I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it, but I seem to be getting more than my fair share of roles requiring me to be bed mates with creepy crawlies.

First, I had to lie on a wet forest floor infested with all kinds of icky insects burrowing among dead leaves.

Second time, I had to lie on a cemetry road owned by whole continents of ants. All kinds of ants. Red, black, brown, tiny ones, giant ones. (And during the times I didn’t have to lie down, the swarms of mozzies had their turn at me.)

And yesterday, I had to roll around and lie on a road covered with milipedes.

I never knew until yesterday that milipedes came in so many different colours. There were black ones, reddish-brown ones, light brown ones, black ones with yellow stripes. Long ones, short ones, baby ones, giant ones.

I only managed to take a photo of one, though. Wanted to take more, including squished ones (there were plenty of those, too) but the director called for me just after I had taken my first picture and I was put to work all the way right up until we left the place.

And then I was a milipede murderer for the rest of the day.

Actually, I can’t say for sure whether I did, or did not, murder any milipedes. But I had to skate on the road the whole morning and there were so many of them going about their merry way on the road, I could have just rolled over any number with no effort.

When I was off my skates, though, I always made sure to look on the ground and step around them carefully.

But despite the milipedes, the shoot was fun. I got to do my own stunts! Not rollerblading stunts, mind. I’m not good enough to do those without making a laughingstock of myself. But I was strapped to the outside of a moving lorry, I was knocked off the lorry, and I tumbled and rolled a few rounds on the road.

I didn’t know I had to do some stunts myself because I had a stuntman body double, so I didn’t do any warm ups. As a result, I am now aching a million places in my body. Even body combat class didn’t make me ache like that.

I also acquired two bruises.

The other bruise is at a place that can’t be shown publicly.

Fortunately, the place where I had to roll around and play comatose on was largely clear of milipedes because the lorry had already driven up and down the road a few times, creating a sizeable number of milipede deaths.

Yep, this is the leadup scene for the show in which I am comatose for five episodes.

I would have enjoyed the shoot much, much more if there hadn’t been any milipedes, and the rollerblades they gave me hadn’t been three sizes too big for me. But that’s just the story of my life.

Categories: Acting Journal

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