The Best Time Number Five Ever Broke Character On The Umbrella Academy
"The Umbrella Academy" is famous for blending end-of-the-world seriousness with a dark sense of humor (and killer soundtracks). Even though making the show is a demanding job at times — Tom Hopper's Luther transformation alone is a whole process — the untold truth of "The Umbrella Academy" is that the cast stills manages to have a lot of fun on set. It's reached the point that if someone accidentally fluffs a line or misses a cue, the response is generally laughter rather than groans and rants.
Even the most serious character on "The Umbrella Academy" occasionally breaks into a smile behind the scenes. Number Five is technically in his late 50s by the time he travels back to 2019, but due to a mistake with a decimal point, he's stuck in his teenage body. Aidan Gallagher plays old-but-looks-young Five. Despite being nine years younger than Hopper, the oldest actor in the main cast, Gallagher generally shares his character's anachronistic sense of gravitas.
That said, even Gallagher isn't immune from making hilarious mistakes, and the blooper reels prove it. This is the best time Number Five ever broke character on "The Umbrella Academy."
Aidan Gallagher was knocked off course by a wind machine
Since jumping through space and time isn't one of Gallagher's many real-life talents (that we know of), "The Umbrella Academy" uses special effects to make it look like Number Five is jumping from, say, Dallas in 1963 to the Academy in 2019. It's a combination of modern digital effects, made with a green screen, and a good old-fashioned wind machine. If you've ever trudged headlong into a gale, or hosted your own "America's Next Top Model" photo shoot, you know that wind doesn't bend to the demands of humans — even those who wish to harness it for the sake of art.
Gallagher learned that while shooting the scene in which Five finally manages to travel from 1963 to the night of the Academy's adopted patriarch's funeral. He had to stand on a wooden box, wearing oversized clothes originally designed for his older self, and scream while pushing his arms into the wind. It sounds dorky, but that's the magic of green screen. In the middle of one take, Gallagher got so into the moment that he actually fell off the box, and that was definitely not fixable in post.
Ever the pro, he quickly recovered, and didn't seem hurt. However, seeing the permanently unruffled Number Five finally meet his match in the form of a wind machine is enjoyably humanizing. And that wasn't even the most difficult scene Gallagher had to film for "The Umbrella Academy."