“It Was Painful” — The Paper’s Eric Rahill on Filming That Wild Tornado Scene

Travis holding on for dear life in The Paper Season 2 wasn’t just great physical comedy. According to Eric Rahill who plays the character, it nearly didn’t happen at all, and once it did, it hurt a lot more than it looked.

The Scene Almost Got Cut Down Before It Ever Got Shot

Rahill told Collider that the tornado sequence, where Travis clings to Adelola as chaos erupts around them, came from a fight he actually tried to lose. He said he spent time before filming trying to talk showrunner Greg Daniels out of the stunt entirely.

“I actually remember trying to talk Greg off the ledge with this one where I’m like, maybe he doesn’t need to get tossed around, and Greg was like, no, I really think that he should,” he recalled.

Rahill said he even floated using his stunt double instead, since the production had hired someone specifically for the sequence. That plan fell apart fast.

“They’re like, we really want to see your face.”

So Rahill did the scene himself, and he admitted the experience was nothing like anything he had done on camera before.

“I’m glad that I did it, you know? I mean, it was crazy. I’ve never done anything like that before. And it was painful.”

The pain, it turns out, came from the rig itself. Co-star Ramona Young told Rahill she wished she had been on set that day just to watch the mechanics behind the shot come together, and Rahill did not undersell how physical it actually was.

“Oh my god. Yeah. Total. It was like four men pulling on my body,” he added.

Season 2 leaves Travis, Nicole, and the rest of the Toledo Truth Teller staff in noticeably different places heading into a potential third season. Rahill’s tornado scene stands as one of the season’s most physically demanding moments for the cast, harness rig and all.

The Paper Season 2 is streaming now on Peacock.