While directing an episode of Shifting Gears, Danielle Fishel found herself paying to repair Tim Allen‘s car.
“It was so much fun. But one of our guest star actors — everyone is told, ‘These are real cars [on set].’ There’s, like, a big meeting before the day starts,” Fishel, 44, shared on a recent episode of her “Pod Meets World” podcast. “These are real cars. They are Tim Allen’s property.”
The cast and crew were given specific instructions. “‘Please do not lean. Do not scratch. Do not walk too close,’” Fishel recalled being told. “Now, some of the scenes are in a[n] [auto body] shop.”
She continued: “One of our actors leaned all of his body weight while he was doing stuff in the engine. It dented the car. There was a dent. Everyone was like, ‘OK, we have to have a meeting. What are we going to do?’”
Luckily, Fishel was able to help fix the situation.
“One of the guys who works for Tim and who deals with the cars came over and looked at it,” she added. “He was like, ‘Oh, this is absolutely nothing. We’ll be able to pop this out. It’s going to be about $75 to fix.’ I was like, ‘I’ll cover it.’”
Shifting Gears, which premiered on ABC in January, follows widower Matt (Allen) and his estranged daughter, Riley (Kat Dennings), as they find themselves living together and working to repair their relationship. The series began three years after Allen’s previous sitcom, Last Man Standing, wrapped its nine-season run. Before Last Man Standing, Allen, 72, was known for playing Tim “The Toolman” Taylor on ABC’s Home Improvement, which ran from 1991 to 1999.
“This is a new character and it’s much closer to [who I am]. I’ve been through grief in my life with losing my father,” Allen exclusively told Us Weekly in Janaury about his newest role. “I’ve been blessed to be a comedian and so that’s who this [character] is. If I did it again, I wanted to get as much closer to the [man] that I am.”
Allen revealed he wasn’t planning to return to network TV until Shifting Gears came along.
“It was a complicated decision. I was doing Disney+’s Santa Clause series at the time and I said, ‘I really can’t think about this now,’” Allen noted. “Do I want to do linear TV? I was so depressed at how streaming has hurt television. So if I did it, I want to elevate it.”
He continued: “I’ve done Mike Baxter [on Last Man Standing] and Tim Taylor [on Home Improvement]. So if I do this again, I pitched three things: I want a guy that lost his wife recently, so he’s dealing with grief; I want a guy with the family that doesn’t get along; And then he has a custom car shop.”
Shifting Gears returns to ABC Wednesday, October 1, at 8 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Hulu.
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