The Papajohn Effect

The Papajohn Effect

One of Baton Rouge's busiest actors talks Skip Bertman, stunting, and Spider-man

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

You’ve seen Michael Papajohn before. You’ve seen him as a falling body tumbling off of the sinking Titanic. A security guard jumped by Jake Gyllenhaal. A fireman taking Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pulse. You’ve seen him choking under Cameron Diaz’s stiletto boot and dying in Nicholas Cage’s arms. You’ve seen him on NCIS, running from the cops in between Mardi Gras floats, wearing a tuxedo. He’s Rich, the vice cop in True Detective Season 3 who gives Roland a crucial tip. He’s Special Agent Larry Hooper in Bourne Legacy, sent with a team to assassinate Marta Shearing. In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, he is Meghan Fox’s dad. In For the Love of the Game, Kevin Costner’s character says “Can’t think of a better reason not to be a Yankee,” in reference to Papajohn’s Sam Tuttle. If you watch football scenes from The Waterboy, and note some of the bigger hits taken by Bobby Boucher—it’s not Adam Sandler you’re looking at. It’s Papajohn. One of his best-recognized roles, though, remains to this day the carjacker in Spider-Man; the man believed to have killed Uncle Ben, who begged Toby Maguire’s Peter Parker to “Give me a chance, just give me a chance!” before the emerging superhero shoved him out of a window.

Papajohn (left) pictured with another stuntman on the set of Titanic.

Courtesy of Papajohn

Sitting in his office at Baton Rouge’s Celtic Studios, though, Papajohn is wholly himself—wearing a plain black t-shirt and khakis, a salt-and-pepper beard. He’s effusively friendly, and he talks with his hands, a million miles a minute. He’s made this space his own— part work station, part personal museum. A basketball net hangs on the back of the door. Along with artwork depicting Southern landscapes, the walls display a gallery of photographs from the 1986 and 1987 LSU Tigers baseball team, a poster from his 2001 producing debut Rustin, and a rendering of his iconic Spider-Man scene, signed by Stan Lee. In the corners and on the shelves are mementos from some of the sets he’s worked on: two baseball bats—one from For the Love of the Game, another from Little Big League—a rubber billy club from his role as Major Cloud in Selma, a belt buckle from Emancipation, to be released in December 2022. Taped to the back of a framed photo of him working one of his first jobs as an extra, he’s got two paystubs—one reports he was paid $40 for a job, another $52.68.

Papajohn on the set of For the Love of the Game, in which he played the character Sam Tuttle.

Courtesy of Papajohn

Papajohn doesn’t forget where he started. On the shelves, he still displays a palm-sized trophy from his childhood football team, a photo of his Little League coach, and another of his high school baseball coach in Birmingham, Alabama. “He was a huge influence on me,” he said. “Really got behind me and taught me the fundamentals.”

This enduring respect for mentors is a continuous thread through my conversation with Papajohn—who remembers the names of every single person who ever made a call on his behalf, offered him advice, or gave him an opportunity. It all goes back to a conversation he had with his college baseball coach in 1987—a still relatively new figure at Louisiana State University at the time, Skip Bertman. Papajohn, soon to graduate, was considering making the move to California to work as a stuntman. “Skip was the only person I knew that knew anything about the movie business,” said Papajohn, noting that he had coached actors Mickey Rourke and Andy Garcia when they were in high school in Miami. “So, I walked across Nicholson. His office door was open. He’s smoking a cigar. ‘What’s up Papajohn?’”

Papajohn in discussion with Adam Sandler on the set of The Waterboy.

Courtesy of Papajohn

He asked his coach what he thought about making the move to Hollywood. “He took a big hit of his cigar, blew it up,” remembers Papajohn. “He said, ‘I think you should do it. I think you should go for it.’ And then he gave me some incredible advice: ‘Look for the best mentors, the best coaches. Whatever you decide to do. Look for the best.’”

Born and raised in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, Papajohn’s ties to Louisiana go back to 1985, when he was playing baseball for Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City, Florida—dreaming of playing for an SEC team. That fall, his team traveled to Baton Rouge to play the Tigers for the football team’s homecoming weekend, and Papajohn still remembers the instant effect the campus’s beauty had on him—its lakes and ageold oaks. Playing centerfield, he listened to the sounds of live music rising over the diamond, could smell barbecue in the air. “I thought to myself, ‘This campus is rockin’!’” He watched the way Coach Skip Bertman talked to his players, and he knew he wanted to be a part of it. The following season, he was drafted by the Texas Rangers and turned down the gig to accept a scholarship at Louisiana State University. The two years Papajohn played for the Tigers were the first two years that the team made it to the College World Series.

Papajohn pictured with his mother on the set of Eraser.

Courtesy of Papajohn

During his last semester at LSU, if Papajohn hadn’t been walking into the weight room at exactly the time that a bunch of his old teammates were walking out—his life might look very different. The group stopped him and asked if he knew about the movie gig being offered to LSU athletes. He didn’t. “We’re going to interview right now with the NFL coach Lew Erber at the Sheraton,” they told him. “They need some guys to be part of the movie’s football team. You want to come?” A few weeks later, Papajohn was working his first job as a stuntman for the film Everybody’s All American. When the director Taylor Hackford offered higher pay to anyone interested in taking real football hits, Papajohn raised his hand. “I had $11 dollars in my checking account at the time,” he laughs, looking back. Later, Hackford tapped him as Dennis Quaid’s stunt double. At the November 14, 1987 LSU vs. Mississippi State game, they filmed at halftime, and in front of the entire crowd, Hackford gave Papajohn a trophy inscribed with “World’s Greatest Hitman”. When it was all over, Hackford pulled him aside and told him, “I think you should really look at becoming a stuntman.”

The inside cover of a Spider-Man comic book, with notes to Papajohn from writer Stan Lee and actor Tobey Maguire.

Courtesy of Papajohn

Papajohn kept what he had said in mind, but went off to spring training, hoping to get drafted to a minor league team. When he didn’t, he gave Hackford a call. “He stayed true,” he remembers. “He led me in the right direction.” And Papajohn left the Deep South for Hollywood.

You’re twenty-two, twenty-three years old and you’re just looking to how to get in this business,” he said, recalling the way he started out doing lawn work for one of the producers he’d met on Everybody’s All American, Alan Blomquist. “You have people who are there, you’re under their wings. Man, it helped so much.” Blomquist told him who to call, which casting agencies to get started with. And he gave him the crucial advice: “Let work lead to more work.”

A rendering of Papajohn's role in the 2002 film Spider-Man, in which he played the carjacker.

Courtesy of Papajohn

Within a few months, Papajohn found himself on the set of the 1985 film Moonlighting, working as a photo double for Bruce Willis. “I mean, I got to wear Bruce’s clothes. I got to be right there by the director. I got to see Bruce come on set, tell a joke, everybody laugh. Bruce would leave and they’d shoot over my shoulder. And I’m reading lines with Cybill Shepherd. I’ve only been out there less than a year.”

When he thinks about his early days in Los Angeles, he says memories arise of living in a studio, grinding his way through the business, not knowing a soul. He joined a stuntman softball league, and met fellow professional fighters, fallers, and die-ers. “Stunts is a tough racket,” he tells me. “It really is. But I loved it at the time.” And he was getting work. Crime films, mostly: Mobsters; Blood in, Blood out; Mafia!; Money Talks. Lots of commercials (which paid better), often sports-themed. “I played to my strengths,” he said. “And I wasn’t a jerk, you know? I was athletic. And they could see that without me telling them, and I just moved really fast because of all these relationships I was making.”

Towards the end of the eighties, Papajohn had scored a role as a baseball player in an AT&T commercial directed by the award-winning British director, Ridley Scott—who at the time was enjoying the accolades of his recent projects Alien and Blade Runner. On set, Papajohn was shooting pool with some of the other guys when the assistant director approached him, saying: “Hey Papajohn, Ridley has been filming you a lot, with a zoom lens, shooting pool like this. He really likes your look, and wanted me to tell you he thinks you should think about getting into acting.”

It’s a moment that Papajohn has never forgotten—“It gave me this boost,” he said. “Something to remind myself of, that one of these top directors said he saw something in me.”

Six months later, he was reading for a part as a hitman in the Bruce Willis film The Last Boy Scout. “It was really uncomfortable, it wasn’t in a private room,” remembers Papajohn. All of the other candidates were standing around, watching as he read the lines—“Something like ‘yeah we got the money, here are the drugs,’ whatever it was”. And the stunt guys standing around all started laughing, making fun of Papajohn’s Southern accent. The director and casting director saw what was happening and pulled Papajohn into a private room to finish his audition. Looking up at the director, suddenly Papajohn pointed at him. “Hey, are you related to Ridley Scott?” It was Tony Scott, Ridley’s brother (his major credits, at the time, included Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, and Days of Thunder). “Well, I just did a commercial with Ridley.” Confidence boosted, Papajohn landed the part.

Around the same time, he heard about another Ridley Scott movie in the works: Thelma and Louise. He decided to go for it. “And I just remember, I got in there and I couldn’t get off the page,” he tells me, shaking his head. “I said … look I’m sorry I’m a stunt guy.” He kept starting again, and again. “I was so insecure, and just the reading and the auditioning, no technique, no training.” Thoroughly embarrassed, he walked down the stairs onto Santa Monica Boulevard and thought to himself, “I am going to take an acting class.”

(In the end, he actually did land the role of an FBI agent in Thelma and Louise, despite the rough audition, but had to decline the opportunity because of a prior commitment as the principal baseball player in a Budweiser commercial. “I had to slide headfirst into home plate at Dodger Stadium.”)

Papajohn wanted to grow in the industry, but he knew he needed gain confidence. “I wanted to walk onto a movie set and feel like I felt when I played at LSU. Like you want the ball to hit to you. You’ve done the fundamentals, you’re ready for those high pressure situations.” So, falling back on Coach Bertman’s advice, he sought out the perfect mentor.

Larry Moss was the best acting coach in the business at the time. Today, Papajohn joins A-Listers Tobey Maguire, Helen Hunt, Hilary Swank, and Leonardo DiCaprio as his alumni. When Papajohn first called to sign up for classes, Moss’s secretary told him there was a two-year wait.

A few weeks later, he called back. “Hey Catie, it’s Michael Papajohn. I just got a movie with Denzel Washington that works in three weeks. I was hoping I could study with Larry privately.”

“Okay, you can meet Larry in Venice Condominiums, a private next week.”

When Papajohn showed up, a stack of folders in hand, Moss came out wearing a baseball hat and glasses. “He goes, ‘Michael, congratulations, you got a part with Denzel!’… ‘No, Larry. I didn’t get a part with Denzel. I just wanted to meet you.’

Michael Papajohn pictured standing on top of his car the day he arrived in Hollywood in 1988.

Courtesy of Papajohn.

“That hour warp speeded my career,” he tells me. Moss asked him if he had ever read Shakespeare. He hadn’t. He told him, “I want you to read Othello. There’s a character in there called Iago, and I think you have this nemesis thing about you. Iago is the best nemesis ever written.”

Papajohn spent a year with Iago, practicing various scenes over and over again. He entered his villain era—finding himself right in that particular Hollywood niche of the action-oriented bad guy with a couple of killer lines. “I started getting in the business as a stunt guy who acts,” he said. He played the corrupt Special Agent Schiff, who meets his end at the wrong side of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s gun in the 1996 film Eraser; the bathroom thug who tries to strangle Cameron Diaz in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. Watching that scene, don’t miss Papajohn’s improvised flirty “hey” to Diaz in the mirror, just before he throws a chain around her neck. “Just before I went into that scene, the director McG came up to me and said, ‘Hey Papajohn, have fun. Film lasts forever.’”

It was around this time that he got one of his biggest breaks yet, in For the Love of the Game. Papajohn had learned that Augie Garrido, coach of the Texas Longhorns, was going to be the technical advisor on the movie. He sent in his audition tape, and then he called up his old coach, Skip Bertman—who he still saw frequently, and had even come to visit him in California from time to time. “Hey Coach, do you know Augie Garrido?” Bertman did, and promised to put in a good word. Three weeks later, Papajohn flew up to New York and got the part of Sam Tuttle, a snarky player for the Yankees and Billy Chapel’s arch-enemy.

“Skip’s gotten me more breaks than anybody in the movie business,” laughs Papajohn. “I joked to him once that he gets me more work than any agent or manager, and I don’t have to pay him.”

Through For the Love of the Game, Papajohn developed a relationship with director Sam Raimi, who was getting ready to begin the project that would define his career, the Spider-Man trilogy. When the time came for casting, Papajohn immediately came to Raimi’s mind. His assistant Grant Curtis called, and invited him to come in and read for the role of the carjacker. He didn’t immediately realize the significance of the role at first, assumed it was just another thug part involving a stunt or two. But the very first day on set, Raimi spelled it out for him: “You’re the evil that creates Spider-Man.”

More doors opened. Papajohn kept up his training, absorbed every bit of advice Moss had to offer—from going to therapy to building character biographies. “You’re a real authentic guy,” Moss told Papajohn once. “Directors like that, you’ll always work.” “He planted that in my head,” says Papajohn. “And there were ups and downs, times I wanted to quit. But those words always came back. Another guy who is really good at what he does, who saw something in me. And I took it to heart.”

In 2010, he was on the set of Drive Angry—which was filmed in Shreveport. A few of his old college buddies and teammates took advantage of the proximity and came to set to see him work. “And we’re bullshitting and having a good time, and one of the directors, Johnny Martin, gets in my ear, ‘Papajohn, you ever think about moving back here man?’” He pointed out the burgeoning local film industry resulting from the expanded tax credits in Louisiana, and the fact that he had connections here. “He just kind of planted the seed,” Papajohn tells me. “Can I really move out of Hollywood and still do this?”

Two years later, he and his wife and their toddler made the move home to the South. And he’s never looked back. “The quality of life is so much better,” he says. “And Louisiana people are very passionate and they’re generous, and that’s what their crews are like.” Papajohn’s son Sean, age fourteen, is enjoying the benefits of jumping into the movie business without having to make the once-obligatory pilgrimage to California.

“He works more than I do!” Papajohn beams, sharing that Sean was cast in three movies over the past year—including the role of young John Wilkes Booth in the forthcoming Apple TV+ miniseries Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer starring Tobias Menzies. “I’m excited for Sean. And he’s still got that quality of life. He goes to school, goes to wrestling, goes to track. When he’s got an audition, it’s not like I even have to drive him into New Orleans. I just set up my camera and we go to my buddy’s studio … I don’t even have to pull him out of school.”

Papajohn pictured with his son Sean on the set of Sean’s first film.

Courtesy of Papajohn.

Papajohn, now fifty-seven, has mostly given up the stunt lifestyle. “Now I need a stunt double,” he laughs. He stays busy, though he is more selective than he used to be—seeking out, more intentionally than ever, roles that allow him to exercise and explore that quality of authenticity that Moss once pointed out in him. “That’s what I got attached to watching movies as a child,” he says, retrospectively. “I was drawn to moments that were really authentic. I could see that Burt Reynolds really loved Sally Field … that’s not acting. I got connected to that authenticity. If you’re gonna be in front of a camera, you want to be real.”

One of the more recent roles Papajohn is most proud of is the oncologist Dr. Felton in the Ridley Scott-directed 2019 biographical drama Our Friend, starring Jason Segel, Dakota Johnson, and Casey Affleck. To prepare for the role, Papajohn decided to meet with a real oncologist and interview her. “I just wanted to ask her what it’s like to tell people they’re not going to live, you know, six weeks. How do you do that?”

It is likely this attraction to authenticity that drives Papajohn’s passion for documentaries. During his time in Los Angeles, one of his favorite haunts was the Santa Monica indie video store Vidiots—“you could get stuff from filmmakers, cutting edge artists, stuff you would never see at Blockbuster.” He became an avid watcher of the best documentaries in the industry, which inspired him to start filming everything. For the last twenty-five years, he brings a camera with him constantly, filming conversations with his family, with the people who inspire him, behind-the-scenes moments on set. And Papajohn has plans for this growing mountain of content—with half a dozen documentary concepts in the works, some featuring stories he’s been preparing to tell for over a decade.

“Personally, I just kind of work from my gut, my heart—you know. What stories do you want to tell? What sort of legacy do you want to leave behind?”

Keep up with Papajohn’s work at michaelpapajohn.com.