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Can you give a little information about your background?
I was born in Toronto and raised in Vancouver. After high-school I went to a military university for three years until cuts to defence spending forced me out. I finished my degree in Physics here in Vancouver then started working on my commercial pilots' license.
How did you get the role of Thing?
I did various jobs from delivering water to selling furniture while I worked on my training. I also got into modelling and TV and film extra work as a fun and different way to make some extra money. When the Addams Family came along, my agent was taking pictures of everybody's hands and sending them in. That was the first audition. They called me in for another audition with the casting directors. I'm not sure they really knew what to look for. I mean, who's ever cast a hand before? I had watched the two movies the night before to see how Thing moved. Thanks, by the way, to Christopher Hart [Thing artiste in the Addams Family films] for his help! Anyway, I wanted to just have fun with the audition because it was such a silly part. So I tried to make my hand look happy, sad, angry, etc. They thought it was hilarious and called me the next day.
I hadn't had any real acting experience before so working with a cast of real actors was fantastic. They're all so incredibly talented, I learned a great deal. The crew was also amazing. After 14 months we all became one big family. As far as I'm concerned the Addams 'family' consists of a lot more than the eight cast members.
How were the Thing special effects achieved?
For the Thing effects, a cast was taken of my forearm before we started filming. From this the special effects make-up crew made foam-latex wrists. One of these wrists was glued to the top of my hand everyday so it looked like the hand went up into a wrist and then ended. Then my actual wrist was painted black. The entire process of gluing, smoothing the edges and painting took a little over an hour everyday. I was in make-up as long as Ellie! Dave Coughtry was the special effects make-up guy who did this whole deal. When he was done, you would have to be within inches to be able to tell where my hand ended and the prosthetic started.
On set I would just run around and do whatever Thing needed to do. Then everyone would step out of frame and the camera would roll on just the background for a few seconds. This is what the computer effects people would overlay where my body was.
So Thing was really a team effort. Audrey made the wrists, Dave put them on, I ran around in front of the camera, Kennedy and Jennifer told the director what he could and couldn't do and the crew at Gajdecki Visual Effects removed my body.
Did you receive much coaching for performing Thing?
I never received much coaching. The challenging part of my job was the fact that Thing was written as a person. 'Thing is on the back of a chair laughing', 'Thing is on a tombstone sobbing', or my favourite, 'Thing is stumbling down the stairs drunk'. I would practice with my left hand while my right was in make-up.
What was your favourite episode of the series?
My favourite episode I think has to be Thing's Romance. I loved meeting guest star Morgan Fairchild and Thing got to have some fun… I don't really know how to sum up the experience except to say that I will never forget it. I had an absolute blast and I miss everybody terribly.
Have you remained in contact with the cast?
I talk to the other cast members on occasion. I miss everybody a great deal. On the days I wasn't on set, I was doing more flying training. Now I'm a flight instructor. On occasion I find myself on other sets and its a nice reunion because I invariably run into one or more of the Addams Family crew members.
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© 1998-1999 Shavick Entertainment
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© 1999-2000 Stuart
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