Eric Dane reveals in his posthumously-released new 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 dealing with a herniated disc in his neck. As a result, he asked Duhamel to go easy on him while filming a fight scene.
“We’re about to film a fight scene. I ask the lead, Josh Duhamel, to please not grab me by the tie during the scene. He promises me he won’t,” Dane writes. “The director calls ‘Action,’ and Josh pulls on my tie. Fire rips through my neck. I go, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, we have to stop.’ He apologizes, I grunt from the pain, and then, take two. He pulls on my tie again.”
After two takes of Duhamel pulling on hist tie, Dane turned to a producer on set and warned him: “You better rein in your boy.” Duhamel then 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 whip off my suit coat and I say, ‘Let’s go, you pussy ass actor.’ I ball my hands into fists and I come at him. Nobody calls ‘Cut,’ the camera keeps rolling, and to the world who sees the whole nasty scene, I’m the aggressor, the hothead, I start the fight.”
The incident was not Dane’s proudest moment on set. He writes later: “Josh and I have seen each other since and we’re cool. But I want to say it again. Josh, I was wrong. I should’ve walked away. I’m sorry, dude.”
Dane guest starred on two episodes of “Las Vegas” in 2004, two years before getting his breakthrough TV role as Dr. Mark Sloan on the second season of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.” Prior to “Las Vegas,” Dane worked steadily on 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 he could be tough to work during moments in his career where he would go to “pretty extreme places in my head” in order to tap into his characters. One such role was “Las Vegas” protagonist Danny McCoy, a former U.S. Marine dealing with PTSD while being the apprentice to a casino magnate.
“When I got on set, people would be like, ‘Whoa, what the fuck is wrong with this dude?’” Duhamel said. “I was on the show ‘Las Vegas,’ and in the second season my character had gotten deployed to Iraq and he came back and he had seen some shit, and he was in a real dark place… That was the only way I knew how to do it, was to get into this place and stay there. [I] didn’t talk to anybody. I was just, sort of, in it. And people didn’t want to be around me. And people would, sort of, avoid me and it scared people a little bit, including me.”
Dane’s memoir, “My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments,” is now available for purchase.
