My Prairie Home Movie

Wednesday, May 18
I found out today that I will be playing “Al, the Imperious Stage Manager” in director Robert Altman’s film based on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion. Wren Arthur, one of the film producers, called with the good news and said a script would be mailed to me soon. I won’t believe it until I see the script Garrison has written. She gave me the list of stars who will be in the film with Garrison: Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Virginia Madsen, Mary Louise Burke, L. Q. Jones, Maya Rudolph. Holy cow! The fee is scale, which for me is big, but it’s safe to say that a lot of the stars are working for less than usual just for the privilege of working for Mr. Altman.

Thursday, May 26
I’m finally delivered a script. Yippee! I have lines on twenty-eight pages, and scenes with everyone except the “Axeman”—the character who comes from a faith-based Texas corporation that has bought the station and plans to shut down the radio show forever—a role yet to be cast.

Wednesday, June 15
Today I have a meeting with Bob Altman. He’s been to the show several times and has always been very complimentary. I’m glad he was able to convince Garrison to write the screenplay. He wants to see me and Sue Scott, a fellow actor on A Prairie Home Companion for the past eleven years. We’re the only radio show members, besides Garrison, to be cast as characters—but Jearlyn Steele, Robin and Linda Williams, Butch Thompson, and the other musicians will be playing themselves. Sue has been cast as “Donna, the Makeup Lady.” I arrive before Sue. Bob is sitting in the corner of his office. He’s very genial and introduces me to David Levy, a producer on many of his films. Bob tells me they want us for the film because the radio show has around 4 million listeners and it would be nice to utilize part of the radio family. Sue arrives, and Bob asks us if we feel comfortable in our roles. Of course we do! Who would say no? I tell him that my wife would say the role of a grumpy worrywart trying to keep everything together for one final broadcast is pretty much typecasting. He tells us he expects us to be creative in the “business”—which is the shtick actors create to fill out each of their scenes.

Afterward, we meet several producers and assistant director Vebe Borge, Victor Borge’s son, who we had met in Chicago last week during our appearance at Ravinia Park for a broadcast of APHC. Pictures of all the stars—including Sue and me—line one production-room wall. Mine is from a show this year when Garrison did some last-minute editing of a “Catchup Advisory Board” commercial by putting both arms around me, holding the script steady with his left hand and editing it with his right while I was reading it live on the air. It’s a great shot that seems to capture, for the film people, Garrison’s spontaneity and the magic of live radio. We also find out that Tommy Lee Jones is joining the cast as the Axeman.

Wednesday, June 29
Shooting begins today. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, who play “Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, the Singing Johnson Girls,” and Lindsay Lohan, who plays “Yolanda’s Daughter, Lola,” will film in the basement of the Fitzgerald Theater, which has been transformed into a number of dressing rooms with a distinctly retro feel. We have to shoot out of sequence so they can leave by the end of the second week. Sue is involved in the background.