Eric Dane reveals in his new posthumously released memoir “My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments” that he fought with Josh Duhamel on the set of “Las Vegas,” the NBC series that Duhamel headlined opposite James Caan for five seasons between 2003 and 2008 (via Entertainment Weekly). Dane was a guest star on the show in season 2 and filmed his episode while suffering from a herniated disc in his neck. As a result, he asked Duhamel to go easy on him while filming a fight scene.
“We are about to film a fight scene. I ask the lead, Josh Duhamel, not to grab my tie during the scene. He promises me he won’t,” Dane writes. “The director calls ‘Action’ and Josh pulls on my tie. The fire tears through my neck. I say ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, we have to stop.’ He apologizes, I grunt in pain, then take two. He tugs on my tie again.
After two takes of Duhamel tugging at his tie, Dane turned to a producer on set and warned, “You better get your boy under control.” Duhamel later apologized for not listening and explained that he “got caught up in the moment.”
“Fine. Okay. Take three, and son of a bitch, he grabs my fucking tie again,” Dane continues. “I take off my suit coat and say, ‘Let’s go, you stupid actor.’ I clench my fists and come towards him. Nobody calls ‘Cut’, the camera keeps rolling, and for the world to see this whole nasty scene, I’m the aggressor, the hothead, I start the fight.
This incident isn’t Dane’s proudest moment on set. He later wrote: “Josh and I have since seen each other and we’re cool. But I want to say it again. Josh, I was wrong. I should have walked away. I’m sorry, man.”
Dane starred in two episodes of “Las Vegas” in 2004, two years before landing his breakthrough TV role as Dr. Mark Sloan in the second season of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.” Prior to “Las Vegas,” Dane worked regularly in television with guest roles on various series such as “Roseanne,” “Married… with Children” and more. He also had recurring roles on “Charmed” and “Gideon’s Crossing.”
As for Duhamel, the actor revealed on “In Depth with Graham Bensinger” earlier this year that it could be difficult to work during times in his career where he would go “to some pretty extreme places in my head” in order to exploit his characters. One such role was that of “Las Vegas” protagonist Danny McCoy, a former U.S. Marine who struggled with PTSD while serving as an apprentice to a casino mogul.
“When I arrived on set, people were like, ‘Whoa, what’s wrong with this guy?’” Duhamel said. “I was on the show ‘Las Vegas,’ and in the second season, my character had been deployed to Iraq and he came back and he saw some shit, and he was in a really dark place… It was the only way I knew how to do it, was to get in that place and stay there. (I) didn’t talk to anyone. I was just, sort of, in it. And people didn’t want to be around me. And people avoided me, sort of. sort, and that scared people a little bit, including me.
Dane’s memoir, “My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments,” is now available for purchase.
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