Because Some Facebook Photos Merit Their Very Own Blog Posts

Frighteningly alike: Nanna Ingvarsson and her Invasion double.
Photo: Mara Majorowicz/Courtesy Nanna Ingvarsson

When you write about theater, which I do sometimes, you occasionally find yourself taken aback when you head out to the movies: An actor you know from his distinguished work in, say, the August Wilson plays will turn up playing a character named 'Strange' Sex Addict in a John Waters film.

This happens a lot, actually, here in D.C., where there's a thriving theater scene -- and plenty of big-budget movies shooting on location and looking for bit players.

But not every moonlighting actor gets to have a life-size, screaming body-double doll. And not everyone who does get a life-size, screaming body-double doll has the presence of mind to get pictures of it to put on her Facebook page.

Life-size, screaming doll explained, after the jump ...

See, a while back Nanna Ingvarsson -- whose D.C. stage work has ranged from the bloodsucker-in-chief in the campy Hollywood spoof Vampire Lesbians of Sodom to Portia in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice -- found herself with a tiny part in the 2007 Nicole Kidman-Daniel Craig vehicle The Invasion. (The Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake is on HBO all month, so if you're curious ... )

"I played Panicked Woman in Tunnel," Ingvarsson says. A couple of lines, a smidgen of shared screen time with Kidman -- "my 15 seconds of fame," the actress says, dryly.

And then, because Kidman doesn't help her, Panicked Woman in Tunnel gets hit by a car -- thus the life-sized, screaming body-double doll. Which, Ingvarsson reports, was built by the guys who made the corpses for Six Feet Under, and which took the better part of a day to make.

"Most of the body-molding stuff was done with aluminum foil and duct tape," she says. "They put me in a bodysuit and wrapped me in tinfoil, and then wrapped me up solidly in duct tape, and then carefully cut me out."

The likeness, as you can see in this handy enlargment, was ... "Um, quite correct." (Ingvarsson's words, not mine.)

Also: Unnerving, when it first surfaced on Ingvarsson's Facebook page recently. Even the hardened Hollywood pros on the Invasion set found it a little freaky, apparently.

"I was walking on the set, and some grip stopped me and said, 'Oh my God, I just saw you laid out on the SFX table,'" Ingvarsson says.

Sadly for D.C.'s stages -- and possibly for Ingvarsson's Halloween plans -- the life-size, screaming body-double doll is no longer resident in Washington. The actress' mom suggested she try to track it down, because ... well, why not?

"Yeah, I would love to have her sitting on my couch," says Ingvarsson. "What are you, nuts?"

As for its whereabouts: "I don't know," Ingvarsson says mournfully. "She's probably in a warehouse somewhere at Warner Bros."

-- Trey Graham

6:05 AM ET | 09-18-2008 | permalink

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