JOURNAL ONE: LOST BOYS II
I got the call from Greg Nicotero. "Hey, they want you
to be in LOST BOYS II. Lovely, I get to be a vampire again sometime in
September, but first I have to go be a vampire in THE DEAD MATTER, a movie
directed by Ed of Midnight Syndicate. "The greatest original horror
movie music in the Universe." I used to go by their table at conventions
when they had customers and yell that as I walked by. This endeared me to
them, and they hired me to play Sebed in their first time horror movie.
Cut to now as I sit in a great hotel suite in Vancouver British Columbia,
Canada, on a Sunday morning. Vancouver is the new Hollywood and I found
out yesterday there are 37 movie studios here......just here! I was
watching a biography of Bruce Lee in this room yesterday narrated by Miguel
Ferrer and then I went down to the gym. I'm working out and in walked
Miguel Ferrer. Yep, the new Hollywood. He's up here shooting the new
Bionic Women television series.
The flight up here was uneventful, short and
smooth and first class pleasant. Immigration, however was a
nightmare. Hours of sitting there among hundreds of Asian students coming
in. I also learned that Vancouver is 40% Asian. I was able to
eliminate the distress by pretending I was watching a comedy, as the customs
officers kept calling names like Wang and Lee and Liu and nobody
responded. They had to keep yelling their names and try different
pronunciations before anybody would respond. I kept thinking, Jesus Christ
you're coming into a new country and you’re here to get OUT of here....pay
attention.....that is until I decided this is a comedy, and when I got up to
complain that new entry papers where put on top of the ones already there, and
where mine was, by newly entering customs officers. They picked out
my papers, and I paid the work permit fee, and went to look for my
luggage. There were dozens of baggage carousels filled with overflowing
bags. I walked among the towering moving bags thinking of the hours
that are going to go by as I search for my bags and I swear to God I looked down
and there coming right at me was my bag. I guess I still have my luck.
The hotel is right in the middle of town and
it's like being in the middle of Manhattan or Toronto with lots of shops and
restaurants and one of the first things I did was buy an expensive watch.
It is my "I don't give a fuck that I was just robbed" watch and every time
I look at it it gives me strength and restores my confidence and makes me feel
less violated. Before I came up here my house was broken into and they
stole my safe. I say "they" because my safe weighed over 350 pounds, and
they just walked in and took it with my life savings in cash, which was my
grandson's college education and what I would have left Lia if any thing were to
happen to me. I kept it in my safe so that Lia would have instant access
to it. No Executor of wills, or red tape or IRS.....instant access.
Well not anymore. It's all gone. I'm not going to get another safe
if they can just walk in and take it like that. I would have been better
off putting it behind some books or up the ass of my full size Darth Vader
stature, or anywhere else but the SAFE. You know, where it's supposed to
be SAFE! I would still have it if it wasn't in the first place they would
look for it.....In the fucking SAFE!
I try to look for any good that
could come out of a problem or a challenge and for days I just couldn't think of
any. I could see how easy it would be to fall into a depression over
it....if I let my thoughts take me there. A long time ago I learned
to control my thoughts and not let them control me. Control your
thoughts and you control your life. Change your thoughts and you change
your life. When the thoughts of this disaster would come at me, and
they came at me a lot, I decided not to give them my time. I actually said
"shut up" to them and they went away. Anyway, the good that came out
of this disaster is the realization that the real treasures in life are not what
you put in a safe and can be taken away, the real treasures of life are your
friends and family and nothing can take that away. It was
Greg Nicotero and Jeff Imbrescia who helped me find the good in all
this. Jeff, the president and owner of my make up effects program, gave me
an advance on my consultation fee, and Greg, out of the blue, sent
me a check to help with living expenses and carry on, and led me to this
job here in Vancouver playing a vampire in the new LOST BOYS II
movie. The first check from the movie allowed me to buy the
watch.
JOURNAL TWO: LOST BOYS II
I hate fake blood. It's icky and gooey
and the worst thing about it ....is that it's so fucking sticky. I hate
being sticky. My nightmares are being sticky like under the armpits, or
between my fingers, or behind the knees, you know anywhere you bend and flesh
touches flesh....and sticky. I hate it....I just can't stand it and really
hate it. Even the smallest amount on me makes my skin crawl and sends the
most uncomfortable goose bumpy hair standing on end queasy jittery
feeling up and down my spine. By the end of this night I will be
swimming in fake blood. Aghhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Early on tonight I got to meet and rehearse
my fight with the LOST BOYS. Kyle, Sean, Merwin, and Angus. Those
are their real names and not the characters they play. Merwin is a very
light skinned Jamaican...or wait ...he corrected me...."Salutian" whatever that
is. He has a shaved head and a goatee that zig zags across his lower jaw
and very well built. He's in terrific shape, as they all are
gorgeous physical specimens. Kyle is the boy next door with a great
sense of humor, and Angus is a Sutherland. A half brother of Keiffer, tall
with shoulder length curly blonde hair. He is soft spoken and
mostly quiet. Sean is about my height, and his face and
every gesture, every smile, every word reminds you of Brad
Pitt. He says he gets that a lot. His is very bright and
thoughtful and thorough, and points to the night sky to show us how close
Venus is tonight.
I rehearsed the fight alone with
Garvin the stunt co-ordinator. He is my height, well built and said he
hopes to be in my shape when he is sixty. The fight is a lot of
pushing and using the weight of my opponents against them as I throw them
into each other before they overpower and attack me. We created the
sequence and later show it to the LOST BOYS when they arrive.
Angus is the ring leader and just stands as his boys attack. Everyone
contributed something to what Garvin and I put together, and P.J. Pesce,
the director was called in to see it. He liked it fine and wanted to
make sure it is like a hyena attack on a lion. He saw one in South
Africa and that's what he wants this opening sequence in the film to be.
We split up afterward.... they to their trailers and me
into the mansion on the sea that is to be mine in the film. This place is
incredible. Huge, like a modern resort. The master bathroom has a 42
inch plasma television embedded into the wall opposite the toilet. The
shower is a plexiglass enclosure about eight feet square and the water shoots at
you from everywhere, head, foot, above below. Never saw anything like
it. The water in the swimming pool is on the level with the ground around
it. No ledge, no steps....just the ground, the concrete and the
water. One edge of the pool is where the water overflows into a grid and
then is re-circulated into the pool. It looks like the pool is constantly
overflowing.
My first scene tonight is me looking over the
balcony at the LOST BOYS who have invaded my property and have been surfing on
my beach. The mansion is nowhere near the ocean, but the crew erected a
huge green screen flat and put sand in front of it for the LOST BOYS in their
wetsuits, to play in front of with their surf boards. Later they will
CGI the ocean and moon and the surf and the reflections. P.J. does a long
shot and then a close up of me on the balcony, and I wear sunglasses that also
have a green solid color so later he can put in a reflection in the glasses of
what I see. P.J is a card....literally. He carries a deck of cards
with him and is constantly doing one handed cutting and shuffling. We are
both card carrying members of the Magic Castle in Hollywood. It's a
private club/mansion on a hill behind the Chinese Theatre solely for
magicians. He is constantly showing me some trick and I would arrive on
the set with a trick or two to show him. We connected and hit it off
splendidly.
Soon I am down on the makeshift beach with the
LOST BOYS and rehash the fight scene on the sand. Then...on "Action"...my
line is "What the fuck are you doing on my beach"...Merwin says something like
"fuck your mother"....or grabbing his balls..."I got your beach right
here"......or some mumbo jumbo I don't understand and Sean
says...laughing....."he says it's not your beach"....I say...."Is that a
fact....let me tell you something...I own every drop of water from here to the
lighthouse....as well as the sand and everything that's on it.....which I guess
NOW ....means you." Sean says..."Fuck that"....and " Suck my dick"....and
heads past me with his surfboard. I do a one handed shove into his chest
knocking him off his feet and he lands on his back in the tall soft grass.
Kyle approaches me and says "no need to get rough....we're all done
anyway". I say...."Uhn uh....we're just getting started" and I turn into a
vampire. First they shot me normal saying that...and then with my fangs
and black contact lenses. They will morph me into a vampire later.
All hell breaks loose as Kyle attacks me and
I use his weight against him with an Aikido move and throw him into Merwin and
Angus. Sean jumps on my back and I throw him off, and in an instant Merwin
and Kyle and Sean attack me knocking me off my feet onto a matt covered with
cold wet grass. We do that a few times and now it's time for the
blood. I have been dreading this all night as I knew it was
inevitable that I am going to be sticky. I am nice and warm under the big
coat that wardrobe gave me to stave off the cold, and I am quite
comfortable. I am counting the seconds before I know I am going to feel
the first wave of a bloody attack from the boys.
Kyle fills his mouth with fake blood and on
"Action"... I am supposed to resist their attack and Kyle is to force my
head down and put his mouth on my neck and bite and spurt the blood as if it is
coming out of me. On "Action" ...I feel his beard stubble scratching
my neck and his mouth on me and suddenly the air explodes around my face and
neck with the first bloodletting. We all go into the heated tent to stay
warm, only now I am freezing with sticky fake blood all over my neck and running
down my back. On the next take Sean is fitted with tubes up each sleeve so
the effects guys can pump blood out of his hands while he attacks me, plus Kyle
once again does the mouth blood spurt on my neck. On "Action"...this time
I feel the blood on my neck, and suddenly I am given a blood enema....and then I
feel it surging up my back and down my legs.
I am completely drenched with gallons of blood
coursing all through my clothing. Greg Nicotero would love to see all this
blood all over me. Once again we are led to the heated tent. As I
stand there I feel like a huge pancake with sticky syrup flowing down my body
heated by the glowing propane heater in the heated tent. The effects guys
enter the tent and they are now to fit me into this overshirt that has a fake
chest attached to it. I am so covered with blood that as they fit
this shirt over me....it feels like I am naked and trying to stuff myself into a
huge cinnamon bun...icing on the inside. I am in hell. Somebody
please kill me.
This time on "Action".....the lost boys tear into
my chest pulling my ribs apart and ripping out my guts. I can
feel myself floating now on the new blood that has been pumped into
and around and under the chest. It has flowed toward my neck and
around it and behind me and under my back, and down the front of my underwear
and down my legs and behind me. I am really floating now in
a pool of blood. When it's over they want me to go to the tent and I
said "I'm not moving. I'd rather lie here in this blood than feel
what it's like to get up and move. I am now violently shaking on the verge
of hypothermia and they bring out heaters and surround me with them
and cover me with blankets. I stop shaking and I ask if they
could be ready after this next take with the knife gag to cut off my head, as I
just want to lie there.
A strange feeling overtakes me. I am
lying there in a pool of blood looking up at the stars in the night sky, and I
feel like an accident victim. People come into my view to cover me
with blankets or to keep me warm and I am all bloody. I feel
like some horrible thing has happened to me and we are just waiting for the
ambulance.
On "Action" Kyle comes in and as I try to
weakly fight him off he starts cutting my throat with a specially prepared knife
as blood shoots out of the blade. We do a few takes of this and
I am finished and can go to the showers at the side of the
pool. I weigh about fifty pounds more now with the blood filled
fake chest and getting that off was the stickiest feeling of my life.
Nothing has ever felt so good as that hot water from that
shower washing that sticky icky red goo off of me
and down the drain.
While I shower they continue the scene
with my fake head as Sean says "Hey guys, watch this" and punts my
head into the imaginary ocean. It's on a fishing line from a fishing rod
and someone reels it back in for more takes.
I got home to the hotel and turned up the heat and
snuggled into my warm bed appreciating it more that ever remembering
the pool of blood I was floating in an hour
ago.
The trailer for the film is available here and yes, it does feature Tom.