I think back 20 years ago, to 2005, when I was getting started on one of the most popular television shows at the time. I was in almost every episode, yet nobody recognized me. I was living in New York City after graduating college, and for extra money I was an extra, or “background actor” on television shows and movies. Countless productions that one would have heard of, yet I was mostly unseen. I was lucky to get a glimpse of myself on screen. I enrolled in classes to be a stunt performer. Then, Vampire Rivalry started production; a television series about a family of vampires, primarily two brothers, an older brother who was evil like most of his family, and the younger brother who was good and never killed humans, constantly fighting with his older brother. They were based on a book series; the dialogue was almost entirely from the books verbatim. The actor who played Viktor was six feet tall with brown hair and tan skin. I was six feet tall with brown hair and tan skin. And that’s when I was booked to be his stunt and body double. Sometimes when Viktor was shown from the back, or running, or the film crew was shooting from above, they would use me instead. And for more physical scenes, such as fighting, attacking, or running, it would be me. It was physically demanding work. Craig Trent was the actor lucky to play the role, and naturally we spent a lot of time with each other. I had to be available for long shooting days, sometimes 18 hours of filming, and had to quit my bartending job. It was in the midst of Harry Potter mania and Buffy the Vampire Slayer had ended two years earlier. The audience was ready for a show like this. It was a ratings hit from episode one. Would I do things differently if I had to do them over again? Yes. I reckon I made a big mess.
I think Craig liked talking to a normal person- that is someone who wasn’t famous. We would talk about girls and I would tell him stories from my bartending days. He loved basketball. I’m not a sports guy but he loved the Lakers and would tell me stories about the games and some of the players he was friends with. He was from Los Angeles and moved to New York to film Vampire Rivalry. He was sympathetic when my family had to evacuate New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina. He even offered to charter a private jet for them, although I graciously declined.
Sometimes fiction and reality have a strange intersection. Like the fictional character Craig portrayed, he has a brother. Unlike Viktor, Craig’s brother, Jim, is his identical twin. Sometimes he would hang out with us on set, in Craig’s dressing room. At first, he was nice enough. But after a short while he became wary of me. Soon enough, I thought I could tell the difference between the two. And soon enough, Craig was waiting for me to return from New Jersey, from the pill mill doctor I used to go to before the government started clamping down on opiate prescriptions. My money went to rent and to Dr. Buckingham, where I had a monthly supply of 90 Dilaudids, aka Hidromorphone. I would make that money back by selling some to Craig, at an increased price of course, I charged him the Hollywood actor tax. I had had a couple of injuries and was able to conjure up a prescription for the drug easily. It made it a lot easier than buying off the street (though these were the days before fentanyl). I would be lying if I said I got hooked on opioids because of my injury; I had been using them recreationally since high school.
One day, I had steered the conversation to drugs in a casual manner, or maybe it was Craig who mentioned he had tried cocaine at a party. I told him that I sometimes used these pills to help me relax. He asked me if he could try one, and like a good friend I warned him they were addictive, while chopping one up in his dressing room and offering him the other piece of a straw I’d cut in half.
Viktor said, “I will not let you pass. There is an innocent family in that cottage.”
Alistair said, “That is precisely why I want to feast on them. I am awfully hungry tonight.”
Alistair was wearing an elegant black shirt with red ruffles for a collar. He had on brown baggy pants. And he bore a set of fangs.
Viktor wore a dark green velvet shirt with white puffy sleeves. He had on blue pants; these were no jeans however. They were soft and flowed, illuminated by the moonlight (studio lighting). I remember his clothes well because I was wearing the same outfit. They were standing in front of a cobbled walled cottage. There was an old fashioned streetlight, black with yellow panels. Circular stones lined the path to the cottage, patches of grass emerged between them. That’s the image presented on screen. In reality, there was nothing beyond the cottage’s exterior, and there were about eighty crew members all around. The gray ceiling had lights pointing in every direction.
“I’ll lay down my life for any innocent family, and the only way to them is through me.”
“Very well, little brother.”
Viktor bore his fangs. Alistair pounced on him.
“CUT!” Samantha said. Like many directors, she was very detail oriented and would go through many takes.
“That was a good one. Nice job Craig. Adam.”
Chris Jacobson played Viktor’s evil older brother, Alistair, hence the Rivalry in the name Vampire Rivalry. I was standing by with Jake, a cool dude who was Alistair’s stunt double. He had blond hair and was a couple inches shorter than Jake and myself, as was Chris, the star who played evil Alistair. They were adorned in the same getup. In a few minutes, we were doing the choreographed fight, getting rough with each other, rolling around while making sure the camera didn’t see our faces. In some productions, the actors would change out of their costume and give it to their stunt doubles for a scene. But we were scrappers and we would sometimes tear or rip the clothes to the ire of the costume department because these outfits were one of several that the brothers would wear semi-regularly.
“Ruffles aren’t cheap you know,” Mona, assistant to the head of the costume department would say snarkily after Jake and myself would brawl. Also, summer was starting. New York was getting hot and there was no air conditioning in the studio. I was feeling the heat in those clothes. Chris Jacobson would go back to his dressing room but sometimes Craig would stand and watch, and often the director would want a word with him afterwards. Filming takes seemingly forever, there are endless takes. It can take hours to film what is eventually only a few minutes of an episode. Craig let me share his dressing room. And after getting beaten up, I would reward myself with a couple Dillys. Grind, lay forth, snort, rinse, and repeat.
Jim, Craig’s twin, would sometimes be in his dressing room too. He disapproved of my drug use and I couldn’t imagine his wrath if he knew Craig partook as well. I’d been sworn to secrecy. When all three of us would be around each other I used to think we could be triplets. But that feeling wore off because Jim was rarely pleasant with me. He too was an actor. But he was discouraged, after auditioning frequently, he only booked a few commercials sporadically. It wasn’t easy, being an identical twin to one of the biggest stars on television. Casting directors didn’t want someone who resembled a lead actor on another show down to his pinky toe. Perhaps he should’ve offered to be his brother’s stunt double. There were many days when the three of us would be in Craig’s dressing room, and Craig would be waiting for him to leave so he could get high, and Jim was probably waiting for me to leave, well, because he didn’t like me. We had a system where I would go to the bathroom, and leave a pill behind hidden somewhere and a few minutes upon returning Craig would need to take a leak.
Craig had two sets of friends; my friends and his friends. He would sometimes tag along with my pals to dive bars in Brooklyn, this was 2005, back when there was such a thing before gentrification. We would drink cheap beers and smoke spliffs. My friends pretended they were too cool to be awed by his presence, but he would get recognized quite often by strangers. Then there were his friends; his brother of course, and other actors, young film and television stars such as himself. The places we would go to in Manhattan were not for the financially challenged, such as myself. Luckily he and his friends would buy $500 bottles of champagne and it was understood I didn’t have to pay and I still got to partake. I noticed Jim would lean in hungrily when the stars would talk about their latest project or audition, and then he would look dejected. Jim was like me: another double of Craig.
Ironically, sometimes when Craig and I would go out without Jim, people would ask if I was his brother. We really did resemble each other but I was gawkier, my hair messier, my eyes a dark hazel while his were a bright green. In private, we would joke that I was the third brother, Alistair, Viktor, and me, the Jewish vampire brother. I didn’t mind us taking the piss at my Judaism, we were high all the time, not politically correct at all.
One day we were going on a walk, in shorts and t-shirts, which was liberating after being in costume all day. We walked along Central Park, not far from Craig’s apartment. People were out and about in the park to one side of us, and to the other side were quaint apartment buildings. New York is a compact city that builds up, yet somehow these apartments, some of the most desirable real estate in the country, were small, not the high rises I was accustomed to on my visits to Manhattan.
“You know I was reading about Dillys online,” he said to me in a whisper, as if he was Viktor telling a secret to one of his allies on Vampire Rivalries. “People say snorting them is practically a waste. They say the best way to use them is to inject them.”
I didn’t respond for a moment. And some of the guilt I had about turning this young actor to the drug bubbled up to the surface. Was I a scumbag for introducing Craig to Dilaudid? I didn’t force him to use it. But maybe I tricked him into bankrolling my addiction.
“I don’t like needles,” I said. I, too, had read reports online about people using the drug intravenously. But that was a line I wasn’t willing to cross. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was like Icarus, flying close to the sun, with my opiate addiction. My understanding is once people started using needles, a whole array of other problems would arise.
“That’s pretty hardcore,” I continued slowly, “It will make your tolerance go up like crazy and I don’t think sniffing them is a waste. That’s what we’ve been doing, right? And we’re having fun.” I didn’t feel the need to lecture him about the possibilities of fillers stopping the heart, collapsed veins, and cotton fever. In hindsight, I should have been alarmed that he was talking about dangerous territory.
After the first season wrapped production, I didn’t see him almost every day as I had before. He would text me about once a week, asking if I’d gotten my haul yet, wanting to buy some. We would hang out for maybe 30 minutes. He looked skinnier, and I looked at his arms for bruises. He would assure me he wasn’t shooting, and when I’d ask if he wanted to go out, he would tell me he was resting until the new season started filming.
“But once we get started again, it’s going to be on,” he told me one time with a twinkle in his eye, and I was reassured, excited that I would have my friend back again, ready to drink the five hundred dollar bottles of champagne. I myself had stopped and started the drug a few times, and after one particular time stopping it, I was humbled by the withdrawal symptoms. I’d woken up uncomfortable, sweaty, and slightly sick. Having only used it the night before, I was unaware of Dilaudid’s short halflife. Waves of anxiety overtook me. This will be the only time I ever feel this way, I thought, foolishly. It wasn’t a heroin-like withdrawal I had seen in movies, no, I wasn’t far enough along in my addiction yet, but it was enough for me to set out to visit Dr. Buckingham in New Jersey.
Season 2 started filming and we resumed our friendship like there had been no interruption. We continued shooting an assortment of episodes, Viktor trying to track down his grandparents in Transylvania, Vikor stuck in a snake pit with Marisa his love interest, Viktor stopping his little sister from killing hostages in a supermarket, Viktor being framed for a series of murders that were Alistair’s fault, it was a fun but chaotic time. Amidst an environment crawling with crew members, actors, extras; a general assortment of busy people, Craig’s dressing room became a safe haven. I can’t help but think back to that dressing room and get a tinge of longing, it has a permanent association with the pills to me. Sometimes Craig was upbeat, and sometimes he seemed morose and out of it. Without ever asking, I wondered if he had started injecting hydromorphone. I reassured myself that he was still snorting it; usually once addicts moved to a stronger route of administration they ditched the weaker ones. And there were no markings on his arms, but then again there wouldn’t be. As an actor, his physique is his money maker, and there’s no way he would have allowed himself to turn up to set with tattered arms. But once he was showing off for an attractive PA, doing a somersault, and as his shorts hiked up I noticed a big bruise on his thigh. And he was using more than me, breaking up two or three pills at a time, asking me more frequently to visit the doctor. And then some days he simply wouldn’t use it at all. When I asked him how he was feeling, he assured me that he was fine; he had a contact who would sell methadone to actors so they wouldn’t be spotted in clinics, and that would keep him from having withdrawal symptoms. I would periodically tell him that I felt terrible for getting him addicted, and he would reassure me that he was a big boy and nobody made him take it. Though it was true, looking back, I was a pitiful drug addict feeling sorry for myself.
“I want her, the virgin,” Alastair hisses.
“You think you can do as you please and reign destruction everywhere you go,” Viktor booms.
Behind them were a group of attractive young women, in reality they were actresses and extras, but they were portraying sorority girls that Alistair led into a cave, under the false pretenses of a frat party. What none of the characters realized is that Rebekah, the youngest vampire sister had returned after disappearing in episode 6 of the second season. She was weak and starving and while the brothers were fighting, she snuck into the cave. Anglea Anderson is a well spoken intelligent beautiful woman, and she’s a good actress. The show had good styling. She wore a wig of black stringy hair with pale white makeup and dark eyes. Rebekah was constantly scheming and ran off to date Kristofer, another vampire from the rival family. For the fourteenth time, Viktor grabbed Alistar’s neck and they turned their back to the camera.
“Cut! Very good! Moving on.”
Chris and Craig resumed their true forms and exited the set, relieved they finally had a good take. The sorority women stayed where they were, a couple PAs came over to them carrying trays with little cups of water. Jake and I stood to the side, waiting for Samantha to call us into the scene. But then Craig and Chris motioned for us to come over. We walked over to them, passing behind Samantha’s director chair and through PAs buzzing around. Some people were glancing over at us. For the stars, it was normal to be stared at. But standing with their stunt doubles wearing identical clothes must have been a sight.
“I was talking to some of the girls,” Craig whispered. “I invited them to a party at my apartment. Ten O’clock.”
“Awesome. Is Ali coming?” asked Jake. Ali was the guest star that episode, playing the sorority sister who had lines. She had been in several TV shows and had small parts in a few movies. She was definitely an attractive woman as well as an intriguing actress. I’d seen her at a few parties but had never spoken to her before.
Jake and I, as Alistair and Viktor, went through our choreographed fighting. Rebekah snuck into the cave and attacked the rightmost sorority sister. Samantha kept shouting “CUT!” as we got more and more tired. I mean, those poor extras playing the sorority sisters had to be in the same scene when the actors were performing it and then after when the stunt doubles were doing it. We had to be mindful that our faces were never in view of the camera, and also not to hurt the extras.
And this was going on while Rebekah was snacking on that poor girl.
While the fighting was going on, Ali’s character secretly called 911 and in came Detective Marisa Morrison, who at the beginning of the series didn’t believe in Viktor’s goodness, but as the show progressed, she saw how he aided her in fighting his family, and they developed an attraction, eventually becoming the show’s principal couple. When Samantha was satisfied, we switch again with Craig and Chris.
I headed to Craig’s dressing room, and I couldn’t have cared less about the party that night, all I was looking forward to were the pills in a drawer.
One is too much and two is never enough.
I made sure the door was locked and then chop chop sniff sniff. Another one. Chop chop sniff sniff. The iPhone hadn’t been invented yet so I took out my laptop to fuck around on the internet, and read random shit while I was high. Eventually there was a knock on the door, and I got up to let Craig into his own dressing room.
“We’re partying with hot girls tonight, man!” He high fived me. He obviously had no trouble with the ladies when he would go out. If he wanted to hookup with a hot girl, all he had to do was walk into a club. And I wasn’t doing bad for myself. He would introduce me to plenty of women. Since I met him, I slept with more women in a year than I had in my whole life before that.
I was tired as hell after the day of filming and not really up to the party, but there was also no way I would miss it.
According to Google, the term FOMO was coined in 2004, yet I don’t think it had spread around to me at that time, so it wasn’t the terminology I used on that day, but I definitely had fear of missing out. Maybe one of those women would be my girlfriend. Maybe one of those women would be my wife. Maybe one of those women would sleep with me. Those were the thoughts swirling around in my head, when I was high it seemed like the possibilities were limitless.
“Time for a celebration.” He reached into the drawer above where I kept my pills, and grabbed his. Dialudid isn’t exactly a party drug, so we got high before the party, and it wasn’t long lasting either, so we would hide some in the bathroom of his apartment, and sneak off to keep using throughout the night, like people would with cocaine.
A party. My eyelids seemed to have kettlebells attached to them. I just wanted to close them and nod. I was too high to want to talk to girls…but then that FOMO kicked in, and soon I was in the passenger side of Craig’s sleek black BMW, with twenty minutes to close my eyes until we reached his apartment. In Central Park West, it was the complete second floor of an eight story building. I’m sure today there’s a high rise apartment building there. Though not on the highest story, his apartment was a penthouse of sorts, I think my entire one bedroom dig could have fit into one of his guest bedrooms. There was a small balcony that the front windows in the living room opened up to looking onto Central Park, and a large back patio that had a jacuzzi. The living room and kitchen were open, separated only by a counter. The floors and walls were bright white. For decoration, he had an array of modern art, blown up comic book panels, and publicity photos from Vampire Rivalry.
Some of Craig’s friends came over with alcohol, and we greeted each other as they placed it on the counter. In anticipation of the party, they were watching a football game on TV, none the wiser to us sneaking off to the bathroom periodically. We expected the women to come at 8. Finally, at 8:30 the doorbell rang. I felt my heart speed up but it was only Jim. He smiled at Craig’s crew, but his grin dropped when he saw me.
“Nice to see you, Jim,” I said, deciding to be the bigger person.
“You, too,” he said, not making eye contact with me.
“Are Jake and Chris coming?” he called out to his brother.
“No, man, Jake said he’s too tired and Chris has something else going on.”
At 9 the doorbell rang. This time it was the Ali, the actress playing the guest starring role, and the extras who were her sorority sisters. Jim opened the door.
“Craig!” Ali beamed.
“No, this is Jim,” he said. I could hear them from where I was sitting. I got up to greet them, and saw a couple of young women embracing Jim but he wasn’t hugging them back. One would think having the same genetic makeup of a handsome television star would make Jim good with women, but he would sit, sulking, looking like he wanted to go home. Craig said he was waiting for women to approach him, but when they did, they usually thought it was Craig.
“Hey!” Ali said, embracing me. Unlike Jim, I hugged her back. She remembers me! I thought.
“Beer? Wine?” Craig rounded the corner.
Ali and some of the others were politely asking for wine when one of Craig’s friends yelled, “who’s taking shots?”
Wisely, Ali didn’t take any, she stuck to wine. However, the guys sans Jim and a few of the sisters downed tequila shots. And a few minutes later, there were more shots. I remembered feeling good, but also sloppy. Craig was making out with one of the extras. While he was occupied, a couple of beautiful women were coming onto Jim, and he looked like he would rather be anywhere. I stared at the scene in front of me. This guy had the biggest chip on his shoulder, I remember thinking. Certainly he was smarting because they only wanted him since he looked like his brother, but who cared?! Music was blaring. I asked Ali to dance.
“I don’t dance,” she smiled to me. And a few minutes later I was dancing with another sorority sister. I was vaguely aware of Jim fuming in the corner, and at some point he left. I kept taking tequila shots, and sneaking off to the bathroom. The combination of alcohol and Dilaudid were potentiating each other. I’m sure they were for Craig too, but where was he? I was pretty sure I heard moaning from the bedroom. But he wasn’t with Ali, who gave me a hug and told me she had an audition the next day, to take care of myself, and to say bye to Craig and Jim for me.
At some point as the party was winding down, Craig emerged from the room, followed by a pretty extra who quickly said bye and left. I told him I was going to go home and he offered to give me a ride. Five minutes later, we were in his black BMW. I closed my eyes, finally getting the chance to get some sleep. I wasn’t concentrating at all as Craig gave me details about his rendezvous.
And then I opened my eyes. A paramedic was standing over me. My clothes were bloodied. I spat blood.
“You’re lucky you’re alive,” she said.
“What about Craig?”
“Minor injuries. He’ll be okay.”
We both spent the night in the hospital, in separate rooms, and were released the next day. In his intoxicated state, Craig lost control of the car and hit a tree. The car started smoldering and a passerby pulled us out. I remember none of this, and still don’t know the identity of the person who might have saved my life. The car didn’t burst into flames, but we could have inhaled the dangerous gas it was emitting.
The media had a field day. Craig wasn’t arrested, but the fact that one of the biggest stars of television drove drunk and high was tabloid fodder. They had taken a picture of him on a stretcher, bloody but recognizable. I made it into several articles; one of them mislabeled me as his brother.
A few weeks later, I got a text from Craig asking if I wanted to hang out. He hadn’t responded to any of my messages, and I was eager to see him. My injuries were pretty much healed at that point, save for a little pain in my lips. He opened the door to his apartment and greeted me.
“How are you?” He asked me.
“Much better. You look well y0urself.” He seemed completely healed.
“Sorry I haven’t spoken to you. It’s been crazy with the paparazzi and the producers of the show.
I asked him if he wanted a Dilaudid.
“I stopped them after the accident.”
I asked if he minded if I used it in front of him, and he told me to go ahead, eyeing me keenly as I crushed the pill.
“So the producers have been giving you shit?”
“Yeah. They say I’m giving the show a lot of negative publicity. They’re not sure if they’ll continue, to be honest.”
“That sucks man, but you’ll find work elsewhere.”
Whether or not the show continued, there was no way they would keep using me as his double. I looked around at the apartment, the photos on the wall. There was one with him and me, along with the actor who played Alistair and his double, wearing our vampire clothes. There were also cast photos, head shots, and promotional photos, with him in his Viktor getup with his love interest Marisa Morrison, in her police uniform.
“I thought you were mad at me,” I said.
But Craig didn’t reply.
Instead I felt something hit the back of my head, hard, and I fell down.
I woke up on Craig’s couch. It took me a few moments to realize my hands were tied together.
“Why?” I managed to spit out. “It wasn’t my fault, Craig.”
“I’m not Craig,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m Jim.”
“Where’s Craig,” I said, the shock not having worn off.
“He’s in a rehab center. It’s secret, so none of the tabloids know.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you ruined my brother’s life. You got him addicted to those disgusting pills. You were always jealous of him and you wanted to take him down.”
“No,” I managed to say with bravado, which was difficult to do with my hands tied together in front of me, “you were always jealous of him. Not me.”
“Anyways, when he started shooting the pills, he asked me to cover for him. I filmed some of those episodes when he was in withdrawal or too strung out. The scene with the snake pit- that was me, not Craig. The scene when Alistair and Viktor fought on the airplane, that was me. Nobody knew the difference. I guess acting does run in the family.
“And then there were times we hung out in the dressing room, and I had to watch you snort those pills, and talk about the most superficial things like banging girls and expensive cars. Even when Craig was well, like when he filmed the scene with the sorority girls, he was still using, and ultimately look at what happened. He almost got killed in that car accident.”
“You’re crazy. You’ll never be Craig,” I said.
“Neither will you.”
He grabbed me by my hair and I yelled for help. My cries didn’t work and neither did his attempt to pull me with my hair. He then grabbed my hands and yanked me off the couch, dragging me across the apartment. He tugged me off the floor, and using what must have been all his might, he picked me up flung me over the balcony.
For the third time in the span of three weeks, I was unconscious. I woke up in a hospital bed. Luckily, the apartment was only on the second floor. But I dislocated my hip in the fall, and ironically now I have to take opioid medication for my chronic pain. Jim was sentenced to six months in Riker’s Island. His attorney got his attempted murder down charge down to aggravated assault. Craig and I never spoke again. Vampire Rivalry lasted for two more seasons, but I didn’t watch it. I’m sure the new stunt double for Viktor was good. Craig got some more acting roles here and there, mostly guest starring or recurring. I don’t get high anymore, although the medication relieves my pain, and I’m afraid what will happen if I stop taking it. I look back at my time on the show and my friendship with Craig with fondness. I’m glad nobody was seriously hurt in the car accident. Twenty years later, and I’m living life for myself, and not doubling for anyone else.