Josh Duhamel in “Off the Grid.”
Ransom Canyon star Josh Duhamel didn’t have a rough time getting to know the set of his new film Off the Grid because the actor lives off the grid in real-life.
Off the grid for Duhamel — a Minot, N.D. native — is the deep woods of Northern Minnesota, a state the acclaimed Transformers and Shotgun Wedding star and his family call their adopted home. Being in Minnesota also allows Duhamel to catch games of his pro sports favorites, including NFL’s Minnesota Vikings and MLB’s Minnesota Twins, each of which he’s been cheering on for years.
In return, Minnesota has embraced Duhamel, awarding him, for example, the 2024 North Star Award from the Twin Cities Film Fest, an honor reserved for actors who hail from the North Star state.
Opening in select theaters and arriving on digital streaming via video on demand on Friday, Off the Grid is directed by Johnny Martin and written by Jim Agnew.
In the film, Duhamel plays Guy, a brilliant scientist who is forced to go on the run after the unscrupulous company he is working for wants to use a groundbreaking mini cold fusion reactor for nefarious purposes.
However, when company owner Belcor (Peter Stormare) and Guy’s former mentor, Ranish (Greg Kinnear), locate Guy’s whereabouts and send a strike team after him, the scientist has to spring into action. Using his technical wherewithal and survival skills of living off the grid, guy takes on his adversaries in ways they won’t see coming.
Josh Duhamel Is Unplugged But Locked And Loaded In ‘Off The Grid’
One benefit that Josh Duhamel didn’t exactly expect was that living off the grid in Minnesota would come in quite handy while filming Off the Grid the movie.
“That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to do it,” Duhamel said in a recent Zoom conversation, fittingly, from his home in the Northern Minnesota woods. “I just felt really connected to this idea that Guy was forced to do this because he took his invention of cold fusion technology, which was intended to be free energy to the world, but the government wanted to weaponize it.”
As such, Duhamel put his real-life experience of living a simple life far away from the rat race to good use. Thanks to a great tax rebate, Duhamel and director Johnny Martin found their ideal off the grid shooting location in Mississippi.
“Guy had to [embrace] the idea able to build this little life out of the way and unplugged from everything,” Duhamel explained. “He finds peace in it but also a lot of loneliness and yearning for human connection and all those things. I think that if you’re alone, doing this would be really tough. But that’s what really drew me to this.”
Another bonus is, that Duhamel gets to channel a bit of the character that Minnesota native Richard Dean Anderson made famous for seven seasons on ABC-TV from 1985 to 1992.
“[I loved Guy’s] innovation and ability MacGyver all these different gadgets. It was really fun,” Duhamel enthused. “I love that I just thought that it was a great hook for the movie. So, I just love this world. I thought, ‘What a great sort of contrast between this simple life and the industrial complex doing everything they can to use to find this guy, but run into a total David versus Goliath sort of situation.”
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 12: Josh Duhamel attends the Men’s Health Lab hosted by Hearst Magazines … More
On top of utilitizing some MacGyver-type skills, Duhamel brings a bit of Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo to his character in Off the Grid in the way he faces off against the bad guys, even if wasn’t intentional.
“I guess there’s maybe a little bit [of Rambo in there], but I’m never gonna pretend that I’m Sylvester Stallone. That guy’s a badass,” Duhamel said with a smile. “He’s a former Green Beret out there in Rambo: First Blood [Part II].” It was just an amazing movie. I guess I never really thought about it [with my character in Off the Grid]. From that point of view, I can see the similarities.”
Duhamel, of course, lives a more peaceful existence off the grid away from acting and he hopes to visit his wooded getaway in Minnesota as often as he can. In the meantime, Duhamel is prepping his return to the Netflix hit Ransom Canyon, which was renewed for a second season this week and going into production in September.
In the meantime, audiences can see Josh Duhamel in Off the Grid — which also stars María Elisa Camargo, Michael Zapesotsky, Ricky Russert and Michael Papajohn — which opens in select theaters on Friday and is available on Video on Demand.
