25 Actors: Day 22 - Rachel Anderson

 As part of the 25 Days of Sine Fine Films extravaganza leading up the 25th Anniversary I have decided to write a series of posts celebrating the 25 actors who have been the most dedicated by participating in the most productions.   

Actor of the Day: Rachel Anderson

Rachel joined the company during its first production - Destiny. She has participated in 16 productions as cast and/or crew.

I met Rachel in high school and was introduced to her by either Kate or Jen Weber (they're not related), but I can't remember which one it was. Maybe it was both? Anyway, Rachel got sucked into my filming as all of my friends eventually do and was cast alongside Kate in the first movie I ever made - Destiny.

She is one of a trio of silly sidekicks known Milly, Molly, and May who are part of the O.O.P.S. (the Organization of Out-of-work Prostitutes and Singers).  She was cast as May along side Jen Weber as Milly and Kate Weber as Molly. Probably the worst part of filming as May was the ridiculous costume. It was a green sweatshirt that was way too long with had sleeves that were too short, and it was hot and uncomfortable to wear. Since it came down almost to the knees it looked like they weren't wearing pants when they were actually wearing shorts. Hence the running joke of Traldon: No Pants!

Rachel reprised her role as May in Destiny II, although the character was incognito as a maid along with Milly and Molly.  She was only in one scene at the end, but there was a lot of joking on set that night and it was pretty fun.  Easy shoot for her - only a few hours and inside - and those are the best kinds, right?

By the summer of 1997 I had already decided Rachel was great at comic relief. Rachel returned as May in Destiny III, part of the silly duo of Molly & May.  It's revealed in Destiny III that Molly & May are actually fairies (which makes sense since Milly turned out to be a fairy in Destiny II) and can perform magic. They can magically change their clothes and make coffee appear, but that's pretty much all they do.  You'd think they could magic up some nice outfits, but no. And yes, I did just copy and past what I wrote for Kate, but let's be honest - they were a duo on set with very similar experiences in this movie.

By this point I had come to think of Kate and Rachel as almost a single unit because I paired them up so often and I did that because they are both hilarious and play off each other really well.  Put the two of them together and you'll get a lot of laughs and in my case, notes and jokes for Molly & May.  Unfortunately this resulted in me type casting her for years as nothing more than comic relief with small parts and as extras.  Yes, I copied that directly from Kate's post as well and will be copying the text for Frumpy Gets It too, which just proves how much I see them as a pair.  Is that weird? That's probably weird. Sorry dudes.  

Next up was the total disaster that was Frumpy Gets It. Frumpy is a murder mystery that was completely improvised and a failure of epic proportions.  Kate and Rachel were cast as the two detectives Frank & Francois who were, once again, the comic relief, although honestly almost everyone was comic relief in that movie.  Right after Frumpy is murdered, Frank & Francois make a grand entrance wearing bright orange ponchos which they proceed to remove in unison once they determine that Frumpy is dead. 

They decide to investigate the crime, but rather then immediately questioning the suspects, they instead make a beeline for the dinner table and help themselves to cake and cola, either of which could have been poisoned. When this is pointed out both Frank & Francois look startled, then concerned, then shrug and keep eating. It was hilarious, but it wasn't planned to be funny, that was a bonus. - They were eating out of necessity. I made them wait to eat dinner until they were on screen - which took three hours and by the time their characters finally arrived they were both starving. I am cruel. 

The two characters, despite being comic relief, played an important role in moving the plot along. Francois threatens each suspect with a chicken leg until one of them cracks and confesses to the crime.  Everything was chaos by then so the detectives just arrested everyone to get them out of the shot and end the movie. The only reason the movie had an ending is because of Frank & Francois. 

This is the point where Rachel and Kate's filmographies diverge and I they were not paired up on screen again until 2012. Well, they reunited briefly for the extra filming I did for Destiny as a mini-series but that was for one night so it barely counts.  Rachel (like Kate) was often cast as the silly, spastic, crazy goofball comic relief character.  I shoved her into that box for several productions, but unlike Kate she did get a few chances to play non-comic parts sooner rather than later, although the first one was by chance and not on purpose.

In the next production, The King of Eflin's Daughter, Rachel played Heather - one of the Minstrels.  She was not actually cast in that role.  Originally Morgan Dietkus was supposed to play Heather - and was actually in a few scenes we filmed on the first day, but when it was clear she wasn't able to continue filming I asked Rachel if she would be willing to step into the role. She was bored that summer and had nothing better to do I guess, so she agreed. Ironically she was at the first day of filming just to be an extra and if I had known how things would work out I could have just had her play Heather that day. 

Heather basically had no character beyond a nice, sweet once-dead-now-ghost lady who sang and played the flute. Or actually it was a recorder because I didn't have a flute.  So yeah, she played the recorder, and that was her character in a nutshell, so it wasn't hard for Rachel to play the part.  It was her first real chance to not play comic relief, however, and she did a great job being serious when needed, although she was still basically a sidekick.  

The most challenging part of playing Heather - or any of the Minstrels - was not the lines (which were terrible since the dialogue was god awful!) but everything else they had to do.  It was a musical where the actors "sang" or rather lip-synced to music by Heather Alexander and Keepers of the Flame.  They had to pretend to play their instruments at least somewhat convincingly and had some minor choreography to do. 

The biggest problem was that they were in 3/4 of the script so Rachel and the others were called to almost every shoot even though they didn't always have a lot to do. More than once they ended up filming in the rain and probably all got sick from it.  It was also summer and hot so when they weren't wet with rain they were sticky with sweat so...that was...fun.  

It ended with dancing under a rainbow so that was part was nice. Rachel stayed after being done with her scenes as Heather to be an extra in the fairy dance and had to learn even more choreography, but I think she had fun.  She seemed to have fun but maybe that was just acting.  She is good at acting. 

While we were filming The King of Elflin's Daughter in the spring and summer of 1998, we were also filming The Perfect Combination.  The first movie was a children's musical fantasy and the second was a screwball comedy about assassins, thieves, and spies. So they were very different.  I specifically wrote a part for Rachel in The Perfect Combination as - guess what? Comic relief, of course!

She played "the Cab Driver" who never actually had a real name.  The crazy costume her character always wore was a rainbow colored tie-dyed T-shirt and a pair of bright floral Bermuda shorts.  That sums up the silliness of her character right off the bat.  The Cab Driver is introduced when she pops up from the back seat after being knocked out by the male lead who stole her cab.  The car crashes and she needs a new job so then appears again as an assassin hire to replace said lead.  

She's never fired a gun before and is hilariously stupid and incompetent, and clearly ends up fired again.  The final time we see her she is dragged on screen in a case of mistaken identity.  Her character is basically someone with really bad luck who always ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time.  But then she gets to sing with people and talk about corn so it's all good in the end. Rachel was as super funny as the hapless Cab Driver just as I knew she would be.  Rachel, like Kate, has fantastic comic timing (which is also why they work so well together). 

After we finished filming The King of Elflin's Daughter and The Perfect Combination there were still a few weeks left before school started up again for most of the actors so I decided to squeeze in one more movie.  This was a supernatural tragedy called The Vigil, written by Joel Pierson and adapted from a radio play.  In it the main character, Julie, dies in a car accident.  She struggles to deal with her own death and gets help from another ghost who died there centuries before.  While she deals with her afterlife, her friends try to cope with their grief at her sudden loss by holding a candlelight vigil for her. 

I cast Rachel as one of the friends - Cory Wicker - who is one to see Julie get hit.  I had to record her screaming Julie's name on my front porch since she couldn't yell it in the street for fear of causing a disturbance and getting...you know...cops called.  We filmed the vigil in the middle of the street and I know the neighbors were all wondering what the hell we were up to so I was already nervous.  As I filmed Rachel screaming I remember thinking that dang, this girl's got some lungs!  She really sounds terrified.  

Looking back that's probably the moment I decided to cast her in Mind Games.  Or maybe it was earlier.  I can't remember.  Cory required more acting then either of her other characters that year and Rachel was able to show the grief of losing a friend without being over dramatic.  I was definitely impressed.  Also, we didn't get arrested for filming the Vigil so hurray!

At some point that summer my brother, Edward Stasheff, showed me a script he wrote for a psychological sci-fi thriller called Mind Games.  It was a really good script and I agreed to film it, but my requirement was that Rachel Anderson be cast as the female lead Tilia Del Rosa.  He was a bit hesitant and I understood why.  After all most of the parts she had played - and the biggest parts she had played - so far were all crazy comic relief.  Tilia was the lead character in a horror movie and had to carry the film.  Rachel had never played a lead role and never a part as serious and challenging as Tilia.  

However, that's exactly why I wanted her to play the lead.  I knew Rachel had more to offer then just being a silly sidekick.  I had seen hints of it over the years and I knew there was untapped potential there.  I wanted to see her play a serious part and I knew she could do it well.  I wasn't disappointed and she did a fantastic job as Tilia.  The part wasn't easy.  As Rachel said, it required running and yelling "No!" a lot.  

There was much more to memorize then usual (just kidding, no one ever memorized anything at that point), and since Tilia was the lead she was in almost all of the scenes.  Of twenty-five to thirty filming days Rachel was called to all but two or three of them.  She had multiple shoots where she was the only actor on set Even though the filming was spread out over eleven months, the part was very time consuming and Rachel was quite busy being filming part time and being a full time college student (and probably working part time as well).  

At one of the film shoots she was very sick with the flu and had a fever.  I didn't realize at the time how bad it was and in retrospect I should have been merciful and canceled the shoot since it only involved her, but it was hard to schedule a shoot when both Rachel and the Planetarium were available. The shoot was scheduled weeks in advance and I really didn't want to cancel it since I knew it would take a long time to reschedule it and we were starting to get rushed to finish the project.  Besides, when have I ever been merciful to the actors?  It's pretty well established by now that I'm a sadist. Once you're on the set you're not leaving until filming is over!

“I was MISERABLE,” Rachel remembers. “I couldn't remember any of my lines, I was in a fog and all I wanted to do was lay down (it didn't help that we were at the Planetarium and by that time I knew all the buttons to push to create a very comfortable napping environment!). I would happily take freezing cold, pouring rain, crazy hot, mosquito infestation, unrelentingly itchy costumes, or a combination thereof over being that sick.”

Despite the many challenges, Rachel did an amazing job as Tilia in a complicated and difficult role that any actress would struggle with.  I will say that when Ed was directing instead of me he was able to get a much better performance out of Rachel then I did.  Which only goes to show that Rachel's potential wasn't able to be fully drawn out by me.  I wish Ed had been able to direct all her scenes, but I had to fire him halfway through filming...then hire him back later. It was a mess.  Rachel put up with that mess and delivered an incredible performance. Thank you so much Rachel!  You were fantastic as Tilia!

While filming Mind Games in 1998/1999 I was also working part time at PCETV (Parkland College Educational Television) and I got permission to use their equipment to edit Mind Games. I also convinced them to let me broadcast a TV show. I turned the Destiny Trilogy into a 12 episode mini-series that was aired to the public.  I took the chance to film some scenes I had been unable to previously for various reasons and gathered all the actors together again to film voice overs and other shots.  Rachel returned and I was able to film her audio for a scene in Destiny III that I hadn't really be able to get before. 

While I was finishing filming Mind Games, editing both Mind Games and the Destiny Mini-Series, I also began working on my first production written and filmed as a TV show, Pandora's Box (I was very busy that year).  I wrote a part specifically for Rachel that was another silly side character, but I almost cast her as Diyara instead. Diyara is one of the main characters and the original actress was unable to do it, I asked Rachel if she wanted the part.  However, Rachel did not have enough time to take on that kind of commitment.  She had work and college and...you know...a life. Also, she knew what she would be getting into this time if she took on another lead role so she was happy to play a recurring character even if it meant returning to role as comic relief. 

Rachel accepted the part of France Wah, a silly and insane rebel who likes playing with explosives and talks nonsense.  She sees things other people don't and is always talking to herself.  I can only ever see Rachel in this part because Rachel has this way of delivering the most ridiculous and outrageous lines as if she was just talking about the weather.   It would be very easy to overdo the craziness of France Wah and that wouldn't be funny, it would just be annoying. Rachel is able to walk that line between hilarious and idiotic and always delivers the weirdest lines with a straight face.  She's hilarious and (other than Kate) I don't know anyone else who can do it. 

Out of 24 episodes of Pandora's Box, France Wah appears in 10 of them so she is a solidly returning character.  I consider her one of the secondary characters that appear through the series in varying amounts of screen time.  France Wah is often mentioned and talked about even in episodes she doesn't appear in because her character is funny, memorable, and unique in the show.  There were only three or four episodes where France Wah had more than one or two scenes so Rachel's shooting schedule was actually not too bad.  France Wah was written in some episodes that she did not appear in however, because Rachel was too busy to film with that on those days. Fair enough. Rachel had a life and France Wah was rarely critical to the episodes plot.  

The character's costume was fun because she always wore the same vest (they are the fashion of the future) over different t-shirts or tank tops and jeans, sometimes with a sash, sometimes without if I forgot to bring one with me.  When it came time to film the wedding montage for Episode 16, I carefully picked beautiful gowns for all the women to wear, but I didn't know what to put France Wah in.  I left that up to Rachel and told her to wear something that would be silly or strange to wear at a wedding.  What would France Wah's formal wear look like?  Apparently it's a Hawaiian shirt and track pants. That works. Thanks Rachel!

After finishing Pandora's Box I moved my filming down to Carbondale for several years while I attended college.  When I returned to CU in 2003 I tried not to film again.  That didn't last long and by the spring of 2004 I had written another TV show.  This time I wanted to merge the actors from Carbondale with the actors from CU and I was able to cast Rachel as a small side character in the latest production - Eidolon. 

I clearly love silly, kooky characters because I have one in almost every production that I write.  In The Curse I had Madame Maggie, a psychic student trying to pay her way through college by scamming students with fake fortune-telling.  She turns out to actually be able to communicate with the dead and hijinks ensue.  She was a returning character in The Curse and so when I needed someone to run a psychic shop in Eidolon - a sequel to The Curse - I immediately thought of Madame Maggie.  I knew I couldn't get the original actress back for the part, because I had no way of contacting her, so I decided to make the character be Madame Genna - Madame Maggie's niece who runs the shop when her aunt is out of town. 

When looking for someone to play a kooky, charismatic charlatan who pretends to be melodramatically psychic for quick cash, I immediately thought of Rachel - my go to gal for crazy comic relief!  The character only appears in 3 of the 13 episodes so it wasn't time consuming and Rachel (who was still in the area) agreed to play the part.  After a few years of not having her around, it was really fun to film with her again.  She was perfect as Madame Genna, as I knew she would be, and did a great job being overdramatic or understated as needed. 

We finished filming Eidolon in the spring of 2005.  I wasn't able to film with Rachel again for five years.  Things happened, our locations changed, she had a life and a job and I actually did too for a while there.  Our schedules just never lined up, but finally in the summer of 2010 I was able to film with her once again!  Hurray!

In 2010 I was working on my series of short films for Twisted Tales.  The idea of Twisted Tales was to take a traditional fairy tale and do some kind of twist or spin on it.  One of the scripts I wrote was called Charming and was a new spin on the old cliche of Prince Charming marrying more than one princess.  Snow White gathers her old friends and fellow royals together for a picnic several years after they've all been married.  Cinderella, Briar Rose from Sleeping Beauty, and Belle from Beauty and the Beast all join in the fun. 

I arranged to film it one a hot weekend at the end of June and had two of the actresses cast - Brittany Ann Whalen who played Belle and Syndi Eller who played Cinderella, but still needed two more. I was able to get Rachel Zoralee to play Briar Rose since I had just been filming with her the day before for a different Twisted Tale film.  That left Snow White uncast and I was running out of people who still lived in CU that could film on short notice.  Luckily for me, Rachel was available and after a bit of pleading she agreed to play the part.  

Now, Rachel is blonde but Snow White has to have black hair - it's in the story and is not something that can be changed in my opinion, so we had to put Rachel in a wig.  She thought it was funny and I have to say she looked pretty good as a brunette, although it was strange to see her with dark hair.  Unfortunately it was really hot and she was wearing a medieval style dress and a heavy wig so she was very uncomfortable. Her dress was probably the hottest one to wear and only one other person had to wear a wig, so although everyone suffered in the heat I think she had it the worst. 

Rachel Anderson is hilarious and this was the first time she had been paired in an equal role with Rachel Zoralee - another very talented woman who is also hilarious.  When two funny actresses get to act opposite each other as two characters who do not get along the result is a brilliant combination of funny and fierce.  They were awesome together and played off each other almost as well as Rachel and Kate.  It was technically an ensemble cast where all four princesses had equal screen time, but in reality the two Rachels stole the show. I would dearly love to see the two of them act with each other again. 

Two years later I was filming another series of short films in CU again, this time it was Fortunate Ones. Fortunate Ones is a series of short films with the same basic premise. The main character wishes for something, then gets their wish only to discover it's not what they wanted to all.  I wrote Fortunate Ones: Magic-8 specifically to star Kate Weber and, when I found out that Rachel would be able to film with us that day I immediately cast her as Heather's friend, Cathy. 

It took thirteen years, but I was finally able to reunite by favorite duo on set and on screen!  Unlike all their previous character pairs, Heather and Cathy were not comic relief. Actually they were the only two characters in the whole film and although it starts off all fine and dandy, the movie takes a dark turn later on.  Magic-8 is the story of Heather, a woman who wishes she could see into her future to know if she can get the job she really wants and her friend Cathy gives her a Magic-8 ball as a birthday gift.  The ball's accuracy is funny at first but turns frightening when it goes off script to offer dire warnings instead of harmless advice. 

Rachel and Kate had been friends for almost two decades at this point and it showed in the scene where their characters are hanging out and celebrating Heather's birthday.  There is a relaxed, easy going atmosphere that is a great starting point for the building tension and suspense later on.  There really isn't much acting involved in two of the three scenes Rachel is in because her lines and just the usual banter between friends sharing laughs and good news.  However, her final scene in one where she has to show grief, loss, and confusion and Rachel does a great job playing a poignant moment without over acting it. 

Later that year I was able to film with Rachel again when I needed actors for Goddess Anonymous.  I had only written the script a couple nights before we filmed it and so I had trouble with last minute casting.  Lucky for me Rachel just happened to be free that night and agreed to film with us as Fulla, a former Norse goddess who has been relegated to living in the real world as a lawyer. Fulla is the leader of the goddess group and Rachel did a great job projecting a confident and commanding presence on screen. 

It only took a few hours to film it, but it was a really fun night.  The best part about shooting Goddess Anonymous was all the jokes bloopers that happened on set.  From cupcake disasters, to carrot chips, to Shoobie and Boobie, everyone had a blast.  Rachel and Syndi Eller, who played Uni, had previously worked together on Charming in 2010 and had a great rapport.  They would come together again to film the following year. 

I wanted to film something - anything - in 2013, but I lived in another state at the time and was only back in CU and available to film for one weekend in the fall.  There were a few scripts I considered and several people expressed interest in filming, but in the end I only had two actors and had to cobble together a script that would suit them.  Luckily for me those two actors were Rachel and Syndi who are both very funny and are a joy to film with.  That's how Out of Time Adventures came to be. 

It's kind of a dumb idea when I look back on it, but at the time I thought it was brilliant - and it let me put people in costumes which was obviously my main goal.  Out of Time Adventures is a series of short films that follow the hijinks of Amy, played by Rachel, and Karen (I named her before Karen became a whole thing), played by Syndi, who spend their free time dressing up in historical costumes, creating characters, then going out in public and role-playing as those characters.  They set themselves a timer and the challenge is whether or not they can stay in character the whole time regardless of what is happening around them.  Who ever loses buys the beer afterwards. 

The idea is sort of fun, but unfortunately it requires the characters of Amy and Karen to set it up in the beginning or it doesn't make any sense.  Of course that's the one thing I forgot to write and film so it's impossible to edit it all together and finish it without that explanation.  I always figured I just film it the next time I had them on set together, but that didn't happen for three more years and since I was super busy at the time I completely forgot about it.  Maybe I'll remember next time...maybe. 

There are three short scenes of them role-playing in different situations, all of which were filmed in two afternoons.  The first one we filmed was a Walk in the Park, where they dress in full Edwardian fashion complete with hats and parasols and pretend to be Lady Summersby (Rachel) and Lady Chestwyk (Syndi).  They stroll through West Side Park, while Rachel wrestles with her parasol when it continues to get stuck in her hat and Syndi tries her best not to trip over her very long skirt. Much fun was had in tight jackets with sleeves that did not allow them to raise their arms any higher then a T-Rex could.  

After that we filmed Treasure Inland where they dress up as the pirates Captain Keel (Rachel) and Vicki Jinx, then walk into a bar and try to stay piratical for ten minutes while they order rum and sing a sea shanty.  The rum they drink on screen is real and they had to do two to three shots of it while filming.  Yes, I tried to get my actors drunk on set.  I used to try to keep them sober in college, now I'm force feeding them booze. How the times have changed.  Not sure what it was like to film tipsy, but it was probably as much fun if not more than filming sober. 

Now that I had gotten the actors drunk I decided to call it a night and we went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant where I celebrated the film shoot by actually paying them for their performance! One whole dollar!  That's the most I have ever paid any of the actors!  It was the first time that Rachel had ever been paid to be an actress on my set.  

Truly an inspiring moment that made all her years of suffering through the heat, the cold, in sickness and in health worth while. No, to my knowledge she did not marry that dollar bill, however much my recounting of that moment may sound like wedding vows.  Actually I just realized it was the second time she was paid for acting. The first time was after Charming when she got a shiny quarter to help with the heatstroke.  

The following day we filmed the third and final scene of the Out of Time Adventures - Cosmic Bowling.  In the scene Amy plays a trick on Karen.  They're supposed to meet up at a bowling alley for a fun and relaxing afternoon, but instead of Amy a bizarre looking woman arrives calling herself Onzella and insisting she's an alien sent from the future to deliver a dire warning (which she never actually delivers). Karen plays along and tries to teach her bowling without losing her patience at being left out of the cosplay adventure.  

Once again Rachel was stuck playing a crazy, kooky silly character while a ridiculous fashion sense.  I put together the most bizarre and fake alien/futuristic mess of a costume I could come up with that included a bright orange and yellow cut up shirt, camo pants, and of course a vest (it's the fashion of the future!).  She had wild hair that was tangled and teased with randomly colored fake braids in it as well as random make up a'la 1950s bad sci fi flicks.  She also wore the most kickass boots I'd ever found at Good Will. Rachel got to keep the boots after we finished filming, so hopefully that was a fair enough trade for having to go out in public looking like someone puked up a train wreck. 

Even if the result is half finished the filming was fun and that's really the point these days.  Rachel did an amazing job as the piratical Captain Keel, the proper and prudish Lady Summersby, and the crazy futuristic alien Onzella.  She was as funny and fantastic as always and I will cherish the memories of filming with her and Syndi that weekend.  

The next - and last time - I was able to film with her was for SFF's 20th Anniversary reunion production.  Excerpts from Spoon River Anthology is just what it sounds like.  Each actor who was able to film that weekend was given the option of performing one of the monologue like poems from Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters.  Those who wanted to film but didn't have time to memorize a monologue or just didn't feel like doing that could participate in the group poem The Hill and have a few lines along with everyone else. 

Rachel was only available for one of the two days of filming and since she wasn't sure she would be able to make it at all she just signed up for the group poem.  She performed in the ensemble and sweat in the sun of an unseasonably warm October while wearing Victorian clothing because it wouldn't be an SFF shoot if you weren't uncomfortable while filming.  There was no big dramatic on screen moment for her, but there was lots of time to hang out with friends she hadn't seen for a while.  

Since she no longer lived in CU and now had a career instead of just a job, she wasn't able to go back to the MacLeod Farm to party for the rest of the afternoon, so I bid a fond farewell to her at the graveyard and that was the last I saw of her.  Okay wait, that sounded way too ominous and over-dramatic. That was the last I saw of her on a set. I've seen her since then in none-acting related activities. 

Rachel was my go-to emergency actor for a few years, and was always my first choice to play silly characters.  I have loved every minute of filming with her and hanging out with her on and off the set.  Rachel is truly a treasure - a funny, talented, smart and sassy friend who can play any part whether is serious or silly, long schedule or short notice, even if she's running a fever or running down a hallway.  

She was also willing and able to lend out her (parents) home for us to film Frumpy Gets It, then turn her basement into the medical bay for Mind Games.  I left the set up at her house for WAY too long and she and her family were very patient with me. 

Thank you so much for all you have done for me and Sine Fine Films over the years, Rachel.  You have been a joy to work with, a dedicated member and helped out in many ways. You are awesome and I hope others can now understand your awesomeness as well.