June 2006
Greetings from Costa Rica, land of rice and beans:
You'll have to excuse my punctuation.. There's something wrong with the computer keys at this hotel and it keeps trying to give me a little Ñ every time I try to put anything besides a period in my sentence. So no, I'm not drunk, just in the middle of nowhere.
I started off in New Zealand about a month and a bit ago (what day is it?), which was green and lush and gorgeous, and I had a great time with the New Zealand browncoats—to the guy who gave me the moonshine, thanks, and kudos to the double usage, it makes a great nail polish remover! After that, I flew to Sydney for a week and had a blast flitting around the city in my new slouchy boots (Aussies love skinny jeans and boots, I've discovered), dancing till dawn and eating chips every day. The convention went off without a hitch, the fans were lovely, and the questions some of the most original I've ever had, i.e. what was my first kiss like? and can we take a picture of your cleavage? and if you were on a deserted island, who would you want with you and why? (remember what we agreed, guys.. a secret's a secret, and I better not hear a thing about Justin Timberlake on those message boards)
Then, after a deliriously exhausted and semi tearful goodbye to my husband at the airport, I boarded the longest flight of my life to Costa Rica, where I was to start work the next morning. I met the cast, who are all wonderfully insane—Nikki Griffin, Kellan Lutz, Justin Baldoni, and Marc Bacher—, did a rehearsal and a wardrobe fitting, applied self-tanner, then promptly went to bed to wake up for my 4 AM call. The first week was shot at the beach in a national park with every single creature you could imagine: snakes, salt water crocs, monkeys, lizards, sharks, jellyfish... I honestly wouldn't have been surprised to see a unicorn waltz out of the jungle, it was that surreal. Our hotel is going to go down in history as one of the strangest I've ever stayed at, with howler monkeys moaning and groaning outside my cabin windows at all hours of the night, a persistent and cuddly cockroach snuggled up in my bed, a giant gecko watching over me on the wall while I slept... you get the picture. For those of you that know me, you know how much I had to swallow to endure this with optimism. But hey. That's what you get for shooting in the wild, and eventually I just sucked it up and embraced it.
Then came the Green River. We shot in what looked like a shanty town, with kids sitting on the sidewalks, horses tied up to store fronts, basically the kind of town you want to purchase just so you can save everyone from it and burn it to the ground. Notice I'm calling it Green River and not by it's real name, since I don't want to offend anyone who may be from there, like Satan. But the actual jungle location we shot in was spectacular, and just could not be duplicated anywhere else—everything was literally green, from the rocks to the massive trees surrounding the set... it was breathtaking. But dangerous. Lots of creepy crawlies hiding under things (the medic actually found a very pissed off viper about to attack and had to, um, decapitate it to save his own life—the glamour of the movie biz!), huge spiders, beautiful neon colored flying thingies and TONS of mosquitoes... but we got through it.
After that, we came to our last location, where we are now, a beautiful little Italian hotel with jungle along its perimeter that seems like Shangri-La after all we've been through. There's a nice spa, a bunch of cute walking trails, a bird sanctuary, a garden where they grow their own vegetables, a casino... I'm happy as a clam. Almost. Clams don't really know what they're missing anyway. We started doing the really intense stuff, most of our stunt work and fight sequences, which unfortunately take place at night, so there's been a lot of things to endure... and it of course won't stop raining, it being the rainy season and all. My husband showed up a few days ago and brought some peace and serenity with him, and US magazine (how I've missed you, Brangelina!!) so I'm not as homesick as I was. We have about a week left to get everything we need from this location, and then a few days off so I can go home and get some Teddy cuddles, and then it's on to LA to finish up shooting.
I've learned a lot about myself on this shoot, to say the least. When Matt got here he was absolutely astounded at what I've become, what with the scabs on my arms from various wipe outs, bruised knees, no make up, a dirty t-shirt and a Jansen backpack instead of my regular Juicy couture... but change is good, and discovering you could do things you never thought possible is even better. I feel like a warrior woman!! I'm insanely tired, and I honestly don't know how I'm going to get through the next few nights, but after this shoot is over, I'm going to feel invincible. It's nice to know I'm not as much of a wimp as I thought!
To get more info on the movie you can check out www.thetribemovie.blogspot.com Our EPK guy (who takes care of the special features on the DVD and such) has been keeping an almost daily blog and taking lots of photos as we've been going along. Kinda cool to see it all unfolding in such a personal way.
Wish me luck and I'll write again soon.
love Jewel
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