extra in Michael Mann’s The Insider, I learned to type properly; for years, my claws had been cramped and giving me tendonitis and earaches, and it caused me so much pain for so long. And then one day, it went away. I was free.
But freedom isn’t free. Try doing 100 takes of a complicated dialogue exchange, three-point camera movement, six marks to hit, a nine-minute shot, a “oner.” Mr. Fincher actually stopped around 76 that time, but it felt like I’d re-lived my entire life during that performance. I stopped what I was—I stopped what I was—I stopped what I was. It was that powerful…
“Bennington, please perform the scene.” They’re asking me to read with Brad Pitt. I’m really scared. But I’m going to get through it. “Damn you, bitch. Fucking wife killer. You sawed that bitch in half.” I bang the table. “Motherfucker.” Brad Pitt throws me across the room and starts beating me into a sofa. His hand connects with my metal chest plate and he starts to bleed, unbeknownst to him, never distracting from his brilliant performance. “Never give a man a color he didn’t ask for.” I stomped me again, and I winced and squawked.
“You never saw her smile.” I’m supposed to be dead at this point, but I’m playing it as if I can still hear him. “You never saw her tell the truth. She wasn’t into you, and she won’t onto you, either.” I squawked, surprising Brad Pitt. “I wasn’t here to hear her shatter.” He started crying, which wasn’t in the script. Mr. Fincher got up, confused. “Brad, are you okay…?” He walked over to us, but Brad Pitt pushed him aside as he ran away through the crew and out the building.
“Guess it’s just you and me, Bennington.” Mr. Fincher and I spent the rest of the day buttering toast. BUTTERING toast. 900 takes. “You’d look good in my sandwich.” I spur-clawed the monitor. “And you’d look good in my knapsack.”
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