More-buquerque

Good morning from New Mexico! a few more days here and then back home on Tuesday.

So let's see, last week I left you with "Marc and I had loose plans to meet"

So last Saturday, I went to meet him for dinner at the very trendy but genuinely lovely Los Poblanos hotel/restaurant. On the way, i picked him up at his new place and got the tour. Nice place, man! A 1930s adobe house that has a lot of history and he seemed real happy with it.

We arrived with no reservation, but the host knew Marc (he's from here!) and she found us a table outside. Marc half-jokingly asked "any other celebs here?" and she whispered: I shouldn't tell you this, but Aubrey Plaza and Margret Qualley are here! Aubrey's here! We bolted up and went into the main dining room to seek them out.

We found them, and boy was Aubrey surprised to suddenly see us! Aubrey and I had seen each other a few times since our magical summer in Tuscany on the Spin Me Round movie and I always enjoy hanging with her. They had just sat down and invited us to join them. I didn't know who the hell Margret Qualley was but the details started to drip out - They were both in town working on Ethan Cohen's new movie. He had made a movie with Margaret that had just come out, Drive Away Dolls, and now she was back for more.

We had a lovely dinner, Marc and I yuckin it up for the young starlet. She was funny and friendly and we all got along great. Marc said he was going to "go up" later at a small imrov theater that had a stand up night, and the ladies were already committed to a small gathering with Ethan, but I agreed to tag along.

Aubrey and I made plans to get together again and I think she was grateful to know I was in town. Us actors have lots of time to kill. We made loose plans for the next day.

Marc and I headed to the comedy club and got a seat in the back. It was a cute little spot run by a lesbian couple and the crowd was mostly comedy nerds and friends of the performers that night. The short sets from the locals were just fine. I was kind of hoping for an entertaining train wreck, but merely got serviceable middle of the road observational comedy. Then Marc popped up to roars from the 60 people packed in and proceeded to kill. You know how I feel about stand up comedy, but quality is quality and Marc's got it. He's so effortless and smart I just enjoyed the hell out of it.

The next night, I met Aubrey back at Los Poblanos for a dinner for two. I was a little anxious as we'd never had a one on one hang but we quickly got on and had a lovely dinner getting to know each other better.

That night, I had a terrible sleep: I had a 5:30am call the next morning, and sabotaged myself by going to sleep a little early and darting up at 1am and had a hard time getting back to sleep. First day jitters were pulsing through me. I got to set in a dark haze and downed some coffee.

I went into the hair and makeup trailer and was greeted by the crew and some of the cast who were getting done up and everyone was immediately kind and friendly which eased my mind a bit.

On set, we walked through the first scene, a scene where I had a good chunk of dialogue and I had my usual first take stutters, but went well enough. The director was very chill and told me I could play with it, as the scene had an Altmanesque, talking over each other kind of vibe to it. In the scene me and another actor, a woman named Indira Wilson walk in together - we chatted a bit and she told me, "oof, I had a terrible sleep last night" - boom! we instantly bonded and over the rest of the day we became quick pals.

I was the white guy in the scene, playing with the other actors who were black and my scene called for me to be at times... racially inelegant, which I started to incorporate into the improv. I took some risky moves which cracked everyone up and I felt welcomed and appreciated. The crew started to warm up to me as well, and the day went by with lots of laughs and good chats. We all bonded quickly and I felt right at home.

That night, some of the producers and a few of the cast we're headed back to los Pablos for dinner and I joined them late as I had a meeting I couldn't get out of. I walked in and found the big table of my new friends and there across the room was Aubrey again now having dinner with Charlie Day! I went over to say hello and introduced myself to Charlie who I am of course a fan of but had never met. He corrected me and said we did meet! Something like 12 years ago I was walking in Griffith Park on a hike and some of the Always Sunny in Philadelphia crew were driving down the road in a golf cart. With Danny DeVito sitting on the back. I don't even think they stopped, but we all waved and said hello to each other. I couldn't believe he remembered that. Charlie was in town doing a few days on the Ethan Cohen movie and after a few minutes, I let them be and return to my table. I sat with one of the producers, Ian, who I had gotten to know really well on us. Perhaps one of the kindest men I know. We have genuine affection for each other. He's a smart artsy guy who came from the art world and has known Jordan Peele since they were kids. He's always been a real champion for me and I know that he's very responsible for me being in the movie.

After dinner, Aubrey, Charlie, Ian and I went outside to have a drink and hang a bit. After a few moments of hanging with Charlie, I couldn't believe believe that we weren't already good friends. He's about as easy and funny as you'd hope and we quickly got to joking around in a very natural way.

He was staying at my hotel, but had Ubered and I offered to drive him back. We left and had a nice get to know you drive back to our hotel and promised to stay in touch and maybe get our families together down the line. I hope it happens and it's a funny thing when you do these movies and quickly make friends, but life happens and you don't get to see them. I'm going to make an effort to do a better job of corralling these fun people I meet out here on the road into some kind of social situation in the future.

I also learned that Ari Aster was in town shooting his movie and I texted him... I knew he was "in the shit" (in the middle of making what can only be another insane masterpiece) so gave him no pressure to meet up, but a few days later we ran into each other across from the hotel we're both staying at and had a nice little catch up chat. Love em.

The rest of the week flew by with reasonable call times, fun work and further bonding with the lovely crew. The first A.D. and I got along well when we discovered each others Dodgers passion and last night he was calling out the score of the game to me over the PA as we were setting up for a new take. An exciting extra innings win from rookie Andy Pages got my adrenaline going which dovetailed right into the scene. I hope you'll soon see in the final cut. Fuck the Braves, Phil.

I was able to catch the show on Thursday and thought it was a real riot! Brendan really got me with the fake 911 call. I was watching live and like many of you, panicked! And the call to the Beverly Hills Ferrari dealership was real funny. What a, generous receptionist to stay on the line and play along for a little bit. Doug, of course, killed it with another game. Man he is quick and prolific with those games. He is the master of games.

I also understand there was an unfortunate unintentional misgendering of one of the zoom callers and I wish from afar that we could've done better but with the chaos of live TV it's impossible to have a do over. All I can say is, sorry and please know we try our best to show love and respect to our Trans friends. Matt and I will work on a system to make sure we have a better idea of who we're talking to and how they prefer to be addressed.

That's all for now. Signing off from Albuquerque, New Mexico, I am Tim Heidecker.

Peace and Love, T