SARATOGA SPRINGS — If you’re a horse racing fan in the Capital Region, you’re probably well familiar with the face of Seth Merrow, who hosts Capital OTB TV’s “Handicapper’s Report” and “Racing Across America.”
If you’re a movie buff, perhaps not so much. But believe it or not, that’s “Jack Nicholson” on the set at the OTB Teletheater in Albany every day.
Merrow, an Amsterdam native who graduated from Wilbur H. Lynch High School in 1976, just before the current high school was built, has been in a few movies as an extra and, as was the case with “Ironweed,” served as Nicholson’s double and stand-in for a few days.
A film production major who graduated from the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, Merrow owned and operated Twosprings Productions, a Saratoga Springs-based video production company, for roughly 20 years before establishing himself at Capital OTB while maintaining the racing aggregation website Equidaily.com.
Over the years he has been able to snag some side gigs on big-time movie productions that shot scenes in the Capital Region, including “Ironweed” in 1987, starring Nicholson and Meryl Streep; “The Age of Innocence" (1993), directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder; and “War of the Worlds,” directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning.
All three films garnered multiple Oscar nominations, Nicholson and Streep for Best Actor and Best Actress, respectively, and “Age of Innocence” winning for Best Costume Design.
So since we’re well into Oscars Week, we sat down with Merrow at his favorite haunt, Desperate Annie’s, to listen to his tales from the movie set.
The following question-and-answer session has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: How did you catch wind of the opportunity to be in “Ironweed”?
A: It was just in the newspaper or maybe on the TV news. "Hey, movie coming to town, they’re looking for extras," and being a film school graduate, I was automatically enticed.
I went and took some pictures of myself. Before you could take a selfie with the phone, I had the timer on the camera on the tripod. I went the whole nine yards— bought a beat-up fedora and jacket, because these were all down-and-out people. I wanted to look the part. Went to the casting call, filled out the paperwork and left the photo.
I didn’t hear anything. Then I get a call that, "Hey, we want you, and we want you to be Jack Nicholson’s double." But … I was supposed to start a new job the next day. He had a regular double that followed Nicholson movie to movie. He was from Boston and had some kind of business to do in Boston and couldn’t be there.
So I had to call up the boss from the new job and say, "Ummmm, I don’t think I can come in tomorrow." Luckily, he was fine with it.
Q: What did the job entail?
A: The first day I had to show up in Albany so they could look at me. They buzz-cutted me to match Nicholson’s haircut and fit me with similar clothing. The first day was the wagon scene down in Troy, and for that I’m a double. There’s a double and a stand-in, and the double, you’re actually in the movie. But it’s just a shot where you’re not close enough to tell.
It was notable because Meryl Streep walks out of the bar and gets sick, vomits on the sidewalk. And there’s a big plate-glass window behind her, and you can see the reflection of Jack Nicholson and the junk man driving by on the junk wagon. So that’s me in the vomit scene.
Q: You’re in the vomit scene, which I think is quite a feather. I’m not kidding.
A: [Laughing] And it was a big deal, because there were horses involved and a wagon, and there was a guy whose horses they were, and he would drive them up and then Hy Anzell, the actual actor who was playing the junk man, would hop on and steer the wagon the few feet you needed in the scene.
The problem was the wagon was so big that you couldn’t turn it around in the street. So they’d yell, "cut" and discuss whether "Do we want that. Do we want another take?" So now it was a 20-minute drive around the block. Then it was like, "Don’t let the horses go too far!"
I’m up on the wagon thinking, "This is great," except the second time around, the director never really talks to you. It’s more getting relayed through the production assistant, and one of them comes up and says, "Can you look a little more away from the camera?" Because, you know, I’m not Jack Nicholson.
But also it’s his girlfriend [Streep], and it’s supposed to be a little ironic that he doesn’t notice it. So I went along with that. But hey, I know it’s me in the movie.
It’s downtown in a commercial district with stores on the first floor and apartments above. I’m leaning against one of the storefronts and a door opens from the apartment above, and a guy walks out and looks at me and smiles. I smile back. He seemed maybe a little intimidated and then he says, "Hey, howya doing, Mr. Nicholson?"
Q: Nice. And then you charged him 500 bucks for an autograph …
A: I laughed, because I was roughly the same looking. It’s not like I’m in the supermarket and people are going, "Hey! Jack!" I think he’s kidding. He pauses and says, "Hey, my daughter’s upstairs and she’s a big fan. Can she come down and take a picture with you, Mr. Nicholson?"
Q: The jig is up …”
A: I said, "Oh, I’m not really Jack Nicholson. I’m his double." There’s a pause, and he says, "OK, can she still come down and take a picture?"
Q: That happened to me at Giants camp. Somebody said, "Hey, there’s Jim Fassel’s son. Can we get an autograph?" I don’t even know if he has a son.
A: [Laughing] He goes upstairs and brings down his daughter, who’s like 12 or something. Now I’m kind of feeling like they’re going to go to the drugstore, develop the film, she’s going to go into class the next day and go, "Hey, look!" And everyone’s going to say, "That’s not Jack Nicholson." But I took the picture.
Q: So somewhere out there there’s a 12-year-old girl who’s traumatized because she got killed at show-and-tell.
A: So that was the first day.
Q: How long were you on set?
A: It was pretty much the whole day. Then the next day, it’s the opening scene of the movie, where he’s in a vacant lot sleeping under some newspapers, and he wakes up and stretches and walks up the street. And it was a crane shot, so I was the stand-in, because they obviously had to figure out how that would go.
So I’m waking up and taking the newspapers off. Take two, get up, rub the sleep out — my best acting — and I go out of the lot and start walking up the street. And you can’t turn around. But now I’m way up the street, probably 10 blocks, and no one has said anything. I turn around, and they’re done for the day. They’re packing stuff up.
Q: You could’ve wound up in Lansingburgh or something.
A: But I walked back in and they thanked me.
Q: You’re a trouper. Play to the whistle.
A: I go to my new job, a few weeks go by, and they called me again. They needed me again for one day. So I had to call up the boss again. The scene was in Albany Rural Cemetery with Tom Waits. Again, it’s different from being an extra. They make you look great, and then you get in a van and the driver says, "Hey, so you’re Nicholson’s double. You look more like him than the regular double." So I’ve got that going for me.
We show up at the cemetery and I’m just sitting there hanging out, happy to be back and have a little more fun, and one of the production assistants says, "You know your lines?" Kind of nonchalant. I’m like, "Hamana, hamana … lines?" They bring the script, I’m going through it and luckily it was enough time to memorize it. I was standing in for Nicholson, but Tom Waits was doing his own stuff.
Q: Even during the setup portion and everything?
A: Yeah, so I was kind of riffing with Tom Waits, which was fun. At one point Nicholson was sitting and watching in a director’s chair and he had a little pouch attached to the arm of the chair, and there was a thermos in it with a little label that said "medicine," quote-unquote.
Q: It didn’t say "coffee," did it? Back to Meryl Streep’s vomit. How did they simulate that?
A: Raw eggs.
Q: What did you get paid?
A: I have the pay stubs. None of them are particularly good. This one’s for 24 bucks. Then another one is for 75. That one is 262. I was just happy to be there. I tell people I have the best acting career every nonacting nonactor could ever dream of. I’ve worked for Scorcese, Spielberg and I was a stand-in for Nicholson in a movie that he got nominated for an Oscar.
Q: So what was the background on “The Age of Innocence”? Where did they shoot it and what did you have to do?
A: My stuff was in Troy. There was a scene where Daniel Day-Lewis was walking down the street and having a conversation with somebody. This was on the low rung of my experience. I’m on the opposite side of the street, which I think they were doing because there’s windows and they need people in the reflection so the other side doesn’t look empty.
The crazy story from that one is Daniel Day-Lewis has a close-up where he stops in a doorway. They reset the camera and everything, and Scorcese’s there, "Action!" … "Cut!" Scorcese and Daniel Day-Lewis have a little conference, the production assistants come over to everybody, who are just standing there watching. They say, "OK everybody, next take, can you all turn around and face the wall?"
I guess Daniel Day-Lewis was a little intimidated — I get it, you’re having an intimate conversation and 200 people are watching, I suppose — but for the next two or three takes we all had to look at the wall.
Q: He didn’t want an audience?
A: Yeah. All the extras were like, "Really? He’s an actor."
Subsequently, they took us all to the holding area and you’re trapped there. We could look down out the window and see them shooting things. Now the extras are getting restless because they’re not feeding us. And some guy brings up a bowl of candy. So there was a brewing revolt. We all waited around until probably 10 at night, and I never did another thing.
Q: Alright, let’s go to 2005 and “War of the Worlds.” Did you inform them that you’d done this before?
A: No. There wasn’t a lot of interaction. You show up, there’s a form you fill out and here’s a picture. They’re looking for types. I got a call to the crazy running-down-the-street ferry scene that was filmed in Athens [on the Hudson River]. I knew it was a Spielberg movie starring Tom Cruise, so I was looking forward to it.
Well, for people who haven’t seen it, there were hundreds of people running down trying to get on this ferry to get away from a group of the alien spacecrafts that were walking. In the holding area, somehow they divided people up into A group, B group, C group. … I was in the last group. You gotta be kidding me. Down on the ferry, there’s the camera, there’s Spielberg, there’s Tom Cruise. … I’m five blocks away, totally up the hill. They yell, "Action!" and I run as fast as I can.
Q: You’re weaving …
A: "Cut! Cut! Everybody move back to where you were." I’m not buying into that. I am slowly walking up another block. I run again, now I’m on the first block. "Cut." Now I’m down on the boat. I eventually thought I saw myself in the movie. I had a hat on, I think I was wearing something red because I wanted to be able to pick myself out, but more importantly I brought a newspaper with me. So I was holding it over my head. I was mad at the aliens, but I was more trying to pick myself out of the crowd.
Q: Did it make the cut?
A: It’s a really wide shot but I’m pretty sure it was me.
Q: Good move. There was no stewards inquiry about your trip, cutting people off?
A: [laughing] Luckily, no. Because it would’ve been a DQ, no question.
Now they move closer, and they’re doing some shots with Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning where they just missed getting on the boat, so that’s fairly close-up stuff and I’m right there. On the front was the video station where Spielberg was sitting watching the video replay, and after the takes Tom Cruise would come over and watch the video. So I’m trying to get there. So another couple of takes, I’m there.
I’m six feet from Spielberg. Tom Cruise is coming up every take to watch the replay. Mark Burnett, the guy who produces “Survivor,” he must’ve just been in town as a friend of Spielberg’s, maybe, he’s sitting there. So as a film-school graduate, I’m like, "This is great." From five blocks up …
Q: You made it.
