Thursday, February 27, 2020

Microstory 1309: Fish Feet

Celebrity Interviewer: First of all, I am a huge fan of your work.
Seasoned Actor: Thank you very much.
Celebrity Interviewer: I mean, your performance in Severe was phenomenal; absolutely breathtaking.
Seasoned Actor: I appreciate you saying that.
Celebrity Interviewer: But that’s not why you’re here, is it?
Seasoned Actor: No.
Celebrity Interviewer: You wanna talk about your new project. It’s a pretty big departure from the kinds of things you normally do, correct?
Seasoned Actor: That’s right. It’s called Fish Feet.
Celebrity Interviewer: [Giggles]
Seasoned Actor: [Clears throat] It’s about a fish who dreams of walking on land. One day, he meets The Urchin Wizard, who grants him his wish by making him grow legs. So he goes out to explore the world with his best friend, who’s a crab. It’s delightful.
Celebrity Interviewer: That is not a word I’m seeing in the reviews.
Seasoned Actor: Well, there are millions of words, soo...
Celebrity Interviewer: A critic called it, quote, “unabashedly the worst thing I’ve ever been forced to watch in its entirety. If it weren’t my job, I would have stopped playback after ten minutes. I almost quit the paper because of this.”
Seasoned Actor: Well, that’s just one man’s opinion, from some blog site, I’m sure.
Celebrity Interviewer: It’s from the New York Times.
Seasoned Actor: Look, like you said, it’s a departure from my other work, but that doesn’t mean it’s good—I mean, not good. It doesn’t mean it’s not good.
Celebrity Interviewer: Another critique reads, “the fish’ new legs are probably about two meters in length, so he can walk alongside the humans he meets, but way too skinny. They made me really uncomfortable, and traumatized my four-year-old daughter. For some context, she laughed when that anthropomorphic peanut died. She made me turn Fish Feet off so we could watch Watership Down again. That’s why this article is a day late.”
Seasoned Actor: Okay, yes. I’ve heard these criticisms, but I’m just here to tell everybody that I loved working on this film. The director was amazing; it felt like I had known her for years. It’s supposed to be fun and silly. They made his legs ridiculous on purpose, to make kids laugh, and I think they succeeded.
Celebrity Interviewer: Apparently, there are two separate jokes about pedophilia?
Seasoned Actor: Oh my God, I’m sick of hearing about this. It’s a pun...because the fish has feet?
Celebrity Interviewer: No, no, no, yeah, we get it. That doesn’t make it okay.
Seasoned Actor: We’re done here. I thought you were going to take this seriously.
Celebrity Interviewer: I was to understand the point was that you wanted to stop having to be so serious. But I am sorry. Let’s talk about the movie. Please don’t leave.
Seasoned Actor: No, it’s done. Get this goddamn thing off my neck! We went off the record, by the way. I better not see this footage on the internet later, or your lawyers are gonna wish they had gone to medical school, where it’s less stressful.

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