Marty and Me

“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?”

“Yes, Dad. Pass the ketchup!”

There’s a postcard of Taxi Driver in my Dad’s movie gallery (the downstairs toilet).

It’s the iconic black and white shot of Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle. Underneath the names of the stars in smaller print it says ‘A Bill/Phillips Production Of A Martin Scorsese Film.’

The long shot of one day working on a Scorsese movie seemed to disappear when I moved to Asia to teach English after getting a film degree instead of using it to toil through the ranks of the cutthroat industry. Fortunately for me, fate, happenstance and dumb luck meant I could achieve this dream with little to no effort at all. This is the story of Marty and me.

One rainy morning in the middle of autumn as we warmed up on the side of a football pitch in Taipei, a charismatic guy everyone called Hollywood told the team about his wife’s latest job.

“It’s, what’s his name? The little guy. He did that gangster one with the Titanic dude.”

“Martin Scorsese?”

“That’s the one.”

“Bloody hell. He’s filming in Taiwan?”

“Yeah, if anybody’s interested they need Westerners for extras.”

The team was silent.

“Are you serious? Of course I would!”

“Just text me your email,” Hollywood said as he hoofed a ball into the car park and sparked a cigarette.

The next day, I received an email from the casting company letting me know that they didn’t need anymore extras. They did, however, need a 6’3” stand-in.

I arrived on the set of ‘Silence’, a passion project that had been in the back of Scorsese’s mind since receiving a copy of the Shūsaku Endō book at a dinner party in 1988. The Japanese cult classic tells the story of two Jesuit priests who travel across the world in an attempt to rescue their mentor from captivity in Japan.

“No photographs. Quiet when we’re rolling. And whatever happens, don’t talk to Marty!”

I changed into wardrobe (a sack) and entered for my first scene, which was taking place in a mock-up Japanese temple. The sun had set everywhere on the island except inside the four walls of this temple, where a gigantic, inflatable sun peaked its face through the open roof. I shaded my eyes from the warm glow of the synthetic beams and, like a daydream, was transported back in time and across the East China Sea.

“The Land of the Rising Sun,” felt like a very apt thing to say when I walked in. Sadly, it has taken me five years to think of it. In real life, I apologised to a pair of shoes for tripping over them.

Barefoot in my sack and feeling like a traditional village idiot, I was instructed to sit on a mat with about 20 people rushing around tweaking things or pretending to tweak things or trying to be seen by others to be tweaking things. A couple of minutes later, a Frenchman, also in a sack, bounded in and plopped himself next to me.

“Benoit,”

Benoit was the stand-in for Andrew Garfield’s character in the movie, Father Rodrigues. He had been on set for three months and everybody knew his name, mainly because he didn’t shut up. Before we became properly acquainted, another man with silver hair strode across the temple. Immediately, I could tell he was important.

“You’re standing in for Father Ferreira?”

“Yeah.”

Rodrigo Prieto, the acclaimed Mexican cinematographer of Brokeback Mountain, Wolf of Wall Street and, perhaps most significantly (to me anyway), 8 Mile, shook my hand.

“Go over there, walk in slowly down the corridor and sit next to... him.”

Maybe everybody didn’t know Benoit’s name.

“Okay, rolling.”

I walked across the floorboards and sat next to Benoit.

“Good. We're ready for First team.”

I soaked up the fake sun for a moment while people in the distance spoke excitedly into walkie talkies. Meanwhile, Benoit stared for as long as he could into the sun until his eyes hurt. Then, he rubbed them and repeated.

“Hey, Benoit. I was wondering who I should ask about my schedule for tomorrow? It doesn’t say when I’m supposed to be here and I have to tell my school because they’re letting me take the time off.”

“Just ask Rodrigo. He’s a cool guy.”

I approached Rodrigo who was deep in conversation with a man holding a script.

“I was just wondering if you need me tomorrow at the same time as Benoit. Because I have to tell the school I teach at to get time off and I’m not sure I can get there exactly at—”

He looked at me and then glanced at the man next to him, who I don’t know the name of because he wasn’t important enough.

“Can you tell the stand-ins not to ask me these fucking questions? I’m trying to shoot a movie here.”

Before I could be swallowed whole by my first of many film set faux pas, the floorboards creaked from across the temple. All eyes were drawn to the figure who, slowly and carefully like a Tai Chi master, made his way towards us.

“Hi.”

I immediately recognised his soft Northern Irish accent.

“Hello.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Okay, second team. We’re rolling with first team.”

Benoit stood up and nodded at Liam Neeson.

“Liam, how’s it going?” The Frenchman said in an annoying way.

Liam Neeson's face was carefully made up to look like a Portuguese priest. It wasn’t necessary for stand-ins to look exactly like the actors they were standing-in for, which was fortunate because I just looked like a lanky Englishman in his 20s wearing an old potato sack.

“Cheers,” I said to nobody in particular and put my thumb up to a water feature.

Still reeling from my brush with Qui-Gon Jinn, I was surprised I could feel even more starstruck within seconds. He was sat in an armchair surrounded by the movie industry equivalent of hype men. Martin Scorsese – a man who needed no introduction and who would not be giving one, to me anyway. One of the greatest living directors – Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Departed – was just sat there looking, as he does, like a live action version of the old man in Up.

“Hurry up,” somebody who wasn't important but thought they were hissed at me.

I was shooed out of the temple and into the dead of night. The sack was notably colder now, especially in the downstairs department. Outside, leaning against the wooden exterior set not wearing a sack like Benoit’s, eyes buried in his phone, was Andrew Garfield.

“Bloody hell, is that...”

“Yeah, he is, how you say, a bit of a prick.”

I’ve always wondered if that was the exact moment he was texting Emma Stone to ask her to reconsider dumping him or if he was just playing Angry Birds, but I guess we’ll never know (Andrew, if you’re reading this, I didn’t call you a prick. It was Benoit).

After a few days at the fake temple, we started shooting on location at Gengzi Ping Hot Springs, around an hour from Taipei. I hopped on an empty minibus early in the morning and was taken on a magnificent journey into northern Taiwan along the coast, before being dumped next to some fairly miserable looking Taiwanese crew members at the craft tent halfway up a rocky mountain. A grubby Benoit wearing a brown loin cloth sidled towards me as I sat on a crumbling wall in the misty rain.

“I’m getting crucified up there.”

“What did you do this time? Ask Marty where the toilet is?”

“He couldn’t get up this hill, man. No, I’m literally getting crucified. I will be seen on the screen. A Catholic priest crucified for his beliefs.”

“Very cool. Not the crucified for being Catholic thing, but the being in the film bit.”

“You are just a stand-in. But I will be in the movie. On the screen. A real actor. People will know I was here.”

Benoit walked away and a soaking wet crew member ran up to me.

“Come on, we need you now.”

In Marty’s absence, a rabble of his self-important underlings were taking the reins.

“Okay, kneel down please.”

“Here?”

“Yes, come on. Let’s go.”

I started to kneel.

“Not there though. Not on the mats. They need to remain in position for Liam.”

“But aren’t they there to protect knees?”

“They are there to protect knees. Just not your knees.”

I knelt down in the sharp rocks to the right of the now seemingly plush mat in the mud and they set up the shots.

“First team, please.”

I started to get up.

“One more time.”

I belonged in the mud, which was literally where I was. Benoit was right. I was just a worthless, fleshy animated prop. Nothing more than a sack of—

“Hello again.”

I looked up from the gutter at Liam’s grinning face.

“Hello, mate. How you doing?”

“Thanks, Billy. Knees aren’t what they were.”

“No problem.”

“You know what though, at least it’s warm.”

He knew my name! Liam Neeson knew my name. Benoit was quick to tell me that he called everyone “buddy,” which was common for Irish people, and that I had misheard him. No, Benoit, he knew my name. Even though he never said it again and I had never told him it, he knew it.

Once we were finished on the epic mountain top, the crew packed up and headed to the final location in Yangmingshan National Park, just a 2 minute scooter ride from my apartment. Up a small hill on a side street, they had mocked up another impressive temple.

Rodrigo (we weren’t on first name terms but it reads easier like that) brought Benoit and I on to the set to watch and prepare for an emotional scene. Liam Neeson watched on and replicated my movements shortly afterwards. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I was his acting coach but you can draw your own conclusions.

Later on I was lingering, as I often did, around the craft tent stuffing my face with free snacks.

“We are?”

“We’re nearly done.”

“Couple of days and then, au revoir, the end.”

“What will you do next?”

“I’m a microbiologist.”

“Wow!”

“But, I’ll probably do some adverts on the TV here or something instead. Maybe a game show.”

And, for once, Benoit was right.

The following day, I sat inside the temple with the light pouring in through the shōji (paper wall) provided by a big lamp and it felt like that first day again. The sun rising on my scene that would never actually be seen. A final act to my own story that had unfolded in my short time on set. A story of adventure, shame, a crucifixion, bloody knees in muddy geysers, a world famous best friend who didn’t know my name and a French microbiologist with a God complex.

Just as I was reflecting on my time, Marty walked in. For once, he was not surrounded by his entourage. He smiled and held his hands in a square like a screen. He stood there for a while watching me through his hand lens. The same hand lens that had captured De Niro, Foster, DiCaprio, Stone, Blanchett, Pesci, Damon and all the rest, and I thought of all the things that had been seen between those two hands over the decades and how many people had been captivated by what those hands had captured first. And suddenly, it didn’t really matter that I was just a moveable prop. I was proud to be one.

Back outside, it was overcast and people rubbed their hands together for warmth. I sat at a table under a tree.

“Okay, mate. We’re done with Liam’s scenes. You can go,” said the assistant director.

“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?”

“Can you shut up? Liam’s talking to the crew.”

"Can I listen?"

He held a finger to his earpiece and shooed me away with the other hand.

“Cool, thanks. Great working with you. Do I need to sign out, or...”

He started applauding loudly along with the rest of the crew and walked towards the temple.

“See you. Cheers!”

I waved to the tree, collected my things and hopped on my moped. After one final look at the temporary temple, I turned the key and rode (slowly) into the sunset. A real one this time.

Benoit’s review : “I was disappointed actually. The story and transitions are somehow not fluid, and many things were not captured in the right way or could have looked way better. Also, a lot of money wasted in making things which dont appear on screen. It looked better in real than on the screen except some of the outdoor scenes.”

Benoit’s scene was cut.