Friday, June 11, 2010

Memories of Working on the new Hawaii Five-0 Pilot

Jonathan Mankuta was kind enough to write an anecdote about his time on the Hawaii Five-0 set. Thanks, Jonathan, and I hope you DO get cast in a future episode.

Memories of Working on Hawaii Five-0
By Jonathan Mankuta (actor who plays “beachgoer” in the pilot)
 
Hi Pam,


Well, I suppose my memories of the set of the Hawaii Five-0 pilot are as follows:


I knew I was cast to be in the "beach scene" where Grace Park's character first comes out of the water in a bikini and gives her cousin (Daniel Dae Kim's character) a hug and they exchange dialogue for a while. The constant thought running through my head during this scene: I get paid to do this...? Seriously...?!?!?



Anyone who knows me knows I'm a huge lover of Grace's last show, Battlestar Galactica, and in particular, she has been my only show-biz crush I can recall, because she is both beautiful, and extremely talented as an actor.


So I'm one of a small handful of guys in a scene filled with oodles of beautiful women in tiny bikinis laying on the beach. I get paired up to interact on-screen with a lovely young girl from Brazil wearing what seemed to be a bottle-cap on a rubber-band, but she assured me it was an actual bikini...my retinas are still recovering.


Having already worked with Daniel Dae Kim on Lost, (I was one of the "Temple Others"), we recognized each other and exchanged brief smiles and "break-a-leg" comments with each other. He's a nice guy, and a damn fine actor.


So at some point, the four lead actors are posing for publicity pics (or a TV Guide cover perhaps?), and I look at the cast, already knowing who Grace and Daniel are, and look at the other two men and say: "Hmmm...they look familiar...now what were they in...? Okay, right...the blonde guy (Scott Caan) he was in the "Ocean's Eleven" films...right...right...but that other guy...the dark-haired one...where do I know him fro...MOONLIGHT!"  That was it. Alex O’Loughlin starred in a show about a vampire detective called Moonlight that I as a huge self-admitted geek (you know, GEEK: "lover of all things sci-fi, horror, and comic book related") very much looked forward to watching from the day it was first announced. Now while I was dying to watch it (little vampire humor there), my bartending job at the time conflicted with it, so I never got to watch a single episode as it aired, not a one. Damn. My female co-workers on that Hawaii Five-0 beach scene swooned and spoke fondly of how good the show was.


Overall, Hawaii Five-0 promises to be a pop-culture geek's delight of a show, as it stars four very talented actors each with their own fan following from previous fan-favorite shows. It makes me wonder who in production I can trade comic books with. Maybe I'll get the chance to find out if they cast me again in a future episode.



best,
JONATHAN MANKUTA

3 comments:

  1. Very, very cool. That is awesome that he responded to you. LOL, poor guy sounded up set that he missed Moonlight. You should tell him it is on DVD if he really wants to see it.

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  2. Thanks for the article, OLaughing. Did you realize that the 2 words that you have in caps are MOONLIGHT and GEEK?? Eek! Moonlight wasn't for geeks! LOL

    This guy Jonathan sounds like he has a good sense of humor.

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  3. Thanks, but I didn't write it. Jonathan put Moonlight and Geek in caps. He did finally get to see the Moonlight series, by the way.

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