"What kind of beer?" --Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), Almost Famous

I'm all out of ideas for my current art history paper-writing endeavor. The good news is, however, that it's due Thursday morning at 9 and I am already on my 4th page out of the 4-5 page requirement. So I break from this to discuss Almost Famous.

Marcus's cinematography/editing project is to film a scene from a pre-existing film in his own way. So he chose Almost Famous, Penny and William's confrontation scene. ("You're too sweet for rock'n'roll." "Sweet? Where do you get off?") I'd made the decision to visit him this weekend, and he told me a few days ago that he was probably going to film the scene while I'm down there. Then he forayed into his explanatory mode, which to me always sounds slightly apologetic if the explanation involves me in any way at all. He told me that he isn't asking me to be Penny Lane because he already used me for a project and he doesn't want the class to think he isn't using actors. And he said all this as though he expected me to be upset that I wouldn't get to be Penny, as though it were a betrayal of the metaphor we always use about me being to him what this "Penny Lane" was to Cameron Crowe. And then yesterday, he called me and asked me to be Penny. The people he wanted couldn't do it. Time conflicts and whatnot.

But here's my reservation: no one in their right mind would ever cast me as Penny Lane. I do not have the right look. At all. I'm not appropriate for the era, and I don't know how to do this character in any way other than Kate Hudson's portrayal. I'm too dark for that kind of rock'n'roll. I'm so much more believable as Toni Colette's role in Velvet Goldmine. I need to be a character from a different movie about rock in the 70's. One that isn't so reliant on that hippie look. I don't think this is going to turn out very well for my part.