The interesting thing about The Rock(Dwayne Johnson) is his backstage reputation as a wrestler was stellar and he was well respected.
It is only in the last 5 years I have heard about him being a huge prima donna.
He apparently has a person whose on-set job is to wait for Johnson to hand off bottles full of urine.
Very, very strange man.
Yes, I mangled the title. Couldn’t edit by the time I realized it. Nobody had started discussing if Johnson was a better fit for the Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill or Robert Carradine role, so figured it would just confuse things if I brought it up myself.
What “serious safety issues” could be part of a starlet’s contract that she needs to include a ludicrous demand to ensure that the contract is read down to the details? I can understand the need to ensure that a venue provides proper equipment or staging for a concert, but this is just, as you yourself admit, the starlet saying “I know what I’m worth, and I know I have power, and if you jerk me around I will not hesitate to fight back.” Lady, you were hired to do a job, not to be a prima donna.
That’s my reaction too.
Useless details are just that: useless. Every nanosecond they spending providing dog-washing Perrier or picking out out brown M&Ms is time not spent on whatever actually matters to the star. Especially for the sorts of details that mindless 4th tier flunkies are tasked to deal with. Finding a brown M&M says exactly zero about the odds of finding an open ground or 120V hot guitar pickup.
It’s pure performative egoism worthy of a certainly widely reviled elected official.
And if everyone simply treated it as a job, none of this would be an issue. Everyone would simply be a professional and that would be the end of it.
But power games from shithead producers and studio executives are rife on movie sets. So the smart and experienced above-the-line talent will send signals like this to communicate they will not be fucked with in such a way. Otherwise they’re making themselves a target for fuckery.
(Oh, and re the safety thing, that was just poorly expressed. The mention of safety issues in the contract was supposed to apply solely to the example of the touring musicians, with a change of subject following. Fuck-you clauses in actor contracts are just that, fuck-you clauses.)
If you piled all the sexism that women have been subjected to on film sets into mountains they would dwarf the Himalayas. Maybe this ingenue (ingenue? are we living in the 50s?) was ahead of her time in sticking up for herself. Maybe she was just an asshole. The reality is that a thousand male actors could have done something similar and it wouldn’t hurt their reputations or careers but the same consideration has never been given to women in Hollywood.
You’re damn right. They don’t even have to be real divas. All it takes is a Weinstein to spread the rumor that you’re “difficult”.
I have one acting credit and this matches my experience exactly. There is a lot of waiting around for your turn.
I also listen to the “Office Ladies” podcast (hosted by stars of The Office, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey) and they said one thing that made their show unique is that when you weren’t featured in a scene, you were still in the background and required to be acting to show that your character was “doing stuff” to make the scene believable as taking place in a real place of business. And sometimes the camera crew would catch you doing something interesting (maybe as a reaction to what the featured actors were doing in the scene) and might focus on your improvisation.
But that was the exception that makes the rule; normally you’re just trying to be there and available as cast or crew because time is critical when filming a TV show or movie, and when you are needed you are needed right away. A lot of things are time-sensitive when filming; lighting and/or weather if you are outdoors, certain props might only be “fresh” for a certain amount of time, guest stars might have limited availability to avoid conflict with another project, and so on.
Which just reinforces how much of a nightmare it must be when a star doesn’t arrive on time or even at all for a film day.
Ever hear of Marlon Brando?
“Do you find my…method acting…unsound?”
Screenwriter William Goldman: The most exciting day of your life is your first day on a movie set, and the dullest day of your life is the second day.
When the prima donna is hiding in their trailer it’s so quiet on the set you can hear cute aphorisms echo.
But they do echo with perfect fidelity. Memorex would be so proud. 
Sorry about that @don_t_ask. Somehow I just skipped your post.
Happy Doperversary there @Exapno_Mapcase! Been quite a couple of decades around here hasn’t it?
I actually joined in late 2001. That was just before the Winter of Missed Content (great name) erased every post during that span. All my early posts disappeared. And so did my join date.
I really did lurk for a couple of years before I joined, because I thought that posting would be too great a time sink. Would I could be that prescient on everything else.
I know when I joined. The database doesn’t. It will continue to be a bone of contention between us until the day they pull the plug. Or on me.
Damn. Sorry to rub salt in an old wound. But we are glad you’re here, despite the abundant time sink.