Friendship (2025)

In the scene where the policemen lead a dog into sewers to look for actor’s wife, and one of the policeman lifts his dog and places him onto a ledge, trainers, actor and our American Humane Safety Representative discussed the scene prior to filming. When they were ready to film, the trainer walked dog to set on collar and leash. They had two rehearsals where trainer showed actor how to safely lift dog onto the ledge using the ladder. On action, the actor successfully lifted the dog onto the ledge. Between scenes, the trainer and dog stayed off set until cameras were ready.

In the scene where the actor lies down in the storage room and “licks” the underside of a toad, prior to filming the trainer discussed animal action with both actors in scene to discuss toad handling and safety. Wrangler took toad out of carrier and showed actor how to cradle toad safely in hands so toad felt relaxed and could not jump away.

Production rehearsed actors actions twice with fake toad to perfect action prior to using live toad. When ready for filming, wrangler transferred live to set’s toad carrier.

In the second take, they filmed one actor carrying the toad close to actor lying on floor. On action, the actor on the floor raised his head as if leaning towards toad to lick him but did not lick toad.
Actor licked a fake toad.

Due to late notification, American Humane Society did not monitor some of the dog action.