Swimming Naked: Think You Have Seen and Heard It All? Think Again.

By Charis Orchard

An eye-opening exposé of the film industry from the perspective of a female director, Charis Orchard shares her experiences from a 20-year career that’s spanned the globe.
One of the most glamorous, yet backstabbing and exploitative, industries in the world, Charis shines a light on Hollywood’s dark side and the denizens beyond - #MeToo moments included. Candidly, she recounts a love affair with a determinedly private A-lister; a decade-long relationship that ends in abuse and denial.
This is a story of passion, determination and hope against all odds – the odds of a filmmaker earning the respect of her peers and the public, finding her resilience and keeping her dignity intact.
#Hollywood #Metoo #Thinkagain

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charis Orchard
• Release date: Jul 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9780645163407

Charis Orchard

Charis Orchard is a director, producer, writer and editor of independent feature films, documentaries, short films, music and marketing clips. Having grown- up in Mackay, Queensland, Charis moved to Paris, France at the age of 23 and lived there for 13 years then moved to LA and London before relocating back to Sydney in 2016. In 2017 Charis was a board member of WIFT NSW for 18 months while it transitioned into WIFT Australia. In 2019 Charis participated in Dame Changer’s Screen Tank mentorship and is currently a member of Dame Changer and WIFT Australia. Charis has worked for Exodus Film Group (US), Optomen Television (UK), Legendary Entertainment (UK), the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) and the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority; a legislative authority for the broadcast and media industry).

Book preview

Introduction

This book is a collection of personal stories from my life that are related to or a direct result of my work as a film director and producer. It’s a ‘fly on the wall’ experience that takes you into bedrooms, London pubs, intimate dinner party conversations, glamorous cocktail parties, and chance encounters in the Sydney Opera House. In simply sharing with you these experiences from my point of view, from my side of the story, I accept and acknowledge that each story has so many different facets and sides that coexist with my version of things.

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I’ve been fortunate to have had a number of extraordinary experiences as a woman whose calling is to make movies. For many occasions, I’ve decided to use people’s real names because what I have written comes from a place of authenticity and I feel no shame in sharing what I experienced from a human point of view. There are also some famous celebrities in my story for whom I’ve purposefully changed their name out of respect to their privacy and of course, to try to minimise legal implications.

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I’ll admit my story is unusual because it shines a new, and occasionally forbidden, light on many Hollywood A-listers - but that’s not the reason I wrote this book. If I can pass on what I have learned to other young (particularly female) directors and filmmakers from around the world, and also to the public, I can highlight the challenges and joys of being a woman film director, perhaps even inspiring other would-be’s to become can-be’s and that they may know that if I can get through this amount of drama and still believe in myself, so too can they.

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Of all the professions, being a film creator or motion picture artist is not easy, but being a female in the film industry is among the most difficult roles in the world from which to make money from and to succeed at. When you do the math and compare the statistics between male dominance and prevalence in the film world, the discrepancies are clear.

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Women have never been treated equally in the world of the arts and the stats in cinema reflect the stats across the board of artistic disciplines. Women remain significantly underrepresented and undervalued - according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, on the top 100 grossing films of 2018, women represented:

•4% of directors

•15% of writers

•3% of cinematographers

•18% of producers

•18% of executive producers

•14% of editors

Ref: Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film

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Note that women still represent 50% of filmgoers!

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I am not discounting the fact that men have it hard as well. All artists have it hard. And by art, I mean when you use your creative vision to create a canvas of any type. To make an income from this artistic enterprise is one of the most confronting, challenging things to do and it's something that I respect most in the world. That’s why I have a fascination and admiration for people who are artists, knowing what they had to go through to be able to achieve success.

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Lastly, I would like to sincerely thank my friends, family and colleagues, who chose not to be named (you know who you are) who supported me in writing this book.

1

The Birthmark

When I was young, my great Aunt Margaret, who lived around the corner, had a huge collection of video cassettes that filled two walls in her dining room, stacked like books in a library. Hollywood of the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. Mostly the Hollywood hits of the 50s and 60s. I spent a lot of time lounging on Auntie Marg’s living room floor, watching these black and white classics on repeat.

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I've constantly been asked by friends and colleagues, film industry people and investors ‘why’ I want to be a film director. Usually I told them it’s because I'm crazy. Because that's how the system seemed - a woman had to be crazy to want to make Hollywood movies, especially when it became apparent how hard an industry it was to break into; just how biased against women and any minority group it is (though it’s surely improving while this is published).

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All of my personal and professional experiences as a film maker for the past twenty years vindicate that Hollywood was, and is still by a long shot, being run by a close-knit, elitist club, comparable to a type of mafia organisation, which encourages the practise of deciding if a woman gets to make movies by how that woman responds to the sexual advances of the male stars or studio executive in front of her. If you, as a women, turn down the a-list actor, or the not-so big-shot producer who actually does pretty much next to nothing but behaves as though the whole show is due to him, you can be sure that your creative talents and astute business capabilities will be left to waste, most likely because there is a sea of other females waiting in line for their turn on the casting couch.

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If the sexual objectification doesn’t make you feel a little crazy, well then be prepared to face the next most hideous aspect of filmmaking; the fame-game and celebrity-cult underbelly of the industry.

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So…

Whenever I got asked the inevitable question of why I want to make movies, it was with both consternation and a sense of humour that I just admitted that I'm crazy. The funny thing is that all my adult life I have for some reason, maybe it’s the law of attraction, maybe it’s just co-incidental, I’ve constantly drawn famous celebrities to me although ironically, I’ve rarely ever been able to recognise said celebrities when they are sitting or standing in front of me. But maybe everyone’s like me? I know that wanting to be a film director is becoming more and more cliche and common, which is great considering the entertainment industry is worth around 10 billion dollars to most developed nations’ economies.

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It’s really not that big a deal to want to direct films and be part of the entertainment industry, is it? Not really, until it comes to dealing with famous celebrities, Hollywood superstars, the type of people you need to get funding to make films. And that’s when Auntie Marg’s movie catalogue in my head doesn’t really matter at all and any good old-fashioned standards in behaviour, morals, ‘just how things should be’ go right out the window because nothing can prepare you for the types of games that go on when there are Hollywood celebrities involved.

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In truth, it took me a long time to sound out the reasons behind my drive to be a Hollywood film director. That my calling came from the little girl watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and not some ego-driven desire to become an all-powerful superstar. I’ve come to realise as that small girl from a small town who dreamed of making films, it takes a lot to believe in your own talent, vision and worthiness, even when over and over and over again I came to be in contact with Hollywood stars, it took a long time for me to actually believe in myself and my dream.

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This long, in fact. By sharing this story, it's not that I wanted to just recognise myself as being part of the Hollywood system, but rather I was on a mission to understand what I've been through in order to be able to arrive at a deeper analysis, not just from the perspective of my individual experience, but also from the context of a system of sexualization and objectification of women. Of a system of abuse of power by celebrities and their handlers.

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I have just as much to offer the world of cinema as any man and am just as talented and capable as any of the men in Hollywood. And if a man can make Oscar-winning movies and movies that challenge the ideologies of the world's status quo with hundred million dollar budget movies, so can I, and so can any woman who had decided that she wanted to make movies. But we all know that in reality, it takes a lot more than the dreams of a little girl and lots of celebrity encounters to become a Hollywood film director.

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When I begin to tell strangers some of what it has taken for me to be in the game, they quickly become overcome with disbelief and that’s before I even mention one single celebrity story. What is significant to me is the period of time that I have been directing and producing films, and the defining experiences I’ve had where I was directly affected in my career. For example, I’ve been a guest on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival. I’ve participated as a registered producer and director at the Cannes Film Festival eight times and one time at the American Film Market. I produced and directed seven independent, micro-budget feature films.

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For two of those, I’ve had the hard drives with the entire film’s footage stolen from me at the end of the shoot. I’ve been sabotaged repeatedly, blackmailed multiple times, stalked and harassed by the girlfriends of two A-list stars, both of whom who did their best to intimidate me because their A-list boyfriends were interested in me. I've shared my bed with billionaires, A-listers, Oscar winners, rockstars, but I never expected any support for my career in return and the only time it was offered to me in an honest, authentic manner was when I was recommended for the position of a production assistant who was paid a salary comparable to a super-market check-out chick. By the end of the production I had negotiated a raise in my credit to production co-ordinator but my salary remained the same.

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For those few men that I became romantically involved with, there have been many more that I purposefully chose to remain professional with. Many of the powerful men that are mentioned in this book probably wondered why they could not get me to dance, why I refused to play their game? Aside from the basic principle that I didn’t want to sleep my way to the top, it also came down to the fact I had already been done over by the biggest modelizer and mysogynist in Hollywood’s ‘royalty’. Yes, perhaps the most significant career catalyst that has happened to me in the last 20 years was the night I spent with ‘Jack’ on the south-west coast of France, or the ‘Basque’ region. It was not the first time I had slept with him, but it would definitely be the last.

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There are only so many ways for a man and woman to make love. On this occasion, when he entered me, we were both pretty desperate to be with each other again. It had been a while since our last time together. We both played it ultra-cool. Because he is an A-lister you’re probably picturing that we were in a beautiful upmarket, expensive beachfront hotel, mottled light glowing through the sheer curtains as the morning sun crept up over the Atlantic Ocean, the muted hum of traffic on the esplanade washed by the gentle lashing of waves on the white sand… no, sorry.

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This madly erotic love-making session all happened in a two-man tent - yes, a little two-person khaki-coloured tent on a double blow-up mattress that took up the entire floor space of the tent. It was beachside in Biarritz, France but instead of brocade curtains lining the room, a light canvas flapped gently to the sound of waves crashing, along with crickets and other small-creature sounds of the night. My little tent was adjacent to the little tent of a Hollywood superstar and we were inside his tent, naked and tightly entwined with each other right in a small forest of trees that separated us from the beach by about a hundred metres.

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The sound of waves thundering and hissing across the sand filled the still night air to complete the symphony of nature. I love camping, and being a struggling artist who was a single mother with two children, I chose to spend my summer camping close to the beach in one of my favourite parts of the world, the Basque region on the southern Atlantic coast of France. The first part of my holiday I had spent with my two young daughters Ines and Estelle, and after sending them off to spend time with their father, I decided to stay on at the beach a little longer on my own.

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It had been two months since I had last slept with ‘Jack’ at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. Both of us were involved in the art of filmmaking, I as a micro-budget director and producer, he as an A-list actor - two different sides of the equation inside one of the most divided, unequal industries in the world. The distinction between his star power and my unknown status as a young female filmmaker created both a business and psychological distance, which meant he could compartmentalise me to his ‘other life’ that nobody he dealt with day-to-day needed to know about. I understood that I was probably his escape from the pressures of his public life.

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As the random celebrity coincidences of my life would have it, the very first time I met ‘Jack’ was on an island in the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia, in January 1997, when I was just 19. This was twelve years prior to that night in the salubrious tent on the French Atlantic coastline. After meeting each other on the Great Barrier Reef, we then unexpectedly bumped into each other again at the Cannes Film Festival five years after our initial love affair.

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By that point in time, I was 24 years old, had migrated to France with my then corporate-management-executive and very well-oiled, trust-funded husband. He had bought a luxurious apartment on the Champ de Mars, Paris, and his family owned a large Chalet in the French Alps, several whole apartment blocks in Lyon, along with their own large home and a few other occasionally used apartments on the Croisette in Cannes, prime real estate overlooking the Med. And that was just his family’s property portfolio.

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Throughout the six years previous to us making love in that tent in the South of France, ‘Jack’ had been floating in and out of my world whenever it suited him. When we next met each other again, he was in a relationship with a supermodel and I was happily married. His relationship with the model ended and he started to see the next model, with whom he remained while trying to establish me as a side-piece.

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At the time he was jet-setting regularly to Europe, always ensuring that we constantly crossed paths. It was clear we were extremely attracted to each other but we could never balance the two worlds: my life as a married mother of two little girls who was trying to establish a career as an indie film-maker, and his lifestyle, A-list status and the apparent need for him as a celebrity to have a ‘super’ or ‘swimsuit’ model as his ‘official’ companion.

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By the time we made love in the tent in Biarritz, I was 31 years old and had just gone through a nightmare of a divorce. Years of this complicated balancing act between our two worlds had led to this night and all that complex history was the underlying dynamic that played out between us. He appeared desperate to be with me, to make himself my lover, but in his world, as a Hollywood heavyweight, he couldn’t bring himself to be completely free with me. That’s possibly part of why he prematurely ejaculated... or maybe he just needed to pee? In any case, it was all over, in the proverbial and literal 20 seconds.

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After urinating on a tree close to the tent, he returned and we made love again slowly through a long night that seemed to go by in a flash. We enjoyed exploring each other once again and it was very comfortable and exciting all at once. During this night, I noticed a small round caramel discolouration of his skin, to the left of his genitals - a birthmark. I thought nothing of it at the time, except that it stood out to me because I have a similar mark from scar tissue in the same place - thanks to a medical issue as a child. In hindsight, it was fortunate for me that I saw it, because a decade later when I finally asked his attorney for a DNA test for my daughter, Lola Liberty, they replied that he did not even know who I was. No surprises there. I was the fool for hoping he might do the right thing.

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During the night that we had spent in the tent, around 4.00am, I woke, shivering in the freezing cold. The sleeping bag wasn’t big enough to fully cover both of us so I crawled back into my own tent that was next to his, into my own sleeping bag and fell into unconsciousness. I remember thinking, I hope he understands I just don’t want us to get sick from the cold. But I suspect he neither understood at all nor gave it a second thought.

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I woke to the morning light to discover he was already dismantling his tent, that he had planned only to stay 24 hours with me. He packed his bags and was driven away by his bodyguard as I waved goodbye. The feelings going through me both overwhelming and extraordinary to experience. I thought it was love but I knew that he didn’t feel the same way. As Tina Turner would put it, What’s love got to do with it?

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He was gone. It wasn’t our first encounter and it was good to see him again - we had an unforgettable time but I was too shy and awkward to insist he stay in touch. I thought to myself that if he really loved me and wanted to be with me then he would and he would not have felt the need to continually hide his real name from me, as he mostly, but not always, did. I hear you, Tina Turner, but I had certainly been struck by cupid's arrow again that night.

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A couple of days later he was pictured in the tabloids on a yacht next to Saint Tropez, his newest ‘official’ papped frolicking in the water of the small beach of Saint Tropez. My heart sank like the Titanic, but I accepted my fate and played it tall for the sake of keeping my life together. My daughter Lola knows I believe that Jack is her biological father and that we’d put it all together on a beach in the South of France on a balmy night in the summer of 2008. By the end of this book you’ll understand why, although I wasn’t expecting him to turn up during my holiday, I wasn’t really surprised when he and his bodyguard pulled up and parked their car next to me in the celebrated surfing and glamour city of Biarritz. For the next twenty-four hours we stayed virtually, and sometimes literally, joined at the hip.

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He even purchased a surfboard and wetsuit so he could go surfing with me. We walked down the beach to be mesmerized by the waves together. I had my surfboard with me and a