Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Me

No it wasn’t a threesome and I didn’t meet either of them but indirectly I did have contact. Here’s the story:

Spy Game was a Tony Scott directed spy thriller starring Brad Pitt and Robert Redford. It was a 2001 movie and 20 of us extras were involved on a wet February Saturday that year. The scene was supposed to be set in and around CIA’s Langley, USA headquarters, hence the car being filmed sported Virginia state number plates. But the much more mundane truth was we were spaced out along the pavements of London’s Regent Park - more world famous for its Zoo. And the driver wasn’t driving because the car was resting on a low loader (followed by a posse of other vehicles) so he could concentrate on his lines.

 Much of the time we were waiting around as is the usual case with being an extra – while the crew removed all signs of London and replaced them with US signage on the other side of the road. Then the London park traffic was stopped and Spy Game  took over the park’s roads with its film shoot. The main action of note was the inclusion of red fire hydrants and steam pipes to imitate sewers in a cold Virginia climate.  

We didn’t see either of the stars that day and it was disappointing but more so for one of the young female extras whom I overheard hatching her plot in the Extras bus that morning. She confided to her friend that as soon as Brad was near she was going to fall down in front of him so that he would ‘just have to help me up’. Unfortunately for her, his non appearance meant that her best laid plans came to naught. I guess she gets a star for trying.

Where Angelina Jolie’s concerned I was much more involved.  Two weeks after The Spy Game I headed towards Pinewood. The guard directed me to R stage.  I was there to be killed.  Stars like Jon Voight don’t want to waste time being shot in the head and a Second Unit Director could handle my death.  I was to match Polaroids of Voight’s death scene in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and given an outfit including size 11 boots for my size 9 feet (with added socks).  The Hairdresser added blue to my silver-white hair which turned it blond and added a crepe moustache.  My brown leather jacket had a history.  Pierce Brosnan had worn it as James Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies.  My killer was doubling Iain Glen.  We were led to a three-foot high wooden platform fronting a vast blue screen.  Our actions would later be superimposed over a location shot.  The second unit director filmed us from a twenty-foot crane.  The assistant director clicked the trigger to show us that the gun held blanks.  Rael was instructed to fire just above my eyes.  The skin crawled on my forehead.  The director called, ‘Just jerk your head back and drop like a sack of potatoes, Peter.’  Behind the platform were inflatable mattresses.  I made sure my heels were nudging them.    ‘Three, two, one, bang!’  Rael shot me.  I fell.  We did it once more for luck and the director called it a wrap.  Two hours work for £110 ($165).  It isn’t every day you get shot between the eyes and live to tell the tale. 

But my proudest moment was explaining it to my then nine year old grandson Christopher.  His response? ‘Cor cool, Grandad!’  as he gave me a two-handed thumbs up sign.  It was worth every moment of staring into that gun barrel.

The first pic shows me at Pinewood being shot in the Jon Voight death scene against a blue screen – one of the tricks of the trade. The following stills are from the film sequence where (the baddie) Iain Glenn is about to shoot Jon Voight.  After close-ups the long shot is of my adversary about to fire at me.  And yes I did check that the gun contained no live ammo'.