Another part of Robert’s comment stuck in my head:
The director is obviously doing what makes him happy…putting down caring souls such as yourself.
I think this is a mistake people frequently make. Putting me down doesn’t make him happy. For that to make him happy, he’d have to care what I think. But he really couldn’t care less.
I’m a non-entity to him. I don’t exist. And if I don’t exist, the event never happened. He’s already forgotten about it.
If he’s reading this blog right now, I guarantee he won’t even recognize himself.
Beyond him, any director who happens to read this will think, “Well, that guy’s a jerk, but I don’t act that way.”
And the PA down the hall will be thinking, “Yes, you do.”
To paraphrase Heinlein, never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by apathy.
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I’ve gotta say that this really is a case of who the director is. Yes, the position invites a level of assholeyness, but they’re really not all that way. Richard Benjamin is a totally wonderful human being who remembers the name of everyone who works on one of his pictures. I ran into him 6 years after the last time I had worked for him and he stopped working to turn and ask me how I was doing and could I hang out until lunch so we could talk. Hell, his wife (Paula Prentiss) met me on the first movie I did for him and then showed up a few years later and remembered me five years later…the next time I encountered her.
My GF worked on the 2nd Unit for Spiderman. John Dykstra was the special effects director, so director of the 2nd unit. I had met him a few years earlier when I was Location Manager for the effects unit on Stuart Little. GF found herself sitting next to him at lunch, introduced herself and mentioned that she and I lived together. Dykstra said, “Hey, why isn’t he on this movie?” GF responded, “Yeah, why isn’t he?”