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left to right: Lynn Broberg, Bruce Greenwood and |
In February of 1996, my boyfriend and I were on the set of Nowhere Man and my boyfriend had a small part on the show. Here's how it all started and ended.In December of 1995 my boyfriend, Terry, won a radio contest. Along with many other prizes, he won a walk on part to Nowhere Man. We were scheduled to go to Portland in late January but our trip was cancelled because of flooding in Portland. It was rescheduled for February 10, 1996 to February 13, 1996. When we left Minnesota the temperature was in the -30's so when we arrived in 50 and 60 degree weather in Portland we knew right away that this was going to be a very good trip. We arrived on a Saturday and had Saturday and Sunday to check out the city. Disney had given us a driver and car for a great portion of the weekend so he took us around town to show us the sights. Finally Monday, the day we'd be on the set, came.
We arrived on the set at approximately 10am and were immediately brought up to where they were filming. Bruce was still in his trailer waiting for the crew to finish setting up the lighting and getting the props ready, so we were first introduced to Jim Chressanthis, the camera man. He explained that only one camera is used so that every time there's a different camera angle in a scene its a totally different shot. As we learned along the way, this makes for a very repetitive day. We were then introduced to a number of other folks including Ian Toynton, the director for the episode of Doppleganger, Tyrone Mason, the first assistant director, Patience Thoreson, the script supervisor, and Tracey Lerich, the woman who played Jeanette Wilson - Tom's secretary - on this episode. Everybody seemed really interested in how we were chosen to be on the set, how Terry got the part, and what it's really like in the frozen world of Minnesota.
Then it happened. HE walked in!
It was rather surprising to see Bruce Greenwood walk into a room that you're in but what's even more surprising was that he looked right at us and smiled and waved. Talk about a moment I'll never forget. We didn't realize that our being on the set was so "publicized" until Bruce walked in and knew exactly who we were. They needed to start filming as soon as he walked in so it took him awhile to get the chance to come over and introduce himself (as though he needed to). The picture that is on this page was in the first minutes of meeting so needless to say I was pretty out of it from overwhelming excitement.
We were allowed to take pictures on the set with just a few rules. No picture taking while they were rolling (the film that is) and we had to yell, "FLASHING!!" really loud before we took one. The reason for that was if we didn't yell it, then the electrical people would think that there was an electrical short somewhere and chaos would break out. The camera and sound systems were amazing. During the scene where Tom is looking through the files at the other Tom's office, I think you might be able to see the refrigerator in the background. Anyway, during one of the shots Brett, the boom holder, yelled cut because he was picking up a humming noise. It turned out that the running of the frig was disrupting the sound and they had to unplug it. After watching the two scenes about 30 times each (so they could get the right sound, movement, and different angles) it was time for lunch. All I will say about lunch is that nobody on that set was undernourished. Any kind of salad, any kind of pie, any kind of beverage you could think of, it was there. We also had our choice of shark, barbecued ribs and chicken. Terry and I got our food and about ten minutes later Bruce sat down with us for lunch.
Bruce is one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. I was afraid that we wouldn't get a chance to speak to him or really get to talk to him. Every chance he could, he would come over and talk to us or see if we had any questions. He was really interested in our lives, what we did, why were were there, etc. At lunch, we really got the chance to ask him a lot of questions. He arrives on the set at about 6am everyday, seven days a week, and they put in anywhere from 12 hour (which rarely occurs) to 24 hour days, what ever it takes to get that week's episode done. He really liked working on Nowhere Man and seemed to get along perfectly with the crew.
After lunch Terry was called to the make-up trailer to get his make-up done. Here we met Vinnie Hagood. Talk about a character! Vinnie had many projects under his belt including doing make-up for the movies Mr. Holland's Opus and Dr. Giggles. The make-up trailer was also the hair trailer. They had everything in there from any kind of shade of eyeshadow, to shelves of Kleenex, to any kind of hairspray you could think of. It was truly amazing - the things they had in that trailer. After Terry got his make-up done they showed us the wardrobe trailer. There were duplicates or triplicates of every piece of clothing so that if they had to shoot a scene over on a different day, they would have a clean shirt or jacket for Bruce to wear. We saw a shirt that had a bullet hole in it so that if ever in a scene Tom got shot, that would be the shirt he would be wearing. They also had a washer and dryer in the trailer so that anything and everything could be washed if needed.
The time had finally come for the bus scene in which Terry was going to be in. This scene took incredible planning on the part of the lighting crew. If you notice in Doppleganger, the bus scene is during the day, but it was shot at night. So first off, they needed to make the inside of the bus look like it was day out and then they needed to add extra lighting to make it look like the bus was moving. Also, you might notice that the bus looks like it's moving, rocking back and forth, front to back. I took part in that job. There was about five of us rocking back and forth to get the bus going. It was quite comical. After about two hours getting the bus scene down, they shot "the martini", a term they used for the last shot of the day, because now they could go home and drink martinis. This day was about a 14 hour day on the set for the majority of the crew. Bruce got up and I thought, "Well, it's over," but then Bruce invited Terry and me to follow him to his trailer for pictures and autographs. As we walked back to his trailer we asked him if he got to go home now, and he said no. He still had about four to five hours at the sound studio that night so a fourteen hour day for everybody else is almost a twenty hour day for him. The message that came across from that was that Bruce truly loved playing Tom Veil on Nowhere Man.
After we got our autographs we found our ride back to the hotel. February 12, 1996 will be a day that we will never forget. In one day, we had a lifetime of memories. Shortly after we returned home, it was announced that Nowhere Man had not been renewed. Having such a close connection with the show, we felt great sorrow over the announcement but what every fan should remember about Nowhere Man is not only what a great show it was, but also what a great crew and staff it had.
If anybody has any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me (brob0019@maroon.tc.umn.edu). My name is Lynn Broberg.
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