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I suppose you’re wondering why I even do background work, given my myriad other sets of skills. Simple. It’s because you get paid to eat candy. Plus, you get to meet people that you would never meet under any other circumstance, both celebrities and regular folk. For example, in NYC in 2002, while filming HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS, the production assistant announced that we would have a half-hour for a walk away lunch. On set, they either have to provide a catered meal or you get a “walk away” where you go out and get your own lunch somewhere in the ‘hood. Upon hearing the “walk away lunch” announcement, I immediately started singing, “don’t walk away Renee....” Another actor who happened to be walking by me said, “what did you just say???” I repeated the line and explained that it was a walk away lunch, so I was singing Walk Away Renee. He told me that I had the lyrics wrong, that it wasn’t DON’T walk away, but JUST walk away and that he was in the original band that sang the song!!! He was in the LEFT BANKE! He and his wife were doing extra work now. He went on to tell me that Renee supplied drugs to the boys in the band and that the band’s manager, the father of a band member, hated Renee because of the drugs, and if the father had been in the studio and Renee showed up, he’d point to the door and say “JUST WALK AWAY, RENEE! JUST WALK AWAY!” So all this time, I thought the song was a dreamy love song and it turns out it was a “go-away-drug-pusher” song!
I checked the internet and it seems that the real Renee was the girlfriend of one band member, but the muse of another, and is now a respectable voice teacher, running an opera company in San Francisco. I was wondering why all those Northern California opera singers were walking around like dope fiends. Here are photos of me walking to set and walking away by the film's grips.