Marsha Stephanie Blakehas accomplished quite a bit over the years. She’s got a significant number of stage productions to her name, she’s worked with an incredible line-up of directors includingAva DuVernayandSteven Soderbergh, and she also scored an Emmy nomination for her performance inWhen They See Us. Even with all of those accomplishments and all of that experience under her belt, was she prepared to shoot an episode of television all on her own? Somewhat!
Social Distanceis a new Netflix anthology series shot entirely in lockdown. Each episode features a different group of characters and shows how the COVID-19 pandemic rattled their day-to-day. In Blake’s episode, “And we could all together/Go out on the ocean,”Danielle Brooksplays Imani, a caregiver who continues to look after her client during the pandemic while also trying to care for her young daughter back at home. Meanwhile, her client’s daughter, Marion (Blake), is busy trying to juggle calls from Imani and adjust to teaching her college courses over Zoom.
How exactly did they manage to film all of this while in lockdown with no official crew members on hand? Blake broke it down on her episode ofCollider Ladies Night:
“You know who my crew was? Okay, I’m gonna tell you who my crew was - my husband, Gregory, and my two children who are 10 and six, and one of them was an actor in it so she could barely be crew because she had to act! So my 10-year-old who wants to be a director she says, was very excited. My husband a little less so, but again, we’re all quarantined, we’re in the house all day long and when this project came and I told him about it, he was like, ‘Well, we’re inside all day long. We might as well do something fun together.’ I will say, in hindsight, it was fun, but while I was going through it, I was like, ‘This is insane!’”
Something that really wound up working in Blake’s favor during this process? Her husband is a professional photographer!
“They had to drop everything at the bottom of the steps. So they delivered computers and camera equipment and phones. We were doing iPhones plus real cameras. The wonderful thing is my husband’s a professional photographer. I don’t know how other people did it! My set was easier for me because I had a husband who knew all the lingo.”
But even with her husband’s knowhow, that only covers a limited amount of the work required. Blake continued:
“Everyone was on Zoom consulting with us, like the DP, the director, hair and make-up and everyone, but we were the only people physically on set, right? We were on site. So I’d do my hair and make-up, my daughter’s hair and make-up - she didn’t really wear make-up - I had to do wardrobe, I had to keep track of things … so I had to do continuity. And then, at the end of the day, we’d finish and I would be exhausted beyond words because when I wasn’t on camera, that meant my kid probably was and I had to be her assistant director, mommy, catering, child wrangler, person who got her out of the tantrum she was currently throwing, all of those things! And then the day would end and I’d take a deep breath like, ‘Oh, I’m so glad to be done.’ And then I’d realize, ‘You’re not done! First of all, you have another kid that you need to pay some attention to, but also, you have to prep your lines, your acting, your whatever for tomorrow, and you have to prep the child.’ You’re tired from me just talking about it!”
Blake wasn’t wrong! I get exhausted after just a couple of hours entertaining my young niece. But in the end, all of the hard work paid off for Blake and her family, and now they’ve got quite the episode of TV to show for it. Check out Blake’s full Collider Ladies Night interview at the top of this article to hear more about her experience working onSocial Distance, going to college withDavid Harbour, doingOthellowithDaniel Craig, why Blake is in awe ofAva DuVernay, and so much more!
