Twunch

I am now a stunt man.

On Wednesday I spent my first day as a stunt man.

I received lucrative payment to jump out of the way of a
speeding car. Twice.

The car was a ’68 Rambler muscle car. After I jumped out of the way of the car it
was to crash through a Styrofoam barrier set up on wooden saw horses and made
to look like a wooden barrier. The Styrofoam
failed to break when struck, it only bent like a horse shoe causing the two
wooden horse to slam into the doors on either side of the muscle car leaving
deep dents in either side. The owner of
the car was on site. Nobody could really
look at him.

My day lasted 12 hours. 

I got the job because my sister-in-law’s cousin’s husband is
a stunt man and needed a union actor who could claim

Missouri

residence.

 
The main character in the low-budget science fiction film
was Jason London from Dazed and
Confused. In 2000, I was called back to read for producers for a pilot with Jason
London. So I felt a little connection.  Of course, this was an audition where the two guys I was reading with decided that they were more likely to get cast if they simply skipped all of my cues.  So I recall that I turned bright red with fury in front of the producers and embarassed the shit out of myself.  So I did not speak to Jason London during the course of the shoot.  He is not at all glamorous.  He fit right in in South St. Louis with his tiny mullet. 

The food had been bad on set according to the wardrobe P.A. who was my sister-in-law’s Aunt as well as being the mother-in-law of my sister-in-law’s cousin’s husband.  She said Jason London threatened to quit the film over it the previous day.  Mr. London was not viewed as a prima donna because of this- rather, people on set hailed him a hero.  The craft service person was not skilled.

The bad guy was Jahidi White, back up center for the Cleveland Cavaliers. When I was 14 and Jahidi was 13 he was the
first guy who ever dunked on me.
I told
Jahidi this when I saw him. He was not
impressed. I tried to talk basketball
with him. He made me feel like a
twerp. His job was to play an alien who
was 7 feet tall and 350 pounds. He was a
natural because those happen to be his dimensions. He is both big, tall and fat. He had to wear a heavy, really stupid looking
costume which included wearing a mask that covered his entire face. He was the second choice for this role but
the professional wrestler they originally contacted backed out last
minute. Jahidi has injured his rotator
cuff so he’s not even on the bench during the Cleveland Cavalier’s road games. When Jahidi was being driven to the set, he
tried to slide back the chair and reached beneath the seat. He cut the bejeezus out of his hand and had
to leave the set to get stitches. 

Jahidi White makes a lot of money. His
workman’s comp claim could be pretty intense.

I need to do more movies. They pay a lot of money and don’t ask you to do very much.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 29th, 2006 at 11:05 am and is filed under Film. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.