Category: Television

This is the sixth and final 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. At the Criminal Minds Fanatic blog, a reader named Stacy created a series of screencaps of my scenes from Paradise. Flickr user heath_bar put together a cool photo mosaic of screencaps, too.

In our last installment of How Long is This Damn Thing Going to be, Anway, I’d just written a short post for my blog during a break in production. Shortly after I posted it, I was called back to the set. We were ready to block my second scene in the cabin, where Floyd comes back for round two.

William was in the chair, Robyn was on the bed, and I was in the doorway to the bathroom when we started. Stacy cleared out the set and gave us an actor’s rehearsal with John.

On the first run through, I came into the room, said, “That would really be something . . .” and walked right up to Robyn.

“Wait,” I said. “That’s not right. I haven’t left myself anywhere to go. Sorry.”

I took a few steps back, and delivered the line again. This time, I stayed in the doorway and just pointed to her. Yeah, that felt better. Then, when I said, “I have to say, I didn’t think it’d be you . . .” I slowly walked up to her, like I was stalking my prey, enjoying how terrified and weak she was. I picked up the bat and used it to punctuate each line. (Some of that was in the script, some of it was just following my instincts, but I really like the way it came together when we filmed it.) Then I walked back over to him, taunting him the whole way, enjoying his suffering. When he sassed me, I reminded him who was in charge, with the old bat to the gut move. You know the one.

At least, that’s how we rehearsed it the first time. The second time, I had an idea.

“John,” I said, “What if . . .” I leaned down and got close to William’s head and lowered my voice. “What if I I get kind of conspiratorial when I talk to him about what always happens? It’s like I’m letting him in on it, like I’m really toying with him, because I’ve gotten away with it before, I’ll get away with it now, and he’s powerless to stop me.”

“I love that,” John said.

“I think I have to try to headbutt you if you do that,” William said. “I can’t just sit here and take it.”

“Well, let’s try it and see what happens,” John said.

We reset, and when I leaned down to whisper at him, he lunged at me. It was scary, because if I’d gotten a few inches closer, he probably would have broken my nose. I stayed in character, though, pulled back, and raised a finger. “Easy!” I said to him with some amusement, like you’d tell a dog who wouldn’t let go of the Kong. “I have to say I did–” He lunged at me again, and I let the anger take control. “EASY!” I said. I did not like it that he challenged my authority.

We continued rehearsing the scene until that beat was finished.

“Yeah, that’s great,” John said.

Stacy invited the crew back, and we went through the same routine as the last scene. Again, we filmed it quickly, in just a few hours. Again, I was impressed by the professionalism and speed of the Criminal Minds crew. Again, I was envious of the people who get to work with them every day.

Now, quickly doesn’t mean easily. This was an intense scene, and I wanted to be sure that I didn’t over-complicate it, over-act it, or miss any beats. There are few things worse than watching an episode when it airs and realizing that I completely missed something that would have made a performance more interesting. I can’t watch myself too closely when we’re filming, though, because people don’t do that in real life and it makes performances seem too studied and self-conscious (for a perfect example of an over-studied, self-conscious performance, watch Rebecca Pidgeon in . . . anything.) In this instance, it was a real gift that I was working with such talented actors, and a director who I could completely trust and rely upon to ensure my performance hit all the right notes. I was able to lose myself in Floyd’s head while we rolled, and just let him guide me. If I felt icky when we cut, I was pretty sure I’d gotten there.

Next, we shot the final scene, where Ian breaks loose and attacks me. I only recall a couple of things about shooting this: It disturbed me so much to pull Robyn’s dress up her legs. I don’t recall exactly where they cut on air, but I’d usually get up around mid-thigh before I stopped. I’ve known her since we were kids, and finding the real rage/hatred/sexual energy that Floyd had was even more difficult than it would have been if we didn’t have a prior relationship. In some ways, it helped, because we trusted each other more than the average pair of actors would, but it was still uncomfortable for me. When the scene was finally over, and she was untied from the bed, she sat up, and we hugged each other. Tightly. For a good long time. I’m not sure who needed it more, to tell you the truth.

The stunt was pretty straight forward, and William’s double made sure I didn’t get hurt when he slammed me into the wall. I knew I was working on a show with a real budget when the wall didn’t shake or fall down. There was a moment of supreme hilarity when I shoved him off of me, and then wailed on him with the bat. It was, obviously, a break-away bat, which is foam rubber molded around a flexible shaft. It looks great, and is safe, but it can get deformed pretty easily. Picking a random example: if you use it to hit the guy on the floor, it may bend and look really funny when you pull it back for the second hit, still acting as enraged as ever, causing the entire crew to laugh at you.

In the original script, Floyd was supposed to cut Abby’s leg when sliced the tape around her ankles, but that was cut out on the set to save time. After watching the episode, I don’t think we needed it.

When the scene was over, John got together with Robyn, William, and me. “I just wanted to say thank you for a great week’s work today,” he said. He didn’t have to say that, but when those scenes were over, we’d left it all on the stage, as the saying goes, and it was really awesome of him to acknowledge that.

I had a pretty long break after that scene, while they got set for the BAU to kick in the door and ruin Floyd’s good time. I spent sitting it in video village with the writers and some of the other producers. I asked Erica and Debra so many questions about the story, I can’t recall all of them, but I remember how excited they both were to have gotten the truck crash at the top of the show pretty much exactly the way they wanted it.

“You write that scene, set it at night, in the rain, and figure that it’s going to end up being cut by production to save money.” Debra said. “When it’s on TV, it’s a minivan, in the afternoon, and the sun is shining.”

“But we figured that we may as well go crazy and put it all in there, and hope that they’d only cut a little bit of it,” Erica said. “Maybe they’d just take out the rain, or not let us crash the car or something. I can’t believe we got all of it!”

While I talked with them, I was stricken by how much they love writing for this show. I got the feeling that they don’t take it for granted, care deeply about each episode they write, and want everything to be as good as it can possibly be. For this episode, particularly, they wanted to tell a story that was disturbing and scary, “Like a horror movie,” Deb said. Based on the feedback I’ve gotten from people who watched it, I think they succeeded.

Video village was set up pretty close to the actor’s chairs. Paget and Thomas were sitting down between setups, and I don’t remember how it started, but we ended up talking about geek stuff. I think Paget mentioned that she and I had done the Celebrity D&D thing to Thomas, and somehow that lead into Doctor Who.

“Who’s your Doctor?” She asked me.

“Tom Baker, of course,” I answered.

“Mine too!” She said.

We both looked to Thomas, who had become very interested in reading his newspaper.

“I told you, we’re nerds,” she said to him. I may have swooned just a little bit.

They went back to work, and I went back to waiting. The only thing left for me to shoot was some inserts of my eye, peeking through the hole in the wall. It was, admittedly, an anti-climactic way to finish work on the show, but when it was done, and Stacy announced to the crew, “That is a picture wrap on Wil Wheaton,” the applause from the cast and crew blunted the sadness I felt. My adventure was over, and it was time to go back home.

I went back to my trailer and, with a heavy heart, changed into my regular clothes. I signed out for the last time, and on my way to my car, I ran into Debra Fisher.

“Do you have time to see the writer’s room?” She asked. I’d been asking to see it all week, but there had never been an opportunity to get away from the set.

“I sure do!” I said. The melancholy I’d been wallowing in moments before was replaced by a familiar excitement.

We walked through the stage and out the other side, up a flight of stairs, and into their production offices. For the next twenty minutes, Deb showed me where she and Erica write their scripts, including the white board they use to plot their episodes.

“Is it okay for me to photograph this and put it online?” I said. “This is really cool.”

“Sure!” She said.

I pulled my camera out of my backpack and took some pictures.

When I got leaned in to take some closer shots, I saw something really awesome. The last line on the whole thing said “Floyd gets away.”

“We originally wanted Floyd to get away,” she said. “We thought it would be really cool if the last shot of the show was a couple checking into a new roadside motel in a new location. You’d see Floyd check them in, and the camera would crane up to see the No Vacancy sign flicker on.”

“Oh man, that would have been awesome!” I said.

“We thought it would be cool to have Hotch really screw up,” she said, “but we couldn’t sell them on it.”

“Do you guys write extended story arcs?” I asked. “I haven’t really watched much of the show.”

“Mostly it’s pretty self-contained in each episode,” she said, “sometimes we’ll have something carry over, but the network likes us to keep things confined to one show.”

She showed me volume after volume of books, filled with crime reports, autopsy results, criminal psychology, and other things that they have to use for references.

“I bet that’s some disturbing stuff,” I said.

“You don’t even want to know,” she said with a wry smile.

She walked me down the hall, and I got to go into the actual writer’s room. I felt like I’d been granted access to the most secret, most special, most magical place in the world. It wasn’t a room for relaxing or building a fort; this was a room for creating, and I could feel it. I wish I could describe exactly what it was like in there, but I was sworn to secrecy. I hope it’ll be enough to read that it was filled with evidence that the people involved in the creation of Criminal Minds love the show and work very hard to make it awesome.

I lingered in the room as long as I could, but eventually Deb had to go back to the set, and I had to go home. We headed out of the production offices, and back down the stairs, where Erica Messer and John Gallagher were standing outside the stage door. I thanked them both one final time, and began the long, lonely walk across the parking lot back to real life.

On the way home, I reflected back on my week as part of the Criminal Minds family. I guess I could have enjoyed the satisfaction of a job well done, but there would be time for that later. As I left Floyd Hansen behind me and headed back to my real life, all I could think about was how much fun I’d had, and how much I already missed it. If you’ve ever gotten on the bus and watched summer camp recede into the distance behind you, you may know the feeling.

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

This is the second 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.

About a week before my episode began production, I was invited out to the studio for a table read. This is exactly what it sounds like: the cast, writers, producers, department heads, and other people involved with production get together around a big table to read the next episode on the schedule. This is a great way for the writers to hear if things need last minute tweaking, for series regulars to give some input on the script, and for guest stars to meet the people they’ll be working with. Not all shows do it, but I think it makes a difference.

We did the table read for Paradise during a lunch break while they were filming Minimal Loss. One of the regulars, I forget who, almost couldn’t make it, and Luke Perry was going to fill in for him. I thought that it would have been so cool to work with him, even if it was just a table read, but why in the world would he want to spend his lunch hour filling in for someone else when he wasn’t even in the episode? By the time I was done working on the show, I totally understood. The cast and crew of Criminal Minds made me feel like I was part of their family, and I never wanted to leave.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was the first actor to arrive, and I had about fifteen minutes to kill before they broke for lunch. We were going to do the table read in the same room where I had my audition, so I waited around in front of it, and tried not to look like I was waiting around in front of it.

Erica, who I read with during my audition, walked out of a nearby building and over to me. Again, I apologized for freaking her out during my reading, and again she told me that it was okay.

“You’re the first one here,” she said, “so if you want to go grab some lunch, it’s over there.”

She pointed to the catering truck. Over the next week, I’d eat the best food I’ve ever eaten on a set, and if I’d known then what I know now, I probably would have gone over and gorged myself, but at the time, I was too nervous to eat.

“I think I’ll just wait here,” I said. “I don’t want to go inside and be the first kid in the class, you know?” I laughed nervously.

She laughed. “That’s understandable.”

I pulled out my notebook while I waited and wrote down, “I feel like the first kid to come to class on the first day of school. And I’m new. Yipe!”

“So I hear that you’re a writer now,” she said.

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“What does that mean for you as an actor?”

This is a question I’ve wrestled with a lot, and I haven’t come up with one consistent answer. “Um, I mostly write, and I only go on auditions for parts that I think are right, as opposed to going on everything that I can and hoping that something will stick.”

She nodded, as cast and crew started to come out of the stage and toward the trailer. A kaleidoscope of butterflies exploded in my stomach. This was really happening.

“I’ll see you inside,” she said.

“Awesome!” I said.

A weird and unexpected thing happened over the next few minutes: a whole bunch of people who work on the show walked over to me and introduced themselves. They were excited that I was working on the show! They read my blog! They wanted to say nice things to me! I was totally unprepared for this, and all I remember is trying not to stumble over my words too much while I said thank you.

After a minute, we began to file into the room. The same tables were there, but now there were place cards with names on them. Beneath the actor’s names, their character’s name was written. Production staff had their name and job description, and department heads had the name of their department. I found my name, back in the corner farthest from the door.

Before I could sit down, Paget Brewster walked up to me. Several years ago, Paget and I worked together on a live pilot presentation for a show called Celebrity D&D. It was a pitch for Comedy Central, I think, and it was hilarious. She and I and one other girl were the adventurers. An actor played the Dungeon Master, and lots of improvisers dressed up in silly costumes as they acted out the various scenes and challenges in a short, comedic dungeon crawl. We did it for a sold out theater, and they loved it. It was superawesome, and I was shocked that it didn’t get picked up, while dozens of less-funny, less-creative, totally stupid pieces of crap did that year. I wasn’t sure if Paget would remember me, so I had my “Hey, I don’t know if you remember me . . .” speech all loaded up and ready to run when she said, “Hey, I don’t know if you remember me but -“

“We did Celebrity D&D together!” I said. “I thought there was no way you’d remember that!”

She laughed and said, “I thought the same thing!”

We talked for a minute about actor things. She told me how excited she was that I was there, and gave me the inside scoop on all the different people in the cast and crew, which pretty much came down to “everyone here is awesome and we all like each other a lot. You’re going to have a wonderful time.”

I began to slowly trade my nervousness for excitement. I’d only been there for twenty minutes, and I already felt welcomed, and part of the team.

Paget was called away by someone from production, so I sat down, and opened my script. I looked at it for a moment, and there was a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and a smiling woman introduced herself to me.

“I’m Erica Messer,” she said, “I co-wrote this episode.”

I stood up, shook her hand, and thanked her for hiring me. She said some really nice things about my audition. I wanted to ask her a million questions about writing, but put that shit in check; I was there as an actor, and I could be a geeky writer some other time. (I wrote a little bit about this in a post called changing gears for criminal minds.)

We talked about Floyd’s pathology as the room filled up. I was pleased and relieved to discover that my take on Floyd was essentially in line with hers.

“This is going to sound really horrible,” I said, “but when I was a kid, I was just fascinated by serial killers. I think it’s because I grew up during the whole Night Stalker summer. When I was in my teens and early 20s, I read way too many true crime books, so I think I have a slightly broader knowledge of these bad guys than the average person.”

I don’t recall what she said, but she didn’t look mortified, which I took as a good sign.

“We’re really happy that you’re here,” she said, reaching up and squeezing my shoulder, “I’ll see you later.”

“Thanks!” I said. She walked over to the other side of the room, and I sat back down.

I felt a presence to my right. I looked over, and saw a beautiful woman with incredible red hair sit down.

“Oh my god,” I said. “Robyn Lively.”

She looked at me.

“It’s Wil Wheaton,” I said.

“Oh my god! It is!” She jumped up and hugged me. We knew each other when we were kids. We always seemed to end up at the same Teen Idol things, and I really liked her. She was normal, not into being famous, and was always incredibly kind to me.

“Are you playing Abby?” I said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m Floyd.” I said. “I’ll be your kidnapper and torturer for the next five days and four romantic nights.”

We looked at each other for a second and giggled. Before we could say anything else, someone on the other side of the room called the table read to order, and we went around the table introducing ourselves. I kept it together, and my voice was steady when I introduced myself. We continued clockwise around the table. All the way down, on my left, an actor who I recognized but couldn’t recall in my mental imdb said, “William Mapother, playing Ian Corbin.”

“Hmmm . . . Ian . . . that sounds kind of like . . . Ethan! OMG ETHAN! That’s Ethan from Lost! CREEPY! AWESOME!”

Luckily, these were inside thoughts, and they stayed there. I may have surreptitiously scribbled “OMG ETHAN FROM LOST” in my notebook.

Once everyone was introduced, we began to read the script.

Floyd didn’t make his first appearance for several pages, so I was able to observe the room while everyone else did their thing. The regulars were relaxed, and cracked some jokes. In my notebook, I wrote, “Lighthearted – they do this every week.”

I noted that all of the actors were conserving their energy, reading their lines quietly, while my instinct was to project enough to the entire room. I thought about the differences between us: these guys work 10 to 12 hours a day, five days a week. They’re used to performing for the camera, which is considerably more intimate than what I’ve been used to. For the last couple of years, most of my performances have been on stage, to audiences that average a couple of hundred people. I was glad I picked up on this before I read my parts, because I think it saved me from what could have been some embarrassing over-projection.

The whole thing took about 45 minutes, and when we were done, I got to meet some of the cast who came in after I was in my seat. Kirsten Vangsness and Matthew Gray Gubler, it turns out, are real-life geeks who thought my “I’m uncertain about quantum physics” T-shirt was funny because it’s true. Joe Mantegna didn’t freak out at me when I slimed him – just a little bit – about playing Fat Tony. Thomas Gibson had a disarming kindness that makes the intensity he brings to Hotch even more impressive. I didn’t get to meet any of the other actors before the first AD called them back to work, but when I eventullay did, I wasn’t surprised that they were all as friendly and gracious and wonderful as the people I met during the table read.

It was going to be four or five days before I got to bring Floyd to life. I couldn’t wait. I felt like kid counting down to Christmas.

Next: Run Floyd, Run!