Saturday the 27th of February 2004
I was out walking in downtown Oslo, and noticed a glass display containing movie posters and also a posters for a film festival called Filmport which begun the same day. It was held at Vika Kino.
I called up my brother and asked him where Vika Kino was located, and he described where the cinema complex was. I walked to the place close by and went inside to see the movies listed to be shown during the festival, and noticed to my surprise that 21 Grams was on their list of screenings.
With a sense of urgently I asked someone working at the cinema to talk with a person associated with the festival, and was told to walk downstairs to where they were slowly making ready for tonights film fest. There I briefly talked with someone who had the cell number of a person I needed to talk with, so I called and met Trond a little while later. I told him that I had been a Photo Double for Sean Penn in the movie 21 Grams and that I could say a few words about my experience to the movie audience. He liked my idea, so we arranged to meet 15 minutes before tomorrows first screening of 21 Grams. I was also invited to the film fest later that night, which I attended and met and spoke with a few film industry people. I also came across some girls from my high school years, which I briefly spoke with.
Saturday evening I was back at Vika Kino and had a short meeting with Trond so he could get some more info on myself and my name, so that he could introduce me to the 21 Grams movie audience. Siv, a close friend, called me on my cell phone during the meeting and I met her afterward inside the cinema complex before the movie started. She was the only friend I really wanted to invite to this for me special occasion, my first talk in front of a movie audience. Trond had given me a bunch of free tickets that can be used to see any movie during the film fest week, so I used one for Siv and myself.
My tongue went for a few loops while talking with Siv for a few moments before we entered Vika 2, the 60-70 seat theatre room used to show the movie, but I knew that I would do fine. A few minutes later with a strong calm I walked forward after the introduction by Trond and stood close to the middle of the screen using my clear and strong voice speaking to the audience of 30-40 about being picked out by the Director of 21 Grams, using the same cloths Sean Penn wore in that scene, firing a gun with 3 blanks into the camera, and that no one would recognize that it was anyone else but Sean Penn in that scene as the scene was blurred out to create a more dramatic effect. I enjoyed talking to people about my experience as a Photo Double in 21 Grams.
I repeated my talk, just a bit different two days later during the main showing of 21 Grams in Vika 1, a bigger room. This time filled with perhaps 50 people.
I felt like I was testing a microphone before a big concert to really see that is works. It felt like an initiation of my first public talks about my film experience from Hollywood. I want more.
From the time I was a 10 year old kid living in Chicago for one and a half year I grew up getting used to speaking in the class room in front of an audience. Speaking to an audience about my experiences in a movie is another dream that came to me a few years ago even before the thought of really going to Hollywood came up, and now that has happened as well.
Tuesday 2nd of March 2004
That night I continued reading “The Book Of Urantia” of the resurrection of Jesus. Berit a good friend of mine called who I had spent most of the day with, told me that TV Norge had shown a short trailer-commercial for 21 Grams and my scene was shown. I took this as a specific message for me as many scenes could have been shown during the commercial for the movie but they had chose to use my blurred out gun shooting scene among others to promote 21 Grams.
I wrote an email to TV Norge. Telling them that I had been a Photo Double for Sean Penn in 21 Grams and that I had twice talked to an audience at the Fimport festival before the screening of the movie. I was hoping that TV Norge would contact me but I never did hear from them. It felt wonderful to follow the inspiration of sending the e-mail.