Sons of Anarchy Star Recalls His Most Embarrassing Moment on Set

Sons of Anarchy star Theo Rossi recalls the most embarrassing moment he ever had on set. First airing in 2008, Sons of Anarchy ran for seven critically acclaimed seasons before coming to an end in 2014. The FX crime drama follows the escapades of a group of tightly knit outlaw motorcycle gang members and starred Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Ron Perlman, and Maggie Siff, in addition to Rossi.

Rossi’s character, Juan Carlos Ortiz, known as “Juice” by other members of the gang, was a hacker and gifted computer technician who appeared in all but two episodes of the series. Although loyal to his fellow members at the start of the show, Juice soon demonstrated his willingness to backstab friends if it meant preserving his spot in the gang, which led to his ultimate downfall in the show’s final season. Outside of Sons of Anarchy, audiences may also know Rossi from his roles in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead or the Netflix series Luke Cage.

In a new interview with The Chicago Tribune, Rossi recalls one awkward moment involving a porta-potty he deems his most embarrassing during his entire run on Sons of Anarchy. According to Rossi, the incident occurred because, worried about his appearance for a shirtless scene the following day, he drank a special type of tea called Smooth Move designed to help shed water weight. Unfortunately, Rossi drank way too much and felt the effects coming on just as shooting was supposed to start. Check out Rossi’s full comment below:

“We’re about to shoot and I just kept thinking, this is not good. This is not good for me, this is not good for anybody (laughs) because I’m not feeling too well. I was feeling like Jeff Daniels in ‘Dumb & Dumber’ when he took the Turbolax. And I just looked at one of my castmates and I was like, ‘I’ve got a problem.’ And he’s like, ‘We’re about to shoot.’ And I said, ‘I’ve got a problem. I gotta go.’ And he’s like, ‘They’re not going to stop. There’s hundreds of people here, we gotta shoot, we gotta go.’ And I’m like, ‘We gotta go, but I gotta go.’

My shoes are getting stuck in the tar, one shoe comes off but I don’t care, I just disappeared — I ran down those seven flights to that porta-potty. And I gotta be honest, I thought I was going to live there the rest of my life (laughs).

The production assistants came down, the assistant director came down and I could hear them on the walkie talkies like, ‘Does anyone have eyes on Theo?’ But I could not get out of that porta potty. It was an absolute nightmare. And I remember thinking in that moment: There’s gotta be a better way than this.”

Rossi estimates that he was only in the porta-potty for about 20 minutes, but, in the hot LA sun, things got very hot in there very fast. While actors have gotten fired for less on other shows, Rossi says he never got in trouble for delaying the shoot and that he played it off as food poisoning. “I think it was probably my best acting: ‘I don’t know if I have a parasite or what’s going on,'” he joked. Ultimately, Rossi says the episode in question ended up being really good and particularly funny for his character, even if it caused him to question his career choice upon getting home that night.

While the subject matter in Sons of Anarchy is frequently serious with beloved characters occasionally getting killed off, the situation Rossi describes is straight out of a comedy (or a nightmare). Fortunately, it doesn’t sound like Rossi ever reached that same level of embarrassment for the rest of his tenure on Sons of Anarchy and his Smooth Move incident was a one-off. Although many actors would choose to keep such an uncomfortable and embarrassing moment to themselves, Rossi is clearly able to laugh about it now and remains positive about his time on the series.

Source: The Chicago Tribune

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