Hunt Saved Clarke Duncan From Green Mile Grilling

The actor landed in hot water after a crew member on the Nashville, Tennessee set mistakenly told him he had eight days off, prompting him to jet home to Chicago, Illinois to party.

He cut himself off from all cell phone contact while away - and returned to discover his absence had brought all production on the film to a halt.

And he credits Hunt with saving his job.

Clarke Duncan explains, "Bonnie helped me out of a bad situation. Never ask a second second assistant director what your schedule is. I asked him and he said I was off for the next eight days.

"So I flew to Chicago and I turned my phone off, 'cause I didn't wanna be bothered for at least six days. So I'm partying hard and having a good time and there's this voice in my head going, 'Check your messages'. So I check my messages and the lady's voice says, 'You have... 28 messages.' And I said, 'Oh no!' So the producer has called, the director had called, everybody had called and they were like, 'Where are you, we're losing time, we've had to change the schedule around.'

"So I flew straight back to Nashville and David Valdes, the executive producer came in and made me feel bad, like, 'You've lost us so much money.' I was like, 'Ah man, I didn't mean to do that.' So I go onto the set and everybody's looking at me, like, 'Where have you been? Tom Hanks is here, Bonnie Hunt's here, everybody's here, where have you been?'

"And Bonnie was like, 'He was in my room ok? I like a little bit of black meat every now and then!' You broke the ice, everybody started laughing so thank you. That was cool."