Babbling Brooke

Last week was the premiere of Munger Road and it was awesome!!! Although I’ve wanted to see the movie forever, I’m really glad that I waited and got to experience it for the first time in a movie theater with 250 other people! The movie itself was wonderful! Scary, suspenseful, and so well put together. It truly blew me away and I am so proud to be apart of it! The reviews have all been great but the topper on the cake was seeing that Roger Ebert gave us three out of four stars! Which is the same amount of stars he gave movies like “The Help” and “Crazy Stupid Love”! So I’ll take three out of four stars any day! 

The two days we were there went by in a blur! My mom, dad, brother Chad, and grandma Marie all came with me to Chicago on Sunday. (There were supposed to be 7 of us but sadly we were short my other brother Todd, who had to work, and my other grandma Judy who wasn’t feeling good at the last minute.) It was pretty rainy, cold and of course it lived up to it’s “windy city” reputation. My mom and I only hung out for the afternoon in Chicago because I was so anxious to get back to St. Charles that mom and I drove there that night and got in pretty late. The others met us there the next day after doing some touristy things in Chicago.

The morning of the premiere I wanted to do everything that I loved to do when I was filming in St. Charles! I had missed the city so bad! Then I realized I slept throughout every day and filmed at night so the only thing I ever really got to do in St. Charles during the day was go on my daily run around the river before we started filming. So I dragged my family to the river behind the hotel in the cold drizzle. Grandma, Dad, and Mom decided to hang in the car. But Chad was a trooper and he walked with me to see my old geese and duck friends. I think they remembered me. I mean they were trying to act really cool about it but I definitely sensed some recognition from them. 

The cocktail party before the premiere was beautiful! It was held at the Hotel Baker, the beautiful, historic building in St. Charles that we stayed at during filming. It was so good getting to see everyone again! And of course we took a gazillion pictures.

Kyle, the producer and Nick the director!

Nick’s wonderful family! 

Trevor Morgan (Who plays Cory in the film) and I

Some lovely speeches were made…

And then it was time to head to the movie! Unfortunately we got too caught up in socializing and waited until the last minute to go and then our rental car wouldn’t start! Luckily someone had thought to hire a trolley to take people to and from the premiere! 

By this time we were already late to the movie. I’m trying not to panic but at this point I’m thinking that we are going to miss the beginning of the movie and we won’t get to sit together. So as soon as the trolley arrived we literally had to RUN into the theater. Poor Grandma had to run too. Luckily they held it for the late arrivals and they were sweet enough to have held five seats for us! So it all ended up working out!

It was fun getting to watch it for the first time with my family beside me. Mom kept patting my hand and telling me that she liked it, Dad was whispering across to me how he thought I was doing good and grandma was so quiet I was afraid the movie was traumatizing her, but it turns out she was just really caught up in the movie! Listening to the commentary of the rest of the audience was very entertaining! At one particularly scary point in the movie I heard a guy behind me say “No! Don’t go into that house!!!” during one of my scenes which really cracked me up.  The whole experience of seeing myself on a movie screen was so surreal that I kept forgetting that I was in the movie! I was so caught up that I found myself getting scared even though I already knew what was going to happen! THAT’s how good of a job they did making it suspenseful! 

Afterwards we went to the after party to socialize and eat the most amazing pizza ever! I loved getting to spend more time with everybody that made the movie including Nick, Kyle, Trevor, all of their families and friends! Everyone was so excited about the movie and it was just a wonderful night! It was all I had hoped for and even more!

If you’d like to see the movie, make sure and go demand it on Mungerroad.com by typing in your zipcode! I would love for all of my family and friends to have a chance to see it! :)

Last week I auditioned for a Subway commercial where I had to dress like an Oktoberfest girl and dance around a guy playing an accordion. I got a call back for it on Friday, but the email said that this time they’d like to see me dressed as a gymnast. They also wanted to know how experienced of a gymnast I was. I was a high school cheerleader six years ago, so I figured I could pull some of those old tricks out of the hat. I spent a lot of the weekend practicing everything I could practically practice by myself without injury- I wanted to prove that I am capable of being a gymnast! Not only to myself, but to all of the haters on facebook who didn’t believe I could do it! You know who you are but I will not mention any names…(*cough*toddchadabigail*cough*) ;)

I never was quite able to get up the courage to try my back hand spring with no mat/spotter but I discovered I could confidently round off, hand stand, and cart wheel. Basically I make a pretty sad gymnast.

So I spent a good amount of my weekend worrying about this audition…I didn’t want to get to the audition and be the ONLY girl there who can’t tumble! Would they make me back handspring on the spot or would they just take my word for it that I could do it? And should I tell them I can do one if it’s been six years since I’ve ACTUALLY done one? This is where the line gets foggy for an actor. You are always told that whatever it is, say you can do it, then learn to do it later. That philosophy makes me extremely nervous. I’m a fake gymnast. A poser! 

I figured if I couldn’t be a real gymnast, I could at least dress the part. They very specifically asked for actors to wear a leotard and I didn’t have one. So Saturday I spent hours shopping for the perfect leotard and ended up settling on a green one with matching grey shorts. Whew. I was relieved I’d have the perfect outfit and fit right in with everybody else and no one would know I was a phony.

Little did I know.

I get to the audition with my leotard, tennis shoes, and no makeup on (like the email asked for) and theres a bunch of girls in pigtails, heels, short skirts, and german type blouses lounging around. Not another gymnast in sight. I think, “Hm, I must be really early.” So I sit down and wait for about twenty minutes…still no gymnasts. I’m too worried about this gymnastics issue to really take notice. So I decide to put my uncertainty to rest and walk up to the casting assistant and just ask what will be expected of us. “Um, will we be actually doing gymnastics in the room?” I asked. The girl looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind, “What?” she said. I repeated my question. She keeps looking at me as if I should be wearing a straight jacket. “Are you here for Subway?” She asks. I tell her I am. After a phone call for confirmation it is discovered that I’m there for the German girl part like every other girl there. I look around at all of the other girls with their high heels and cute outfits and me in my stupid bright green leotard with matching shorts and stupid tennis shoes-plus I have no makeup on. I ask the casting assistant what I should do. She tells me to put in some pigtails and that I’m next up to go in. So I ran to the bathroom, literally smeared makeup on as fast as I could, and braided my hair. We walk into the room and the only explanation the casting assistant gives to the casting director/director is “Brooke was told to dress as a gymnast.” Umm…that’s not quite the whole story lady. But oh well. The audition itself went well so I guess that’s what counts. Turns out I was accidentally sent someone else’s audition instructions so it was just a simple mix up. But it was definitely a memorable experience and makes for a good story to blog about. 

In case we need visuals

Every one else was dressed like this:

And I looked a little bit like this…

All of that gymnastics for nothing…

Last weekend my two brothers came to visit me in Los Angeles and we had SO MUCH FUN! The timing was just perfect because both of them just happened to get new jobs at the same time and had the same week off in between starting up work again.

From the minute their planes landed we literally made them hit the ground running. We had plans to go to Malibu to hike on a trail we had found called Escondido falls, but first we had to wait to meet up with the other half of our group. So Abigail, her friend Brittany, my brothers and I found this little restaurant off the side of the road in Malibu called “Paradise Cove”. It was right on the beach so while we waited for our table and for everyone to show up we actually got to go lay out and play!

I think we were trying to get in the guiness book of world records for biggest hiking group ever because there were nine of us-Kevin, Abigail, Todd, Ryne, Kristen, Me, Chad, Brittany and Josh! We took up the whole trail! 

We didn’t know what to expect but we were a little freaked when at the very beginning we see a limping guy with blood all over his leg who says to us, “Turn back now while you still can!” We said “what happened to you?!” and he just smiled mysteriously and limped off (I’m not making this up).

But the hike started off as a nice little walk through the woods so we were laughing about that man who tried to scare us. There were even comments like “Pshaw this isn’t a hike! It’s a nature walk” (from the boys who wanted more of a challenge). Little did we know what was in store for us.

At first we were in awe of the cute little babbling brooks running through the trail that we had to walk across on little foot stones! It was adorable! I felt like I was in a disney cartoon like Peter Pan or Bambi! It also was the inspiration for my new blog name.

THEN we got to the actual waterfall part and it was so beautiful!!!

And then we proceeded to take lots of pictures.

But we didn’t stop there. We met some people that told us if we wanted a real challenge there was another waterfall up higher. I was skeptical that this was how the guy got the bloody leg, but everyone else started hiking so I went along with it. It’s not accurate to call it hiking, it was more like rock climbing. Literally I was on all fours most of the way.

Then we got to a part where it’s so steep and muddy that you have to grab onto a rope strung between two trees and literally pull yourself up!

This really tested our upper body strength, and it was really funny to watch everyone struggle on the way up because we had too many people on the rope pulling it in different directions.  I was doing really good in the back and feeling pretty cocky-but on the way back down the mountain I literally was holding onto the rope for dear life as I kept slipping and sliding down the slope. Anyways it was all worth it because the waterfall at the top was even BIGGER and BETTER then the first!!!

This is a picture taken by the brave souls who climbed to the very top! (Todd, Chad, Ryne, Josh, and Kristen the bravest girl!)

Sunday we went to the Hollywood Bowl for Easter service which was so wonderful! Thousands of people all gathered, and Rev. Mark gave an amazing sermon! So glad I got to experience it with my brothers and Ryne! 

Then we went to brunch with Kristen and her sister Emily and all  of their friends. Later that night we went to a comedy show at the Upright Citizens Brigade theatre! It was hilarious! The next day we all went for a hike on Runyon with Abigail and then watched Water for Elephants at The Grove. Such an amazing movie! 

 It was so sad to say goodbye to them but at least we made the most of every minute they were here! :)

Gee I’ve missed blogging! I’m going to start up again!

Saturday I had my first ever ADR session! What’s ADR you ask? Audio Dialogue Replacement! (I think. I don’t know everyone just calls it ADR and I didn’t want to seem like the complete newbie I am by saying, “What’s that?”) Oh, I just googled ADR and it’s Automated Dialogue Replacement. Audio makes much more sense to me though. 

Munger Road is now picture locked (yay!) and they are working on finishing up the sound now! They do this by bringing all of us actors in to fill in spots that need breathing, talking, or screaming-and they needed a LOT of screaming. Apparently when I was getting dragged through the mud/grass/concrete I wasn’t screaming enough. Which is funny, because I remember screaming A LOT from true fear when it was happening. Maybe I was more concerned about my general safety and poor Jeff’s back (he was the one who had to do the dragging) but that’s what ADR is for! It felt so weird to have to scream blood curdling screams in this tiny little sound studio. I felt so bad for everyone’s ears! 

Suprisingly breathing really tripped me up. It sounds silly because I’m breathing anyway so you would think I could just do it in the microphone and “Tah Dah”. But hearing my breathing so loud on the mic made me self conscious. So I started doing it really quiet and the sound engineer was like “Um we need it a little louder”. Then I did it louder and I think I sounded like I was panting. They were nice though and acted like it was good. They will probably have to find a breathing double for me. (Are there people out there who do that?) It’s not just the volume of the breath but also matching the intensity of what’s happening in the scene. Apparently there’s all sorts of ways to breathe- panicked breathing, anxious breathing, brave breathing…. My character’s brave so I tried to make my breathing sound like I was being brave for the other characters. I’m not sure if it shows in my performance or not but that’s what I was going for! Haha!

My favorite part was when I’m trekking through the woods and they wanted me to make grunting sounds. That’s when I realized I am completely incapable of making sounds like I’m fighting my way through the woods. Maybe because I’ve never really had to fight my way through the woods? I settled on barely doing anything and what I did do sounded absolutely idiotic. I’ll be interested to hear what they can do with what little I gave them. Maybe the person they could hire to be my breathing double could be my grunting double too? I’m just joking, all of my grunting and breathing will be by me. Unless they really do use someone else and just don’t tell me.

It was SO COOL to get to see bits and pieces of the movie. They used all of the latest, coolest cameras and wow it looks amazing. Of course, I have a huge phobia of seeing myself on film so that was probably the toughest part, not judging every little face I made and the way I say certain things. There were a few parts where I was proud of myself and a few parts where I wanted to jump through the screen and strangle myself. Oh my gosh there was one crying scene where I have the stupidest face and I can’t even handle how badly I want to go back and refilm the crying scene with a better face. On another note: Surprisingly crying was the easiest part for me to do the sound for. I never realized I was such a good crier. Maybe it was motivated by my frustration of not being able to breathe, grunt, or on-screen cry correctly? 

It was also great getting to see Nick (the director) and Kyle (the producer) again! I miss my Munger Road family so much! I hope there’s a sequel so we can all work together again! :)

When I got there Lauren Storm was finishing up her ADR and it was fun seeing her work. She is the master of screaming when it sounds like someone’s hand is over your mouth. Sadly I didn’t get to see Trevor or Hallock. Seeing all three of their final performances in the film though was awesome. They are all such pros!

I’m so proud of the film! I just want to see the whole thing now (minus my stupid crying face). 

Ok so last weekend was non stop fun! 

 Friday night was spent in a limo zooming around Hollywood in honor of my new friend Steve’s 30th birthday!  We started out at the ESPN zone in downtown LA where we played some arcade games and then headed to a club in Hollywood! Turns out I’m not so great at basketball or pinball or car racing games, but I made up for all of that with my air hockey skills. I guess it should be noted that was probably only because I played Checka who had a broken wrist and had to use her bad hand against me. It was kind of evil of me to rub in beating her I guess…But altogether It was a great night, with a fantastic group of people! 

 Saturday night I was invited to the premiere of Blue Valentine only knowing that it was a big deal at Cannes film festival and had received great reviews.  I expected something like what the trailer shows, a sappy romantic movie. It was stupid of me to assume that since it’s an independent award winning film. Sappy romance movies don’t win awards. Heart wrenching, uncomfortable dramas win awards. First of all, it’s rated NC-17 which was very awkward to watch with two boys. But the sexy stuff wasn’t the only uncomfortable part, There were some truly cringe-worthy scenes where it didn’t have anything to do with sexual situations but were just so hard to watch that I could not even force myself to look back up at the screen. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who will go see it so I won’t go into detail but just be warned, it’s not for the weak of heart or innocent eyes. I’m not saying it’s not good, it definitely had it’s good moments, the trailer is just misleading so I went in not expecting the movie I saw. Meghan and Jake loved it, Evan and I were kind of wanting to kill ourselves by the time it was over. I appreciated it for what it was, I just was hoping for something more uplifting for a Saturday Night. 

 The premier  was at the Graumann’s theatre which I always love. I should’ve taken a picture inside, it is so beautiful in there!

We walked over to the Roosevelt hotel for the after party which was a lot of fun but kind of crowded! And I swear the only people at the movie premier must’ve been random tv stars. The first person I saw when I walked in was Ben Mackenzie from the O.C. which was my obsession show in high school. Who would’ve thought he’d still be hanging around hollywood? My high school self came out when I saw him and my jaw dropped as my mind screamed “It’s Ryan from the OC!” and I think he saw so I kept walking and played it cool. Unfortunately that didn’t stop me from going up to get my picture with him later in the night! I had to! I rationalized it with the thought that I didn’t want a picture with Ben Mackenzie, but a picture with Ryan, the misunderstood orphan bad boy with a soft heart who’s just trying to navigate his way through his new town full of snotty rich kids, the OC! He wasn’t as personable as I was hoping, but neither was Ryan. Maybe he’s still in character after all of these years…

Other random tv stars I saw included: Zach Braff from Scrubs, Kay Pannebaker from No Ordinary Family, and a ton of other people from the OC (Tate Donovan, Chris Carmack).

Of course, Ryan Gosling was there as well. We were actually all standing kind of close to him for a lot of the night… He’s such a dreamboat.

For a while there I was acting kind of boring, hence the no blogging.  But, while I was getting a lot done,  I started to feel like an old lady who needed a cat or something to keep me company. 

So these last two weeks I did it right and went out almost every night! I had so much fun that I decided it was worth being blogged about! I’m breaking it up into parts for both my typing hands and for your eyes! :) So here goes:

HALLOWEEN WEEK

I love halloween! I love dressing up, I love candy, and I love the scary-ness of it all! :) 

Plus, what other holiday can you walk up to a completely random stranger in a hot dog costume and ask if you can pick him up?This year I found a fantabulous Peacock costume and wore it out so many times, to so many parties that it was literally coming apart while I was dancing at my last Halloween bash! Stupid boning from the corset was popping out and poking me in underarms. So, unfortunately, I had to take the dancing down a notch or two! Which is not an easy thing to do for me!

First, the Saturday BEFORE the weekend of Halloween Kalli, Kristen, Chase Daigle and I went to a Halloween party at a ranch style mansion that my friend Michelle invited us to. It was gorgeous! We walked in and our mouths dropped, it was all open air with beautiful architecture and fantastic halloween decorations! I wish I had gotten more pictures of this house but it was so dark and Kalli doesn’t like to use up her camera battery taking too many pictures! ;) It belonged to the family that practically designed the layout for the city of Los Angeles, but the owners are on a permanent vacation and let their twenty something son live in it by himself! Pretty sweet! The party was a good time, everyone was really friendly and they had tons of candy! Kristen was an Indian, Chase was a cowboy, Kalli was a Bond Girl, and I was a peacock! 

Kalli was supposed to be a bird with me but last minute she decided to be a Bond Girl instead! 

The host of the party insisted that it was a REAL jaguar up there! 

Ben and Michelle= giraffe and a tree! So cute and creative! 

One peacock getting checked out by another peacock! Too many peacocks at the party! But my favorite part of this picture is the random cat guy poking his face in! 

The next friday night I went to Santa Monica to meet up with my friend Sheerin and hang out with her group of friends. I love these people! Ended up spending the whole weekend with them because they were so cool! Friday night we stayed in Santa Monica at a cool outdoor patio place! It didn’t feel like Hollywood which was a nice change. It actually reminded me of something you’d find in Uptown Dallas. There were lots of people in hilarious costumes (the hot dog guy at the top was one of them)!

Saturday night we went to a party/restaurant in Hollywood and danced the night away (this is when my costume finally gave out!) Sunday we carved a pumpkin and Checka cooked us all dinner! 

From left to right: Kaitlin, Steve, Sheerin, and Checka! :)

Steve had on my favorite costume of the night! He was the old man from Up!!! He’s just a TAD bit taller than that little old man! haha

This was the end of the night picture from Saturday night! We were exhausted from all of the dancing and stranded without a taxi in sight!

Worst part about my Halloween? Halloween Horror Nights!

I went to Universal Studios “Halloween Horror Nights” with high hopes. It’s very popular in Los Angeles because they take the rides and give them scary themes using props from real horror movies, sounds fun right? Usually I love haunted houses and stuff, but from the moment we got there and I had a guy with a chainsaw over my head while I was trying to eat my cheesy fries I knew I had made a bad error of judgement. These people were not just scary, they were rude and abrasive. It’s actually LESS scary if you know someone’s about to jump out at you every 30 seconds as you walk through the park. It’s not so much scary as it is annoying. One masked clown swung a hammer at my FACE and it stopped centimeters from my nose. I don’t care if it’s plastic, I don’t want my nose slammed with your stupid hammer! Plus, the streets were crowded and filled with fog as these people were freely swinging their weapons at scared passerbys, what if someone misjudged and actually slammed someone? You know that had to have happened at least a few times a night! My nerves were fried after only five minutes in. I couldn’t even enjoy my cheesy fries! I felt like I was going to have a panic attack by the time we got to our first line. But I had a long time to calm down because every line was about an hour or longer. The first haunted house was pretty scary but once again, it was way predictable.They jumped out like clock work, which ruined the suprise for the people in the back who never got to see a fresh jump out! To top it off, my bottle of water spilled in my purse ruining my cell phone and GPS. So for the rest of the night I held a soaking wet purse, which soaked my clothes, in the cold night air. It’s actually funny because the ride I hated the most at first turned out to be the one I ended up liking the most by the end! All of the haunted houses were pretty much the same thing, not really worth waiting for over an hour to go into more than one or two. So I was excited to do the Back Lot Tour one which they had turned into Chucky’s Terror Tram.  I thought we’d sit on a tram and get a tour of scary movie sets or something. But the tram STOPPED right in front of the set for the grinch that stole christmas and the driver was like “Ok folks we are gonna have to get out now.” And right in front of Who-ville there were FORTY masked guys with chainsaws in perfect formation blocking our path. You had to walk through them to get to the trail we had to walk. I about died and had a nervous breakdown right then and there. I know the chain saws don’t have chains on them, but I hate the noise. My nerves were already shaken, I couldn’t take forty of these people with chainsaws in my face at once! But I hid behind Chris Marshall for dear life and somehow made it through! After we got past that it was really cool because we got to walk by movie sets from Pyscho, War of the Worlds, The Grinch, etc. People still jumped out but it wasn’t so bad because it was outdoors, so I didn’t feel trapped. So that was our experience! I got my fill of scary for not only this year but probably a few years to come. 

Look at the way that clown is creepily looking down at us! He was talking on the mic about our butts at this point!

Ryne and Kristen were scared too! :)