Lemony Snicket by Russ

courtesyjulessylvester
54 r e p t i l e s m a g a z i n e • f e b r u a r y , 2 0 0 5
W
hen I learned that Jules Sylvester
provided reptiles for the upcoming
movie Lemony Snicket’s A Series of
Unfortunate Events, it seemed here was a
man with some interesting tales to tell.
Sylvester has provided animals to many
film productions over many years.
One hot August afternoon, REPTILES
Managing Editor Clay Jackson and I visited
Sylvester at Reptile Rentals, his reptile
facility in the hills surrounding Thousand
Oaks, California. There we met some of
his reptilian and amphibian “actors” before
heading to the home he shares with wife
Sue and sons Justin and Jonathan, where I
interviewed him about his life and career.
Early Days in Africa
Jules Sylvester was born in England in
1950 and moved to Kenya in 1956. Eventu-
ally his family was living in the bush, about
350 miles from Nairobi, toward Lake Victo-
ria. “It was way out in the sticks,” Jules re-
membered, “and there were lots of spitting
cobras. Every snake was considered a black
mamba, which didn’t even exist in the area.
The African philosophy regarding venomous
snakes is, ‘If you’re not sure, kill it.’”
When Jules was 16, the family lived next
door to the Nairobi Snake Park, where he
cleaned the snake pits. Afterward, the Syl-
vesters moved to Crescent Island, a small
island his father owned in Lake Naivasha
HOLLYLemony
Snicket
is the
latest film to feature
Jules Sylvester’s
cast of reptile actors.
francoisduhamel
by
russ case
ABOVE: The Reptile Room is the second
book in the popular Lemony Snicket book
series by Daniel Handler.
On the set of Lemony Snicket’s
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Jules introduces actor Liam
Aiken to a variety of colubrids.
“Introducing — from darkest
Africa — Lord Jules!” Jules
gave snake demonstrations
while touring with the
DeWayne Brothers Circus.
Jules Sylvester grew up in Kenya, which nur-
tured an interest in reptiles. Here, 12-year-
old Jules poses atop a Grevy’s zebra.

and which was plagued by poachers. So
Jules scattered more than 300 puff adders
and baby African rock pythons. “I spread
the word that I seeded the island with many
deadly venomous snakes,” he said, “and
poaching dropped off about 90 percent.”
In 1974 a film crew arrived at his par-
ents’ farm to film the television show Born
Free. Jules was there, visiting his parents
after a stint in the Rhodesian Regiment,
fighting in the Rhodesian Bush War. He be-
friended Hubert Wells, the show’s animal
trainer, and Jules’ mother, desperate to
dissuade Jules from reenlisting, convinced
Wells to give Jules a job. Soon Wells was
mentoring Jules on the set.
Jules also took a shine to a lady leopard
trainer on the set. A romance began, and
Jules decided to move with her to the Unit-
ed States. Unfortunately, as soon as they
arrived in Los Angeles, she dumped him.
Turns out she was married.
Big Top to Tinseltown
Soon Jules was touring with the Big John
Strong and Sons Circus, where he had a
chimp act. In 1978 he began giving snake
demonstrations, using a boa constrictor
and a Burmese python, while touring with
the DeWayne Brothers Circus. Jules tells
about the time the circus visited Alaska.
“I was introduced, in typical circus fash-
ion: ‘Here he is, from the heart of darkest
Africa: Lord Jules!’ And I came running out
covered with the snakes and climbed up
into the bleachers. This caused a stampede
of frightened Inuit, because they had never
seen snakes before. They were falling all
over each other and off the back of the
bleachers! It took about five hours to set up
the tents, and about two to pull them down
and get out of town.”
Jules’ circus career ended in 1979, when
he was hired as an assistant trainer on
the television show BJ and the Bear. More
industry work followed, and in 1981 Jules
opened Reptile Rentals. “At the time, ev-
eryone wanted snakes in their movies, but
not many people knew about them,” he
f e b r u a r y , 2 0 0 5 • r e p t i l e s m a g a z i n e 55
WOOD’S
clayjackson
russcase
Albino Burmese pythons are
popular with filmmakers,
and Jules keeps several of
various sizes ready for hire.
Jules’ first job in the U.S. film industry
was as assistant animal trainer on the
TV show BJ and the Bear. Here, he and
Bear show off their pearly whites.
Snakes aren’t the only reptiles found at
Reptile Rentals. Many lizards, including
this Meller’s chameleon, also wait their
turn in front of the camera.

said. These days he maintains various py-
thons, boas, chameleons, rattlesnakes, col-
ubrids, frogs, spiders, green iguanas, water
dragons, a rhino iguana, gaboon vipers,
cobras, indigo snakes and other species,
both vertebrate and invertebrate.
Jules began as a snake handler primari-
ly, but continued to train other types of an-
imals in order to make a living. Therefore,
he trained wolves for Never Cry Wolf and
The Road to Wellville; dogs for Gremlins;
goats and steers for Jurassic Park (as prey
items for the T-rex and velociraptors); ze-
bras, elephants and monkeys for Congo; hy-
enas and lions for Clan of the Cave Bear and
dogs, buffaloes, monkeys and ostriches for
The Lost World: Jurassic Park. To date, Jules
has supplied animals to more than 300 film
productions.
Insects are requested most often, and
Jules provided 10,000 cockroaches for Men
In Black, spiders for Arachnophobia, cock-
roaches for Starship Troopers, leeches for
Galaxy Quest, cockroaches and spiders for
Minority Report and flies, scorpions, butter-
flies and other bugs for many other movies.
I was amused by his cell phone conversa-
tion: “Are my maggots in yet?” Apparently,
thanks to the three CSI TV shows, there’s
been a big demand for maggots lately.
Nevertheless, reptiles remain Jules’ fa-
vorite creatures. “No more working with
monkeys,” he said. “I won’t work with any
animal smarter than me!”
Lemony Snicket Herps
The Lemony Snicket children’s books
are about three rich, young orphans and
their evil uncle Count Olaf, who wants their
money. Dark humor abounds. Reptiles are
featured in the second book (there are 11
books so far; the movie is based on the
first three), The Reptile Room, in which the
children visit Uncle Monty, a herpetologist.
Monty’s reptile room is packed with a vari-
ety of exotic snakes, including the “Incredi-
bly Deadly Viper” and the “Mamba du Mal.”
Some of these reptiles will be CGI (com-
puter generated imagery), but Jules supplied
over 80 living reptiles for Lemony Snicket’s A
Series of Unfortunate Events, mostly snakes
and pretty much every easy-to-handle spe-
cies he had. These included ball, Burmese
and carpet pythons, rat snakes (including
corns), kingsnakes and others. He avoids
using easily agitated snakes as actors may
get nervous watching him wrestle with
them. Even so, Jules always educates the
actors about his snakes. He even names the
snakes so the actors can bond with them.
francoisduhamel
francoisduhamel
francoisduhamel
francoisduhamelfrancoisduhamel
courtesyilm
Lemony Snicket’s A Series
of Unfortunate Events
stars Jim Carrey, Emily
Browning and Liam Aiken.
Billy Connolly portrays
herpetologist Uncle
Monty in Lemony Snicket.
The Reptile Room set featured
many of Jules’ animals. He
supplied over 80 herps, mostly
snakes, for the production.
During the Lemony Snick-
et shoot, Jules was im-
pressed by Billy Connolly’s
snake-handling skills.
CGI herps are
also featured in
Lemony Snick-
et, including
a two-headed
cobra provided by
Industrial Light
and Magic.
Jim Carrey (left) also appears
in the film as a “snakeologist.”
Here he is with Billy Connolly
and Petunia, Jules’ albino
Nelson’s milk snake.

“After they handle the snakes for five
minutes, you can see them get used to
them, which is very cool,” Jules said. “But
if any actors have any doubts whatsoever,
all they have to do is say my name, as I’m
always within 6 feet of them.”
On Lemony Snicket, Jules was particularly
impressed with actor Billy Connolly’s (Uncle
Monty) snake-handling skills: “He had no
problem acting with the snakes, and quickly
got used to having a 7-foot albino Burmese
wrapped around him.” Liam Aiken, the boy
who plays orphan Klaus Baudelaire, was
“very demure, very quiet, but very good with
the snakes, and very comfortable. There was
trust there,” Jules said. At one point Aiken
had a bunch of Russian rat snakes around
his neck, but because he knew the names of
all the snakes, he wasn’t nervous at all.
Jim Carrey, who plays Count Olaf, was
genuinely interested in the snakes, al-
though he wasn’t required to act with them
very much. “He did handle Petunia, an al-
bino Nelson’s milk snake, who plays Uncle
Monty’s little pet snake,” said Jules. “He’s
pretending to be a ‘snakeologist’ in the
movie. The makeup they did on Jim was
absolutely astounding.”
It wasn’t the first time Jules has worked
with Carrey. “I put a tarantula on his chest
for Me, Myself and Irene,” he said. “He was
very professional about it.” During the Lem
ony Snicket shoot, Carrey would come to
the snake room occasionally to look at the
snakes in their cages (they were kept in
a well-heated room on another stage away
from the set, in Vision Cages that Jules
brought with him). One time, Carrey’s “eyes
popped a little bit” when a cobra struck the
glass in front of his face, but it gave him a
chance to ham it up for the onlookers. “It
was very funny,” said Jules. “Jim’s a very
cool guy, and I think he really enjoyed the
snakes.”
The set was kept cold because of Carrey.
According to Jules, “When Jim is acting, he
gets very hot when he puts everything he’s
got into it.” The snakes, however, were
warmed not just in their heated cages, but
also by the lights on the set. “They need to
be warm and moving on the set,” said Jules.
“Otherwise, the production might as well
use rubber snakes.”
Lemony Snicket was a dream job for Jules.
It was also an easy shoot. “The only two
snakes that had to ‘act’ were the big albino
Burmese and Petunia — she had to crawl
across the floor and head toward the cam-
era.”

Other Reptile Actors
Jules supplied reptiles to many movies
prior to Lemony Snicket. In the 1990 Mat-
thew Broderick/Marlon Brando comedy The
Freshman, Broderick gets involved with a
criminal society that eats endangered ani-
mals. Much of the action centers on a Ko-
modo monitor, which in reality was several
different water monitors supplied by Jules.
“We had two really nice water monitors
that were handled by the actors and four
totally wild ones we got from Thailand,” said
Jules. The wild lizards were used for running
sequences — stunt doubles for the other two
monitors. One day, as the crew filmed a mon-
itor running through a parking lot, the lizard
ran straight up into a car engine, which had
to be dismantled in order to retrieve it.
When asked how the actors liked the
monitors, Jules said, “Matthew was tremen-
dous. He’s an ultimate professional who
listens, says OK and just does it.” Marlon
Brando liked the lizards too. “He was a love-
ly man, very polite,” said Jules. “He wasn’t
too keen on production people, especially
producers, but he got into the animals.”
Jules has a Pueblan milk snake that’s
been prominent in a couple of films. In The
Lost World: Jurassic Park it went down the
shirt of a man who was hiding behind a wa-
terfall to escape a T-rex. And in the Arnold
Schwarzenegger movie Collateral Damage the
same snake is forced down a man’s throat in
order to suffocate him (the real snake was
replaced by a rubber snake that was shot
from an angle to give the impression that it
was being shoved down the victim’s throat).
Jules worked on the third Indiana Jones
movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,
pouring thousands of garter snakes onto
River Phoenix’s legs and head at the be-
ginning of the film. Phoenix, as young Indy,
was sitting on top of hundreds of rubber
snakes as the live ones were dumped on top
of him. With all the live snakes swarming
over him, he wasn’t allowed to move his feet
because of the risk of injuring them. When
director Steven Spielberg yelled, “Cut!” ac-
cording to Jules, “several guys were all over
the place retrieving the snakes. They had to
shake River down thoroughly to make sure
all the snakes emerged from his trousers.”
Then there was the big albino Burmese
python that “danced” with a scantily clad
Salma Hayek in the 1996 vampire movie
From Dusk Till Dawn. This snake is now
about 17 feet long and weighs over 100
pounds. “When I first met Salma,” Jules
said, “she was absolutely terrified of
Does your reptile seem “bored?” Try varying its diet.

The Komodo monitor that appeared in
the 1990 comedy The Freshman was ac-
tually a water monitor supplied by Jules.
Pictured from left to right are Matthew
Broderick, animal trainer Jim Brockett,
Marlon Brando, Jules Sylvester, Gina
Brockett and Sue Sylvester.
courtesyjulessylvestercourtesyjulessylvester
During filming of The Hulk movie,
Jules maneuvers a red tegu with
an assist from prop master Jerry
Ross. Note the bearded dragon
relaxing on a nearby branch.
Jules still trains mammals and
acts occasionally too. Here he
is in costume, with a wolf and
Anthony Hopkins (right), on the
set of The Road to Wellville.

snakes. So — poor me — I had to go to her
house for a couple of days and show her
how to handle snakes. She was dressed in
a bikini, and I would drape snakes on her.”
Yes, poor Jules.
Mary’s Missing Python
Sometimes Jules’ reptiles end up on the
cutting room floor. In There’s Something
About Mary, Jeffrey Tambor’s character
owns a dog, visible in the film, but he also
owns a large Burmese python. “If you look
carefully, you can see it in the background
during a scene in his apartment,” Jules said.
Later in the movie, Tambor’s apartment is
shown in a shambles, with dog excrement
everywhere. It’s never explained why this
is, and Tambor is never seen again.
As originally shot, however, the snake
eats Tambor, and is discovered in the apart-
ment with a huge, Tambor-sized lump inside
it, achieved by using a rubber snake with a
rubber body inside it (the deleted scene ap-
pears on the special edition DVD). “When we
saw it,” Jules said, “we laughed our heads
off.”
Jules has never encountered any actor
who was upset about having to work with
his reptiles. “They’ve all read the script and
signed their contracts, and they’re ready to
go to work,” he said. Still, Jules puts peo-
ple at ease when they’re working with his
herps, and his main goal is that everyone,
including his animals, goes home alive.
He’s supplied green iguanas for Godzilla
and Dude, Where’s My Car?, snakes and liz-
ards for The Hulk, an alligator for Johnson’s
Family Vacation and red-eared sliders for
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. “They needed
three turtles, and the trick was to find three
that would move,” Jules said. So he brought
10 baby sliders to the set, put them down
on the floor, and the three that were the
first to move were used. “They had to walk
through slime,” he said, “and the next time
you see them they’re half human, half turtle.
That’s where the Ninja Turtles came from
— they’re actually red-eared sliders!”
Just as actors have to audition for roles,
Jules has to audition his reptiles. He typ-
ically brings a variety so the filmmakers
can choose the ones they like. He’s worked
with Spielberg on several films, and he
likes Jules to bring a bunch of animals to
the set every day. Jules will bring a cooler
that contains clear plastic jars with snakes
inside. Spielberg will marvel at the snakes
and go, “Ooh, ooh!” before picking the ones
he wants to shoot that day.
American Humane Association repre-
russcase
clayjackson
REPTILES Editor Russ Case meets the
now-100-pound, 17-foot-long albino
Burmese python that Salma Hayek
danced with in From Dusk Till Dawn.
clayjackson
This olive python is one
of many herps Jules
keeps at Reptile Rentals.
Jules gives REPTILES
Managing Editor Clay
Jackson an up-close look
at a western diamond-
back rattlesnake.
Jules acts up when his
character is bitten by a
(rubber) rattlesnake in the
Jean-Claude Van Damme
movie Hard Target.

sentatives are always on the set; there are
about 10 that Jules encounters regular-
ly. He considers them an important on-set
presence. “They know I’m not going to hurt
my snakes and will instead go see the guys
working on other sets.”
Jules acts occasionally too, and he can
be seen in Clan of the Cave Bear, Hard Tar
get, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Freshman
and The Road to Wellville, as well as other
movies (and TV shows, such as The Ber
nie Mac Show, ER and CSI: Crime Scene
Investigation).
Television Work
From 1998 to 1999, Jules cohosted Amer
ica’s Greatest Pets. “That was terrible,” he
said, “because they took away my animals
and I looked really dorky. It was horrible.”
Later, Jules and some of his insects were
featured in a popular Los Angeles Times
commercial, and someone from the Discov-
ery Channel saw it. As a result, beginning
in 1999, Jules hosted six wildlife specials
for the Discovery Channel. The first four
were called Jules’ Most Dangerous… and
featured Jules searching for dangerous
creatures in the Amazon, Australia, Africa
and the American West. He also hosted
The Great Croc Trail and The Big Squeeze,
in which he conducted an around-the-world
search for the world’s largest python.
After the six Discovery Channel specials,
Jules went on to host Jules Sylvester’s Wild
Adventures, a 12-episode series for the Trav-
el Channel. “It was really good fun,” he said.
“In Morocco, I was convinced the snake
charmers in the Casbah in Marrakesh had
defanged their cobras or sutured them
somehow and that the snakes were no
longer venomous. I was to film with a
black Egyptian cobra draped around my
neck, and I asked one of the charmers if
I could see some venom. So he squeezed
the cobra’s head and venom dripped out.
‘Can I see the fangs?’ I asked. And the
fangs were there too! What the snake
charmers do goes against everything I
know about how to deal with snakes, and
these guys have been handling cobras for
the past 40 years. It’s incredible. There’s
no serum around there; if bitten seriously,
these guys would be dead meat.”
While filming The Big Squeeze Jules
found a dik-dik (a small gazelle) that had
been constricted by a 6-foot African rock
python. The snake let go and took off, so
Jules picked up the dik-dik, cupped its
mouth in his hand and breathed into it. It
soon began breathing on its own, and Jules

left it laying in the shade while he went
to catch and release the python into some
deeper bush. When he returned, the dik-dik
was standing up. Jules sat down about 20
feet from it, and the dik-dik walked up,
licked his hand and walked away. Accord-
ing to Jules, “The cameraman, a British
guy, had tears in his eyes and said, ‘Jules,
that was (expletive) great, man.’ It was an
incredible experience.”
Another time he and some rat catch-
ers were poking around trash dumpsters,
many filled with rotting chicken, behind
a Chinatown food court in downtown Sin-
gapore. “It smelled terrible and was also
where people would go to the bathroom.
We were back there because someone saw
a big snake, and we thought it might’ve
been a king cobra.
“There’s a little Chinese guy back there,
stark naked and going to the bathroom,
and he asks us what we’re doing. ‘Looking
for a snake,’ I said. ‘No snake in Singa-
pore,’ he said. Then I reached into the last
dumpster and pulled out a 14-foot reticu-
lated python covered in chicken fat. The
little guy screamed bloody murder and took
off running.”
Jules has been on The Tonight Show With
Jay Leno seven times (“Jay makes fun of my
short shorts,” he said), and he also provides
reptiles for television commercials. He once
amazed a director who was filming a Taco
Bell commercial on location. A desert tor-
toise was supposed to walk out onto a road,
and Jules told the director, “I can get him to
start from the side of the road, and I can get
him to stop at the yellow line.”
“No way,” said the director.
“When the tortoise reached the yellow
line,” Jules said, “I shouted, ‘Stay!’ and the
tortoise stopped. This absolutely amazed
the director, but I knew the tortoise would
stop once it reached the yellow line be-
cause it would think the yellow was a piece
of pumpkin.”
Lately, Jules has been wrangling snakes
on the set of Carnivale, a HBO series about
a traveling Depression-era carnival. During
shooting, Jules and his assistants would
comb the location for rattlesnakes, some
of which were captured and filmed. Jules
was constantly on the watch for rattlers
and gopher snakes during filming. Any that
were caught were relocated a safe distance
away, after first being shown to the crew to
educate them about the reptiles. Recently,
he provided a diamond x jungle carpet py-
thon for a scene where it begins strangling

clayjackson
According to Jules, any time you
see an actor handling a rattle-
snake in a Hollywood movie, it’s a
roadkilled snake or a rubber one.
This live western diamondback is
one of several rattlers he keeps.
russcase
Because animals cannot be
injured during filming, Jules
keeps a large supply of shed
spider exoskeletons that
can be filled with mustard,
ketchup and KY Jelly for
gooey squash effects.
Jules’ television
appearances have
included seven guest
spots on The Tonight
Show With Jay Leno.
Here, Leno poses with
Jules and his wife Sue.
While hosting films for Travel Channel and
Discovery Channel, Jules (pictured here
with an anaconda during filming of The Big
Squeeze) experienced many international
herping adventures.

Adrienne Barbeau — a scene that ends
with a rubber snake look-alike getting “the
snot beat out of it.”
Still Beating the Bush
Searching for reptiles in “the sticks” in
Kenya or South Africa is one of Jules’ fa-
vorite pastimes. He also enjoys herping in
Thailand. “It’s so lush and green — and
they’re still finding new species out there.
Northern Thailand, right near the Burmese
(Myanmar) border, is very beautiful, with
amazing bugs and amazing snakes. Even
the people are nice, actually,” he admitted.
In Kenya, Jules once crawled into a hole
where he thought he could find some Af-
rican rock pythons. About 30 feet in, cov-
ered in dust, he found himself among eggs,
eggshells and baby pythons. After some
fumbling with a rope that was too short
to reach him, he was finally pulled out,
along with 18 baby pythons that had bitten
him profusely. He was later fined $100
per baby, as the pythons were considered
“royal game” and were protected.
In Africa, word would be put out when
Jules was in town. If a snake was found,
one local stayed with it while another ran
to get Jules, who paid 50 cents per foot for
any snakes that were found. No one was
to touch a snake; if one was disturbed,
Jules wouldn’t pay because he didn’t want
to encourage people to actually catch the
snakes. He would arrive to capture and
measure the snake, and either film it or
give it to a local snake park.
Favorite field memories include a time
in Naivasha when Jules once caught some
rarely encountered Kenya horned vipers
(Bitis worthingtoni). “They look like very
dark sidewinders with no rattle,” he said,
“but they have the horns over the eyes.
They are completely endemic to Kenya.”
Another time he caught a Hinde’s viper
(or montane viper, Montatheris hindii) at
10,000 feet in Kenya’s Aberdare Moun-
tains, where “it’s frosty in the morning and
lions are there at night. It’s related to the
European viper, and is only found in that
area, even above the frost line.
“When looking for snakes in Africa,”
Jules cautioned, “you’re very likely to come
upon lions, elephants and buffalo. You bet-
ter have your track shoes on!”
Jules doesn’t keep any pet herps at
home, unless you count the roadkilled
snakes in the freezer in his garage. These
are used for movies, because there are
strict rules against hurting living animals
of any kind, even bugs, while filming. “Any

time you see an actor handling a rattle-
snake, it’s usually a roadkilled one or made
of rubber,” stated Jules. Those spiders you
see getting squashed in films like Arachno
phobia are often shed spider exoskeletons
that have been filled with mustard, ketch-
up and KY Jelly, making them perfect for
squashy stomping effects.
Upcoming Projects
In addition to Lemony Snicket, Jules was
recently in Nevada working on Michael
Bay’s science fiction movie The Island, with
Ewan McGregor. In the film, McGregor
comes face to face with a Jules-supplied
rattlesnake (he didn’t really, though; the
effect was achieved using a split screen).
Jules provided cheetahs for a movie ti-
tled Duma, filmed in South Africa last year
and due out in spring 2005. “I was under
canvas in 125-degree heat every single
day,” he said. “That gets old real fast.”
Also coming up is Sam Mendes’ movie
Jarhead, starring Jake Gyllenhall and based
on the best-selling book. Jules will like-
ly supply all sorts of creatures, including
maggots, flies, camel spiders, sandfish,
scorpions, carpet vipers and others that, in
the movie, will be placed on actors portray-
ing dead soldiers.
Now prepping for the Billy Bob Thornton
remake of The Bad News Bears (rats for
this one), next year Jules will be providing
many snakes for Snakes on a Plane, a movie
to be released in 2006. The title says it all:
It’s reportedly about an assassin who lets
several hundred snakes loose on a plane in
order to kill a witness on board.
“We’ll be using lots of nonvenomous
snakes, as well as CGI and insert shots of
venomous-looking snakes,” Jules said. For
the latter, he will supply harmless snakes
as doubles for dangerous species. “A yel-
low rat snake, for instance, can stand in for
a taipan, and nobody will notice.
“Except, of course, for the snakeolo-
gists,” he laughed.
Need some herps for a movie, TV show or
commercial? Contact Jules Sylvester at www.
reptilerentals.com.
Russ Case is the editor of REPTILES and
REPTILES USA, as well as Aquarium Fish,
Aquarium USA and Marine Fish and Reef
USA magazines.

Lemony Snicket by Russ

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