By Antony Teofilo
Racquel Castro giggles as she plays with a little green plastic alligator. Do a math problem correctly, by pressing the numbers on his teeth, and the alligator smiles. Get it wrong, and his mouth snaps shut.
There are lots of toys like this backstage at Paulsboro High School; fun to play with, but ultimately educational. JERSEY GIRL's climactic scene is being shot over a succession of many days, and Racquel is called upon to do the same scene over and over and over again, from many different angles. While this may not sound too tough compared to digging ditches, what an actor goes through, especially in an intricately staged extravaganza like the one that's being filmed, the results of long days spent either waiting backstage, or standing under hot lights, can be truly fatiguing for an adult, let alone a seven-year-old.
There are strict laws in place that protect child actors like Racquel, and every film has a few people hired on the production that make sure that the best interests of the child in question are always being served. Enter the Child Advocate.
JERSEY GIRL's Child Advocates are busy. Not only are they responsible for Racquel's physical and emotional well-being, they are also in charge of her education. Given that shooting on JERSEY GIRL will last a little over three months, Racquel will need a stable environment within the massively chaotic geography that is a film set so she doesn't fall behind on her studies. Watching them work, getting a child to settle into any sort of routine is a near impossible feat...but when it must be done...
Enter The Advocate
An Interview With Child Advocate Hally McGehean
Note: One of the greatest benefits of getting involved in the film industry is the possibility that one finds oneself in many different professions, sometimes within a month...hence the fact that Ms. McGehean and myself do not only discuss a Child Advocate's duties, but also her other profession: acting.
Antony Teofilo:: As a Child Advocate on JERSEY GIRL, what does your job entail?
Hally McGehean: We're here to protect the child [actors], to make sure they get enough break-time, to make sure that they don't work over a certain amount of hours, to make sure that they don't hurt themselves. We also are responsible for their schooling. [Racquel Castro, who plays Gertie Trinke] is in third grade.
AT: Do you have a background as a teacher?
HG: I have a background as a child actress. Pamela Thompson, who I work with, is a teacher.
AT: Tell me how you got involved in this kind of work.
HG: Well, Pamela's my Mom. [Laughs] The reason she got involved in this kind of work was because I when I was a child actress and she saw all of the nightmares that were going on around me when I was seven. I started in commercials and on Broadway.
Hally-Gator - From Left to Right: Mr. Math Alligator, Racquel Castro, and Child Advocate Hally McGehean pause for a Kodak moment between takes backstage at Paulsboro High School.
AT: You'll forgive me for asking, but due to your diminutive stature and red hair, is there a little orphan ANNIE in your past anywhere?
HG: [Laughs] It haunts me. It haunts me. To this day, twenty years later, I can't get away from ANNIE. I did it at the Gershwin Theater in New York in 1981 and 1982. I ran into the director when they did the revival a little while ago, and we discovered that I'm still short enough. I could still do the show.
AT: Is being short an advantage or disadvantage?
HG: I don't get to play adults. The last show I did was PETER PAN, which I did on Broadway, and then I did a national tour of that, and then we did a movie of it. I played Toodles, one of the lost boys. I loved it though. How many shows do you get to pick your nose and pick your butt in front of six thousand people nightly?
AT: Hopefully, not too many [Laughs]. Getting back to being a Child Advocate, how many times a year do you do this kind of work?
HG: During the year, I do most of this kind of work in theater. This is my first film. For Pamela, who does it full-time, she'll probably cover two films, and then when HACK, the television show, needs someone [in Philadelphia] she'll help out there, and she'll help for guest appearances for TV shows and such. It ranges pretty wide.
AT: So being a Child Advocate is more a tangential job for you?
HG: Yes. My full-time job is acting.
Hally-luja - Anthony Teofilo and the now anti-Annie Hally McGehean share a moment on JERSEY GIRL's back lot a few days after their first momentous meeting.
AT: Where I come from, there's quite a bit of mystique about what it's like to be a working actor in Los Angeles or New York. Tell me about swimming with the sharks on either coast, what it's like to be in the trenches, scratching for acting jobs full-time.
HG: It's not so much about swimming with the sharks in New York. It's more that way on the West Coast. Most of my background is in theater. That community is so supportive in New York. Only two percent of people in Actor's Equity in New York are acting at any given time. Somehow that's made it less cutthroat. It's almost like people are happy when anyone is working, especially in musical theater. It takes such discipline for people to be going to dance classes and going to voice lessons all the time. You develop a community in those classes, and that kind of transfers into auditions. It's mostly about getting out there and meeting people. I've been doing this for such a long time, I can't imagine coming into this business as an adult. That's ballsy.
AT: How do you keep your spirits up when you're dealing with those kinds of odds?
HG: Most working actors I know in New York could be having a really lucrative, stable life doing something else. The only reason they don't do that is because they have to be doing this. It's not really a choice. You have to love it. If you're going to be going to be getting up at five in the morning for an audition where you're going to get to sing eight bars for somebody, you just have to have passion self-perpetuates if you're going to stay alive.
The Renaissance Man sends a special shout out to Ms. McGehean, and thanks her especially for introducing him to the ultra-exclusive, all-white-wearing, aspiring entertainment-type croquet set. Best of luck, Hally!
