Man who plays dead on TikTok gets new life as corpse on TV crime show

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/29/tiktok-dead-body-josh-nalley-tv-csi-vegas

Version 0 of 1.

Josh Nalley specialized in pretending to be a lifeless body on social media – then CSI: Vegas came calling

A man from Kentucky who plays dead on TikTok has finally caught the attention of CSI: Vegas after the crime show decided to cast him as an “un-alive body”.

Josh Nalley from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, is the owner of the TikTok account @living_dead_josh where, since last October, he has featured hundreds of videos in which he mimics a corpse.

With nearly 125,000 followers and 4.3m total likes, the 41-year-old restaurant owner poses for a few seconds at a time in various settings – on river banks, roads, bridges and in forests.

“I figured that was the easiest way that I could actually get on to a TV show or movie, you know, without actually having to audition or move out of Kentucky,” he told the Washington Post. “Laziness is part of it.”

Playing dead is not as easy as it looks, Nalley came to learn: in his initial performances he noticed his chest moving and other “involuntary movements” that gave away his aliveness.

He told the Post he has since learned how to gain better control over his breathing and other subtle movements.

He has cast himself as a dead corpse propped up against a barn door or a car, or slumped face down outside a CBS office and Hollywood’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum.

Other videos show Nalley playing a dead body as his dogs sniff and prance around him.

In July, Nalley finally got the call he had been waiting for and flew to Los Angeles at the behest of CSI: Vegas, where he spent nearly a week playing an unspecified dead person. The episode featuring Nalley is set to air next week.

Hundreds of “unalive” videos and one forthcoming cameo later, Nalley appears to be unbothered by the actual idea of death.

“I can face death and not really have to worry about it because, you know, I’ve seen myself dead so many times,” he told the Post. “It’s a good way to process it.”