Interesting class last night.

Our mandate was to bring our own scripts -- for our look and type -- in to workshop and shoot. So, of course, I brought a scene I adapted from Marvel's current Ultimates series.

It was a meaty scene, where Steve Rogers is confronting fellow teammate Henry (Hank) Pym, a wife beater who beat his wife (and another fellow teammate) Jan into unconsciousness. In this particular scene, Steve is going to beat Hank to a bloody pulp for what he did.

We did the cold read-through of the script, and my fellow actors ... laughed ...

Why?

Was it because my scene partner is funny man Rob Nash? Nope.

It's because there's no foul language in the script. Steve wants to take Hank apart, and he's calling him things like "piece of trash" and "meatball", while being called a "stupid little runt".

And I learned a sobering lesson about folks. That we can choose to miss the emotional import of a film if it lacks foul language. Which I guess, conversely, means we can give too much weight to a scene just because it has language.

At least Rob gets it. He said, "No, you might get cast in this kind of role, and you need to be able to sell it authentically."

But I was bummed by the response that folks gave a very intense, very important scene (at least to me).