Go Behind the Scenes of Dead Boy Detectives with George Rexstrew
Edwin Paine is both a teenager and more than 100 years old. That's because Paine—created by Neil Gaiman for a DC Comics graphic novel and now one of the main characters in the Netflix series Dead Boy Detectives—died in 1916, but due to a cruel twist of fate, he and his parter in crime Charles Rowland skipped the traditional post-death destinations and instead are stuck in a kind of limbo on Earth solving mysteries.
"Edwin is a really interesting character, because when we meet him in the show, he's a teenage boy, but his soul has existed for 123 years," says George Rexstrew, who plays him on the series. "That intersection of adolescence and wisdom was a complex thing to play as an actor."
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Making the series came with its own sort of wisdom for Rexstrew, for whom this is the first job out of drama school. He learned about period costumes, makeup for the undead, and even performing his own stunts—all lessons that left good impressions, he says. "Everybody brought their A game and I think it's reflected in the quality of the show," he tells T&C. "Now, let's get it out there."
Here, Rexstrew opens his camera roll to share a behind-the-scenes look at Dead Boy Detectives, and the moments that didn’t make it on screen.
"This was in November 2021 on the morning after Jayden [Revri, who plays Charles] and I had landed in Vancouver. We actually met at Heathrow Airport as we both flew out together to film the pilot of this show, and neither of us really slept, so we were texting each other at something ridiculous like 4:30 the morning after saying, 'Do you want to go find a Starbucks?' We went venturing out into Vancouver and came across this sign on the way to finding I'm morning coffee. And that was the perfect opportunity for our first selfie as Edwin and Charles."
"During the week of prep for the pilot, which included lots of fittings and talks with the directors, we did a couple of movie nights where we watched clips of TV shows and films that our director Lee Krieger was drawing inspiration from. The week culminated on the Friday in this hair, makeup, and costume test, which was the first time me, Jayden and Kassius [Kassius Nelson, who plays Crystal, a teenager who can communicate with the dead] were in full getup as our characters, and it was the first time producers were nervously watching behind the monitors to see if we looked all right as a trio."
"This is an image from one of our sound stages. If you've seen the pilot, you'll remember there was a scene on the London Underground, and this is the set for it. They built a tube carriage, which was initially very disconcerting being on the other side of the world, and it actually rotated. We had a very safe set, we had a fantastic stunt team, but we weren't harnessed for this stunt so it was kind of like a hamster wheel moving very, very slowly. It was one of the first instances filming this show where I caught a sense of how epic it could be."
"We wrapped the pilot in February, 2022, and following that I booked a holiday to the Maldives with my mom. When I came back from filming, I went to the barbers and got a buzz cut, then four hours later I had an email come through from one of our executive producers saying, 'We want to fly the three of you back out to Vancouver—we need two more scenes.' I replied with a selfie of my shaved head, which resulted in me having an emergency wig fitting at Heathrow Airport the morning I flew to the Maldives and, a week later, I had the wig."
"Here is day one of prep for the series shoot. We wrapped the pilot in March and got picked up for series. So, November, 2022 is when the series shoot began, and we actually started filming the series with two days in London. Jayden and Kassius filmed on Westminster Bridge, an opportunity I was very envious of, and Jayden and I filmed the opening sequence at the beginning of the pilot at Greenwich Naval Museum, where we practiced running away from a demon ghost in front of tourists. There are a lot of strange things occurring in our show on and off camera, and that was an appropriate way to begin season proceedings."
"We did those two days in London and then we flew out to Vancouver, where we shot the series from late November until April 2023. This is me during our prep week for pilot reshoots. This was the never ending pilot, but here I am on first day back at the studio seeing familiar faces."
"This was a stunt I completed the first half in Greenwich at the very beginning of the show. I was filming the second half of the stunt— where Edwin jumps through a mirror into a hotel hallway—in Vancouver. That was a very interesting experience as an actor because I filmed a one-second sequence partly in London and partly in Canada, and I had to be really vigilant in terms of remembering my physicality. I had to take a moment to think, okay, how did I jump through that mirror in South London two weeks ago?"
"This is my trailer and a mirror I didn't jump through. I wanted to make my trailer feel as homey as possible because we spend a fair amount of time in it. I am quite a visual person, so I'd have a couple of mood boards in there just to give it a vibe. Also, I'm such a host, so if a cast member wanted to come over for lunch, they'd always come to my trailer."
"My mum came to visit me on set, and this is her applying my makeup. I thought of it as Bring Your Mum to Work Day, and while she isn't a trained makeup artist, they very kindly let her come in in between setups and just give me a little bit of a touch up. She was really in her element."
"There's a little bit of spoiler territory in this one. We wrapped principal photography in April 2023. Jayden and Kassius returned to London, and I stayed in Vancouver because a couple of weeks later we had to film some special scenes. This was my final scene of the entire season, and I was very grateful I got to keep the clapper board. Fortunately, the blood you see on my face was not real, so I was able to return home intact and that was a wrap."
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