Ryan Drawbridge-Harding, Being Human third assistant director for BBC Being Human, reveals that he is responsible for Damien's exra long press ups session that made it's way on to the Being Human Series 4 DVD extras!
Quote:
Do you know which scene took the most retakes? If yes, what happened?
Honestly I couldn’t remember an exact scene that took a lot of retakes. The emotional scenes we try to keep to a minimum so as to not lose that emotion the actors dig into, and special effect scenes can be costly, so they tend to be once only, but I do remember us making Damien (Hal) do push up after push up, and even left the camera rolling without shouting cut, this has made it onto the DVD I believe.
With thanks to Blood-files. Check out the whole interview at the link!
Apart from the press-ups bit, the part about keeping emotional scenes to a minimum of retakes is interesting - because the acting is so seamless and engrossing, it is easy to forget that the actors are "acting" (yes I know that is the whole point but bare with me) how hard must it be to be getting and out of the zone especially in really intense bits, of which there are many in Being Human!