Patrick Ecclesine / The CW Good news, TV fans! We're launching a brand-new E! Online celebrity blogger series.
Starting today and each week through the season, Kristoffer Polaha, who stars as Nate "Baze" Bazile on the CW's Life Unexpected, will join us to share exclusive stories about the heartwarming family drama we all love so much.
The season premiere of Life Unexpected just aired, so take it away, Kris...
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Hello, people of the blogosphere!
My name is Kristoffer Polaha, and E! has kindly asked me to blog about my job over the next few months. That said job is playing a character named Baze on the CW's little darling Life Unexpected. It is my charge to let you into our world, to draw back the curtain and shed some insight on how this family drama functions.
My hope is to, on occasion, entertain you, sometimes I'll inform, and hopefully there will be the occasions where this blog will warm your heart. The theme is behind the scenes at Life Unexpected, and I'll be writing about my experiences on set, sharing anecdotes, reveling in the secrets of movie magic, and all the joys that come with the job.
For example, we were filming "Ocean Uncharted," episode 201, written by Liz Tigelaar and Sallie Patrick, and we were shooting a few scenes in downtown Vancouver and production puts directional signs up to help the cast and crew find the set and show us where to park. The signs for our show read LIFE in big black letters written on a bright orange arrow pointing off towards a direction. I was driving to set and we saw a homeless woman stealing one of our signs off of a lamp post. I flipped the car around, told her to put it back, explained how people depended on those signs and that if someone stole our sign the crew wouldn't know where to go. She sheepishly returned the sign, on another lamp post pointing in a new direction and I drove off.
As I did, she promptly took down the sign and walked away with it. I saw her disappear into the crowd with the LIFE sign and then it hit me. Our sign is awesome, it's pointing towards a big bright LIFE off in some nearby future, and this person saw…maybe hope, maybe a sign in that sign? Which made me proud to be a part of Life Unexpected because I think as far as television goes, this show sits in the warm and fuzzy corner, The corner that affirms life and the struggles we endure as we move through it. I'm glad she took our sign.
Another example, my kids watched the premiere with my wife and I tonight and they freaked out over the fire scene. They are six and four and they had a hundred questions about the fire I ran into. Like, "Was it real?" "Did you get hurt for real?" "Why aren't you still hurt?" "Can I run into a fire?" Of course, my answer to all the questions was "No." But their questions raise a point of interest. The fire was controlled. Gary Fleder, our executive producer and director, wanted the blaze for Baze to look real and terrifying.
They really did light a couch on fire, and they lit the post on fire with a flammable jelly for controlled burn. There were firemen on the stage for the scene where Baze, Jamie and Math come down into the fire, just in case, and the fire was hot. But it was all controlled and in fact, most of the flames are made by giant tanks, like your gas stovetop, just turned up really high. Now, for the exterior fire scene they used air cannons to blast out the breakaway windows, which are made from sugar; more of the burners turned way up; and smoke machines, to create the heavy smoke into which I ran. It is movie magic, totally safe, real yet totally fake. My kids bought it, and they don't buy much.
So these are little samples of what's to come. I hope you check in with me after the shows air here on E! and hopefully we can go on a little journey together, I'd like to take you down a path of wonder. Again, I want to thank E! for asking me to write this blog, and until next week, this is Kristoffer Polaha, signing off.
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Isn't he fantastic? What else do you want to know from Kris? And what did you think of tonight's Life Unexpected premiere? Hit the comments with your requests and dedications, and be sure to tune in to Life Unexpected on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on the CW!