The Man In the Rubber Mask (17 page)

‘Oh, hi,' I said. ‘It's great to meet you.' Dolly smiled again, the door opened on the twelfth floor and I fell out.

My room overlooked a six-lane freeway and a swimming pool fringed with lanky palms. I sat down and calmed down. The January sun was hot through the window, I had to try and stay awake until night time or the jet lag would last weeks, and I was due to start work two days later.

I picked up the phone and dialled a long number that Judy had faxed to me from Ethiopia.

‘Hello…'

‘Can I speak to Judy…'

‘Hello…'

‘Hi, can I speak to Judy Pas…'

‘Hello.'

‘Yes, can I…'

‘Hello…'

This went on for about three or four minutes until I could hear the phone being thrown down, then I'd wait a bit longer and suddenly there was Judy on the line. She was in Africa, she was having the time of her life, she was okay.

If by any chance you win the pools, or your premium bond comes up, and you get depressed because money doesn't bring you happiness, and you want to get rid of your money - if you feel like that, here is a very good way of getting rid of quite stupendous amounts very quickly: fly to Los Angeles, first class, Qantas, via Melbourne, that'll use up a fair bit I should think. Then check in to the Universal Sheraton hotel, call the Hotel Gohar, Gondar, Ethiopia and ask to speak to Len. There won't be anybody there called Len, but they'll go and have a look for you anyway. As they look, you will be paying top dollar to listen down a phone line to the sound of Africa. Judy was okay, I was relieved. I fell asleep for what felt like a week.

The following day I met Andrea, she was with her boyfriend who was going around the world with her on a much-longed-for holiday. We met up in the lobby and drove into the valley to a special effects company who were making the new Kryten mask and costume.

The company was situated in a large industrial complex, the sort of place Mel Gibson finds a heroin factory and shoots lots of stuntmen in.

The special effects boys were great, so like their English cousins, enthusiastic and fast-talking, living in a world of in-jokes and technical explanation.

‘We are going to be doing everything in our power to make sure you are really, incredibly comfortable, Robert,' said the man with the beard. ‘So first we need to do a full body cast.'

In an effort to make me incredibly comfortable, I had to stand and be covered in plaster of Paris bandages again. The glamour of first-class travel and luxury hotel suits was suddenly knocked into focus. I was here to work, I was here to wear rubber, and there was no way of getting around that.

As I stood still I started to take in the surroundings. This was the company who made Spock's ears, phasers which could be set to stun, the little flip-top box that Captain Kirk asked Scotty to beam him up with. They made the weird wrap-around glasses for the black guy in the new
Star Trek
, which I hadn't seen. They made guns and space ships and all manner of weird bits and pieces for dozens of movies.

A man who looked like he was in
Easy Rider
entered the workshop, he was going to make my new mask. I got very involved in the discussions as to how it should work, how much of my face should be exposed and if I could keep my own nose.

The battle of the mask was to continue for many days, but the man who made my mask, who I only met once, was a real genius, and a fast genius.

When Andrea and I got back to the hotel that evening Rob and Doug had turned up delirious with jet lag. They had been working flat out on editing the British series so they were tired before they set out. They sat in the lobby of the hotel, drank large schooners of lager and grinned at everybody.

‘It's amazing … I think,' said Rob.

‘Yeah, no, yeah,' said Doug.

On Monday morning, the cast and crew of
Red Dwarf
gathered inside the vast studio of Stage 43, Universal City studios. The space was twice the size of Shepperton, which is big enough. The sight that made us gasp was the set, an exact replica of the British set, in every detail. The floor plan was the same, the fittings, everything, it was absolutely remarkable.

A man of at least six foot eight walked up to me, he looked like an ex-basketball player. He was an ex-basketball player, and the stage manager. He shook my hand firmly and introduced himself as Elvin Ivory. I followed his huge long strides outside into the weak morning sun.

‘I'm going to show you your parking space, Robert,' he said as if I was an unruly kid at kindergarten. We walked across a huge car park and he stood in an empty space in the middle.

‘This is your parking space. If anyone else parks here, you come and tell me, and I will personally kick their ass. And if you park any place else, I will kick your ass. You understand?'

‘Yeah, sure,' I said trying to sound local and cool. ‘There's only one problem.'

‘What's that?' snapped Elvin.

‘I don't have a car.'

Elvin was silent for a moment, the chewed his lips, then he said, ‘Robert, I don't give a damn if you have a car or not, this is your space and if any other mother parks his car here, I want you to tell me. You understand?'

‘I understand, Elvin,' I said.

I followed Elvin back to the studio; as we walked down the canyon between the huge buildings he pointed to a smaller building, which looked like a block of flats. ‘That's your dressing room over there. It's got your name on the door, “Robert Llewellyn”.' Elvin clearly didn't leave anything to chance, he was to continue to remind me of my name at regular intervals.

In the studio more and more people were gathering, men in suits mingled with scruffy-looking arty types, I was making myself a tea trying to work out who was who in the cast. At that point I had only met Hinton Battle, the actor who was to play the Cat. His similarities to Danny were amazing, he was an actor and dancer, he'd been in dozens of Broadway shows, he'd won awards, worked with Diana Ross, all that kind of thing.

A thin man shook my hand, ‘Hi, Robert, I'm Chris Eigman.' He had one of those sharp, funny, what I take to be New York intellectual accents. Chris, I discovered, is from Colorado, and he was playing Rimmer. I immediately warmed to him, he looked like an alternative Rimmer, good casting I thought to myself. I recognised him from a film called
Metropolitan
I'd seen a couple of years earlier, about posh kids in New York, in which he was very funny.

‘Hi, Robert, welcome to Hollywood, I'm Linwood,' said Linwood Boomer. He wasn't short, or fat, he didn't wear glasses, he was a handsome, athletic-looking Californian. He shook my hand vigorously, I stared into his unusually bright blue eyes and wondered if his name really, really was Linwood Boomer. I always had a suspicion his name was Pete Jones or something, but a daft Hollywood agent had told him a name like Linwood would get him more gigs.

Linwood used to be in an American series called
Little House on the Prairie
,
where he played a blind boy. His eyes are so bright blue it was easy to see how he got the part, you can never quite believe he is looking at you.

‘Meet Craig Bierko, he's playing Lister,' said Linwood as he guided me towards a tall, handsome man who I'd taken to be the director or a writer or someone like that. Certainly not Lister.

‘Hi, Bob,' he said. ‘Great to work with you, I've watched all the
Red Dwarf
series, I think you do an incredible job.'

So this was Lister, a tall, handsome, white man. When I had discussed this with Rob and Doug one evening in their office in Shepperton, they had been under the impression that Lister was going to be a short, tubby Hispanic actor. That seemed to fit the bill, but clearly the Americans had worried that portraying a Hispanic man as a dirty, lazy but very humane slob would create a negative reaction in the Hispanic community, or something. In some ways it's the same Hollywood paranoia behind the fear that ‘middle America' wouldn't understand British humour, or a Liverpudlian accent. It's rubbish; if you can understand someone from Mississippi, you can understand anything. The reason American television channels don't show British comedy programmes is because they don't want to. They make their own, and they make a fortune out of it. Why give money to anyone else? They'd be stupid to do otherwise, all that is clear is that it has nothing to do with accents.

In the car park earlier, I had walked past a very glamorous woman with a lot of hair. Big hair as I discovered it was called. She smiled at me and I felt flattered that someone so good-looking would even notice me. Suddenly she was standing in front of me shaking my hand.

‘Hello, Robert, I'm Jane Leeves,' she said in a husky English accent, ‘I'm Holly.'

Jane had lived in Los Angeles for ten years, she was appearing as a regular character in
Murphy Brown
, a sitcom which gained international notoriety when the lead character, played by Candice Bergen, criticised the Vice President, Dan Quayle, during the run-up to the election.

My head was spinning with all this new information and names I had to try and remember. The three other members of the cast were Lorraine Toussaint who played Captain Tao, Elizabeth Morehead who played Kochanski and Michael Heintzman who played Officer Munson.

Naturally, I managed to get the whole thing utterly confused. The cast stood in a small circle and I said everyone's name and pointed to them.

‘Hinton, Jane, Craig, Chris.' I got Craig and Chris the wrong way around. I was so confused about the fact that they had the same names as their English counterparts my brain had gone on short time and I had decided that the coincidence was too great, it must be Rimmer played by Craig, and Lister played by Chris.

‘I'm Chris, that's Craig,' said Chris Eigman patiently, he patted me on the back. ‘You're confused aren't you, Robert? But you're working in Hollywood now though, it's important you remember everyone's name, I'll be testing you from time to time.'

People started to sit down around a long table in front of the set. Most people seemed to know where to sit, I couldn't work it out so I hovered about looking around for help. Elvin noticed this and pointed to a canvas directors chair with my name emblazoned on the back in red appliqué.

‘Robert Llewellyn,' he said as he tapped the chair. I couldn't believe it, I had my own chair with my own name on the back, like in Hollywood. I was in Hollywood. I sat down but kept turning around to look at my name, I showed Rob and Doug who were sitting down the other end of the table. They stood up and showed me theirs, they had their own chairs too. The only difference being theirs stood a good five inches higher than mine. There was already a hierarchy, the actors get the low chairs with their names on, the writers and producers and directors all have higher chairs with footrests.

‘Good morning everybody, and welcome to Stage 42, Universal Studios, where we are going to make a pilot episode of
Red Dwarf
,' said Linwood in his soft, undulating tones. ‘We are all going to have a great time here, this is a fantastic script, it comes from a great series which is a real big hit in Great Britain, we've got a fantastic cast, you guys.' He looked along the side of the table where we were sitting. ‘Craig Bierko, Chris Eigman, Robert Llewellyn, Jane Leeves.' There was a huge round of applause from everyone, Rob and Doug joined in slightly later but with no less enthusiasm.

Linwood continued, ‘A great director, Jeff Field,' he looked at a quiet-looking man with a beard who nodded and smiled. He got another round of applause, not quite so big as ours. ‘And a great crew.' About fifteen assorted people whooped and clapped vigorously, I joined in politely, they got the least of the claps.

‘Well, alright!' said Linwood, rising to the occasion. ‘I know we're all going to bond real good, and really have a great time, because if we have a great time, we'll produce a great product. And that's why we're here people, to produce a good television,
Red Dwarf
.' Even Linwood said
Red Dwarf
a bit like John the limo driver. ‘Okay, so let's read the script, then, we'll have a talk, get to know each other, and have lunch.'

My smile was fixed to my face, I told myself quietly, ‘These people are clearly mad, they all clap each other but we haven't done anything yet. Stay calm, you're only here for three weeks, you haven't actually signed your contract yet, breath into the anxiety.' I glanced to my right to see Craig Bierko looking healthily depressed. ‘Maybe they're not all mad,' I hoped as I picked up my script.

As we read, the banks of men in suits sitting in the audience seating laughed very supportively during the funny parts. The director laughed convincingly, but automatically, at every potentially amusing moment. We had to wait every now and then for Linwood Boomer's long, languorous, ‘Ahaha ha ha.'

For the first time in my
Red Dwarf
experience, though, I was the old-timer. I knew my character backwards, everyone else was struggling with theirs. As soon as we'd finished reading through the script, the cast gathered around the craft services table.