Josh Nalley, a local of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, lacks any performing expertise, but he possesses an uncanny expertise for portraying the deceased. It seems that mendacity immobile in numerous settings actually can repay! But it surely took a lot dedication to attain his dream of touchdown an performing position. After nearly a 12 months, Hollywood lastly referred to as for his experience.
“I initially received this concept after seeing a lady on TikTok posting about scorching sauce after which she received gives from a bunch of scorching sauce firms,” he stated.
He pretended to be lifeless for 321 days straight and landed a task as a lifeless boy on CSI.
Nalley posts to the video-sharing app TikTok of him, mendacity immobile. Normally, he’s outdoors in a rural space, face to the bottom. Occasionally, he switches it up and slumps himself towards a tree or a cement wall.
His pure means caught the eye of the immensely fashionable CBS present “CSI: Vegas,” the place he has been solid as a dull character in an upcoming episode. Nalley, who works as a restaurant supervisor, leaped on the alternative he had been aiming for almost a 12 months.
“I acquired an e mail from CBS stating that they’d come throughout my TikTok movies and wished to supply me the position,” Nalley shared with the Courier Journal in 2022. “Initially, I couldn’t consider it, however they flew me out to California. It turned out that Mario Van Peebles was directing that exact episode, so not solely did I get solid within the present, however I additionally had the chance to fulfill him, which was unbelievable.”
Nalley was invited to the “CSI” set after Los Angeles-based present producers stumbled upon his macabre but amusing sequence of TikToks. He defined that he doesn’t really feel snug having any traces in an performing position.
“I’m not a fan of talking on digital camera, however mendacity there and performing lifeless comes naturally to me,” he stated.
Nalley usually enlists the assistance of animals to create the movies, which have often concerned goats.
Notably, on day 313, he lies facedown in a subject with some strolling round him whereas one goes up and sniffs him. In an amusing tackle his unchanging pose, he put his garments on a pretend skeleton for day 311, the place a canine walks within the body.
Picture: TikTok
“I’ve discovered that it’s greatest to include some motion within the movies, so that they don’t seem as nonetheless pictures,” he shared with the Courier Journal. “Considered one of my canine stays interested by what I’m doing, whereas the opposite merely wanders by after which wanders off.”
When he traveled to California for his debut on “CSI: Vegas,” CBS producers took Nalley to the Hollywood Stroll of Fame to seize one in every of his now-famous “un-alive” movies.
“They wished me to pose subsequent to Marg Helgenberger’s star, a CSI legend and had requested me to carry a towel to put on as a result of the sidewalk is actually soiled, however I forgot,” he recalled. “So as a substitute of mendacity facedown, I turned over on my facet and performed lifeless. The one difficulty was that the sidewalk was scorching scorching.”
Picture: TikTok
For his tv debut, he spent two hours in make-up after which remained completely nonetheless on a gurney for 3 or 4 takes till the scene was good. His make-up featured a Y-shaped incision on his torso. Regardless of his pure expertise, the take didn’t go completely the primary time!
“We needed to redo one take as a result of I had my telephone in my pocket and forgot to show it off,” he admitted. “In fact, it was a telemarketer calling. That was fairly embarrassing.”
He plans to proceed his work as a restaurant supervisor however hasn’t given up his budding performing profession! Nalley’s prowess has garnered a number of gives to play the identical position in a music video and some low-budget motion pictures. However after his CSI gig, it appears that he’s extra picky along with his gives.
Nalley has continued to submit to TikTok extra movies of him lifeless till he’s solid once more in one other film or TV present. As of June sixth, he’s on day 211.
Ethan Cotler is a author residing in Boston. His writing covers leisure, information and human curiosity tales.
