On Friday, July 4, 2025, the Casse-Gueule team was on day 21 of a planned 48-day shoot. Under the direction of Mathieu Cyr, the last scenes of the day were scheduled to be filmed at night on the grounds of the former Grey Nuns Mother House on Saint-Mathieu Street in downtown Montreal. My scene was planned for somewhere between midnight and 1:30 a.m.
A twenty-minute walk before even starting
My call time was 10 p.m. So naturally, I arrived much earlier. Obviously.
I was playing Agent Fred, a forensic identification officer assigned to examine a bag containing what looked very much like human remains. On paper, my role was silent. It would remain that way for approximately one take.
Base camp was near the former Chez la Mère Michel restaurant, in a part of downtown where parking spaces seemed to exist only for people who had found them several hours before I did. Montreal was still very much awake when I arrived. Terraces were busy, cars moved constantly, and every open space I spotted turned out to be a private entrance, a no-parking zone, a loading area, or an illusion created by hope. The call sheet also noted, with only limited delicacy, that personal vehicles could not be parked in spaces reserved for technical trucks. Base camp was on Guy Street, while the crew holding area was set up in the former Kampai restaurant on Saint-Mathieu.
I eventually found a spot almost twenty minutes away on foot. So I arrived early, but far away.
After crossing a good part of the neighbourhood with my bag over my shoulder, I checked in with production. My official call was 10 p.m., followed by hair at 10:15, makeup at 10:30 and a planned set call at 11.
The crew was relaxed, welcoming and remarkably warm considering the long day they already had behind them. The makeup artist and hairstylist were both thoughtful, generous and wonderfully kind. They treated me with all the attention you might give an actor whose name appeared in enormous letters above the title.
Then they handed me my costume.
“Here you go — your marshmallow suit!”
Agent Fred steps into his marshmallow suit
The term was surprisingly accurate. The call sheet itself described the forensic identification officers’ protective suits as “marshmallows.” It was one of those white protective coveralls worn at a crime scene to avoid contamination: loose suit, gloves and everything needed to handle evidence without compromising the integrity of the scene.
I had already played several police officers over the years, but this one belonged to a much more specialized branch of the work. Agent Fred was not there to arrest anyone. He arrived after the arrest, when movements become meticulous and every object has to be observed, photographed, numbered and handled carefully.
Once transformed into a forensic marshmallow, I went back to my holding room. And waited. For a few hours, as often happens on a film set.
Production was first filming the scenes leading up to mine. Clovis and Ben were supposed to break onto the convent grounds carrying a shovel and a sports bag before being surprised by police, restrained and handcuffed. Inside the bag was a skeleton they believed belonged to Tony.
I conserved my energy and reviewed what I knew about my scene. It was not much. In the script, my character was simply described as a forensic identification officer, a silent role working alongside a policewoman. I had to be present. Observe. Handle a few objects. Make the environment believable. In short, do my job without drawing attention to myself. At least, that was the plan.
A crew that was still very much awake
When someone finally came to get me, I left holding and headed to set. Night had fully settled in. Lights, cables, production vehicles and flashing emergency lights had transformed the convent grounds into a convincing investigation scene. I met members of the technical crew and the other actors in the sequence, including Sara-Karel Chiasson as the police officer.
I also met Émile Schneider and Zouheir Zerhouni, who played Clovis and Ben, the two characters at the centre of this part of the story. Both were approachable, generous and wonderfully playful. Despite the hour becoming late — or, more accurately, very early — they kept joking, having fun between takes and feeding a chemistry that kept the atmosphere light. I always enjoy meeting actors who can stay focused without losing their pleasure in playing. Fatigue could easily have turned everyone quiet and mechanical. Instead, the set remained lively, relaxed and full of energy.
Émile and Zouheir still had to spend a good part of the scene lying on the ground with their hands cuffed behind their backs while we examined the contents of the bag. There are probably more comfortable ways to end a workday.
What was supposed to happen
They first explained the blocking as it had been written. Clovis and Ben were restrained on the ground. The police officer and I worked around them. My character placed small evidence markers near objects, took notes and helped process the scene. The police officer was then supposed to approach the bag, open it and pull out Tony’s skull. She would examine it, take out a tibia, then gently tap the two pieces together and listen to the resonance.
Then came the verdict: “Pack up your stuff, Fred. Damn good imitation, but… it’s resin.” That was the line as written in the script. My character, Fred, was supposed to look at her in disbelief. Not a word. So we rehearsed the mechanics, found our positions and shot the first take.
Then the scene changed.
Logic takes over
After that first take, a crew member approached the director. He had noticed something.
In the way the scene actually looked in front of the camera, I was the one wearing the full protective equipment meant to prevent contamination. The police officer was not wearing the same gear. So why was she the one opening the bag and directly handling the bones?
In substance, he asked: “Is there anything later in the story that absolutely requires the police officer to be the one who discovers the bones are fake? Because he’s dressed not to contaminate the scene. It would make much more sense for the forensic identification officer to open the bag and examine the bones.”
Mathieu Cyr looked at the scene for a second. “You’re absolutely right.” No long discussion. No midnight war council around a fake skull. The logic was better. We changed the scene.
Then everyone turned toward me. “Martin, you’re going to open the bag. You’ll take out the skull, examine the bones, tap them together and announce that they’re fake.” My silent role had suddenly inherited the main action and the line that turned the scene. I was delighted.
Fred briefly changes owners
There was still one small problem. The line had been written for the police officer, speaking to my character: “Pack up your stuff, Fred.” Now I was the one who had to say it. And according to the call sheet, I was Fred.
We looked at one another. Someone offered the simplest possible solution: “Well… there are women named Frédérique who go by Fred… and both of them could very well be named Fred. It’s a funny coincidence, but it’s plausible. Okay, let’s do it.” Problem solved.
For a few hours, the name Fred therefore migrated from my character to the police officer. Was she officially Frédérique? The script did not say. But at that hour, on a patch of ground flooded with artificial light, with two handcuffed men, a bag full of fake bones and a resin skull, nobody was particularly interested in convening a commission of inquiry on the matter. So we went with it.
Making a fake skull speak
The scene looked simple, but it required precise choreography. I had to approach the bag without blocking the camera. Open it at the right angle. Remove the skull while keeping its face visible. Hold it long enough for the audience to understand what I was looking at, then handle the tibia and skull with the ease of a professional accustomed to examining evidence.
The scripted action was to tap the two pieces together: Knock. Knock. The sound was supposed to tell my character that these were not real bones but a resin imitation. The diagnosis had to feel obvious to Agent Fred without becoming theatrical. He was not uncovering some extraordinary mystery. He was simply doing his job.
At certain moments, I had to place the skull very precisely to accommodate a camera move gradually pushing closer. A few centimetres too far left and the frame no longer worked. Rotate it a little too much and the skull’s face disappeared.
In total, we worked on the scene for roughly two hours. Two hours of opening a bag, pulling out a skull, examining a tibia, moving evidence markers, resetting objects and doing it all again from different angles. Two hours that went by very quickly. I love being on a film set.
A night unlike any other
I had arrived to play a silent officer in the background. By the end of the night, I had become the person who discovered the bones, handled the skull and announced that the skeleton was an imitation. That is one of the things I love about filming. A script provides the structure, but a set remains a living organism. Costumes, movement, lighting, location and the practical logic of actions can reveal things that were not quite as obvious on paper.
And when an attentive person asks the right question, a scene can transform in a few seconds. That night, a crew member noticed an inconsistency. The director listened. The staging changed. I was given new actions and a line moments before shooting. I simply had to be ready. Ready to listen. Ready to change my movements. Ready to understand the new logic of the scene. Ready to move from silent background presence to an intervention that needed to look as though it had always been designed that way.
When I had put on my costume a few hours earlier, someone handed me my “marshmallow suit.” I had no idea it would lead to me leaving with the skull, the line and the discovery of the fake skeleton.
Proof that on a film set, you should never underestimate a man in a marshmallow suit.
Production details
Series: Casse-Gueule, Season 1
Episode 7: La cuiller à trous
Role: Agent Fred, forensic identification
Filming: July 4, 2025, day 21 of 48
Director: Mathieu Cyr
Written by: Frédéric Ouellet, in collaboration with Daniel Chiasson
Production: Duo Productions, in collaboration with Bell Media
Original air date: March 5, 2026 on Crave
Episode available on: Crave
