Ferrets, Are You Ready for Your Close-up?

Despite the amount of time I spend writing about film stars, I’ve been on only one film set: Harry Potter. Wednesday I went to Shepperton Studios, way out past Heathrow Airport, where Helen Mirren, Paul Bettany, and Brendan Fraser are filming. (It was the day after the Oscar nominations were announced, and Helen Mirren was dressed, for her great aunt role, in a high-necked blouse, a flowered dress, and a turban – and not one from Prada spring/summer. When I joked to her about whether the outfit would provide inspiration for her Oscars gown, she laughed and said: “Darling, don’t you just love my outfit? Most of it’s from H&M.”)

The highlight of the day was not the treacle tart served for lunch, which the crew was raving about (I didn’t have any), or the three (count ‘em, three) hours I spent killing time waiting for the cast to finish shooting and come talk with me. (Factette of the day: The producer told me they shoot what amounts to a minute of film per day.)

The highlight – for me – was talking with the animal trainers. Even if an animal, say, bites one of the stars (or “talent,” as they’re called – which in this case might be apt but I can think of many others where it isn’t. Yes, I’m looking at you, Lindsay Lohan.), I’ll never use any of the information I acquired. But I love knowing it.

For example: To play the one ferret in the film, there are 12 ferrets, all trained in different, very specific tasks. One is trained just to sit on Paul Bettany’s shoulder, another is trained only to fetch, another is trained to leap. To make all the ferrets look the same, they paint them with brown mascara. I love it. I also find it endlessly amusing that we have a society that has created a need as specific as this – that this is someone’s job. I think I might be speechless if I met someone at a cocktail party and she said, “Oh, I train ferrets for the movies.” It sure beats: “I’m a journalist.”

Other factette of the day: MGM owns the rights to use cairn terriers as Toto from The Wizard of Oz – so no one else can. This production, which needs a Toto, has had to use Westies and dye them black with hair dye. (Despite – or perhaps because of – the amount of time I spend asking similar questions of celebs, I did not ask which brand.)