Disquiet on the set

Lately, Robert has become so dissatisfied with prosaic conversations about crayons and poop that he’s begun directing his own scripts.

He [picking up his harmonica]: Can you lie down and go to sleep?
Me: Boy, am I tired! *snore*
He: [shrill harmonica blast]
Me [sitting bolt upright]: Whoa!
He: Can you say, “What happened”?
Me: What happened?
He: I blew a song and it woke you up! That’s what happened!
Me: Wow! You sure did!
He: Can you go to sleep again?

We shot this scene about 200 times. The kid makes Scorsese look like a slacker.

Comments

[Anna]

So what's the way to manage a scenario like this? Do you do an extra enthusiastic job with dramatic facial expressions and cartoony reactions, hoping to make him laugh so hard you can distract him into some other activity? Or do you do a really lame, wimpy version, hoping to bore him of the whole process?

Although I guess I really know the answer. There is no managing of a scenario when your co-scenarist is two-ish. It will go on, regardless.

I sometimes dread my likely future as a mom.

[LOD]

I'm probably the wrong person to ask, because I'm such an emotionally arrested goob that I get almost as much fun out of it as he does. I suppose you just go with the flow and see how much each of you can stand.

[sac]

I think it depends upon the aesthetic sensibilities of the toddler auteur. Some kids, such as my almost-3 year old, will take an unenthusiastic performance as a challenge and will begin barking direction at me, even going so far as to give line-readings. I'm really surprised I haven't been replaced by a dad with more star-power.

[domin8trix]

my preschooler son gives me my lines, too. he says: "okay mom, now say: 'wait, hermione granger!' and then you say 'hermione granger!'"
i always have to be professor dumbledore. and he makes me say basically nothing but filler, peppered with the words hermione and granger. its really boring.