Josh Nalley, 42, from Kentucky, USA, is the manager of a restaurant.
But in private, he has another bizarre hobby - playing corpses.
About a year ago, Josh brushed up on a post on tiktok. A female blogger posted content related to hot sauce, and then got a lot of job offers from hot sauce companies.
Josh was so shocked that he had an actor's dream and immediately thought, "If I play a corpse with enough creativity, I might be able to get the attention of a TV show or a film production company." ”
The reason why he wanted to play the corpse was because Josh "doesn't like to talk in front of the camera".
But he "can lie there and easily pretend to be dead." ”
Just do what you say.
So on October 25, 2021, Josh released the first video of his "Pretend to Die series", which has also become the "place where dreams begin" in the mouths of many netizens.
In the video, Josh lies face down in the water, stiff and motionless. Two dogs hovered beside him, and the whole picture looked completely like the scene of the accident.
Netizen "your dad" said in the comment area:
"You archaeology all the way, you want to see him move, but you see lonely."
Why do you say that?
Because Josh insisted on pretending to die all the way from the beginning of this video.
The next day, he posted another video of himself lying on the lawn.
As the lawn mower slowly drove by in front of the camera, netizens have automatically made up a "lawn mower killing incident".
This time Josh openly shouted in the video: "Unless one day I get to play corpses in a movie or TV show, I will always play dead." ”
On the third day, Josh, who was making rapid progress, performed more suspensefully.
In the video, vehicles come and go on the road in the distance, a beam of car high beams is cast on the lawn, and a man lying face down behind the house looms.
Halfway through the video, a wiper swipes across the screen, and that's when you react – it turns out that this is the first perspective in the car, as if you are the real murderer hidden behind the murder.
In addition to the lawn, Josh has also appeared by the campfire, his eyes directly on the screen, which is creepy.
He also fell down the stairs, as if he had just fallen from a height.
There is also his "corpse" next to the car, which seems to have just experienced a tragic car accident.
Even the shooting on the side of the road was accurately restored by him.
Moreover, in the snow, mud, parks ... In short, all the places that netizens did not think of had Josh "died in place".
As the saying goes, practice makes perfect, after "dying" hundreds of times in a row, Josh has become more professional in pretending to be dead, and all kinds of details can be ruthlessly handled.
Netizens who have continuously followed the change can clearly feel that in the later video, in addition to simple scene and action changes, Josh's picture performance and shooting angles are also richer.
For example, he started using some close-ups and matching them with plasma to make the video more realistic.
The plasma was personally prepared by Josh with two-thirds strawberry syrup and one-third chocolate syrup.
Warning: The picture below is a bit scary
For example, Josh also used black plastic to tightly tie his body, recreating some classic cruelty + corpse throwing methods in movies.
In addition, his compositions are becoming more and more professional.
In one video, Josh tried to use the rearview mirror to present the dead body, and I have to say that while making the picture more storyful, it also had some blockbuster flavor.
He even used jump scare, and the whole person suddenly appeared in front of the screen, showing a picture of "spitting blood, convulsions and then dying tragically".
(High energy ahead!!! ）
(High energy ahead!!! ）
(High energy ahead!!! ）
And Josh gradually abandoned a single fixed lens.
He began to use flexible mirrors to match the first perspective, allowing netizens to immerse themselves, as if they suddenly found a body when passing by the parking lot.
It's all from Josh's painstaking research.
As a "corpse professional," he has realized that he needs to add more action contrast to make the video look less monotonous than a static image.
Later, Josh, whose technology was constantly upgraded, also added horror BGM to the video.
Under the rendering of music, he uses flashlight beams to guide the audience's vision in the darkness, which makes people feel very immersive, as if people are already on the scene.
Later, he also pulled the whole family to "die" together, pretending that a door-killing tragedy had just occurred in Christmas.
Because the scene is too realistic, some netizens think of the Jonestown tragedy.
The enthusiastic masses even set a plot background for the series: there is such a serial killer who only kills victims of this size in the video.
Others said amazingly:
"I think he's actually dead, it's just that somebody is fiddling around with his body." You can see someone else's reflection on the door at the end of the video. ”
While Josh's family has been comfortable joining the show, Josh's dogs clearly don't understand what their owners are doing.
They often break into the "set", and Josh simply takes them into the scope of the group performance, and together they create the atmosphere of the crime scene.
Now, Josh's dogs have become veteran actors.
In this way, Josh spent more than 300 days constantly updating and showing a variety of "ways to die".
As a result, he gained more than 1.4 million followers, and the number of views on the video gradually climbed from no one to a peak of 6 million.
After understanding Josh's original intention of shooting this series of videos, many netizens are also cheering for him.
"Brother, don't give up, one day your dreams will come true."
And no one expected that on Josh's 321st day playing the corpse, his dream really came true!
A long-awaited comment appeared below tiktok.
The official account of the TV series CSI: Vegas left him a message: "Are you free this week...?" ”
Josh replied excitedly: "Yes, I have time..."
At this point, the flag he set at the beginning of "if you don't get the role of the corpse, you will never stop pretending to be dead" has really been realized.
Netizens are celebrating Josh.
"I respect your efforts. It's always been my dream to appear in a movie, but I've never had the confidence to post videos and get attention like you. May God bless you. ”
"When you do star, we will watch it, we will definitely watch it (I imagine a tear slipping down my face while saying this to you)."
Josh couldn't be more excited.
He posted a video thanking everyone. This time he can say that he can move, and finally it is not in corpse form.
"I got this role because of your support over the past year. You commented, liked, shared my videos, followed me, and I thank you very much. ”
The soon-to-be TV actor lamented: "I got an email from CBS saying they saw me on TikTok and wanted to offer me the role. "
He will star in the second season of CSI: Las Vegas, a sequel spin-off of the classic American drama CSI.
After the news was confirmed, Josh once again loaded the body to celebrate. Only this time the location became the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
For his TV debut, Josh spent two hours styling and another three hours lying on the morgue, dutifully cooperating with the film crew to shoot the perfect shot.
All you need to complete this performance is: "Take a deep breath and then lie there as if you were dead." ”
Of course, for Josh, who has more than 300 days of pretending to be dead, this is completely trivial.
After Josh's experience went viral, he revisited the whole incredible experience in an interview.
He said that he was just bored to post videos on the Internet for fun, and never thought that the flag he set at the beginning could really be realized.
Therefore, even after receiving the news from the TV station, he was still in a state of disbelief.
It wasn't until he flew to California later, met the director, and was personally told by the other party that the producer saw the video he posted on the Internet and threw an olive branch to him, and he had the real feeling that his dream came true.
But while the goal has been achieved, Josh is not going to stop updating.
He promised fans that even if he has already played a role, he will continue to update the content of his account and will play dead to the end.
And he really kept his word. Now use all kinds of pretending to be dead every day to promote their first screen show, and call on netizens not to forget to watch.
Josh wants fans to be happy with his update.
At the same time, he also hopes that his videos can inspire people and gain the motivation to stick to their dreams.
Currently, in addition to the CSI series, Josh has received multiple MV and low-budget film character offers.
The "corpse" actor used his own experience to tell everyone that no matter how absurd the dream is in the eyes of others, as long as you persist, good things can happen.