‘Culprits’ Star Nathan Stewart-Jarrett Spent 100 Days Filming That Garbage Truck Scene

In the first episode of the Hulu heist series “Culprits,” in which former thieves are being taken out one by one by an assassin, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett’s character Joe has one hell of a night that includes a car crash and dumpster diving in the back of a garbage truck.

TheWrap spoke with Stewart-Jarrett and series creator J Blakeson about filming the sequence in which Joe retrieves a long-hidden stash from a heist and then has to find somewhere safe to stash it when he’s involved in a car crash in the middle of the night.

Joe chooses a dumpster, but, even more bad luck, it’s garbage day and his duffel bag full of cash is now in the back of a truck. That scene was as unpleasant for the actor as for the character — possibly more, since he spent 100 days wading through “faux” garbage.

“We started shooting Episode 1 the first night of our shoot,” said Blakeson, but, unfortunately, they kept needing pickups of the interior of the truck. A real garbage truck was used in establishing shots, but the footage of Stewart-Jarrett inside the truck was shot on a a soundstage.

“We probably shot it over the course of about 100 days kind of here and there picking up little bits of it. And, you know, Nathan would say that every time he upset me, I put him back in the trash,” Blakeson laughed.

“But it wasn’t like that, it was just the schedule. But once we were finished with it he could get out of that filthy ketchup-covered costume and get the noodles out of his hair, he was much happier.”

The day of the interview, Stewart-Jarrett told TheWrap, “I just saw J and I said, ‘You! You put me in that trash can.’ We just got back in over and over again. I would ask, ‘What are we doing today?’ And he’d say, ‘You’re going in the garbage.’

Added the actor, “They dirtied me up every week, usually on a Friday. So I always thought, ‘What have I done to J?’ I was definitely in the doghouse. And then the last week of shooting, I was presented with the trash can again, I was like, ‘What? I thought we finished on this one!’ He kept me on my toes. I’d think I was safe and then…”

The actor, whose other credits include 2021’s “Candyman” and the 2020 British thriller series “Utopia,” explained that he wasn’t surrounded by the actual contents of a dumpster, but the prop department did their best to recreate actual garbage.

“I mean, it might not be someone’s wastage, but it is what it was like, real yogurt (containers). And they put stuff like in the diapers. So you know, it’s not real, but … there was real like, gooey stuff in there. So you put your hand down and…” the actor grimaced with a laugh.

All eight episodes of “Culprits” are now streaming on Hulu.

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