Since the bathtub we shot the original Gigi sketch in was no longer available, we had to find another one equally dilapidated. We found our friend Rosa's bathtub was perfect, not to say that her bathroom is shabby (our amazing art dept took care of that) but it had the type of layout we needed - open bathtub with a window for Gigi to crawl out of.
In the original sketch, Gigi finished "speak learning english" and danced his way out of the room. For the remake we wanted to add a level of escape for Gigi. Begging the question, who's bathroom is he in? And why did he think it was a good place for an English lesson? That sense of confusion would become a staple of who Gigi was for us and how he would interact with the world around him - misinterpreting his way across this great nation of ours.
And in my own little film school dreamy design I saw the action of him crawling out of the window as representing the birth of Gigi onto our lands. From whence the bathroom egg emerges an innocent babe upon our urban shoreline!!!!
The shoot was fairly painless since we were emulating the original. By now Dan Tischler had joined us alongside Ian at BBC Worldwide. They proved to be excellent partners on the day. Tyler Moore brought the golden voiced Hank "the Rock" Goldberg back to life. We tried some new things out but found we didn't want to shake the tree. Don't fix what ain't broke.
But getting Gigi from the bathtub to the window, now there was some new territory for us to tread. He can't just get up and walk to the window. No, we needed to scare his ass out that window.
The original sketch had an anonymous voice outside the door chime in at one point, so we expanded that to an anonymous couple banging on the door from the outside, wondering aloud to each other who the hell is in their bathroom. This gave us the opportunity for Gigi to make a break for it, frantically tearing the bathroom apart as he made his way to the window. Josh, ever the dedicated thespian, threw himself all over Rosa's poor bathroom. I wanted to give him a helmet or something for god sakes. We had ice packs at the ready in between takes for his knees, elbows, head, you name it he had a bruise on it by the end of the day.
In the final cut we couldn't use most of it since we had to get Gigi out of the bathroom quickly, but kudos to you Josh for sacrificing the body for the sport. And it wouldn't be the last time we'd need ice packs at the ready. And a special thank you to Rosa Graziano for supplying the location!! Rosa and her new Italian Deli on wheels Rosa's Bella Cucina would go on to cater our series shoot. Check em out - https://twitter.com/#!/rosabellacucina
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