Zack Sharf Digital News Director Elliot Page writes in his new memoir, “Pageboy,” that filming the 2017 “Flatliners” remake was “a true mess from the very beginning” and a “shit show” due to unsafe stunt work and instances of racism and queerphobia on set (via Entertainment Weekly).
Or, as Page puts it: “It went off the rails.” In an entire chapter devoted to the making of the Niels Arden Oplev-directed thriller, Page alleges he and co-star Kiersey Clemons were put in unsafe working conditions during one stunt scene. “We were getting ready for a car stunt when Kiersey and I realized that everyone had a built-in thick seat belt, except for us,” Page writes. “No restraints, a basic safety measure of the carefully orchestrated, expensive and elaborate stunt that hadn’t been thought through… We looked to the various stunt crew members strapping the others in, perplexed, questioning why we weren’t being secured for the scene. ‘Why does everyone else have a safety belt but not us?’ we’d inquired.” Stunt coordinators allegedly told Page the two actors would be “fine” and that it would be “even better if you aren’t strapped in.” Page writes the actors were “flailing” around when the cameras started filming the scene, and they were left “speechless, staring at our shaking hands.” During a second take, a car found its way onto the closed set and forced the stunt car the actors were in to slam on the breaks. “Luckily, everyone was fine, but I think back to how reckless and dangerous that was,” Page writes. “How Kiersey and I were treated with such flippancy and disrespect.
Regardless of a stranger’s car making it onto the closed set of a car chase, what if something just… went wrong?” Elsewhere during the making of the film, Page
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