US actors feel the bite of Cape Town’s icy seas
City substitutes for Malibu in new show from creators of ’Baywatch’
IF you are going to shoot a TV series on a beach in Cape Town, you are going to need actors who do not mind icy water and a spray tan. Lots and lots of spray tan.
Luckily, SAF3 — pronounced “safe” — a new television series from the creators of Baywatch, which wraps up four and a half months of filming next week, had lots of spray tan.
The show tells the story of an elite division of the fire department in the US city of Malibu, which combines sea, air and fire rescues. It stars Dolph Lundgren, former soldier and actor JR Martinez and The Bold and the Beautiful actor Texas Battle. “They are the heroes who answer the most challenging calls,” is the show’s tag line.
But, in real life, a lot of them were not exactly keen on the icy Atlantic. Executive producer Greg Bonann said the weather could be “brutal”.
“[Actress] Katie Meehan has it the toughest because she plays a lifeguard and she has to do all her work in a red one-piece without a wet suit,” he said.
Meehan said the biggest challenge was the weather and the cold. She and co-star Danielle Anderson’s wardrobe did not exactly allow for a hidden wetsuit underneath.
“I’m in my red one-piece, she’s in her bikini. There have been days when it has just been so, so cold. We get really quiet until they call ‘ action’ because we’re conserving our energy,” Anderson told the Sunday Times during a visit to the set this week.
Battle said he would never have signed up if he had known how much time he would spend in the water.
“I hate water with a passion, and I spend 90% of my time in the water. If I’d known, I’d probably not be in South Africa right now.”
For Karl Thaning, South African actor and member of the South African Olympic swimming team in 2004, the water was not really a problem.
But, as the palest person on set, he suffered the indignity of having to liberally apply spray tan. He would have to get into his board shorts, roll them up until they looked “like a diaper” and then stand outside “to wait for it to dry with extras and tourists gawking, and sometimes Dolph will come past and high five you”, he said.
“I haven’t been more spraytanned in my life,” he said of his slightly orange hue.
The show has been shot all over Cape Town, which looks similar to parts of Malibu in California. Cape Town scored a bonus as a location for the show thanks to a deal with filmmakers that will see the city featured, as itself, in four episodes of the show.
This was initially a slight hitch for writer Tai Collins, who had set the whole show in Malibu, but she
I haven’t been more spray-tanned in my life
came up with a story arc that involved one of the characters heading to Cape Town in search of her real father.
And although the notorious Cape wind forced the crew to think creatively — filming actresses with long hair early in the day before the wind picked up and the bald actors while it was howling — Bonann and Collins said they loved Cape Town.
Bonann said there were only a few places in the world that would pass for Malibu. The US was too expensive to use as a location because of union rates, the Australian dollar was too strong and New Zealand’s weather was unpredictable. Cape Town was a good bet, but only if they could film at Camps Bay beach.
“We spent the day looking at beaches and, although the beaches were beautiful, they were not what we were looking for.
“The last beach on the list was Camps Bay, and when we stepped out and the sun was setting I knew that it was perfect,” Bonann said.
He also raved about the 200-odd members of the crew, who were mostly South African.
“People are here to work. They appreciate the job and they’re talented. And even if they’re not talented, they work very hard,” he said.
The show is already scheduled to be shown in 60 countries and will be aired on e.tv next year. Bonann said this was even better than Baywatch did in its early days, although it later went on to become wildly popular, being screened in more than 140 countries and to captive audiences of more than a billion people.
Although the show has parallels with Baywatch, Bonann said it was “distinctly not Baywatch”, because it focused on personal stories rather than just the rescues.
Collins said this was because of her writing style.
“I love telling stories about heroes, but I like to see them flawed,” she said.