00:04:42.340i remember yeah yeah and uh i can't tell you how many people i knew on the crew of that movie that
00:04:49.760were using fake cards and so many other people in the industry on different movies anyway uh so i i
00:04:56.800just said no i don't i don't want to do that i'm i'm just gonna write an exemption letter i'll have
00:05:01.500it written and i will present it to them and hopefully they'll they'll find it good enough
00:05:09.200for legitimate to exempt me from the vaccine since I never got a negative test and I wasn't
00:05:14.720sick. I never got COVID. So I went to Will Ferrell's dressing room and I gave him the letter.
00:05:24.120It was in an envelope. I said, Will, please read this. And this is my letter of exemption.
00:05:28.760Hopefully they'll accept it. And he's just kind of pretended he was on the phone and he said,
00:05:36.440Oh, yeah. Anyway, I gave it to him. And that night was the last night that I was going to work that I didn't know if I was going to be fired or if they were going to accept the exemption letter.
00:05:53.340So I'm on set and I'm coordinating this sequence of stunts and I see Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds standing there and they're about 20 feet away from me and they're talking about me.
00:06:09.140They're looking at me and they're kind of like smirking and they knew that my letter wasn't going to be accepted and they knew that I was going to be fired, which happened the next day.
00:06:23.340So, yeah, that's that that vaccine mandate happened and I still had two months left to work on the movie, which I was never paid for.
00:06:35.560And I you were never paid for what you did.
00:06:40.100I was paid for the first three months under a Screen Actors Guild contract that I had negotiated with production.
00:06:47.320But the second they fired me, I did have a producer give me a severance of two weeks, but I still had two more months.
00:06:58.540So there was six weeks that I was never paid for.
00:16:05.300I had a few more movies in me before I retired, but I had fun doing it and I was still on a good roll and looking forward to some more movies.
00:19:04.860They called me and said, Todd, he had his, Will had his assistant at the time call me and say, it's not going to work out for this one, Todd, but maybe we'll call you for the next one.
00:19:15.060So I said, okay, I think my career's with Will's over.
00:19:18.080This was back, you know, the first two years I was doubling him.
00:19:22.300and so what happened was with anchorman too after they they didn't want to use me on it and they
00:19:31.860hired another stunt crew and another double for will i i said you know what i i found out who the
00:19:39.780guys were that were going to be doing the show and i know for a fact just through reputation
00:19:45.720experience that these guys weren't safe. So I took it upon myself to write Will an email because I
00:19:53.200had his email and tell him, hey, just be careful. I'm not going to be there like usual, but
00:19:59.220just really be careful. These guys are not safe and watch your back. Okay. So I get an email back
00:20:09.440from uh his producer assistant uh i guess i can can i say her name or it better that's up to you
00:20:17.740let's just say yeah let's just say i get an email back from will's uh former babysitter
00:20:28.260who turned producer and she reprimands me for sending will an email and it starts like this
00:24:58.040They sent me into a costume fitting for my wardrobe.
00:25:04.260and I'm walking in, and I hear this yelling, and okay, so I'm there for my appointment.
00:25:12.720I see Blake Lively coming toward me. I mean, mad. She was mad, and she storms out,
00:25:22.640brushes right by me, doesn't even look at me, slams the door. I walk in the door.
00:25:28.960Okay, I'm ready for my fitting. I see the wardrobe people, the costume people. There was like, I don't know, five or six of them in the room. Three of the ladies were crying. They were in tears. And I'm just there to do my fitting. And I'm thinking, wow, what just happened here?
00:25:46.400So I asked one of the people, what happened? And they said, oh, Todd, can you just give us a minute? We have to recover. Blake just yelled at all of us and berated us and belittled us. And I go, who is she? Who is that? Oh, she's the star of the movie.
00:27:30.780Anyways, we have to talk about something you told me on the phone as well, which I found was such an interesting story because I haven't heard anything similar from anyone.
00:27:39.360So when you started out and you were an actor at first and you're still an actor or you've still been doing acting jobs in between as well, as far as I understand, right?
00:27:48.380But then you got you started feeling what fame was like at a point in time when you did Star Trek.
00:27:55.700and then you made a very interesting decision.
00:28:13.160taking 10 and 15% of my paycheck plus tax.
00:28:18.700I was not making a lot of money as an actor,
00:28:20.700although I was guest starring top of the show
00:28:23.080on a lot of the hot television shows back there by the way we got to talk about the happy days
00:28:27.580but that's late yes that that's we could talk about that but let me just finish with the star
00:28:32.500trek first uh so i land the i go in and i land the role of star trek uh i'm a klingon i play
00:28:40.700captain claw in star trek 5 the final frontier it's a very you know people i have many fans all
00:28:48.860over the world when you do a star trek movie you get for for example i'm in the makeup chair
00:28:56.320doing getting my makeup as captain claw the klingon makeup and bill shatner's daughter liz
00:29:02.560is talking to me she's doing a uh she's writing a biography or whatever you call them a making
00:29:07.740of star trek five and she tells me todd you know what i'm going to tell you something right now
00:29:13.060uh star trek is going to be in your life until you die and i and i thought whoa that's a little
00:29:22.340that's a bold statement i said okay cool i like star trek i always liked it when i was a kid
00:29:27.460it's it's i was a big fan you know i used to watch it all the time of the original series
00:29:33.660and so after the movie came out they put well actually before the movie came out they
00:29:42.880They put me in front of an audience of about 10,000 people, and I have never been, you know, on a microphone in front of 10,000 people in my life.
00:29:53.860They were at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A., and they introduced me as the new villain of the movie.
00:30:26.440But when I was doing – so the movie came out.
00:30:30.800And so you start doing the convention circuit.
00:30:33.200They start inviting you, the actors that have larger parts, you get invited to conventions and they were flying me all over the world, you know, England and Germany, all and pretty much every state in the United States had Star Trek conventions.
00:30:48.880So, you know, they're paying me and my protocol was I fly there, they give me a hotel room, they pay me a fee, I sign autographs until the line finishes and sometimes the line is like around the block.
00:31:05.540And I get on stage and I speak to the people for like Q&A and stuff like that.
00:31:12.680So I was always uncomfortable doing that because I just, I don't know, some people like it, some people don't.
00:31:22.160And I did for a number of years, I did the Star Trek convention.
00:31:24.480So I was at, you know, they send you to hotels and they give you a schedule.
00:31:35.020And so I'm sitting at a hotel and say, say you're in Vegas or something and you're at a big hotel, the Hilton.
00:31:40.860So I'm going to lunch with a couple of the other actors or just me and a couple of people.
00:31:47.580And people are coming up to me at my lunch table when I'm taking my break and they're asking me for autographs and they want, you know, people want a piece of you, basically.
00:31:57.340When you're famous, people want a piece of you.
00:34:26.840Thank you. Thank you so much for doing it. I mean, it's hard for people, especially if they're still working in the industry. People don't want to go out and talk about things because, of course, you know, you might lose opportunities from it. And I think that's really, it's so sad that you have to just accept really bad behavior from people. And especially, I think we see more and more celebrities.
00:34:49.820It's coming out because of social media and things
00:34:52.540We are starting to learn who people really are
00:34:55.760And at times I think it's really disappointing
00:34:58.600And I think sometimes for people it's hard to actually accept it
00:35:03.200Because they have put these people on a pedestal
00:35:06.120And when you hear stories about what they really like
00:35:08.580They're like, no, they don't even want to hear it
00:35:11.300And reject it because it's like so hard to believe
00:35:14.400That someone they admire could be a bad person or whatever
00:35:19.180but you have worked with nice people too.
00:35:21.400So tell us a little bit about your favorites out there
00:35:24.980because you've worked with a lot of big stars.
00:35:29.300Yeah, well, I mean, I'll just rattle a couple names off, I guess,
00:40:22.640Oh, yeah, he says he doesn't know you.
00:40:24.000Are you sure you were telling me the truth?
00:40:25.940I said, yeah, I'm telling you the truth.
00:40:27.240Wait till he gets to set. We'll see if he knows me. So the first day I see, I get to set. I walk on set. Mel sees me and he's over by the monitor. He comes over, gives me a big hug, rips off his microphone that the sound people put on him, grabs me by the shoulder in a hug, takes me away from everybody and starts talking to me about all the stuff that's going on with him and the girl and this and that.
00:40:57.240in his career and like he like we were just like it was the next day that we saw each other
00:41:04.580yesterday so i don't know what that glitch was maybe mel was you know these guys know so many
00:41:10.220people maybe he just was yeah was drunk or something and he forgot my name but anyway he
00:41:15.900he it turns out the director saw this all the producers saw him pull me aside and we were
00:41:21.560talking because he didn't want the the sound people to hear what we were saying some pretty
00:41:25.020private stuff um so that settled that right that's interesting and of course we also have to talk
00:41:33.160about your experience you were also hired to work on rust i mean you've been in where all the action
00:41:42.300is all the time so first of all were you excited about working with alec baldwin or
00:47:17.260But talking about that, I remember it was an incident on a Ryan Reynolds movie where a stuntwoman died. Do you remember that? What's your thoughts about that?
00:47:29.360I can't remember the movie, but was that the motorcycle?
00:47:32.060Yeah, it was a Deadpool 2 movie. Did you hear anything about that, like people in the stunt world talking about it?
00:47:39.160i had heard about it but i'd rather not i don't remember the name of the movie but and i've i've
00:47:47.880had several of my colleagues die and i've had several colleagues you know very badly injured
00:47:54.960um i'll just give you an example and and this is why i i don't want to get into other people's
00:48:01.320sets because i don't know i wasn't there so i don't know how it happened or what happened i
00:48:05.820just know what i hear but i can tell you i there was a really close friend of mine who i met on
00:48:10.640the movie the matrix in australia which by the way the matrix is a huge movie um i like it it's
00:48:17.080a great movie um i supplied the stunt coordinator and the stunt department in australia i supplied
00:48:24.740them with all of the stunt equipment for the movie i had it i had it made from a factory i knew
00:48:31.440the Australians were having a hard time finding the stunt equipment to do all the stunts on the
00:48:36.480Matrix. So I arranged for it to be shipped over there from the United States. They custom ordered
00:48:40.940it. They paid a ton for it. And actually, when I got over there to work on it, you know, because
00:48:46.420he said, OK, you're going to work on the movie on top of the other benefits for getting us this
00:48:52.360equipment. And I played a part. Are we talking about The Matrix, The Matrix with Keanu Reeves?
00:48:57.140yes the actual first matrix movie matrix number one it's an amazing movie by the way amazing i
00:49:04.400love that yeah sorry yeah so i i gave i got him all the stunt equipment uh and i actually got to
00:49:12.540ride one of the ratchets that i provided for him i got shot in the uh the scene where i was a soldier
00:49:19.080in the, um, uh, what was it? The, uh, FBI room where, where he comes in with the big
00:49:25.980coat and the guns blazing and shoots all the military guys. Uh, I was in that and, uh,
00:49:33.840I worked on it for like three weeks and it was fun. So I met, anyway, I met a guy named, uh,
00:49:39.420Scott McLean. He was a lot of Australians, great guys. And Scott became a good friend of mine.
00:49:44.480And after a while, I, you know, years went by, we stayed friends and I recommended him to double one of the leads on the comedy with Zach Galifianakis and Hangover.
00:51:06.080Yeah, these are the things you never hear about really. I mean, it's such a dangerous job that you have. I mean, it's incredible that you, I don't know, I'm sure you've been injured a lot throughout as well. But just like, I mean, I think it's a good thing that you're kind of retired now that you don't do these things anymore, because it's, I mean, it sounds really dangerous.
00:51:27.620Anyways, we have to talk about this as you mentioned it. Because the thing was, when I got in touch with you, the next day I was doing a video on my channel and I talked about Tom Hanks and how Henry Winkler came out and said that, you know, they still have this beef going on.
00:51:44.940And then I showed a photo from the sets of the Fonz and I was like, this is Tom Hanks, one of his first acting jobs and Henry Winkler.
00:51:56.060And there were some other people in the background and you sent me an email and it was like, that is me in the background of this picture.
00:52:36.840So I was learning every stuntman had to learn the business and be in, you know, set etiquette and things like that.
00:52:42.200So we started as extras. And so I was working on Happy Days because I had, you know, I was a young guy and I had to look for the Arnold's diner and all that.
00:52:50.100So I was in it a lot. And I was working with Ron Howard and all the all the boys, Henry Winkler as the Fonz.
00:52:55.760And I was hanging out with these guys for a lot of episodes, actually.
00:53:00.660So this one episode that you showed on your show and you were talking about Tom Hanks, when he comes in and he starts doing his karate moves in the gi and fighting with the Fonz, I was there the whole time.
00:53:16.620I was one of the extras in the restaurant watching this whole thing go down, and I did not know who Tom Hanks was.
00:53:24.320I just thought he was this lunatic who was, you know, prancing all over the place with the karate gi on and fighting with the Fonz, and it was fun.