Gary Busey Lethal Weapon (1987)

Gary Busey was forty-three years old in March 1987, nine years past the Best Actor Oscar nomination for The Buddy Holly Story (1978) and three years before the December 1988 motorcycle crash on Washington Boulevard in Culver City that fractured his skull and reset the second half of his career. As Mr. Joshua, the peroxide-blond Special Forces enforcer of Gen. Peter McAllister's Shadow Company unit, Busey gave Lethal Weapon its mirror-villain — the version of Riggs who never met a wife.

Texas to Buddy Holly

William Gareth Busey Jr. was born in 1944 in Goose Creek, Texas, and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He played football and drums (under the stage name Teddy Jack Eddy) before drifting into acting. His early credits — Angels Hard as They Come (1971), The Last American Hero (1973), Lolly-Madonna XXX (1973) — placed him as a Texas-Oklahoma character actor in the New Hollywood second generation. Steve Rash cast him as Buddy Holly in 1978 because no one else could sing the songs live and play the rhythm guitar at the same time. Busey learned the catalog, recorded the vocals on set, and earned his Oscar nomination.

"Gary Busey is the only actor I've ever worked with who could literally play any musical instrument I could find. He learned songs in front of me. The Holly performance is real." — Steve Rash, The Tulsa World (2020)

The post-Holly years were uneven — Big Wednesday (1978, John Milius), Carny (1980), D.C. Cab (1983), Insignificance (1985, Nicolas Roeg) — and Busey was looking for a part with reach when Lethal Weapon came in.

How Joshua came to him

Mr. Joshua had been written, in Shane Black's spec, as a Caucasian Special Forces sergeant — a doppelganger for Riggs. Donner and Joel Silver wanted an actor who could match Mel Gibson physically without being a copy. Busey, then forty-two, was a serious bodybuilder (he had trained for Carny and D.C. Cab with Joe Weider), and the casting put two recognizable bodies on the lawn at the climax. The peroxide-blond hair was Busey's idea.

"Joshua had to be Riggs's reflection. Same training, same lethality, no anchor. Gary brought the body and the eyes. The blond hair was him." — Richard Donner, Empire (2017)

The butane scene

The character's introductory scene at beat 10 — McAllister asks for Joshua's bare arm, applies a butane lighter flame to it, Joshua does not flinch — was shot on a poolside set at the Holmby Hills compound used as McAllister's residence.^b10 The flame was real. The arm was Busey's. Donner has said the prop department offered a flesh-colored sleeve and a non-flammable substitute and Busey turned both down.

"We had a sleeve and a fake. Gary said no. He said the only way the audience reads it is if the audience reads the actor doing it. We did one take. He was fine. He had been a Buddhist on and off for years and said he could move the pain to a different part of his head." — Richard Donner, Vulture oral history (2017)

The pain-moving claim is a Busey-ism (he has said similar things in many interviews) and the take-count is unverifiable, but the resulting shot — Busey's eyes locked on McAllister's, no flinch — is the introduction of the antagonist as Riggs's mirror, which is the structural job of the scene. See Joshua and Riggs as Doppelgangers.

The lawn fight

Busey trained with Cedric Adams in capoeira and arnis stick-fighting alongside Mel Gibson during the three pre-production months. The lawn fight at beat 35 was choreographed by stunt coordinator Bobby Bass over four days and shot in two; the chokehold Riggs releases is real (Busey tapped out for the camera) and the leg-rolling guard Joshua tries to escape with is arnis-derived.^b35b

"Gary went into the lawn fight at full speed. We rehearsed it choreographed and he kept rehearsing it after we wrapped. He wanted Joshua to lose because Riggs was better, not because the script said he loses." — Bobby Bass, American Cinematographer feature on stunt work, paraphrased in Empire (2017)

The 1988 motorcycle accident bisects the career

On December 4, 1988, Busey was riding a 1986 Harley-Davidson on Washington Boulevard in Culver City without a helmet when the bike struck a curb. He fractured his skull and was in a coma for several weeks. He recovered, but the post-accident performances — Predator 2 (1990), Point Break (1991), Under Siege (1992) — show a different actor: louder, more fragmented, more visibly straining. The pre-accident work — The Buddy Holly Story, Lethal Weapon — has the steadiness the post-accident work lacks. Joshua is the last of the controlled performances.

After Lethal Weapon

Predator 2 (1990), Point Break (1991), and Under Siege (1992) anchored the early 90s. The reality-TV career (Celebrity Apprentice, I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, Celebrity Big Brother UK) has been the post-2005 mode. Busey did not return for any of the Lethal Weapon sequels — Joshua is dead on the lawn at beat 36 and the franchise had no need to re-litigate the doppelganger frame.