Midland already revealed that Dennis Quaid volunteered to play the object of women’s wrath in their latest “Mr. Lonely” video. But now, band member Cameron Duddy, who had the idea for the video (which he co-directed with his brother), reveals that Quaid actually wanted to do his own stunts, even the dangerous ones – something Midland wouldn’t allow.
“Dennis Quaid wanted to do all his own stunts, which is absurd, because I’m not going to be responsible for hurting Dennis Quaid on a free music video shoot,” Duddy told their record label. “He ended up doing a lot of stuff that we didn’t want him to do. We didn’t smash a chair over his head but he took some serious blows. We did drag him across the bar. We would not light his crotch on fire. He wanted to do it. We were like, ‘Dude, I’m sorry we just can’t do it. We don’t have the insurance policy for it.’
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“He wanted to get thrown out the window,” Duddy continued. “We were like, ‘No, actually, why don’t you go shoot this thing over here.’ We kind of had to fake him out and shoot two units to do certain things so he wouldn’t be around, because he would’ve just insisted on doing it. So, sorry Dennis, if you’re listening to this, that we tricked you into that kind of stuff. But all told it was a fantastic video. Super fun to work on. Dennis Quaid over-delivered. It’s something that we’re all very proud of.”
Duddy previously acknowledged Midland never imagined they could get a big star like Quaid in the “Mr. Lonely” video, or that they would have such an elaborate set to film it in.
“My brother and I conceived this video, outlandish as it was,” Duddy recounted. “It seemed like it was going to be too expensive, and we didn’t have somebody to play the lead in it. We knew we wanted to get somebody outside of the band, and we also knew that we probably weren’t gonna be able to afford the concept as it was. We were gonna have to make concessions. And then miraculously both those things ended up falling into place.
“Dennis Quaid heard through a friend of a friend that we were looking for somebody and volunteered himself, which was really unique because music videos don’t pay, No. 1,” he continued. “It’s typically like 16 hour days. You’re not sitting around in an air conditioned trailer getting massaged. You’re in it. And then The Ranch, a show on Netflix, stepped in and let us borrow their set, which is a bar set. So it was this impossible scenario that came together and allowed us to pretty much just do whatever we wanted for a whole day.”
Photo Credit: Getty/John Shearer
