Christopher Lee Says Filming In The Past Was So Tiring, He Had A Chair On Standby That He Would Collapse On When The Director Yelled Cut
We all know how little rest actors get when they are filming but did you know it was a lot worse back in the day?
In a recent episode of Taiwanese host Dee Hsu‘s variety show Dee Girls Talk, Christopher Lee, who was in Taiwan to promote his new drama Port of Lies, got candid about the tough filming conditions when he first started acting in the ’90s.
“We had three directors for each production, each director would film for eight to 12 hours. Once we’re done filming for the first director, if you’re the lead actor, you will then go on to film [for the next director],” he recalled.
“This meant you would go days without sleep,” added Christopher, who said his record was not sleeping for seven to eight days straight.
That led an incredulous Dee to ask: “Doesn’t a person go crazy if they don’t get any sleep for nine days?”
“I don’t know. I was on the verge of going berserk,” replied Chris.
The actor went on to say that his worst experience was having to film 50 episodes of a period drama in just two-and-a-half months.
“We’d shoot till about 3 to 4am every night. The earliest [we would end] would be 2am. Then we would have to go in for hair and make-up again at 6am. Many times, we would end work at 5am, go back for a shower, read our scripts, and leave for work again,” said Chris.
When asked if he threw any tantrums given the killer schedule, Chris chuckled: “I didn’t dare! I had to work hard!”
Since he couldn’t openly express his unhappiness, the actor pretended to be sick just to buy some time for rest.
“It didn’t work,” laughed Chris. “I understood why though. Every additional day of filming would incur additional cost. So we would think to ourselves, ‘It’s okay, we will bear with it and rest once we’re done with the show.’
“So when we did our make-up, someone would prop our heads up for us while we napped. We only had the time between scenes to rest.”
You must be wondering, how are actors expected to perform well when they’re given so little time to rest?
Well, they make do.
“When we didn’t sleep, we looked so bad. But we would use lighting to cover that up, people couldn’t tell at all,” he said.
He continued: “During that period, we often had a chair on standby. My assistant would push it under me and I would collapse on it whenever [the director] said “Cut!”.”
Chris also had to scribble his lines on posters because he was too tired to memorise his lines, which were all written in classical Chinese,
“I don’t think I did anything wrong, they did me dirty,” he laughed. “Having lines in classical Chinese is fine, but given such filming conditions, there’s no way I could remember them.”
It eventually took Chris six months to recuperate from the lack of rest.
“Back then it was so tough. I was so tired, flustered and tense. I was very unhealthy. My stamina dropped and everything was dwindling. It was only six months after filming that I felt, ‘Oh, I’m back to normal’,” said Chris.
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