* beware! tv spoiler! *
Jimmy Smits almost killed a man on Dexter’s set.
There is a scene where this guy, played by stunt man Jeff Chase, is tied to a chair, about to get stabbed. Chase recalls the events:
“For the scene, I was bound in Saran Wrap, duct tape over my mouth. I couldn’t say a thing as I saw Jimmy grab at the knife. He picked up the real one by pure mistake. It was a mean looking knife. I felt the thud in my chest… I had a piece of acrylic clear plastic about the size of a Post-it note over my heart… In eight out of 10 takes with the prop knife, Jimmy had missed the plastic. But by a miracle, an act of God, the knife landed at the very edge of the plastic.”
Fortunately, Chase survived and Smits ended up getting nerve-wrecked.
Now if I have the right information, normally there is a guy on set called ‘the armor’ who takes care of handling prob and real weapons, making sure actors don’t mistake them. The one on Dexter’s set must be really incompetent to put a fake and a real knife side by side. Hope he got fired.