the way to Pittsburgh I got bumped to first class a lot of people did apparently not a lot of booking for first class to go from Newark to Pittsburgh surprisingly on the way back first class was full and group one was enormous but on the way there I was in line to board with group two and then I got a notification on my phone that my boarding pass had changed and I looked and I had been moved to first class so I switched over to the group one line which is what I told me to do so fine I get on and lots of people are getting this like a one woman as she’s boarding the plane gets the notification like literally she’s stepping on I guess the notification that she’s down first class and she’s with a pretty big group and they’re all excited for it like way to go and she has the seat next to me she has the window seat I’m reviewing my script even before takeoff you know those people were boarding I’ve got my notebook out cuz I want to make sure I don’t use an iPad and start watching a movie which is my default on a plane I want to you know read this script and start learning the lines so she looks over she’s like I’m sorry to bother you but are you an actor and I’m not gonna get into a whole story so I just say yes which is technically true and she’s like well you must sit in first class all the time so forgive me for finding this very exciting and all I said was I’m excited every time I’m in first class to your daily Lex so it was interesting you know the the day of the shoot that I had for this thing there was some filming each day but the main filming day was the first day and it was it was very interesting to be in that way the center of attention like I’m the only person on camera so all attention is being made to me paid to all attention is being paid to me that was a fun awkward structure to say but you know at first they’re like okay Lex you can have this room you know we were in a co-working space but they had a reserved multiple rooms like you can have this room now in every co-working space I’ve ever been in it’s all glass walls it’s like it’s private which also made changing very interesting but you’re gonna hang out in this room while we get things set up and like you know at one point I check in to see what they’re doing like when guys building a scooter that I had to ride I did not ride the scooter all that well they’re setting up you know all their lights and equipment they’re doing other things but they’re like no and I’m like hey do you guys need a hand with anything you’re like no no no you just you relax in their mind I’m the talent in my mind I’m Lex Friedman you know the real Lex Friedman and it was just very bizarre and every once in a while they’d be like hey do you need a break while we were filming like no I’m good like I said two lines I can keep going at some point they had a stand-in for me while they were doing lighting I’m like guys I’m right here I can I can say like no no no it’s okay and what I was wondering the whole time was how long it takes for that to stop feeling odd because it must right if you’re a huge actor and this is happening to you all the time you must get used to it right you must not even just get used to it but I think in many cases and probably it’s problematic and common you must feel owed it in some way and certainly I get if you’re doing a long shoot if you’re you know filming a movie I totally get the giving you downtime while they’re setting things up it makes sense so that you don’t have to be there while they’re doing lighting tests and that’s why they have stand-ins I get all that that makes sense to me it truly does but when everybody’s kind of waiting on you and you’re back and calling like again they kept asking if I needed a break I need a coffee did I need a water did I need time they it’s I did not get a swelled head because the entire time I was like this is insane but I can it’s very easy understand how people do get swelled heads and how they become not just reliant on it but I guess depends anything but like expecting it and so yeah it’s it was very odd to me the other stress that I had was you know I was reading that script on the plane and I was reading the script in my hotel room and I hadn’t been sent the script initially I’ve been sent storyboards that had the script in it but not the full script for the day of shooting and then earlier last week I said hey can you please send me the script which they did they didn’t say by the way we’re sending you 10 pages but we only intend to shoot 5 pages so I didn’t know that it was only 10 pages now 10 pages may or may not sound like a lot to you a 10 page play is short a 10 page monologue where it’s just you talking because that’s what this ad is that’s a lot and so I was slightly going out of my mind because I didn’t really feel like I had enough time to memorize this script which is why I was looking at it on the plane and in my hotel room I recorded myself saying all the lines and I played that recording all night long while I slept the night before the shoot then that morning I was like yeah I’ve been working on it and they’re like oh yeah we should have told you we’re only gonna be shooting these five pages it’s like great I can let go of part of that in my brain I don’t believe by the way that listening overnight really helped but it was at least a security blanket of some kind I did fine on the memorizing memorizing is definitely harder for scripts than it used to be for me I don’t actually think that it’s aging exactly I think it’s being out of practice I think we need to a whole lot of scripted stuff it gets easier and then when you don’t do it for a long time which I didn’t for many years you have to rebuild that muscle that’s one of the reasons that I love improv right never have to memorize but yeah got it all done there was only one time where I was like hey I’m gonna need a couple minutes to look at this before we can film this section it was a new section that they had provided me a script for that day so like nobody was concerned or offended I was like I gotta look at this for a minute then the best thing they could say which they did say was hey for some of these we don’t care if it’s verbatim at all we think you’re funny just like get the idea across and make the words your own love that anyway that’s my chaotic recorded in multiple chunks episode of your daily Lex you have a wonderful weekend I insist Lex