Smoking Ghosts: My Sci-Fi Movie Memoir
Kneeling on a narrow bridge ten feet high, I felt vulnerable. A man yelled in Bulgarian, then flicked an igniter. Flames rose up around me like I was trapped inside a grill. My only escape — flipping my body sideways through scaffolding onto cardboard boxes below. It was just another day in Eastern Europe on set of a sci-fi television movie.
The stunt guy made it look easy when he demonstrated the maneuver a few moments earlier, but he wasn’t surrounded by fire. Should I really be doing this? rumbled through my head. The roughly two-million dollar production had stunt team members, but I guess none were willing to throw on a wig. “If you don’t feel safe, don’t do it,” said our American director. I may never get a chance to do a stunt like this again. The director’s past credits were post production special effects wizardry, this was his first time helming a feature, in a foreign land no less. As nice as he was, when I needed validation my heart would go on like a Celine Dion song, I looked into the eyes of the jovial Bulgarian assistant director. If he looked convinced, that was good enough for me. “We cool?” I asked him. He got as close as he could without accidentally bursting into flames (the man smoked like a chimney). His bearded face grinned, “Flames come first, fire ghost screams, you land on box. Amazing!” He smacked a chef’s kiss and shuffled away. Like everyone else, I loved Mr. AD immediately. His smile could light the Eiffel Tower. “Let’s do it,” I said hesitantly. As insurance, I gave my old digital camera which had a video mode to one of my castmates. “You tape mine, I’ll tape yours,” I muttered, remembering he had an even more dangerous stunt in the rain a few days later. Mr. Director called out from video village, “Action!”
How I Got There
I had produced a short film earlier that year, spending thousands of dollars I didn’t have, hoping the old adage would apply: work begets work. I didn’t know at the time, but the woman I hired for the female lead was also a part-time casting director. Next thing I knew, I was auditioning in a small Burbank office on the Friday before Thanksgiving for a movie-of-the-week that would be airing on SyFy Channel (Sci-Fi back then). I don’t even remember having many lines to memorize. It was mostly, “Look scared, you’re seeing ghosts.” My agent called on the following Monday, asking if I was available to leave on Friday for a month overseas, returning just in time for Christmas. It’s hard finding acting work in December, since most of the town shuts down for a week or two, so this gig was a no-brainer. I didn’t need persuading, but my agent relayed a message from producers, “We know it’s short notice, but tell P.J. this is going to be his favorite shoot ever.”
A large limo pulled up to my crappy Westwide apartment early. As written in my little notebook diary, “I was all by myself in the back. Had to raise my voice to ask the guy his name. It was Bob.” My eyes were heavy but my spirit light for my first ever international flight. I remember seeing German newspapers by the plane’s entrance, and being utterly charmed by the gorgeous flight attendants seemingly placed straight out of Central Casting. And then it happened: my first ever offer for free booze in the clouds. Being a swanky middle-class LA actor, I drank red wine with my Clif Bar. As we made our descent, the attendant spoke to me in her native tongue. I apologized for not understanding. She joked, “It’s been ten hours. You should’ve learned some German by now.”
I strolled down the aisle of the connecting plane in Frankfurt, past our Soap Star leading man, but I couldn’t find the seat numbers. A tall dark-haired gent with a slight New York accent pointed them out to me. I thanked him graciously, despite his Yankees hat (I’m a Red Sox guy). I’m a huge extrovert, so I love meeting cast members on a project, nodding to the other American passengers who stuck out like sore thumbs. Two hours later, we landed in Bulgaria.
Settling Into Sofia
Wasting no time, producers sent us directly from the plane to a wardrobe fitting at the studio, where I formally met the cast. There were our female leads, one Blonde, the other Brunette, both adorable yet fierce. Their counterparts were two sandy-haired Hollywood British transplants, dashingly handsome and very charming. I’m a sucker for those scholarly accents across the pond. Mr. Yankees Hat, the youngest, would be playing my partner in crime. He was a slim New York Irishman, I was a hefty Boston Italian. We got along like peas and pasta. And of course, there was the Soap Star, the face that would be on the movie poster. He was a nice guy, but it was clear from the start — we were the “favored nations” (industry term meaning “equal pay”), Soap Star was the expensive island. Wait, where was the last cast member, who’d be playing the mysterious ship’s Steward? He had not yet arrived.
We finally made it to the hotel, the Kempinski, in Sofia. I grew up in a tiny apartment in Boston, never having been abroad before, so for me this place was a palace. The pillows were like rocks but I wasn’t about to complain. Our Soap Star immediately requested fancier digs downtown. With him away on his island, the favored nations had time to get to know each other. The perfect opportunity to do this was at the hotel’s breakfast. There are few things I enjoy more in this world than a buffet, and the Kempinski’s spread was huge. The cheese table alone was bigger than most buffets I’d seen. Give me a cup of coffee and a danish, I’ll tell you a story. Give me unlimited eggs and bacon, I’ll read you a phone book. We all became fast friends. This was definitely going to be fun.
In the hotel lobby, I’d memorize lines, mellow out listening to my brand new iPod, or simply people watch. I remember one morning being almost homesick as the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back” echoed on the hotel’s speakers. The large corridor featured a Christmas tree, comfy chairs, and a steady meandering flow of swarthy gentlemen. Growing up in Boston’s little Italy, I’ve learned how to smell mafia. Perhaps that’s why, across the hall, there was an actual strip club. We’d heard rumors that a name actor once frequented this club during a past shoot and rang up exorbitantly high unpaid tabs producers scrambled to cover. There was even a casino on one of the floors. Plenty of wholesome ways to blow the weekly cash stipends burning holes in all our pockets. The Bulgarian businesses loved US dollars.
On Sunday, we had our cast table read. The mysterious Steward had finally arrived. It was perfect casting. A distinguished older Asian fellow who’d worked with Spielberg, Bertolucci and Burton. His face, like a road map to an ancient time, conveyed monologues with a single nod. I was excited to work with him. The read went really well. The Brits, the Blonde, the Brunette, the New Yorker, the Steward, the Soap Star, and me, the Bostonian, all on point. We had ourselves a movie.
A Death Defying Shoot
Our movie’s story was about passengers trying to escape a haunted ship to hell. Most of the footage was filmed on sound stages, like the opening stunt scene, during which I thought I could conceivably end up at sea on my own purgatory cruise. I smelled the fatal stench of mortality three other times during the shoot. Most of the set was sturdy iron and hardwood, but some of the set pieces were flimsy. You could tell the fake from the firm if you just paid attention. During one take while I was running away from imaginary ghosts, I leaned onto a light post to shift my weight. The post was plastic, it bent over and I slammed my head onto an iron railing. Doubled over, eyes closed, head spinning, I saw stars. During these fleeting moments while you hold your head, you wonder what you’ll see when you finally open your eyes. After some heart pounding seconds, I looked up, the spinning righted itself, and all was okay. Probably a slight concussion, but I just wanted to finish the shot. Thankfully, my character was dumb and most of my lines were short. Ready for the next snap, coach!
The second brush with death was similarly my fault. I’m at a pampered point in my career now where I’d ask a stunt person to navigate a revolving door for me (kidding, producers, please hire me). Back then, my excitement knew no bounds. During one scene, my blocking had me sprinting across the set bridge toward a ladder, stopping just before it. I didn’t think the ladder actually went down. I thought there’d be flooring, a fake set piece insinuating the drop. You know, like when you see stairs on a sitcom set, they don’t really lead anywhere. On the first take, I passionately took off, racing until I reached the ladder. Without bracing myself, I fell about ten feet. Miraculously, and I don’t use that term lightly, I landed painlessly on my heels. Scared as all heck, but unharmed. The boots I was wearing didn’t even have good support nor fit me particularly well. For whatever reason, I planted daintily like a cat. Angels on my shoulders (or under my feet).
The last death defying deed involved my new friend, fire. In this scene, New York and I were trying to breach a metal door on the ship. Our characters not being the brightest sorts, we decide to pour gasoline and light it up (our backstory involved arson). The beauty of low-budget films is doing as much as possible practically, so I was the one tasked with sparking the blaze. Keeping the fire contained meant using an enclosed space. The pyrotechnics “specialist” doused the small room with flammable liquid, then gave me a match. Lighting it was the easy part. The challenging part? Holding our ground to deliver two less-than-Shakespearian lines as the fire erupted around us. Can you imagine how hellishly hot a small room gets when completely ablaze? What if one flame randomly licks my shoe? What if the guy who poured the gasoline got a little sloppy? What if I lose my balance? Thoughts undulated through my concussed brain. What’s the old saying? “Pain is temporary. Film is forever.” I struck the match, we delivered our lines, and the rest is basic cable history.
I had so many fun scenes in the film. We shot days at first, then transitioned to night shoots. The crafty cart became my second home. When my teeth started to chatter from double espresso, I switched to herbal tea lattes. We’d huddle around heaters when the temps dropped. There was my name printed on a cheap plastic lawn chair.
Much of my footage was shared with Mr. New Yorker, and we played opposite a couple of the local supporting actors with flawless American accents, but my favorite scenes were with the whole group. During one such scene, New Yorker and I had to scamper up to the gang after hearing an inhuman sound, with my line leading the way. Here I finally got to interact with Soap Star. I’d observed him on set earlier. He kept the ball rolling, butchered some lines and attempted some “ad libs.” Still, he was our captain and I appreciated it. But when I stormed into the circle of doomed passengers to deliver dialogue, I almost broke character every time because of Soap Star’s face. The moment was just too weird and surreal. Under the circumstances, we remained pros and everyone performed well. I got a kick out of Brit #1, who had to put on a Russian accent which made him unnecessarily nervous. He nailed it. He also jumped off an extremely high platform in the pouring rain. It was nuts! And they lit New Yorker’s legs on fire. I’m not kidding. They used PA’s to spray the fire extinguishers. At least they didn’t subject us to the most dangerous stunt where they lit a stunt man’s entire body on fire.
I finally got my chance to play opposite our Steward which was truly a joy. The scenes went swimmingly. We tussled. My character had a wrench. He had a stone cold stare. He won. Off set, he was an amiable, fascinating guy. He wore strange shoes on his feet, unlike anything I’d seen, which he highly recommended. They looked like little wooden skis held onto the ankle with twine. It was classic bohemian, next level stuff. I was struggling with nasal congestion, while others were feeling a bit under the weather, too. It didn’t help that most days on set were freezing and filled with synthetic fog from low-rent smoke machines. Steward offered everyone an all-natural herbal supplement, which he kept in a little vial secured with a cork top. He passed it around. When it got to me, I popped one in my mouth. It was super hard going down. After I gave the vial back to Steward, he said, “Where’s my cork?” Yup, I’d eaten it. Oops.
Off Days
I’d get in workouts, an occasional massage, some sightseeing. We saw movies at the mall, including Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale and Denzel’s Deja Vu, presented in English with Bulgarian subtitles. We shopped at strange sidewalk pop up markets adorned with cheap tchotchkes, religious art and (presumably phony) World War II memorabilia.
I found an actual Dunkin’ Donuts nearby, tried to order a bagel with lox, befuddling the clerk. Then I called it salmon, which he recognized. When I unwrapped the bagel, it was covered in salami. I enjoyed seeing signs using the cyrillic alphabet and learning from crew members how to count to ten in Bulgarian. I recall consistently gloomy skies and the first time I finally saw the sun magically peek out from my hotel window. The city’s buildings seemed old and worn and gray, holdovers from past communist days. I noted in my diary the locals, especially the older ones, had “angry-looking, almost scowling stares, as though they’d lived difficult lives.” We saw the beautiful Nevski Cathedral. We ate yummy pizzas at a place called Uto, had delicious Indian food at the Taj Mahal, countless “shopska salads” with cucumber and fresh goat cheese, and danced at nightclubs. At one bar called Sin City, I ordered a vodka-tonic and the bartender looked at me like I was crazy. They didn’t mix in Sofia. You had to order a shot and the mixer separately.
Before finishing the shoot and jumping on a fast approaching flight to Munich, I had one last big scene to shoot — my death. Maybe this would be the one to finally kill me. In the story, my character gets chased by a fire ghost, thrown into a vat of boiling water, then sucked down into hell. The original pool location for the stunt fell through, last resort was a smaller mobile one. Like, much smaller. Hilariously small. Filled with brackish hose water. It was barely above my knee.
I had to sell getting boiled alive while fully submerging myself…in a baby pool. Pyro amazingly rigged pipes that could shoot fire out of the water. Make-up gave me creepy white contact lenses that rendered me blind. My sinuses were killing me. It’s no wonder they saved this delight for last. It felt utterly ridiculous, but the crew was fantastic, we got through it, and I gotta say, the finished scene looks pretty sweet. Definitely my favorite death captured on film. Now, to make my flight back to the states…
Homeward Bound
The weather was stormy that Sunday, December 17, getting worse by the minute. There were worries the flight wouldn’t be able to take off from Sofia, which would kill my travel plans to land in LA and quickly jump on a flight to see family in Boston for Christmas. Producers even mentioned driving to Greece and finding a flight out of there if the snow allowed. I was super stressed. It had been a fun but taxing shoot. I was ready to get home and see my tribe. After much deliberation, we headed to the Sofia airport, the flight barely escaping the storm through the clouds toward Germany. I felt like Indiana Jones dodging the natives in the opening sequence of Raiders. Thankfully, no snakes in my lap.
I made some great friends from this shoot. Some of us have stayed in touch, especially through social media, as our careers have taken shape, families grown. One of the Brits moved back across the pond, having enough of the Hollywood game. Honestly, I wish we’d all seen each other more over the years. But that’s what happens on projects. You create a little family, then move on. We finished the shoot just before Christmas in 2006. It finally aired on SyFy on January 26, 2008, and it’s been shown all over the world. We had a little premiere viewing party at my place, and I still get a kick out of it when it airs. Brit #2, regarding how my performance plays said, “You came out unscathed.” I remember reading a review in which New Yorker and I were called “bad Sopranos wannabes.” And the movie has a glorious 3.5/10 rating on IMDb.
But I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. That’s entertainment.
