STRICTLY ON BACKGROUND, PT. 21: "SHADES OF BLUE"

After a pretty good run of screen time, I had a dry spell. Either I was too far from the camera or my scene was cut.

 That changed this week when the second season of Shades of Blue aired -- even if it took over a year after the episode was filmed.

We were shooting on a subway train in an abandoned station near the Lower East Side. The subway signs inside and out were changed for the show to read Flushing Avenue, a non-existent Manhattan stop. (The MTA must have a rule about having to use phony subway signs; Louie did the same thing. Pity the poor TV fan who comes to New York expecting to follow in his favorite TV stars' shoes.)

We were given the set-up: star Jennifer Lopez, playing an undercover cop, is pursuing a perp into the subway station and on to the train. A young guy and I were placed on the car where Lopez was to walk between us. We did at least seven takes, with the subway train moving into the tunnel before reversing each time.

I might be wrong, but I think this is the last time
Jennifer Lopez willingly brushes past me.

We were shooting the scene out of sequence, so that Lopez's entrance inside the station -- at, as I recall, the real Houston Street stop -- was filmed next. (There were real riders there, many of whom mistook Lopez's look-alike stand-in for the real deal.) Later that evening, we shot outside the abandoned station.

When Shades of Blue finally aired, my brief appearances outside the subway station and in the entrance were nowhere to be found -- not that you would have recognized me anyway (I was walking away from the camera). But inside the train was a different thing.

Reverse angle: The guy's marveling at my ability to
carry around so many chins without falling over.

Once again, my lucky Fedora came through for me; I appear three times in the brief sequence. Yet it's a shock to see how old I look. At least when I appeared on Blacklist, I was supposed to look terrible.

So was it worth the year-long wait? Of course! Any time I get on camera is worth the wait, even if I do need the help of a mortician's make-up box. If I look like that again, I'm going to turn shades of green.

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The video clip of my scene. The first shot, where Jennifer Lopez leaves her car and walks toward the station, was filmed last. The next shot, where she walks down the stairs and  hops the turnstile, is the real Houston Street station. From that point on, we're in the abandoned station.