Through the pandemic lockdown, Messing caught up on “Actual Housewives” reveals and tried the ukulele. She additionally studied the script for “Birthday Candles.” Some elements got here to her simply; she recognized with the younger Ernestine’s ardour and expansiveness. The breakdown of the middle-aged Ernestine’s marriage, her experiences of loss — these resonated, too. However what Ernestine undergoes later is unfamiliar. “I haven’t skilled any of it but,” Messing mentioned.
She watched YouTube movies of centenarians: finding out how they moved, how they sat. She additionally labored with a voice coach to find out about what occurs to the larynx as girls age. Ernestine by no means leaves the stage, so there are not any prosthetics or wigs. Growing older, then, is effected via physique and voice, plus refined modifications in coiffure and eyewear.
“I’m not 107,” Messing mentioned. “I don’t know anybody who’s 107. So a part of it’s trusting that the homework will defend me and assist me.”
It’s working, for Haidle anyway. “No matter she’s doing,” he mentioned, “it’s like a magic trick.”
A part of this trick: Messing listens to the script each night time whereas she sleeps. (“So intense,” Haidle mentioned.) This, she believes, helps her study traces. It additionally makes her really feel that she is doing her utmost. “Doing the work provides me peace,” she mentioned. “I don’t know if it’s serving to or not, however placing it on and falling asleep to it, I prefer to assume that it’s getting embedded in a deeper approach.”
Nothing about her strategy appears gentle. Usually, actors transfer via technical rehearsals casually. However throughout a current one — as Messing and a co-star, Enrico Colantoni, labored via a scene — she appeared to present a full efficiency for every cross. She even needed him to do an actual kiss.
“Kiss me,” she insisted. “Kiss me, come on.” Beneath her sweater, blue this time, she was sporting a ache aid patch, as a result of hunching over as a 107-year-old, as she had completed in rehearsal the day earlier than, had put quite a lot of pressure on her decrease again.
Baking has required additional preparation. It’s a science, Messing mentioned, and science was by no means actually her factor. It doesn’t assist that every stir, crack and sprinkle is exactly timed to Ernestine’s milestone occasions.