Harry vs Wild

I can now ad movie star to my long list of accomplishments. We recently spent a rollicking afternoon at the ranch shooting a short film called Harry vs Wild, a spoof on the Discovery Channel’s show Man vs Wild with Bear Grylls. But instead of being a taut survivalist like Bear, the character I play – coincidentally also named Harry -- is fat, besotted, incompetent, pampered, wildly ill-equipped to be in the wild, and clearly being helped along by a disgusted film crew. He’s sort of a combination between Arthur and Captain Kangaroo. So I was type-cast, obviously. He also alternatively despises and envies Bear Grylls to the point of obsession, and tries to imitate him with some sort of faux British-Australian-Scottish-Irish combo accent. The result is pretty amusing, mainly due to JJ’s brilliant directing and editing.

Harry vs Wild is the brainchild of JJ Rubin, the son of our good friends Stacey and Jamo Rubin who we’ve known for 30 years, and my son Harrison. I’ve known JJ since he was a little pup and have watched him grow up. He’s been interested in film for some time and has already won awards for his short films, and is now heading off to USC film school.

We’ve been trying to schedule a time to do this for over a year, and finally decided on Easter Sunday. My boy Harrison and friend George Shaw helped as the crew (and George was my stunt man and body double). We didn’t have a script, but JJ would set up the scene and then I’d just ad lib, with suggestions from the boys. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, and the laughs we had were priceless.

So here it is, Harry vs Wild. I must warn you, it ain’t PG rated, more like R with some pretty salty language, so don’t let the brats watch it.