Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Michael At San Diego's Comic Con: "Kristen and I are Just Friends"

Today was the first day of the panels at San Diego's Comic Con and Alien: Genesis had it's own panel with cast members Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Bradley Cooper, Michael Reese Meyers, and writer Damon Lindelof all present. Director Ridley Scott and star Anya Camilla Bella appeared via Skype satellite footage from location where they are wrapping up filming of the movie. Michael and the cast of course were asked tons of questions about the film and there are many sites which will cover all that was discussed for all you sci-fi movie and Alien franchise nuts out there but we will only focus on the questions Michael was asked and his answers (click HERE for a rough YouTube video of the entire panel discussion)...

Q: This question is for Michael Reese Meyers. It's been hinted at that both yours and Bradley Cooper's characters are cyborgs. Is there any truth to that?
A: Yes. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by revealing that. It's made pretty obvious when you first meet us in the film what we are and who we are, so yea I can say that. It was cool. It's my second time working with Ridley, we did Kingdom of Heaven together way back in 2004/2005, my second time working with Anya, we did a small film together in 2005 called Laws of Attraction. So it was great to work with them again and to meet people like Charlize, Idris, Bradley, the rest of this amazing cast, and to top it off play a character, a type of character I have never done before, which is always what I'm looking forward to doing as an actor. Stretching myself, my skills, as, as an actor.

Q: This is a question for Michael. Were there any special physical demands you had for playing the role? Bradley mentioned how hard it was for him to go against his actor training of emoting and to hold that in since cyborgs don't have feelings. Was that the same for you?
A: Yea it was, actually. Me and Bradley talked about that alot on set. Also the bikes we had to ride. There are these futuristic motorbike things we ride in the film that are pretty bad ass that we ride around on sometimes and that was insane. I'll remember that as the scariest part of the shoot, at least for me. Aliens or no aliens. It was like learning to ride a motorcycle, and I came on late so I basically had a day to learn how to do it and Charlize was just kicking everyone's asses, haha. I don't know how she got so good. But she's very very competitive, so it was fun having that back and forth with her. But yea my legs were always sore because of heavy prosthetics we had to wear and green screen makeup as well as the astronaut suits on top of that. So just standing for 9 and a half hours a day in all that gear was exhausting. The first few days were hell but your body gets acclimated to it, for the most part.

Q: This one's for Michael. Was it difficult for you to concentrate while filming since you are always in the news for some new controversy or the other plus you had just come off gaining so much weight for your last film. You looked pretty thin in the footage we saw so how did you lose it?
A: Haha, yea I'm Mr. Controversy apparently. Trouble just seems to find me I guess. As far as being in the news, let me just clarify for the press who like to make up stories, Kristen Bell and I are JUST FRIENDS! Write that down. She is a very happily married woman. I flew in town for Comic Con over the weekend and stopped by a bar real quick and saw her in there by herself, had no idea she was gonna be in there, and remember we haven't spoken in like over a year. So we started chatting at around like midnight and next thing ya know it's 3 am. So we left. But paparazzi saw us and made this big thing. It's all really silly to me. And the weight loss, that was a peace of cake. Gaining it was hard because my metabolism is so freakishly fast but losing it took less than a week. It literally just dropped off. So yea that wasn't a problem.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Michael and Kristen Bell spotted leaving LA bar at 3AM


UH OH! What is this??? Michael in the news again. And this...is...BIG! Maybe....Or it could be nothing. Who knows? But TMZ caught Michael and his first girlfriend and former fiance actress Kristen Bell (who got married to actor Zachary Knighton this past April) sneaking out of a bar in Los Angeles at around 3 in the morning. They were seen walking to her car and then he walked to his car and they left separately. What is going on? Something. Maybe nothing. We will find out for sure soon.....

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Michael Questioned by Police After Rooftop Party Gets Raided

This just in from PopEater.com. 27 year old actor Michael Reese Meyers was questioned then released by Toronto police officers Friday night after he and an unidentified 37 year old man were detained by cops who raided a rooftop party in which several dozen people were consuming alcohol. Apparently someone tipped off the police that there was loud music and underage drinking going on. Turns out the majority of the party goers were under 21 and many were arrested. Michael, who is obviously of drinking age, luckily was not arrested. According to police reports, Michael was questioned for roughly 20 minutes and when asked how he got there he answered "A girl he thought was 18 invited him". That girl, who he only referred to as "Danielle" since he claims to not know her last name, turned out to be only 15. You can read the whole story HERE.

Not sure what to make of all this. We know Michael is in Canada filming the new Alien film but he really needs to be careful. I am sure he thought she was 18 but he has not cared about age in the past (Mel was only 16 when they met and Alley Vendetta was 15 when they met). Thankfully he wasn't arrested. If anything more comes out trust that we will update you...

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Photos of Michael and Kathleen Roberts from 'Trust Me' wrap party


Michael's latest blog about his experience filming 'Trust Me' revealed how much sex there was going on while they were shooting with the cast and crew and now photos of him getting cozy with the film's director and writer Kathleen Roberts at the film's wrap party from last week Wednesday have now surfaced via her twitter. Roberts is in a relationship with the film's producer J.L. Bayez. Meyers did mention in his recent blog that "everyone had sex with everyone" so who knows? Fresh out of sex rehab, is he up to his old tricks? Isn't he dating Alley Vendetta? Should we even be surprised anymore? Time will tell.

UPDATE: Michael just tweeted "I dont sleep at night. I work all the time. I flirt with other girls. I do it all to keep my mind off the fact that all I want is YOU #HeDontDeserveYou". Hmmm, wonder who he is talking to????


Wednesday, August 3, 2011

NEW BLOG: "Trust Me" wrap party and shoot struggles

Hey fans! Mike here. More stories from my journey called LIFE!!!! So today we had the wrap party for "Trust Me" (I flew in from Vancouver where I will be filming Alien: Genesis for the next 6 weeks, just for the day). It was awesome and very sad and emotional for all of us. I have never bonded so much with a cast and crew in my career. Everyone got incredibly close (maybe too close LOL...but I will discuss that at a later time lol). This was definitely a very strange, fun, and CRAZY shoot, to say the least. So many things went down and we had so many obstacles yet we soldiered through them and got the film made.

First off, our director Deirdre O'Hara had to leave the project during pre-production after learning she and her husband were expecting a child. This is their first baby (she is in her 50's) and she has been trying to have children for FOREVER and finally has (I have known her for YEARS, always meeting for potential projects, mainly back in 2003 through 2007). I am sooo happy for her. She promoted the writer of the film, Kathleen Roberts (Eric Roberts' daughter, Julia Roberts' niece) to direct. At first she was nervous but she took on the task like a champ! Kat (my nickname for her) was so confident, poised, mature, and prepared. Even though she is only 29 years old and never directed a feature before, she carried herself as if she's been doing this forever. She is so smart and talented it is scary. And she has BIG plans for herself. She wants to make one more film, a sci-fi action thriller, then she will be going into politics. She wants to be the first female U.S. President. She is already going to law school. She is AMAZING (not to mention breathtakingly gorgeous, but that's another story lol).

The shoot was plagued with problems from start to finish. Deirdre's Irish crew stayed on after she left, but that quickly changed when the low budget film ran out of money. Half way through production, we suddenly realized we only had enough funds for principal photography and nothing else. Meaning all cast and crew that stayed on would continue to work for free (including myself). Most of my time on set was hanging around behind the scenes and gaining weight and I did not shoot my brief footage until the end of July so I did not mind. I promised Deirdre and Kat I'd see the project through and I did. But many on the crew could not make that sacrifice, even if they wanted to. None of them were legal American citizens and were only here on work visas, but if you are not getting paid, then technically you are not "working". Sadly, one by one the Irish crew members all started quitting and leaving back to Ireland. One of the few to stay on was Neve O'Reilly who has duel citizenship and I found out she is an actress as well. We became close friends and partied alot together. I got her a role in my Oliver Stone film "The Devil's Double". Anyway, we had to replace them with very inexperienced local people willing to work for nothing. We even had some actors helping out as crew at certain points. It felt like a student film at times lol. This slowed down and complicated production heavily. It's so interesting to go from big studio films that have more money than GOD...to a shoot like this. It definitely gives you perspective on how far you've come.

Also, we went through three different DP's. The first cinematographer Vanessa Chang left around the time we lost our money citing a "family emergency" as the cause. We originally suspected it was just an excuse she made up and that the lack of pay was really the issue. We were wrong. It turned out she really did have a death in the family afterall. Our second D.P. Kyle Brachmann took over, but she did not last long. It was around this time Kat came down with pnuemonia and missed 3 weeks of filming. Her boyfriend (and the film's co-producer) J.L. Bayez (whom I became INCREDIBLY tight with) took over as co-director while she was out, sharing directing duties with DP Kyle. When Kat returned it was clear she rushed her recovery just to be there to finish the shoot but she was obviously not 100%. She could hardly walk upstairs without being out of breath and often would have coughing fits where she had to be sent off set to rest for a while and get hooked up to a machine that helped her breath. At this point Kyle took it upon herself to take a little too much control of things and both Kat and J.L. realized Kyle was trying too hard to be "in charge" of the film. She was fired and we promoted young and energetic camera assistant Morgan Matlock to D.P. He spent much of the shoot making everyone laugh but he turned out to be an inspired choice as cinematographer and took on the job with great work ethic. He was efficient and made everyone wish he was the D.P. all along. Kat and J.L. "co-directed" the film together for the final weeks of the shoot.

But the film wasn't all hard times and struggle. We had an INSANE amount of fun, especially during the first half of the shoot while I was still gaining weight, Kat was healthy, and the Irish crew was still on board. Those Irish sure know how to party (and drink). Despite the dark tone of this very serious film, we found ways to keep it light on set and to be honest....I have NEVER been around so much sex and debauchery on a movie set...IN MY LIFE! I mean, EVERYONE was hooking up with EVERYONE! Literally. Even people who were in relationships. Not sure how much I can talk about but it was insane. There was also these two Turkish guys who act in the film, my character I play works for them. Their characters run a torture porn site. Well lets just say they were so intense and got so into character, even off camera, that it scared people who were not sure if they were just "acting" or not lol. I even had a weird on set rivalry with one of the actresses who plays the high school bitchy popular girl. We got along fine the first week or so of filming but a Facebook request that clearly was taken the wrong way (maybe she thought I was making a move? lol) suddenly made things awkward between us and we found ourselves avoiding each other on set and playing very weird and crude pranks on each other. I'm 27 years old. I should be above these childish games. People who act like she did will not last long in this industry. Grow up people! I regret stooping to her level.

All in all, despite the drama, we all really had such a great time and it is a shame everyone has to go their separate ways. Meeting Shaenece Richards was a honor and she is going to have such a tremendous career. Jennifer Lawrence too. Great actress and very interesting gal. One thing is for sure...this film changed my life as did the people I met while filming it. I hope I can work with Miss Roberts again and I pray that she, J.L. and I can remain friends for some time, but as these things go in Hollywood, a film set is like a forced family where you bond for 3 months just so you can get it all done, then never see each other again and I know from experience how hard it can be to think you really found a friend but it was all fake. Hopefully that isn't the case here. Definitely more stories to come from this one soon...but until then I am off to outer space with Ridley, Charlize, Bradley, Anya, Idris, and the gang for a while. Also, I hope you all enjoyed the If I Had You trailer. Can't wait for you all to see that film this October. Peace!

Til next time,
-The Chameleon