March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Falmouth man stood in for Neeson during `Schindler’s List’ filming

PORTLAND — A Falmouth man who served as a stand-in for actor Liam Neeson during the making of “Schindler’s List” has no Academy Award to show for his efforts, but he says the experience taught him a lot about filmmaking.

Peter Thurrell, 30, watched on television this week as the people he worked with in Poland last year won seven Academy Awards. Among them were the Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture.

“In a year of greats, this still stood out,” said Thurrell. “I had no doubt it was going to win (Best Picture).”

A Bowdoin College graduate, Thurrell had studied in Poland during the 1980s, worked as a stagehand in Maine and California and acted in community theater in Portland.

His friendships with members of Poland’s film community landed him work on films being made in that country. Through those contacts, he got a job with the crew making “Schindler’s List,” director Steven Spielberg’s film about the Holocaust.

Thurrell’s duties varied during his four months of work on the film. One assignment he found particularly chilling was to decide who in a crowd of Polish extras would play Polish Christians. Those chosen as Jews were assigned prison uniforms and had their heads shaved.

“I felt like a Nazi,” he recalled. “I was making arbitrary decisions about people’s fate, based only on their appearance.”

Thurrell’s height — he is nearly as tall as the 6-foot-4 Neeson — was among the reasons he was chosen as stand-in for the Irish actor who portrayed Oskar Schindler, the Nazi industrialist who helped save more than 1,000 Jews from the death camps.

His job was to stand in various places so that lighting and camera crews could plan shots. Once the planning was completed, Neeson would step in.

“The stand-in position isn’t prestigious at all,” Thurrell said. “But I’m glad I got it. It was my film school. I got to ask questions all the time.”


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