Parry Shen's Xanga Journal (Tru Calling Experiences)

[trucherrygirl]

I don't know if this info was posted a few years back, but Parry Shen, the actor who plays Tyler in Tru Calling, keeps an Xanga online journal, which he still updates. I remember finding this back when he was on the show, but I found a few extra tidbits, so I'm gonna copy + paste what I found here. The pictures that used to be in his journal aren't there anymore, so you'll just have to use your imaginations.

ENTRY #1

Thursday, August 12, 2004



A CHANGE OF PLANS

Well, I'm not doing the film, "The Fallen Ones" with Casper Van Dien anymore.



Hours after I posted the "My Career Evaluation" entry on Aug 6th about me being the Asian C.Thomas Howell, I landed a recurring role to join the cast on FOX's "Tru Calling". I'm telling you, it's weird how these things happen.



I read for this part two weeks ago and heard nothing. Then on Friday, Aug 6th right after George and I just finished the script, I got a call from my agent saying that the show's first choice dropped out and that they'll need me to fly on out Monday, Aug 9th to shoot for 3 weeks in Vancouver, which is where I am right now.



I'm currently scheduled for three episodes (#2, #3, #6) then they have the option of bringing me in for more episodes afterwards. After that, if they go into Season 3, they have the option of letting me join the cast full-time as a Series Regular.



So, if you do wind up enjoying my character - please watch and write in. The show is on the bubble now; getting good reviews but not great ratings probably due to the time slot (Thursdays, 9pm), so the feedback always helps and can make a difference. However, don't write in if I suck. I want it based on merit as opposed to using my ethnicity as a crutch. But the role is a really good one and I'll try to kick enough butt to stay on the show.



Then I'll be a part of the ever growing club of Asian-American series regulars: BD Wong (SVU: Law and Order), Keiko Agena (Gilmore Girls), Daniel Dae Kim (ABC's: Lost), John Cho (NBC's: The Men's Room), Bobby Lee (Mad TV), Kal Penn (Nirvana Nevermind), Ming-Na and Parminder Nagra (ER), Ivan Shaw (All My Children). I think that's it but I hope I'm missing someone.



I worked with Eliza Dushku ("Tru") on the movie, "The New Guy" in '00. And the last minute casting situation was very similar.



Before I was about to start my first day waiting tables at Applebee's, I auditioned for "The New Guy". After I finished the audition, I went into my first day at the restuarant. 3 hours later, I get a call at the bar from my agent telling me that I need to fly out to Austin, Texas the next day for a two-month shoot. Apparently, the casting people were calling all the Applebee's up the entire coast trying to track me down. When it happens, it happens fast and you need to be ready to drop everything. Like I wrote 2 entries back, opportunity meeting preparedness.



I'll keep you informed when the shows will air, etc and of course, the cool tidbits here on the set of "Tru Calling"! Hey, wait a second... didn't C. Thomas Howell do a TV show?

ENTRY #2


Saturday, August 14, 2004



So far so good up here in Vancouver. A subplot of "Tru Calling" in Season 2 has Tru going to Med School and meeting a trio of new friends in anatomy class.

One, obviously being me. The second, Eric Christian Olsen ("Not Another Teen Movie", "Dumb and Dumberer", "Cellular") and the third being, Lizzy Caplan (Smallville, The Pitts and Janis the Goth Chick in "Mean Girls").

Everyone has been really nice and I jumped into a crash course getting to know my co-stars on the very first day which wound up being a marathon 16-hour work day.

Oooh. Good segue to talk about how overtime works. Say your weekly salary is $3000. Divide that by 5, and it becomes $600/day, divide that by 8 and it becomes $75/hour. So, you'll get $75/hr for 8 hours of work (not including lunch). After 9 to 12 hours of work, you'll get time and a half each hour ($112.50/hr) and hours 13 to 16 becomes double-time ($150/hr). After 16 hours is "Golden Time" which means you make your daily rate ($600) every hour. And believe me, on most film or TV productions, the day almost ALWAYS runs at least 12 hours. The production has to give you a 12-hour "turn-around", which means you can't start the next work day with less than 12 hours of rest. But since we weren't working the next day, it was no big deal I suppose. So the first day was long but once it gets going, you want it to keep on going for the overtime. The only yucky thing was that I had to repeatedly pull out a real pig's gall bladder from a fake cadaver most of the day.

I have photos of my awesome trailer taken on my new Cybershot DSC-T1(my new gift to myself) to share but haven't figured out how to download it onto my computer yet.

The most surreal part of the first day...hanging out with Jason Priestley. I revered the guy in HS, grew sideburns like him and dressed like the dude. And here he was drinking a Diet Coke next to me and joking around. It's stuff like this that makes the business fun -- being a fan of the business.

The premise of the show is this: Tru (Eliza Dushku) works in the morgue and the dead bodies that have wrongly died, plead to her for help. She wakes up re-living that day trying to prevent the death from happening. Jack (Priestley) is her new nemesis. Apparently he has the same powers but he tries to stop Tru from saving the lives because he believes in maintaining a balance of life and death. But we really don't know what his real motives are yet -- it's all still very cryptic.

Right now, I'm just working on carving out a character that meshes with the cast and also adding a new element to the show, all the while trying to not get fired. It's tough being the new kid on any show but the cast has been really cool -- and believe me, I would tell you if they weren't (mean people deserve to be exposed). Eric even offered the use of his mountain bike for me to get around this weekend (the only problem is that the dude's 6'2" and I almost became a woman trying to hop on the bike). More to come later, hopefully still good news. Next episode finds me in a jacuzzi, hmm....

ENTRY #3

Wednesday, August 18, 2004



Home Away From Home

While I'm on set and in between setups, this is where I retreat to go over my lines for the next scene or catch a quick nap in my trailer. This is what's known as a "Double Banger" - basically, half of a full-sized trailer. The full trailers are usually reserved for the lead stars of the show.

But as you can see, this is way more than enough for me. It's nicer than some apartments! It's decked out in cherry wood and equipped with a 32" TV, VCR/DVD/CD players, sound system, AC/heater, breakfast nook, couch, shower, toilet, microwave, sink and refrigerator.

Here's pretty much the daily routine three days out of the week:

A driver picks me up at the hotel and when I get dropped off on set, I make sure to check in with a Production Assistant (PA) so that he/she knows that I'm on set and can begin keeping track of my whereabouts for the production.

I grab a breakfast burrito at the catering truck and head to my trailer. There, a set of Mini-Sides (a miniaturized 1/4 page version of the day's shooting script) is on my table. This makes the script easy to carry onto set and then tuck into your pocket if you need help with your lines. In the closet, will be my wardrobe/costumes for the day. I throw them on and just as I'm taking the first bite of breakfast, I'm shooed off into hair and makeup.

Since I'm usually in an out of Hair/MU in 5 minutes, I head back to the trailer to scarf down breakfast before I'm sent off to go onto set for a "Blocking Rehearsal". (Now see why I get a breakfast burrito? It's got bacon, eggs, starch, veggies all in one shot, so I can cram it down my throat in the most expedient fashion).

The "Blocking Rehearsal" is when we get the scene on it's feet, figure out where we're going to move on this line, the actions (in my case, learning how to handle the organs of the body when I'm extracting them, etc). During these rehearsals, the camera crew is observing to see where they need to set up the cameras, lights, props, etc.

Once that's done, it's pretty much a lot of waiting around for the cameras and lights to be set up. You shoot the scene. Wait for the crew to move the cameras to get a different angle of the same scene. Pick at the food at craft services. Shoot it again. Wait for another camera set up, chat with the extras. Move to another scene. Block it, rehearse it, wait for the camera setups, try to read a little. Lather, rinse and repeat, and repeat and repeat. This continues on for 12-15 hours. Michael Caine once said, "I do the acting for free. I get paid for all the waiting." And it's so true.

A big part winds up trying to figure out what to do in between setups. We're all prepared and know our lines, so the day's spent doing things in between 15 increments. Getting errands done via phone, eating, reading, talking or what we did... go exploring.

We've been shooting inside a huge, closed down mental hospital. In between shots, Eric, Lizzy and I went exploring in the wings and individual holding cells of this 100,000 square foot hospital -- and it was trippy. We tried doing it last week at night but couldn't get very far without freaking out. So this time, we got to see everything in broad daylight, but there was a scary factor missing to it.

We shot another scene and then during the next setup, went checking out the labyrinth network of tunnels beneath the hospital. So it's really as fun as you want to make it on set.

Otherwise, I'm getting loosened up and discovering little quirks of my character and falling into the chemistry of the other actors. But everything is just so fast. Film is a lot slower pace, more takes to try different things. But here, it's a script a week, different director a week, shooting 7-8 pages a day as opposed to maybe 2-4 pages a day for film.

ENTRY #4

Sunday, August 22, 2004



OUR CHAIRS!

After working on the set of "Tru Calling" for almost 2 weeks now, this past Friday we got some new additions on set... our cast chairs! It was unexpected but cool surprise nevertheless. I remember when my friend Keiko got her chair on "Gilmore Girls" and was so excited. Now I know how she must've felt.

So here we are, the new three amigos on the show playing the roles of "Tyler", "Jensen" and "Avery" respectively.

Right now I'm scheduled for only three episodes, but the fact my name on the chair wasn't written in dry erase marker hopefully means that I'll be hanging around for a bit longer than that.

Or maybe these chairs cost pennies on the dollar and they just crank 'em out.



Regardless, the REALLY cool part is that now I can place MY chair next to...


THIS one.

[It's Jason Priestley's chair.]

I talked a while with Jason about "BLT" and he was excited to see it -- I'll probably get him a copy before I leave. And on our day off a few days ago, Eric and Lizzy rented "BLT" and made a night of it, which was pretty cool of them.

Even over a year after the film, still promoting!

Btw: I've been working from my tiny laptop screen for the latest entries and the photos all looked proportionally normal until I saw them today from my monitor at home and realized just how big the pictures all are! Plus a weird thing happened when I uploaded the photo of Jason Priestley - it wound up being a photo of Jason Tobin for some reason. I know the file names must have gotten mixed up but I saw the photo of Priestley from my laptop but when I checked from my monitor at home, it was of Tobin! Weird.


ENTRY #5

Sunday, September 19, 2004


HOO-AH!

The day we found out about "Tru Calling"'s fate, Eric, Lizzy and I went down to the hotel bar for some drinks since it was going to be our last week together. After about an hour and a few drinks later, who sits down next to us but, Al "Freakin'" Pacino! Turns out he's staying at the hotel with Rene Russo and Matthew McConaughey shooting "Two for the Money". Anyway, we're all trying to be cool and non-intrusive when Lizzy begins slowly eating peanuts from a bowl with a mischievous glint in her eye.

LIZZY: How much would you give me to flick a peanut at him?

ERIC/PARRY: WHAT ?!?

LIZZY: It'd be such a great story!

She notices the terror-stricken look upon on our faces.

LIZZY (dejected) : Fine. At least let's send him over a drink then.

We look over and observe that he's drinking from a pot of tea.

LIZZY: Ooo. I know, let's send him a 'Shirley Temple' (popular beverage of choice among 12-year old girls consisting of 7-Up and Cherry Juice).

To which we then decided that now would be a good time to head off to the next watering hole and avoid looking like a bunch of pathetic actors who just had their show cancelled.


And some other fun facts he mentioned regarding TC in various entries or interviews I found on the web:

- His first daughter's name is Avery, like Lizzy Caplan's character Avery on Tru Calling.
- This was his second time working with Eliza; he had worked with her previously in the movie The New Guy.
- He idolized Jason Priestley and grew sideburns like him growing up, so talking and hanging out with Jason was very cool and surreal.
- In an interview I found with Parry from Starry Constellations magazine, he said his most memorable scene of filming was a scene in the last episode where him, Eric Christian Olsen, Lizzy Caplan and Eliza were sitting around the table exchanging Christmas gifts.
- Jason said goodbye to him and Lizzy on the last day of filming. He saw them off and wished them good luck.
- He had high hopes for Tru Calling and wished it could have gotten picked up by another network or for reconsideration by FOX because he really liked where the storylines were going during Season 2.
- During the the very LAST scene in the Christmas episode, he said the whole cast had a glass of red wine while on the job as a last hurrah to the show's cancellation. He wrote something along the lines of "What is FOX gonna do? Fire us? Heh heh."

I think that's about it. His Xanga journal can be found here:
http://parryshen.xanga.com/

All of this info took me forever to search through and post, so I hope everyone enjoys it!!

[andrew r]

Excellent! Thanks trucherrygirl! I like the info about them doing a 'blocking rehersal', and info behind the scenes. Thanks again!

[liljemsey]

thanks trucherrygirl i like learning about how things work on set
its a shame eliza didn't get to hang out with them as much, i suppose she was probably heaps busier than they were with all the scenes she had to be in

[andrew r]

Yeah you're probably right liljemsey, considering she is the show's lead.