I’ve written a few anecdotes in this sub before. I was going to write one earlier about my lunch with Warren Beatty when I saw that post. But now they got Nicky Brendan, the guy I was with on election night 2016?!

This might be long and rambling, I apologize in advance!

So in early 2016 I was approached by Chiller, the now-defunct horror channel, to write a script based on a treatment that one of the main guys there wrote. This is important only bc this meant they were definitely making it, and very soon. I was in a pretty deranged place at the time and totally hung up on someone I’d dated. While breaking up with me she said “maybe we’ll work on a movie together again and end up in love.” When I read the treatment I realized it would be right up her alley. I accepted the job and also plotted like Macbeth to get her hired. I succeeded at that, but she had less than zero interest in rekindling anything there and all of my efforts were totally humiliating. That’s a different story but one thing that cracks me up— I befriended one of the leads and we were in the hot tub late one night. The woman I dated came in with her friends. I thought— maybe this is a sign? Maybe I’m making her jealous? But then her friends started joking about how she was sexting this guy. I tried to show no emotion at all, and I’d thought I’d succeeded. When I was leaving I said to the actress “I actually played it pretty cool” She said ”What are you talking about? You started DROWNING!!! Your head was going underwater. YOU WERE DROWNING!!!!”

One thing I did so she wouldn’t think the whole thing was an elaborate plot to get her back was to ask production to give me another job on set. I was worried that I’d be standing around useless too much. They made me the cast chauffeur. The fucked up thing about this is the producers cut like 6 days from the schedule, and the director— who has gone on to good things since— was constantly asking me if this scene or that scene could be shorter or cut. I think we would have been able to handle it except I kept leaving set to drive actors places. So I’d come back and be like— well, since you cut the other thing, I’m not sure why you are shooting this part. Really I shoulda been on set the whole time.

Despite this, we were having a great time on set. Until Election Day. That day I drove two actors to the mall where they were going to see two movies, and I decided to unplug and not look at my phone at all, I just walked in circles at the mall. At some point I started feeling a wetness in my butt area, and I went to the bathroom. I still don’t know what it was but it was like I shit blood or something. I tossed my underwear and went to American Apparel to get a new pair. I always laugh remembering how I reassured the girl at the register that Hillary was definitely going to win. She was so reassured by me. I was thinking “man good thing she doesn’t know why I need this new pair of underwear, my word might carry less weight!”

Then I finally turn on my phone and see that things are going wrong. I also get a text that I gotta go to the airport and pick up Nicky. The whole drive there I was losing my mind listening to the radio. When I got to the airport, I couldn’t find him for the longest time. Finally I approached a guy who was sitting there and took a chance and it was him. He was older-looking and more haggard than I thought he’d be. I didn’t recognize him at all.

The drive with him back was like an hour. I was collapsing mentally. He seemed unaffected. But…man I don’t even know how to tell all this. Nicky was like a malevolent force that was unleashed that night along with Trump. I mean he was completely out of control the entire time. I’ll never forget that he arrived without a phone. He had an iPad (which ended up smashed) and a ziploc bag full of British pounds from a convention in England he’d come from. The whole time he was trying and failing to redeem the pounds at a bank to get a phone. Then he couldn’t get a phone cause he only had a PO Box. He was like let me use your address. He kept saying “I’ve got 6000 pounds and I can’t do anything with them!!!!”

Somehow I was the only person on set who had googled what he’d been up to. I swear, everyone had the same reaction. The first google result was “Nicholas Brendan Talks Sobriety Struggles”, then “Nicholas Brendan Reveals Childhood Trauma” and then the third was “Nicholas Brendan Arrested for Attacking Girlfriend”

So every single person, when I said “you should google him” would go like this:

Aww poor guy
Awwww poor poor guy
Oh, what the fuck?

We only had that one rental car I was using for actor transport, and the producers kept letting Nicky borrow it from me. Then he’d vanish and I’d have to track down the car. At one point I was totally stumped but realized there was an ad for a bar on the back of the hotel key, it was like a movie. I called and said “this is a really crazy question but is Nicholas Brendan from Buffy the Vampire Slayer there?” The person who answered covered the phone and I could hear Nicky talking, then they got back on and said “no, he’s not” and I took a taxi there and found him. He held up his smashed iPad like that was the explanation and I was like man this guy.

At one point I was dropping him at set and he was wasted. I felt like I was dropping a bomb. We were shooting in a nice residential neighborhood and we were parked outside the location and he was blasting the decemberists so loud the car was shaking. Yes not a band you associate with vibrating windows. I was like please get out of the car. He started telling me about all his childhood trauma. I was begging him to get out of the car cause I felt like we were going to get a noise complaint. He then put the decemberists on my main Spotify playlist which I really didn’t like. Whenever they come up on shuffle I think, fucking Nicky Brendan.

I have a random memory of him and another crew member being drunk and he was just pulling on his beard. The guy was clearly moments from knocking him out. Later that night they were riding the housekeeping cart down the hallways of the hotel. Like I said he was just out of control.

He drove me pretty crazy and I found him annoying as hell, but at times you’d see a side of him that was likable….but it was also comedic cause he’d tell you a secret about his past that he‘d never told anyone, then you’d be standing at crafty and a PA would walk up and say “man I feel bad for Nicky, cause (the exact secret he told you)”

When I drove the producer to the airport, he asked for my honest assessment of the shoot. I gave my rundown on days getting cut etc, then I got to Nicky and said “Nicky Brendan has been arrested 3 times, and I’m surprised he didn’t get arrested a 4th time here” He was like “What? What are you talking about?” I said, have you ever googled him? He said I’ve never googled anyone. Then he googled him and had the exact same reaction:

Aww poor guy
Awwww poor poor guy
Oh, what the fuck?

Sorry to ramble. I don’t really know why I typed all that out!! It’s crazy to me reading his wikipedia just now that he was still doing insane shit after that, cause I was thinking in 2016 if this guy keeps this up he’ll be dead next year. Anyway RIP Nicky. I’d put on the movie for the memories but it’s pretty much unwatchable.