Most of you know that I love costumes. So it stands to reason that, for the MythBusters Dumpster Diving shoot in 2009, I was going to HAVE to dress up. The myth we were testing was whether a person who jumps from the roof of a building into a full dumpster could survive and run away like they do all the time in the movies.

The episode had two parts, training and testing. For the training section I decided Jamie and I should wear sweatsuits with letters on them that said “stunt trainee.”

For the second half, I decided to dress as Neo, Keanu Reeve’s character from the The Matrix. Why? C’mon! I loved his long trench coat and his boots, and I especially thought it would look awesome on camera (particularly the high-speed) when I jumped down into the dumpster wearing them — not unlike in the movie. Also as a boy I always wanted to dress up like an action hero.

So that day I showed up on set feeling awesome … until I got out of my car and the crew took one look at me in my Neo get-up, and could barely contain their snickering. I felt totally embarrassed.

But I pushed on.

Of course, the slo-mo playback proved that I was 100% right — the coat looked amazing on camera; it flowed behind me dramatically and looked cinematic — as everyone on the crew agreed.

But for a moment there I definitely felt like I was that odd little kid again, not quite fitting in.