“Are you doing anything this afternoon?”

“I don’t think so. What’s up?”

“Do you want to try out for a movie?”

The audition was pretty simple. The director and a few other people took a look at me and said, “hao,” and that was it. I was cast as Landy, the English maid in a Chinese mini-series. My friend S., who invited me to the try-out, had a larger role as Mary, an English woman married to a Chinese man. Neither one of us had to read a line before filming started.

I didn’t know anything about the plot of the movie when I agreed to be in it. The director gave me a few pages of dialogue to learn, but it was all in Chinese with computer generated translations of the relevant speaking parts. None of the stage directions were translated at all. By watching the action on the set, S. and I were able to piece together a very rough idea of what was going on.

The characters had clothes and hairstyles that ranged from turn of the century to 1940’s styles. We guessed that the action was set in the early 1930’s based on the cars, and the lack of any reference to a war in Europe. The action took place in England. Mary lived with her husband and daughter in the home of her rich parents. Her husband, Lan, was a scientist who was also involved in raising support for some group in China. We never figured out whether it was the Communists or the Nationalists. Mary’s father framed a group of Lan’s friends for something (we had no idea what) and tried to blackmail Lan into renouncing his Chinese citizenship. When Lan refused, the father tried to shoot him, but Mary saved him by throwing herself in front of the bullet and sacrificing her own life. We don’t know what happened after that.

This movie portrayed the English in the worst light possible. Taking part in it, I felt a little bit like Robert Townsend in “Hollywood Shuffle.” I had ethical concerns about being involved in a project like this, but it wasn’t until the second day that I figured out the plot. I decided to stifle my objections and play along.

My first day of shooting was the longest. The shoot was at the Governor’s Mansion, which was a good choice for a luxurious, English estate. I sat shivering in the green house for about eight hours before I got a chance to read my single line: “Maybe she has gone to Paris.”

I spoke in English while the other actors in the scene, playing Mary’s mother and father, spoke only Chinese. They were both Chinese nationals of mixed Euro-Chinese backgrounds. In makeup, they made a convincing English couple. My lines and their’s would all be dubbed in post-production.

In my second day of shooting I had two scenes. In one, I introduced a guest to Mary. In another I waved goodbye to her as she drove down a driveway and whispered, “Mary, don’t go to Paris.”

For all of these scenes the director kept telling me to be more emotional, and just to act more. He probably didn’t know the stereotype - that English maids didn’t show emotion, at least not to their employers. I was allowed to stay on, despite these creative differences, because I was willing to ham it up. The four-year-old girl who played Mary and Lan’s daughter was not so lucky.

Little A. was not a professional child, but she had done one commercial in Beijing. The director brought her and her mother down to Qingdao to do this movie because A. was just so cute, never mind that she looked completely wrong for this part. She had pale blonde hair and blue eyes, and did not look at all like a child with a Chinese father. She could have been Haier Didi’s little sister. A. was fired for being uncooperative, showing up drunk and abusing the crew. They got her back to Beijing before she had a chance to trash her hotel room.

This was actually my second experience in the movie business. The first was a job I held for four days immediately after graduating from college. I was Gary Goetzman’s assistant while he was producing the movie “Beloved”. That relationship didn’t work out. Gary and I had creative differences.

With a brand new degree in history and no job I took the first opportunity that opened up (Thanks, Arlene!) I became a paralegal at a mid-sized law firm in Philadelphia. The work seemed interesting enough, so I decided to go to law school.

Now, all these years later, I’ve found myself on a movie set once again. Aside from a few ethical problems, I’m having a good time. What do I know about ethics, anyway? I’m a lawyer!