Actors get paid till they're dead

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — There were two killers on the set of CBS's "Harper's Island." One will be revealed in the show's 13th episode; the other struck fear into the hearts of cast members.

Killer No. 2 was one of the show's producers, nicknamed The Assassin.

"Before the script came out, that producer would always go, 'Hey, can I talk to you for a second?' " said executive producer Jeffrey Bell.

"And that's, like, not a good sign," said Katie Cassidy, who stars as Trish Wellington.

Most of the cast members literally had no idea how long they'd be on "Harper's Island," which airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on CBS/Ch. 2. It's a 13-episode murder mystery in which characters are bumped off every week.

"The killer didn't even know that he or she was the killer when we started," said executive producer John Turteltaub.

"It was exciting," Cassidy said. "When we got the script … it was like Christmas morning for us. We would sit there in the green room frantically trying to (guess) who is going to go and what is going to happen. Because we literally had no idea. It was exciting, yet it was terrifying."

"I've never done a job like this where you don't know how long you are going to be on the show," said Elaine Cassidy, who stars as Abby Mills.

It was, however, a bit challenging for the actors, who didn't know where their characters were headed.

"It requires … an unprecedented amount of trust in your producers because none of us knew what was going to happen," said Christopher Gorham (Henry Dunn). "None of us knew what our story arcs were going to be. So there was no planning ahead. There is no planting of seeds.

"You just have to trust — OK, I'm going to play what is in front of me and only what is in front of me. And I am going to trust that when we get five episodes down the line, I am not going to look back and regret the choices that I've made because something changed. ... I think in making the show we got to experience what the audience is going to experience when they are watching it."

Logistically, producing "Harper's Island" wasn't quite like producing other shows.

"The cast was great about it. Agents, not so good," said Turteltaub. "Agents want to know when (the actors) can work again. ... So that's where we had to do most of our fancy footwork.

"Everybody gets paid until they are dead," Turteltaub added, joking, "These are tough times, pally."

Each actor got a guaranteed minimum. They might be contracted for, say, five episodes — but that didn't necessarily mean episodes 1-5.

And there were times when an actor might get a visit from The Assassin and learn he'd be making a quicker exit (and, thus, less money) than he'd hoped.

"You betcha," Turteltaub said. "But he had free time."

E-mail: pierce@desnews.com