Highlander
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Oh, I remember this, the Eiffel Tower opening shot. We actually did a Highlander crew picture right in this particular spot here with all the executives and everything. And the problem also was-- The funny thing was when we actually did this Eiffel Tower scene here. We, uh-- remember the day before, which was this particular day, it was a beautiful day. And we thought, "Oh, great, it's going to be an amazing view of Paris when we get up on top of this Eiffel Tower. It'll be a fantastic view of Paris and it'll be great." Well, then we'd practiced our tango, et cetera. But by the time we actually got up there, the next day, it was drizzly and cloudy and it was miserable. So we were a little upset about that fact.

[watching the scene play out on a TV screen] This actual place we shot this, was also... It was the... Oh, who was the large-- very large... I want to say "Getty", it's not "Getty". It's the actual villa or the chateau of... Rothschild. I believe it's the Rothschilds. [On the TV, Vemas punches Joe, knocking him down.] That was interesting too, to actually-- and Jim took that fall. That was Jim who took that fall. He actually fell back onto the ground. He said, "No, I can do it, no problem!" But this was also... We used this location a lot. We actually used it in "Methuselah's Gift". We used it two or three other times because it was a fantastic-- It was huge. This location was enormous. And you had a great exterior and interior, it had gardens. We used it also for the flashback for Constantinople; for the, uh, in the cellars; for the exterior part of it, so it was, uh... We also used it for the Kalas-MacLeod meeting later on. And so it was an amazing mansion that had so many facets. We also shot on the roof of it. Go figure.

I think Elizabeth was really kind of freezing in this.

(continued) But instead what ended up happening was that they built the ramp going to a right angle. So think about it, we're up like hundreds of feet in the air. The drop below us is probably about fifteen, twenty feet into boxes, when we get up onto this thing. And we've choreographed something for days, trying to, you know, and then the platform is a lot shorter than we think. So I get there, and I'm like, "What is this? I can't believe they're doing this!" And I turn around, and Entertainment Tonight's cameras are right there. I'm like, "Oh my God, hi, how are you doing?" And Dennis came up and said, "Oh, don't worry, it's no problem. We can shoot it." And on top of that, the weather was horrible. It was just, you know. But don't worry, we weren't looking all the way over the edge. It was actually like at the next tier down, but still a fifteen-, twenty-foot drop.

[watching the tango scene on the TV] The only thing is, what you couldn't see were the steps, because you couldn't quite get down enough. (meaning the camera wasn't able to show their feet)

Cut to filming shot of crowd watching the tango.

Adrian Paul - [voice-over] --weren't actually paid extras in this. Because people were still on the Eiffel Tower, you know, going around looking at the view.

I mean, Elizabeth had to learn a couple of dances here. And these girls actually were real... I want to say "belly dancers", but "Dancers of the Eighty-trois-- Eighty-three Veils".

You know, it was kind of fun to actually... screw with Amanda for a while. Oh god, I had so much fun doing that. And some of that stuff actually was not supposed to happen. Her veil getting caught like that actually wasn't supposed to happen. It got caught by mistake and it worked great for us. And Dennis loved shooting this too. He was just so enamored by this whole thing.

Dennis-- This was one of Dennis's-- [chuckles] He loved using smoke. As you can see there, there is a lot of smoke, but the trouble is, there was a lot of wind too. So more wind, more smoke, because otherwise it wouldn't go in the shot correctly.

F. Braun McAsh - Okay. You know the parry. You're going ... [raises sword over his head] Step back. [swings sword down] Step back. Step back, push down, wind up... cut as you run through. [swings sword forward] Let's take it at half speed, so that you get the footwork. The most important thing but distance -- which is your safety [holds sword out in front of him pointing at his opponent] -- is footwork. When you're working at distance, that means with a fully extended arm, I can't quite reach you, so that your parries actually come up into my range. Okay? Let's walk through it slowly. And stepping back... [swings his sword at opponent, who steps back as he parries] Step back... [swing & parry as opponent takes another step back] Step back, down... [pushes opponent's sword down with his blade. Opponent raises blade as he steps forward and swings. They repeat the sequence multiple times, speeding up the rhythm.]

F was fantastic at knowing the historical location of swords and weapons and different styles of eras and stuff, and how to take a sword away from somebody and how to, you know, how it was used, et cetera, et cetera. Historically, he gave the show a lot.