It's about the work...

Filming on location this long can get very lonely. You can sometimes feel so homesick and tired, you wonder if it is worth it. Everybody tells me that what we are doing now is the "work" part. That in the future, once the work is done there will be many perks. Audiences tend to only see the finished product and they don't see the work so the business of acting seems glamorous. But if they saw the work part... it can be really rough.

So that's pretty much where I was at last week when one of those "perks" walked right into my school room. I had filmed several scenes with the director for 105. Her name is Deborah Chow and I really really enjoyed working with her. But I was tired. It was day 10 of 10 days to film episode 105 and everyone was on edge because they didn't want to fall further behind. On top of all that, I had to do 5 hours of school. It was a very tiring day and a day I was wondering if all this work was worth it.

As I sat in the school room doing my math, suddenly there was a knock at the door. "Let's go!" said Chad the 2nd AD. "I'm taking you to meet The Flash!" I knew he had been trying to make this happen since January but because of my schedule and The Flash's schedule it was hard to figure out. But today was the day!

We hopped in a transport vehicle and they drove us 5 short minutes from our film studio to Vancouver Film Studios (VFS). I hopped out of the van and made my way towards Stage J.

I entered the big soundproof door and saw the speed lab. Before I could even take one step into it, Tom Felton (AKA Draco Malfoy) ran up to me and said, "You must be Max! I've been looking forward to meeting you. Give us a hug!" He had a thick british accent. We chatted about Lost in Space and filming when all of a sudden The Flash himself, Grant Gustin, came over and flashed a big smile!
"Hey Max! I'm so glad this finally worked out!" I was so euphoric, I could barely remember what I said. I do know that we talked about music, and Aviator Nation (we are both fans), and rain, and shooting a tv series far from home, and how hard season one of anything is, and family, and summer plans, and of course The Flash! He was so nice and humble and before I could even ask, he said, "Let's get a photo!" Then he introduced me to the rest of the cast before they were called back to film a scene.

Grant grabbed a pair of headsets from the sound cart and handed them to me so I could listen and watch them filming from the monitor. And then he was off.... like the flash.

I watched for a while then I got called back to set to film another scene. It was an awesome day. Somehow when I got back to my stage, I had a bit more understanding that moments like this would never happen unless I put in the work.