Amazon – Amazon Prime Video’s ‘The Great Escapists’ drops ‘Mythbusters’ host on a deserted island
In Tory Belleci’s new Amazon Prime show, “The Great Escapists,” the former “Mythbusters” alum finds himself shipwrecked on a desert island alongside “Top Gear” host Richard Hammond. The goal is to find a way back to civilization, but unlike the typical Bear Grylls outdoor adventure, surviving is the easy part.
“We figure out water, food and shelter straight away. The real challenge is how do we deal with the boredom of being stuck on this island,” says Belleci over Zoom.
The faux-reality show, which premiered January 29, pits Belleci’s affable inventor ingenuity against Hammond’s need for speed personality as the pair bicker over the best way to get themselves rescued in a premise that’s essentially “Gilligan’s Island” meets “MacGyver.” Filming took place in Panama over the course of six weeks in early 2020, just before shelter-in-place was announced.
“We literally got off the island a week before the shutdown. So if we’d been filming any longer, we would’ve got stuck on the island for real,” says Belleci. But based on how much fun they look like they’re having on the show as they build tricked-out soap box racers and a two-story shelter, that might not have been too bad. Plus, despite how rough the conditions on the show look, the cast and crew actually lived in a relatively comfortable island inn. “We got back to the real world and it was like, ‘ahhhh, I want to go back to our fantasy life!’”
Tory Belleci and Richard Hammond star in “The Great Escapists” on Amazon Prime Video.
Courtesy of BuchwaldCurrently Belleci spends most of his time in Monterey, but still has an apartment in San Francisco from his days hosting the long-running scientific debunking show “Mythbusters,” which was filmed out of a super-secret warehouse in Potrero (to the dismay of their neighbors). Once during a segment on gunslingers, the crew were firing Colt 45 revolvers with blanks and got an unwelcome visit from the police after someone called in a complaint.
Another time, Belleci was testing a theory about what happens to deep sea divers who lose air pressure if detached from the boat. Legend has it that one of those old-timey copper diver helmets would collapse in, crushing the person inside. Since no human was stupid enough to test that, Belleci improvised by building a plastic skeleton and attaching pork loins to it to create a “meat man,” which they kept fresh in a refrigerated truck.
“I remember coming into work one morning and flies were coming out of the truck. I was like, ‘what the heck?’ The generator would kick on all night to keep it cool, and the neighbor jumped over the fence and unplugged the generator,” he says.
Belleci worked on the show from 2003 to 2014, but it wasn’t his first stint in San Francisco. Before joining the crew, he studied at San Francisco State University’s film school. One of his most inspiring classes featured members of the Industrial Light & Magic special effects team explaining the techniques used in films like “Jurassic Park” and “Terminator 2: Judgement Day.” He felt so inspired by the experience that he applied at the iconic studio, founded by George Lucas, and landed his dream job building models for the first two “Star Wars” prequels.
Given the hero worship that many feel for Lucas, the company stressed that no one should approach the director if they saw him on-set or in the office. One day while working on the Federation Battleship for “Star Wars: Episode One,” Belleci took the policy a little too seriously.
“He came out on set, and I’m freaking out, because I’m a geek and he’s George Lucas. And he asked me a question, and I didn’t say anything because I was told not to talk to him. He kind of looked at me, then looked at the producer, and the producer said, ‘it’s okay, you can talk to him if he asks you a question.’”
Belleci’s most recent trip to San Francisco took place during the short period when indoor dining was reopened in the early fall, when he visited Greek restaurant Kokkari Estiatorio in the Financial District. Some of his other go-to spots include Pizzeria Delfina (“my favorite restaurant hands-down”) and Velvet Cantina (which recently closed).
Back on that deserted island, there was no modern Greek food to be found, at least on-screen. In the first episode, after scavenging through the ruins of their ship, the pair find a couple cans of rations: Hammond scores a tin of baked beans, but Belleci has to settle for dog food. Belleci tentatively wolfs down a bite or two, while Hammond relishes his beans. For Belleci, welding together a tank-like vehicle to race against Hammond was easy, but these more casual scenes were the real challenge.
“It was grueling because I’m not an actor. So the hard part was getting used to playing myself, pretending what we were doing is real, that was the biggest challenge,” says Belleci. “Normally on ‘Mythbusters’ we’re just working away and they’re documenting us. For this we were playing ourselves. There were emotions that we had to hit. It was like, ‘ah, I’m a TV host, not an actor!’”
