Bloopers and Giggles
There have been several times during Simon’s career when, while making a movie or TV show, there have been out-takes (bloopers) or occasions in which Simon and the other actors burst into uncontrollable laughter. Simon has consented to share a few with us. If you enjoy reading about these, please encourage him to tell us more.
The first is a blooper, the second an uncontrollable giggle. Both are from Riddle of The Sands.
I had to do a scene leaping off my beached yacht onto the sand – – well, mud to be exact. Once on the sand I was to hoist a barrel off the deck over my shoulder and stride off – manly! The jump overboard was fine, the barrel hoist fine, except the barrel left it’s harness and flew off into the mud 20 feet behind me, showering the crew, and when I stepped off my boots were so firmly implanted in the mud one leg came out of the boot and I fell base over apex into the very dirty mud.
The giggle occurred a few weeks later when shooting in a barn. We had our interior boat sets built in this barn and the scene was out at sea. The barn was full of sparrows. Sparrows don’t go out to sea! Nothing we could do would make the sparrows go away or shut up. Finally they decided to fire gun shots.
It was a tense scene. “Sound Running”, “Turn Over”, “Action! – – BANG! BANG!! BANG!! Mood completely shattered we had to laugh – and laugh we continued to do all morning! Finally we shot the scene with the sparrows and redid the whole thing on a sound stage later.
Thanks, Simon, for letting us laugh with you!