Ashe County man gets 'One Tree' thrill
By Frank Ruggiero

It could be said that Mark Pierce moonlights, though he hardly keeps it secret from his daytime coworkers.

Pierce, a licensed broker with United Country Dogwood Realty in Jefferson, consistently has his hands full with the often turbulent activities of the real estate market, but on certain days, finds himself slipping quietly into his car and driving to Wilmington.

Wilmington is where Pierce works his second job, and it’s no ordinary eight-hour shift. When he’s through, though, Pierce enjoys the satisfaction of watching his work on television.

Pierce moonlights as an extra in various television programs and movies, and will appear with a speaking role in an episode of “One Tree Hill.”

“One Tree Hill” is an hour-long drama, revolving around the lives of two high school students of differing socioeconomic class who share one thing in common — they have the same father.

The program stars Chad Michael Murray, James Lafferty, Hilarie Burton and Barry Corbin.

“One Tree Hill,” first ran in 2003, airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on the Warner Brothers (WB) Television network, Charter cable channel 15 in Boone, and Pierce’s particular episode (season 2, episode 17) airs March 8.

Pierce was sworn to secrecy regarding the episode’s storyline, as it is a cliff-hanger episode, but vaguely described his scene.

“I was at a gathering, a very important gathering that the series is leading up to, and there is a twist — a very big twist — at the end of the episode,” he explained. “I was one of the people that was there whenever the twist occurs, and I was talking to some of the people there.”

Pierce said in another scene, he can be seen alongside Burton, while a group of characters is walking into a facility. Though his screen-time is brief, Pierce filmed hours on end of footage.

“They shoot hours and hours of footage, and it was no big deal to do a take 15 to 20 times,” he said.

Pierce recalled a scene he shot with Burton and Murray that had to be re-shot at least 20 times.

“You get to talking with them, and they get annoyed with having to say the same line over and over again,” he said. “But there’s a lot of joking around on the set, with people hanging out and talking.”

According to Pierce, there is never a shortage of people on set. Instead, there are hundreds present at one time, “like the guys that are handling the tracks for the cameras,” sound technicians, costumers, makeup specialists, set designers and, of course, camera operators.

Pierce was also able to explain the job of the gaffer, which he said is to set up for the shot by measuring from the scene’s focal point.

“But I’m still not sure what the best boy is,” he admitted. “I’ve yet to meet one.”

Before the director calls “action,” everybody in the scene, including extras, must be positioned in their designated spot.

“If it’s background action, you go ahead and start,” Pierce said. “You’ve got about a four- to five- second delay and then they say ‘rolling.’ Then you back up, do it again, then you back up and do it again, and again and again.”

“One Tree Hill” is not Pierce’s first foray in screen acting, as he has appeared alongside numerous famous personalities in various productions, such as TNT’s 1996 Civil War drama “Andersonville,” starring William H. Macy, and also filmed in Wilmington.

“And that was the most hot and miserable time I’ve had,” said Pierce, who played a Union prisoner of war. Although he did not have a speaking part, his role was quite demanding, as he wore a costume of three layers of wool in the dead of summer.

“That was several weeks long, and then they had to go to either Georgia or Alabama to do more shooting,” said Pierce, whose prominent scenes occur when the Union prisoners rebel.

When other extras began to faint from the intense heat and humidity, a water truck was wheeled in to douse the crew with a refreshing mist, Pierce recalled.

His other credits include “To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday,” the WB television series “Dawson’s Creek,” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

In the latter film, Pierce was able to bring home a tangible memory.

Regarding one of the film’s scenes that takes place in the bottom of a fishing boat filled with ice, Pierce revealed that the ice is actually a latex rubber material.

After shooting had concluded, he swiped an “ice cube.”

This past summer, Pierce scored a role in “Stateside,” starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Val Kilmer, Carrie Fisher and Ed Begley, Jr. This job was particularly rewarding for Pierce, who has always been a fan of Kilmer, and he  was able to converse with all the actors.

On Fisher, Pierce said, “She is short, but there are a lot of actors who are very short. John Travolta is very short.”

Though his roles may be small, Pierce has met an ever-continuing list of big names.

“Someone really nice who I thought wouldn’t be was Antonio Banderas,” said Pierce, who met Banderas when he was in Wilmington to promote 1995’s “Desperado.” “Some of my best memories are just meeting the other actors and actresses because you see them on the screen and think they have this primadonna attitude, but they don’t.

“Most of them are everyday people who get up just like us. Directors are a different story. They’re a bit more hot-headed, and if you don’t do what they want, you hear about it — usually through a bull horn.”

Through his work in various extra roles, Pierce has met Kim Basinger, Alec Baldwin, and even had a round of drinks with Steve Buscemi.

For “One Tree Hill,” Pierce has been asked to appear in several more episodes, possibly in an expanded role.

“I was told there were several parts that I might fit well in, and that it looks like I could have an upgraded role in it,” he said.

“If you’ve been in enough of them, they start recognizing that you know how to do it, and they keep pulling for more visibility.”

Pierce first entered the realm of film when studying business management and film at the University in North Carolina at Wilmington.

“Whenever I was studying film and I wanted to get a taste of the business, I did extras,” he said.

After graduating, he took a job as a mortgage sales specialist with Household International, “so that occupied my time quite a bit.” Eventually, he opened a restaurant called “Hurricane Alley’s” in downtown Wilmington.

Though the restaurant has since closed, the cast and crew of “Dawson’s Creek” filmed there on multiple occasions.

“They’d rent out the whole building, and we had to close it a couple times,” Pierce said. “For one of their bigger episodes, called ‘Winter Wonderland,’ it was actually pretty warm but it really looked like it was winter.”

Pierce met all the cast members and was able to work as an extra in the episodes, “and a lot of them would frequent the restaurant again and again,” he said.

At the restaurant, Pierce also met skateboarding virtuoso Tony Hawk, John Travolta, Dean Cain of “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” and Teri Polo of “Meet the Parents.”

Pierce moved to Jefferson two years ago to pursue a career in real estate, after growing tired of the mortgage business and “sitting behind a desk.”

He was originally raised in the area, though, and preferred the High Country market versus the coastal market. Though acting and real estate are two distinctly different jobs, his film career has boosted his real estate career.

“It means more opportunities,” Pierce said. “The more people I meet, the more opportunities I have, unless I get a big break.”

Phillip Lewis, broker and owner of United Country Dogwood Realty, does not mind Pierce’s bimonthly visits to Wilmington.

“It’s interesting and fun because Mark is kind of a window into a world most of us don’t have access to,” Lewis said. “It fits in well with his real estate work.”

Like the two half-brothers in “One Tree Hill,” real estate and the film industry share a quality.

“Visibility and networking is extremely important in our business,” Lewis said.

• Frank Ruggiero can be contacted at ruggiero@wataugademocrat.com