With beautiful Portofino at your feet and the fans at your side, who wouldn’t have a wonderful time on location? After JOHN McCOOK (Eric) returned from this exciting adventure, he sat down with CBS.com to share even more behind the scenes stories.
CBS.com: What’s it like to be back from Portofino?
JOHN McCOOK: After the jet lag, it’s wonderful. But boy, we really had a wonderful time. It was funny and sweet. We did a lot of work; the crew did, anyway. The actors had their work spread out over the five days, but the crew worked their buns off - long, long days for them.
CBS.com: Did you get to stay any extra days to relax or sightsee?
JOHN McCOOK: [We got to stay] one extra day. My son, Jake, went with me. We finished [shooting on] Friday and Saturday he and I flew to Rome, [Italy], which is just a one hour flight from Genoa. We took a three-hour bus tour of ancient Rome. [It was] so cool. The narrator was a really cute blonde woman about 32 [years old]. And I went, “Look at this. This is some actress that’s learned the lines and she’s just going to say it.” But I was so wrong. She was like a professor. She was not just some narrator. She really knew this stuff and was so passionate about it. As we got out of the bus, it was really wonderful [because] we got out at the top of the Forum. We walked for an hour through those ruins down towards the Coliseum. She would take people’s hands and put them on the rocks and say, “Look at this!” She was great and Jake was [impressed]. So was I. I’ve seen it before, but I’ve never gone with someone who knew what they were talking about. It was deliciously wonderful. We took a lot of pictures.
CBS.com: What a great experience!
JOHN McCOOK: If you’re an actor on The Bold and the Beautiful, you may not go anywhere in Italy on your own. You just cannot go in the streets, and here we were in Rome. On the bus [it] was cool, but when it was over you could get off at your hotel or anywhere along the return trip. We chose to get off the bus at the Spanish Steps. It’s Saturday night; the streets are packed with people at the Spanish Steps - Italian people, not just tourists. Jake and I got off [the bus] and were mobbed. It was totally impractical for us to even go see the Spanish Steps or go anywhere. So, we went back to the Piazza close to our hotel, which had some street performers in it and was lined with wonderful shops and restaurants. We wanted to have a nice meal and then go to bed because we had an early flight to come home. We went into [the restaurant] and they went, “Oh, Eric!” And I said, “Shh, no, please.” And I said, “Please may I see the owner?” They brought the owner and his wife and they were thrilled. I said, “My son and I want to enjoy a meal here outside, but we can’t.” He said, “Yes you can! We’ll take care of you.” They had waiters taking care of us, keeping people away. They were very sweet. My son was blown away by the experience and so was I.
CBS.com: Was this Jake’s first time traveling to Italy?
JOHN McCOOK: He had been to Europe before when he was [around] nine [years old]. But this was his first time as an adult. The show hired Jake to do B-roll and candid backstage stuff, and archival footage of the crew. He wasn’t just hanging out with Dad while I worked in Italy. He was working every morning. He was up earlier than me most mornings to get down to where the shoot was. He was very much a part of the crew, which was much better than just hanging around with Dad.
CBS.com: It must have been fun for him to see the fan response in Europe.
JOHN McCOOK: Yes. He’s aware of it. It’s a little scary for someone who’s never seen it before. If you’re an actor on a show and don’t have a bodyguard, you can’t walk down the street. You have to stop [to sign autographs] and if you stop for one person then there’s this [mass] of people around you and you can’t go anywhere without actually being rude. I don’t think there’s any place in Europe, frankly, that any of us could actually go without an escort. Most of Europe is like that for us.
CBS.com: Have you found that same response in all the years that B&B has gone on location?
JOHN McCOOK: In Italy, yes, from the very beginning. I think we got on the air within six months in Italy and have been there ever since.
CBS.com: Were there any specific sights you wanted to make sure you saw?
JOHN McCOOK: No, because I didn’t know how much I was going to be working. I knew that Portofino was isolated from the rest of Italy. It’s this little coastal inlet. That’s the reason it’s such a wonderful place to go because it’s isolated from the crowds. It’s very expensive to go there. Driving there, it’s all curvy and along the coast. The drivers drive much too fast and by the time you get there you’re as sick as a dog. You go through this little town, Santa Margharita, which is a larger fishing village that’s funky and nice. Then you get to the narrow street that goes to Portofino. You can’t [have] two cars [on the road] at once. If there’s a car coming [the opposite way] you have to wait. They have one parking lot. It’s not a structure; it’s a lot. In the summer, when it’s popular, you have to wait in your car on the road for hours until a car comes out and then one more car can go in. It’s totally impractical, but an amazing little town. Portofino is a very exclusive little village. It’s not a fishing village anymore. It caters to very upscale folks.
CBS.com: Did the hotel have to shut down to accommodate the show and to keep out fans?
JOHN McCOOK: No, the [Hotel] Splendido [is a] five star hotel, world-class luxury. What a spot. The beauty of it is incredible. They’re probably closed [for the season] by now. They weren’t closed when we were there, but it was the end of their season. It does close and won’t open again until April. There were hardly any other patrons of the hotel besides our company. I think that’s why the hotel was willing to accommodate us. They would never have us there when they had their regular clientele. It’s so against what they provide for their clientele. But the energy and humor and camaraderie that our company brought to the staff was really fun for them, I think. The guy playing piano bar was ecstatic to have Bobbie Eakes [Macy] singing with him every night or to have the five or six of us getting up and singing with him and dancing in the bar.
CBS.com: Did you all eat together every night for dinner?
JOHN McCOOK: Almost every night. Whoever had to go to work [the next] morning didn’t, but we had huge groups of people going out together. Of course, we went to places without windows because if we went to a place with windows people were [peering in] against the windows. A whole bunch of us went out to dinner late in the week. We just wanted pizza. We went to Santa Margharita, but in setting it up the security guys did not tell them that we were coming. Security called [the restaurant] and said that there was a soccer team coming [in order] to explain how many people there were. If they had told the restaurant who was coming, there would have been hundreds of people there. When we showed up they were going, “What is this?” They were so excited. But by the time we left, there were dozens and dozens of people outside with cameras.
CBS.com: Was there a language barrier or did the majority speak English?
JOHN McCOOK: No, the majority does not speak English. In Milan when you get around business people and professionals, yes, they all speak English as well as we do. But in the small towns in Italy, no. We had people taking care of us. We didn’t have to speak Italian. It’s not like going with your wife, or husband on a vacation to see things. It’s isolated and it’s artificial because we’re squired around like circus animals.
CBS.com: Were there any challenges to location shooting?
JOHN McCOOK: I don’t know. I certainly didn’t have to deal with it. I think the reception that we just shot [here at the studio] was supposed to be outdoors in the same plaza [in Portofino] where the dock was. They decided to scrap that. That would have soaked up a whole day. As a production company, we’re just coming to realize how clever high definition projection is. This is not a blue screen. This is a high definition [background projection] with boats floating in the water and people walking and cars going by. We did a shot [here in L.A.] the other day with the runway and town behind us. We were standing in front, live, and behind us is the runway with the models on it. But the models weren’t here, they were in Portofino. They matched us [perfectly]. Visually it’s incredibly accurate. We could have our show be international all year long, by sending out a second unit to a beautiful location to shoot plates with an actor or two.
CBS.com: Did you make any special purchases for your wife?
JOHN McCOOK: No, this was business. Jake was working. I was working. We didn’t get to stay for three days. We came, we went and we had to come back [to the studio]. We did get a day in Rome and bought some cute little things for everybody, though.