In Speed, cult action released in 1994, Jeff Daniels plays Harry, partner of the protagonist (Keanu Reeves), who dies when he comes across a house full of explosives. Guest of The Rich Eisen Showthe actor revealed that his character’s departure was initially supposed to happen much earlier:
I remember getting the script… and dying on page 22. Dying in the elevator shaft. I thought “My career is in trouble, but not that much. I think I’m giving up“. But my agent says to me: “Wait, there’s another draft coming. You will die later”. I said, “Okay,” and that was it. I was dying on page 80. I thought: “Okay, fine, I’ll do it”. There’s Keanu and Sandy Bullock, I’m happy to do it.
On set, then, the actor had some difficulty filming the passage in question:
I enter the house. We were somewhere south of Los Angeles and I had all my SWAT gear on. It’s about 35 pounds of stuff and I have to crawl through a little window, look like Harrison Ford while doing it, hold on to the window frame and everything. I finally get in and then I have to look at the thermostat and realize that that’s not a thermostat, but a timer for a bomb and that it’s about to explode. So I ask myself: “How can I do?”. Do I make faces? Am I crying? What I do?”.
And I remembered an interview that Roy Scheider did for The shark. They asked him: “That moment, Roy, when you see the shark… how did you do it?”. And he: “I looked down and when I looked at the shark I made sure my cheek muscles were up a little and then I let them relax“. So I did too. I looked at the thermostat [mima di abbassare i muscoli delle guance] it’s good!”.
You can see the excerpt of the interview below:
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SOURCE: YT
