I guess the main reason that I, 29 year old Blake Thorsten in the summer of 2011, was picked to provide security on this trip was because I was fairly fluent in Armenian. That's not a language taught in many schools in the United States, but I picked it up since one of my best friends in High School was from an Armenian family and his parents delighted in trying to teach me the language. My decent knowledge of Armenian actually got me an entry into the CIA after I graduated college, and there I had an immersion course. However, the CIA culture and I just didn't click, nor did I like living near Washington, D. C., so I went elsewhere and somehow ended up in executive security work. I first worked in an office planning course materials, and then as a hands-on instructor including in wilderness terrain, which I was familiar with all of my life. I guess it helped that I was six three, two hundred thirty pounds, and at one time considered to be a contender for a spot on the US Olympic team for the 25 meter rapid fire pistol event (I never made it), because I was successful.
What I was told about my trip was that I was travelling by private jet (a Gulfstream GIVSP, range 4,900 nautical miles) from Washington, D. C. to Yerevan, Armenia (over 5,800 miles), with a refueling stop in Rome, to shoot many scenes for a movie. The plane was luxurious, but unfortunately the cabin height was only 6 feet 2 inches so I couldn't stand up straight.
Of the plane's thirteen seats twelve were occupied (one left open) by two male and two female actors who I wasn't familiar with, the director and his 1st assistant, the location manager, the director of photography, the female production designer, the star (Anne Hathaway, born in 1982 just like I was) and her makeup artist, and me - security. Since it was a private plane I brought several weapons with me, a Glock 18c (often considered the fastest firing rate handgun in the world), a Walther SSP .22 pistol (the type that I used in the Olympic trials), a ballistic knife, an Ontario MK 3 knife (commonly used by Navy Seals) and brass knuckles. The only person I knew before the trip was the location manager, who was the person who was responsible for hiring me on the recommendation of my boss.
One of the female actors, and the female makeup artist, were (being as charitable as possible) very plain looking. I unknowingly made a good impression on the female production designer and Anne Hathaway when I was as solicitous of the two plain looking women as the production designer and Anne. I loaded their gear onto the plane, made sure that they were properly situated, and worked with the steward to bring them drinks.
During the long plane ride everybody switched seats at various times to have discussions about the shoots with others. This meant that at one time or another I was sitting next to or across from every single other person on the plane. I was surprised at how friendly and unpretentious all of the passengers were, and I felt that I got to know each of them a little bit on the trip. I can be the meanest son-of-a-bitch you've met, or the most charming, depending upon the circumstances; on this trip I was the most charming that I ever was.
One thing that surprised me was how hot Anne Hathaway was in person. I tried hard not to stare at her and believe that I was successful. When I sat next to her she "interrogated" (too strong a word because she was nice about it, but she had the skill of a prosecutor when doing it) me about my qualifications for providing security and even asked to see my weapons (I didn't show her the ballistic knife, which is illegal in the U S), and seemed to be somewhat impressed.
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Camera and sound crews met us in Yerevan. After a couple of days to get over jet lag shooting started in earnest. I was surprised at how hard everyone worked on a movie set; there were no slackers, including all of the actors, and especially Anne, who always seemed to be doing something to improve her performance or the script.
I was able to ensure security without in any way interfering with filming by working behind the scenes, including with a couple of Armenian policeman who were assigned to work with us and who facilitated me getting a special use permit for my firearms since handguns are generally illegal in Armenia.
Because I was always pleasant and accommodating, because the two Armenian policemen were in plain clothes and no one else knew who they were, and because I made sure that the security was almost invisible, for some reason the 1st assistant director got it in his head that either I, or my position (after the fact he was vague about that), was worthless so he decided to run a "test." Bad mistake!
Three scar-faced rough -looking Armenian men showed up one day and in broken English told the location manager that we had not received a "permit from the neighborhood" in a back street of Yerevan where we were filming that day, and he exposed a handgun in his belt asking for a payment of 500,000 Drams (about $1,000 US). The location manager was literally shaking in his boots. I was monitoring the situation and within seconds of when the guy exposed the handgun in his belt I hit him square on the jaw with my brass knuckles, kicked the guy on his right in the groin, and shot the spring-loaded ballistic knife into the right shoulder of the guy on his left.
Within seconds after that I had a zip tie on the guy I had kicked and the two Armenian cops had zip ties on the other two, the lead guy still unconscious and the guy with the knife in his shoulder clearly needing medical attention.
The two toughs not unconscious were screaming alternately in Armenian and poor English that their shakedown was a fake. A chagrined assistant director approached the fray and confirmed that he had hired them to act the part and even wiped the made-up scars off the faces of the two conscious fake toughs, and exposed the gun as a prop and not a real weapon. The two Armenian policemen - who were now known to be cops and not low level stage hands - weren't pleased, but I went ballistic.
Shooting was interrupted for a good 90 minutes while we sent the guy with the knife wound to the local hospital, revived the unconscious dude and sent him along for observation in case he had a concussion, released the guy who had been kicked, who was still grimacing but otherwise OK, and settled down the disruption on the set.
The director did not like his schedule being interrupted, and Anne did not like the delay because in the scene being shot she was in significant physical discomfort.
I was almost ready to quit; instead the director and Anne settled me down and the director promised to suspend his assistant without pay for two days and if he didn't figure out a way to effectively apologize would send him back to the states even though that was not in the budget.
Fortunately, after the 90 minute delay and the re-doing Anne's makeup, things got back to normal and we finished shooting before it got too dark to be effective.
After shooting was finished for the day, while calm on the outside I was still seething inside when Anne - her makeup and costume now removed - came up to me and with a smile and chuckle said "I didn't realize that you were such a bad ass, Blake. I'm glad that you're around, and handled the situation without having to shoot someone." That really lifted my spirits and got me out of my funk.
While that entire scenario had really upset me, after that I definitely was treated differently by everyone on the set. Everyone had always been friendly, but somehow now they showed me more deference and at least five actors or crew came up to me and said something like "I have worried about safety since we got here because this city seems sketchy to me - thanks for alleviating my concerns."
Also, Anne gave me a big smile whenever we crossed paths.
The assistant director was suitably chagrined, sincerely apologized to everyone especially me, and was allowed to get back to work once his suspension was lifted.
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Things went smoothly, and we were actually ahead of schedule, until 4-5 days before we should have completed shooting some significant problems came up. Somehow - I was never sure how - two of the cameras were damaged enough to be worthless, all of the sound people came down with something (probably food poisoning), and there was a problem with the permit for the area where we were to film the final Armenian scenes. Therefore filming was going to stop for at least two days, probably more.
I was thinking about what I was going to do during the break when Anne knocked on my hotel room door. "Hi Blake; I have a job for you," she smiled.
"OK," I smiled back.
