Author: Wil

This is the fifth of six posts (yes, I’ve added a post) about working on episode four, Paradise, during season four of Criminal Minds. I spoke with CliqueClack.com about some of my production experiences, and I have a gallery of images from the shoot at Flickr. Please note that I’ve done my best to recreate my interactions with the cast and crew, but this isn’t a perfect, literal translation of the entire experience.

The last two days of production were incredibly intense for me, because that’s when I shot all my torture/abuse/rape stuff. I was so focussed on the work, I didn’t keep good notes, and I was too exhausted at the end of both days to write anything down once I got home. My memory is even more imperfect than usual, but I’ll do my best to recall the time we spent inside cabin six, which had been built on a soundstage at Quixote studios.

This was the big day. This was the day I’d been waiting for since we began production. This was the day I got to really dive into Floyd Hansen’s well of evil and find out how deep it went.

I had a late call, and William and Robyn had shot a lot of their scenes before I reported to set. When I walked in for rehearsal, it looked like they’d already been through the wringer. Robyn sat on the edge of the bed, and William leaned against the wall by the fireplace. They both held small sets of sides in their hands.

The cabin set was a practical set, meaning it had four walls and a ceiling (most sets don’t have a ceiling on them, so it’s easier to hang lights.) I’ve always felt like working on a movie or TV show is kind of like playing make believe with the most vivid imagination in history, so the more practical – and immersive – the set, the better. My favorite sets on TNG were Engineering and Ten Forward, because they were the most practical sets we had. Right up until my final day on the show, every time they turned on the engine (which was a series of neon lights inside a plastic mold) I expected to hear the whoomp whoomp whoomp (there it is) of the engine pulsing through the room.

It’s easy to get lost in a set like the one they built for cabin six. Even though it’s a tiny room, and even though the real world is just a few feet away, when you spend a lot of time in a set like that, performing scenes as intense as the ones we performed, you can go a little crazy in the pants. I can’t speak for the other actors, but I used that sense of claustrophobia to inspire some of the choices I made for Floyd while we were in there. When I walked in for the first time, I let my imagination go nuts as I looked around the room. “I did [horrible thing] there, I did [other horrible thing] over there, [victim] put up a good fight over there, but I did [horrible horrible horrible thing] and put that fucker in a box . . .” Even though none of this was in the script, I figured that the more I could get into Floyd’s head, the more he would live in me, unconsciously directing some subtle actions in each scene. This sort of thing, as twisted as it sounds in this particular instance, is a lot of fun for me, and makes acting much more than just showing up and saying the lines.

I walked over to Stacy, the first assistant director, and said good morning to her. It was afternoon, but when you walk onto the set for the first time, it’s always “good morning.”

She smiled at me. “Hello! Thanks for coming in.”

Seriously. They’re all about the thank yous on Criminal Minds. It’s awesome.

“Cast is on the set,” she said into her walkie. “I need everyone to clear out of the room for an actor’s rehearsal.”

Everyone except John left. Stacy closed the door, and we were alone in the cabin to block the scene where Floyd takes Ian out of the bathroom, drops him in the chair, and gets ready to have happy funtimes with Abby. For very disturbing values of “happy funtimes.”

William Mapother is a huge guy, and I am an embarrassingly small guy. There was no way I’d be able to pull him around on my own.

“Uh, I don’t know if I can pull you,” I said. “In fact, I know that I can’t.”

William is one of the most intense actors I’ve ever worked with. Though he’s friendly, kind, and supremely professional, I was terribly intimidated by him.

We looked at John together.

“I’ll help him with my own legs,” William said.

“Okay, we’ll keep them out of the frame,” John said. I was relieved.

We blocked the scene over the next few minutes. We tried it a few different ways, but what felt most real and satisfying to me was the tiniest bit of sexual excitement, sitting beneath a lot of rage and hatred and disgust. See, there was dialog from the BAU team about Floyd being a “violent anger excitation rapist” and I used that information to develop how Floyd would interact with Ian and Abby. This was all about power, control, humiliation, and fury. While it could have been interesting and even fun to let Floyd enjoy himself in this scene – after all, he’s beaten the big guy unconscious, and after several hours of psychologically torturing them he’s about to, as the serial killers say, “get to work” – he wasn’t doing this because it made him happy. I suppose I could have gotten even deeper into Floyd’s head than that, but even this much analysis made me uncomfortable.

Once we all felt like we knew how the scene would play out, Stacy invited the crew back into the room to put down marks and see the scene for themselves.

Seriously. Invited. That’s the word she used. It seems like a small thing, but it’s really not. I’ve worked in television for most of my life, and I can honestly say that Stacy may be the best First AD I’ve ever worked with.

Allow me to explain: First ADs set the tone for the entire set. If a First is neurotic, the set is neurotic. If a First is disorganized, so is the set. If a First yells a lot, they lose the crew’s respect. Stacy was magnificent, though, and a great leader for this crew. She was calm, she was friendly, she was exceedingly professional, and above all she treated everyone on the cast and crew with respect, and it was clear that everyone respected her in return. See, working on a set is like being part of a team, and when a team is relaxed and working well together, they win a lot of games, making it look easy all the way. John Gallagher told me during a break one day that he believed the Criminal Minds crew was the best crew in the business, and with someone like Stacy leading them, they were like the ’27 Yankees.

We walked through the scene again, stopping and starting so the camera department could put down marks. We traded positions with the stand-ins, and had a few minutes while they set up the shot.

On our way over to the craft service table, I talked with William about Lost. I probably shouldn’t repeat what he told me, but you all think I’m cool now, right? Right? Hello?

Stacy invited us back into the set for filming. I remember being nervous about cutting William with the knife (which was dulled, but real and still moderately dangerous) and feeling sad for Robyn, who really was taped up to that bed frame the whole time. After each take, I would stand up, apologize to Robyn (who told me it was okay) and go back to my starting mark while they reset the scene. Even though it was a more intense scene than the stuff we shot in the office on location, I was more relaxed and comfortable. I felt like I’d shaken off all the cobwebs, like I did this sort of thing every day (the acting, not the torturing.) There wasn’t a lot of coverage, and we were done with the scene in just a couple of hours.

I don’t remember what it was, but they were filming a really short piece of a different scene that I wasn’t in when we finished, so I went to my dressing room to check my cell phone for messages. On my way out, I passed one of the assistant directors (there are like four or five of them, I think), who was coming into the stage with a stack of pink revisions for the next episode.

“Oh, that’s sad,” I thought as the reality that my time on the show was nearly over hit me for the first time. “They’re onto the next show, and I’m about to go back to stupid real life.”

I replayed some of the last week in my head while I walked to my dressing room. I reached up to open the door, and as my hand touched the handle, a production assistant said, “Um. Wil?”

I looked up and saw that, lost in thought, I’d walked past my dressing room, and right up to Joe Mantegna’s.

“Uh, looks like I upgraded myself to Joe Mangegna,” I said. “That’s embarrassing.”

The PA and I laughed together, and I snuck back to my own room, past the cast parking.

I opened up my laptop, and discovered that there was an open wireless network. I wrote a quick post for my blog:

Today is the day I’ve been waiting for since I booked this job. Today is the day that I get to really tear into this character, and mainline the good stuff that keeps actors coming back for more, chasing the dramatic dragon until we die. I was so excited to work today, I hardly slept at all last night, and woke up this morning before my alarm went off. I haven’t felt like this since I was a little kid at Christmas.

God, I miss this. I didn’t know how much I missed it until last week, but holy shit do I miss this. This cast, this crew, these writers, this director, this whole show is just incredible. I’m truly lucky to be here, and I’m so grateful that I can appreciate it, and not take it for granted like I would have ten years ago.

I realize that I keep making comparisons to being a kid at Christmas. The writer in me wants to go back and edit most of them out, but in this case, I think it’s the exception that proves the rule: there is no better way to describe the overwhelming joy and excitement I felt while I was shooting this show.

Next: The Big Day Ends

This is the fourth of five posts about working on episode four, Paradise, during season four of Criminal Minds. I spoke with CliqueClack.com about some of my production experiences, and I have a gallery of images from the shoot at Flickr. Please note that I’ve done my best to recreate my interactions with the cast and crew, but this isn’t a perfect, literal translation of the entire experience.

My second day of filming was on a location that was very familiar to me. In Montrose, just a few miles down the hill from where I grew up in La Crescenta, there is a wonderful camp called Camp Max Straus. It was established in 1938, and is a nonsectarian camp for underprivileged kids. It’s an important place to me, because it isn’t just close to where I grew up, it also happens to be where my brother and sister in-law got married a few years ago.

We were shooting what’s called a “split,” where we start production about halfway through the day, so we could film some scenes in daylight, and get some night shooting done, also. Shooting splits is tough; we spend the first part of the day racing against the sunset, and the second part of the day racing against the dawn. By the time the deepest, darkest part of the night rolls around, a lot of us are on our way to Bat Country, and any production that shoots splits for several days in a row can develop a real morale problem. Luckily for us, we were only doing one split day before we went back into the studio to wrap up the week.

This was my first real acting day, and the only time I’d get to interact with any of the series regulars (in this case, Thomas Gibson.) Even though I’ve been acting as long as I can remember, and even though I’m certainly a veteran with a lot of experience, I was nervous. There’s a certain rhythm that series regulars have with each other and their crew, and as a guest star, I have to find that rhythm and adapt to it as quickly as possible. It’s kind of like rowing, I suppose, and I didn’t want to be the one guy who was out of sync. I also hadn’t been on camera in a long time (running in front of a truck the previous night doesn’t count), and though it’s very much like riding a bike, I didn’t want to waste a lot of everyone’s time while I remembered how to do it.

I prepared the scene in the usual way, and though I felt awkward during our first few rehearsals, everything came flooding back to me: how to unconsciously measure steps to hit my mark, how to make sure I’m finding my light without looking like I’m trying to find my light, how to make sure I hit the same position on every take so the focus puller doesn’t get any unpleasant surprises, how to remember the lines and keep them fresh every time I say them. I did all this while I was finding the truth of the scene with Thomas. It was a lot harder than it sounds, and I did the whole thing with the voice of self-doubt screaming in my head, “They’re all going to laugh at you! They’re all going to laugh at you! They’re all going to laugh at you!” I managed to pin it to a wall in a closet in my head, though, in a disturbing and poetic display of beautiful violence. Seriously, STFU, voice of self-doubt.

After we worked out the first part of the scene, we added the second part of the scene, which starts when the dad who is looking to stay the night comes into the office. The dad was played by Chicago Bears defensive tackle Tommie Harris. I guess Tommie is a huge fan of the show, and his people and the Criminal Minds people worked together to figure out a way for him to play a small part.

Um, in that spirit, I’d like to mention that I am a huge fan of How I Met Your Mother . I don’t exactly have “people,” but, you know, if anyone from that show wanted to get in touch, I’m pretty easy to contact. Ahem.

Tommie isn’t an actor, so he was slightly less uncertain about acting than I’d be about actually setting foot on a football field Wait. Check that. He was a little nervous, but not terrified, which is what I’d be if I was ever on a football field. I mean, I’m positive that even the cheerleaders could knock me to the ground and have their way with me with minimal effort.

Or, you know, a lot of effort. It’s pretty much up to them. The important thing is that I somehow end up buried under a writing pile of cheerleaders.

Anyway. Tommie was obviously as excited to be on the show as I was. Because I was the only actor he worked with, he ended up talking to me about all the things I’d just remembered how to do. To be honest, sort of teaching him how to hit his mark, find his light, and translating the industry shorthand we all take for granted into plain english helped me get my acting groove back, and by the time we shot the scene, I felt confident and in control.

We tried the scene a few different ways. Once, I was exceedingly friendly and chatty with Hotch all the way through. Another time, I was nervous, but just because I was socially awkward (this was a great take, and wonderfully challenging to achieve; there is a different kind of nervousness that comes from being socially awkward than the kind of nervousness that comes from being afraid the FBI guy is going to discover that you’ve trapped a couple in your torture cabin and are having your way with them.) I don’t know what ended up in the show (I’m writing this before the show airs) but I recall feeling that the best takes were the ones where I was a little quiet and uncomfortable at the beginning, friendly and chatty in the middle, and genuinely willing to help him by the end. Then, once he leaves and the dad comes in, I was impatient, irritated, sarcastic, and rude.

I remember thinking that it was strange that a little guy like me would be so obviously rude and nasty to a huge guy like Tommie, but when I discussed it with Erica and Deb, we thought that it illustrated just how fucking insane and dangerous Floyd really is.

“You know, it’s a little-known fact that serial killers have mysterious super strength.” I joked. “It’s one of the onlys way they can get people into the back of the white van with no windows . . . or get the Chicago Bears’ defensive tackle out of the motel office. Yeah, a lot of people don’t know that.”

There was much rejoicing.

While we filmed this scene, I learned that Thomas Gibson, though he plays a very serious and obviously-haunted character, is extremely funny and charming when the cameras aren’t rolling. He doesn’t goof off, which would be unprofessional and ultimately annoying (I’ve worked with people who goof off, and it’s never a good time) but he clearly enjoys himself. We had a lot of fun together, and I will admit that I envied the people who get to work with him every day.

When we finished, I was satisfied with my performance, and felt like I could trust John to put together the best parts of the best takes to create a memorable scene. One of the best moments of the day, though, came when Joe Mantegna came onto the set, and totally slimed Tommie Harris. I guess Joe’s a Bear’s fan, and he seemed to think it was rather cool that Tommie was working on the show.

In fact, just about everyone in the cast and much of the crew was excited to be working with Tommie. I kind of felt like I was on the outside looking in, because I’ve never been much of a football fan. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I enjoy watching close games, I love the playoffs, and I’ve even seen a handful of Superbowls in my lifetime that weren’t over by halftime, but I won’t drop everything to watch a random football game the way I will for a hockey game or a good Premiere League matchup (that’s real football, soccer to us Yanquis.)

I suppose I’ve never really cared about football because I’ve never had an emotional reason to care about a particular team. When I was a kid, the Rams were sort of local, but they were in Orange County, and unless you live in Southern California, you probably don’t understand why cheering for a team that plays behind the Orange Curtain is something we Angelenos simply do. not. do.

. . . we had the Raiders for awhile, but fuck the Raiders.

After I worked with Tommie, though, I had a reason, however tenuous, to feel a connection to a team. I can’t say that I “know” one of the Bears, but I can certainly say that I worked with one of the Bears, and though I’m certain he’s forgotten me by now, he was so kind to me, I’ll cheer for his team.

I’m sure all you die hard football fans are laughing at me about this, but it’s true, and when I explained this rationale to Tommie, he seemed genuinely surprised and pleased. Now that I think of it, what sounded crazy to me was probably mundane to a guy who regularly plays in front of thousands of people, many of them wearing nothing but paint and hard hats. In the middle of winter.

So if any of you Bears fans are wondering why the team is 4 and 3 this season, it’s because I’m a fan. You know what other Chicago team I really like? Yeah, that’s right: the Cubs. Sorry about that. (Yes, it’s all about me. I have the ability to make teams lose, simply by cheering for them. It’s my gift. It’s my curse.)

Anyway, back to work: We had lunch shortly after we completed that scene(it was actually dinner, but when you’re on the set you call every first meal of the day “lunch” and every second meal “fucking second meal” because it means you’ve been there for 14 hours and will probably be there for at least a few more), and then I had a few hours to kill while I waited for it to get dark, so I could run through the woods.

Anne was in the area, so she came over to the set and hung out with me for a little bit during lunch. I don’t usually let people come visit me on the set, and I don’t usually go to visit sets, because it is axiomatic in the entertainment industry that if you are not working on the set, you are, by definition, “in the way.” Since we’d just be hanging out around base camp (that’s what the area where the caterer, dressing rooms, makeup trailer, camera and grip trucks are) I wouldn’t feel like we were “in” the dreaded “way.”

“So how’s it going?” She asked as we settled down to nom nom nom nom nom on the best on-set catering – vegetarian or otherwise – I’ve ever had in my life.

While I told her every single detail about how much fun I was having, and how great the cast and crew were, and how cool it was to finally have a football team to care about, and how proud I was of the work, and how weird it was to be filming in the same place that my brother got married, she ate her entire meal. I think I stopped to breathe . . . maybe three times.

“Hey, look,” I said, “my food is cold. Turns out I talk a lot.”

When we finished eating, there were about ten minutes left in the lunch break, so I walked her over to the set, introducing her to the cast and crew when we passed them. They all said nice things about me. It was kind of embarrassing.

When lunch was over, Anne had to go home to feed the boy and the dogs. I walked her to her car.

“I’ll probably be rolling into bed around 4 or 5,” I said. “I’m in the last three shots of the day.”

“Okay,” she said. “Have fun!”

“I love you,” I said. “It was a real nice surprise that you could come by and visit.”

“Yeah, that was kind of awesome,” she said. She got into her car and started it.

“Drive safe,” I said.

“I will. I love you!” She rolled up her window and pulled away from the curb.

I walked back to my dressing room and worked on my scenes for the following day while I waited to get back to work. A couple of hours passed. I took a little nap. Another hour passed. I read whatever the current issue of Wired was. Some more time passed. I recalled a famous actor once telling a reporter, “I act for free. I get paid to wait.” There was a knock on the door, and I was called back to the set. It was about 2:30 in the morning.

Look, working at night usually sucks. You have to be quiet when you’re not rolling, you have to be quiet when you are rolling (unless you’re in the scene) and working nights means that you’re not going to see much of the sun the next day. While we were waiting between setups, I talked about this with Thomas and Shemar Moore.

“Have you guys done a lot of nights this season?”

Thomas nodded slowly and Shemar joined him. “We’ve done so many nights. We’re only a few episodes into the season, and it already feels like we’ve done more nights than we did all of last year.”

“Man, that’s got to be tough.” I said.

“It is,” he said, simply.

I realized that, though I’d been mostly resting for the last four or five hours, these guys had been working non-stop for all of them. Thomas had the same call as me, even. I decided that I wouldn’t bug them, and just let them conserve their energy. Shemar closed his eyes and leaned up against a tree.

“I heard you grew up around here,” Thomas said to me after a minute.

“Yeah,” I said, “this is pretty much my hometown, and my sister-in-law used to work at this camp. My brother got married to her here, actually.”

“Was it a good place to grow up?” He said.

“Mostly,” I said. “It’s one of those places that feels really far away from everything, but it’s only 25 minutes to Hollywood, and even closer to downtown.”

“Do you have a long drive home tonight?” He asked.

“Not really,” I said. “I’m in Pasadena, just about twenty minutes down the freeway. Actually, I think La Crescenta is 20 to 25 minutes away from everything. It’s a space/time continuum thing. Worm holes on the 2 freeway and such.”

One of the assistant directors called us back to the set before I could devolve into babbling geekery, and for the next hour or so they chased me through the same three hundred yards of woods for several different angles. Each time, I reminded myself that Floyd was pissed, and determined, not afraid. I didn’t know if anyone would actually see it, but it was important to me.

“When this is all cut together,” John Gallagher said to me between setups, “it’s going to look like they’ve chased you for a hell of a long way.”

“Oh that’s good,” I said. “Because I feel like they have!”

Around 3:30, we finally finished. I was home and in bed by 4. I think I was asleep by 4:03.

It was a tremendously satisfying day’s work, and I felt great about everything we’d done together. In fact, The following day, I wrote in my blog

I can safely say that working on this show, with this cast and crew, creating this character, has reawakened my slumbering love of acting … I miss the camaraderie of being in a cast, and I’d forgotten how good it feels to discover interesting moments with the director, writers, and other actors. I work best while collaborating, it seems.

Before Criminal Minds, I can’t recall any television work where I felt like I was truly collaborating with the production to bring the show to life. There’s always a sense of collaboration among actors, because we work very intimately with each other. Most, but not all, directors share that sense of collaboration with us, but there’s always an implicit understanding that they will have the final word on things. Producers and writers usually watch, but only talk to actors when they don’t like something. Criminal Minds was completely different: from the very first minute of the very first day, I felt like we were all working together toward a common goal. I felt like my input and contributions truly mattered to everyone involved. I felt like I was . . . well, I guess I felt like I owned part of what we were doing together, and that felt really great.

Next: The Big Day Begins

This is the third of five posts about working on episode four, Paradise, during season four of Criminal Minds. I spoke with CliqueClack.com about some of my production experiences, and I have a gallery of images from the shoot at Flickr. Please note that I’ve done my best to recreate my interactions with the cast and crew, but this isn’t a perfect, literal translation of the entire experience.

My first day of production on Paradise began just before sundown on a warm July evening. My only scene on the schedule was Floyd’s poetic demise, and we were filming up in Griffith Park, on a winding road above the Los Angeles Zoo.

I was beyond excited when I left my house, and drove into the setting sun, blasting Joy Division the whole way. When I got off the freeway and saw a yellow sign marked “CM” with an arrow pointing toward the location, my body shivered with antici . . . pation.

Ten minutes later, I was in my dressing room, putting on Floyd’s clothes. A few minutes after that, while I was in hair and make-up, one of the assistant directors pulled me out to go up to the set. “They’re blocking a shot, and the director wanted to talk to you about it.”

I rode in a van up the hill to the location. Crew members from all departments swarmed all over the place, setting up lights on cranes and getting the cameras into position. Some transpo guys lurked around the 18 wheeler that would be smearing Floyd all over the road in a few hours.

I hopped out of the van and walked toward the cameras. I’ve learned that, when I’m on the set and don’t know exactly where to go, heading toward the cameras is a good default. Someone will usually find me and point me in the right direction, or stop me before I get in the way. After a few steps, I was met by the second AD, who walked me over to our director, John Gallagher. He was talking with the first AD and the cameraman, right next to the cameras.

John is an extremely kind and talented director who masterfully balanced the creative desire to get good work finished with the practical need to keep moving and finish the day’s work. He shook my hand, and thanked me for being there (I noticed that there was a lot of gratitude to go around on this set, like everyone was genuinely happy to be part of this show, and genuinely appreciative of everyone’s work. It created a really positive atmosphere that I think comes through in the final product. CSI was the same way, with similar results.)

“So you’re going to come running down through those woods,” he said, pointing to some trees on our left, “and then you get hit by this truck. I didn’t want to lock you into something you weren’t comfortable with, so I wanted to see how you’d run down, where you’d land, and what you were planning to do with your body, so we can match the stunt double and the dummy to you, instead of the other way around.”

I was taken aback. Most directors would have just blocked the scene with the stunt coordinator, and told the actor where to land, how to land, and what to do. It wasn’t the biggest thing in the world, but it made me feel like I was a creative partner in the creation of the show, instead of just an employee.

“Oh, cool. I can totally do that,” I said. Yes, it sounded as stupid to me then as it does now. Good thing I already had the job!

We walked over to the edge of the woods, where the stunt coordinator and my double were waiting. We talked with them for a second, and then we blocked the shot. I went back down the hill and finished my hair and make-up.

Remember what it was like on Christmas when you woke up before your parents, and had to sit there and wait, knowing that just a few rooms away there was something awesome waiting for you? For the next thirty minutes, I felt that way, while I waited for them to call me back up to the set. When the AD knocked on my dressing room door, I pretty much flew out of the room and landed in the van without touching the ground.

I got up to the set, and took my place for rehearsal. Even though we were only filming me running through the woods, I still needed to do some acting. See, I figured that Floyd was pissed that he’d been interrupted, and was furious that the FBI was chasing him. He’d gotten away with his murders for so long, he fully expected that he’d continue to outsmart the authorities. He’d worked very hard to build his torture cabin, and now he’d have to start over, because of those assholes. So instead of running away and being frightened, (which is a legitimate, but I think less interesting, acting choice) I decided that he’d run away and be angry. I don’t know if it reads that way on film as clearly as I thought it might, but these are the things I do as an actor to keep myself entertained.

We filmed the scene from multiple angles. Between setups, I hung out with Deb Fisher and Erica Messer, who wrote Paradise. Though I was working there as an actor, I had a million questions about writing, and they patiently answered them all. Over the course of production, I spent a lot of time with the two of them (Criminal Minds fans call them “The Gruesome Twosome”), finding a million new questions to ask each day. They answered them all, and I grew a level in Procedural Drama Writing by the end of the show.

At one point, there was a setup that didn’t need me; it would just be the truck driving past the camera, so I headed over to craft service to look for a snack. While I browsed, they rolled camera, and I looked up just in time to see the truck drive past the camera . . . and see a body come flying out from behind it! It totally freaked me out. I didn’t know the stuntman was holding onto the back of the truck and would be letting go and rolling out for the camera, so the whole thing looked real in my mind. It wasn’t until several seconds later, when I noticed that nobody else was freaking out, that I realized it was part of the show. For those five or six seconds, though, I was certain I’d just seen someone get run over by a truck. I’d advise avoiding that feeling it it’s at all possible for you, as it’s very disturbing.

They filmed that a few times, then set up a dummy to be hit at full speed. While they shot that, the make-up crew covered me with all kinds of blood and gore for one final shot where I lay on the roadway and die. It was really late by this point, well after midnight, and it was cool up in the hills. The fake blood and gore was cold and sticky, and I couldn’t touch anything without covering it in bloody fingerprints. I’ve never been a big fan of fake blood, but I thought it looked really cool . . . and I don’t think there’s an actor in the world who doesn’t relish the opportunity to die a gruesome death onscreen.

For my final shot of the night, I got down onto the ground, put my head in a pool of fake blood, and did my best not to blink or breathe for several seconds at a time. “Stupid poetic justice . . .” I muttered at the end of one take.

It took me almost 20 minutes to wash the blood and gore off my face and out of my hair, and when I woke up the following morning, there was fake blood on my pillow and dried inside my ear, but I didn’t mind. It was a great first day.

Next: Production Continues