ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. — A Kentucky man is giving new meaning to the adage of accomplishing a goal, or dying trying. Josh Nalley did so by landing a role as a dead body on the popular CBS show CSI: Vegas.

Despite what it may look like viewing his TikTok videos, Nalley is not actually dead. In fact, now that he can officially say he plays a dead guy on TV, he’s never felt so alive.

To make this dream, he refused to let die a reality. He had to pretend to die on camera every day for almost a year straight.

“It started out of boredom, actually. Just having nothing to do on my days off, and my evening,” Nalley said. “I went and laid dead down a creek with my dogs around me. And then I got a fairly decent response for my first TikTok on that. And I was like, well, this could be fun. So let’s keep on going.”

After that initial video, the captions of all @Living_Dead_Josh’s TikTok videos dating back to Oct. 24, 2021 followed the same format: “Day [fill in the blank] of playing un-alive until I’m cast in a movie or TV show as an un-alive body.”

“I think everybody wants to be on a TV show at one point. That was a big part of it,” Nalley said. “You know, that 15 minutes of fame.”

The views slowly increased. It became apparent around Thanksgiving that he had something special.

“On Thanksgiving of last year, I had my first, what I consider viral, video. On the first day, I had over a million views. And that was like, ‘well okay then.’ And then I had over 10,000 followers. And it just blew up from there,” Nalley said.

Most of the time, Nalley shoots the videos by himself on his phone. Friends and family have helped occasionally, and made guest appearances as additional “un-alive” bodies.

Nalley says the secret is to practice holding his breath for long periods of time, and trying to control involuntary muscle movements. (Spectrum News 1/Sam Knef)

He’s been “dead” in various locations and poses, mostly around his hometown of Elizabethtown.

Nalley described the process he has developed of convincingly looking dead on camera.

“Usually I try to find something that would move in the background. Which there’s trees and birds flying. I also try to make sure there ain’t too many people around that will question. It’s a little bit awkward,” he said. “And then, basically, I just lay on the ground, take a deep breath, and count in my head up to a certain amount.”

As for the particular pose he takes, it depends.

“A lot of times if I’m facedown, my eyes will be shut. Or if I’m pressing my face in. If I’m sitting up, I like for people to see deadness in my eyes if I can unfocus them enough,” Nalley said. “The breathing part’s the biggest part. A dead person ain’t gonna breathe. Then, just trying to control the involuntary muscle movements. Especially if it’s cold outside. You’re trying not to shiver. Or laying on a rock and it’s pointing into your back, and you’re just like, ‘hold it for a few more seconds.’ I think I’ve gotten pretty much better at that. I’ve gone back and looked at my old ones, and I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, I moved  in that one. How did I not catch that on the first take?’”

At this point, some people reading this story may ask: “Is this guy serious?” Or, possibly, that they don’t find this kind of thing funny. And that’s okay with Nalley.

“It’s part of my sense of humor. The practical joke element to it. Being stumbled upon, being dead. I’ve done that, I think as a kid, everybody does it,” he said. “I don’t know, really, why I thought of it. I guess I have a little bit of a morbid sense of humor. I thought it was funny, and I’m glad people find humor in it, too.”

Nalley’s videos kept getting thousands, and occasionally millions, of views, well into day 100, then 200, and then 300.

But there was no announcement he had landed a role in Hollywood until day 321, when he posted a video posing dead outside of a CBS studio.

It took two hours of makeup for Nalley to prepare for his role as a dead body. (CSI: Vegas)

“They sent me an email. It was like, ‘hey, would you like to play a dead body on CSI?’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah. Definitely,’” Nalley said. “I always loved the CSI series. I watched the original ones in Miami when I was younger.”

A flight to Los Angeles, and sitting through two hours of professional makeup later, Nalley was lying dead on a gurney on the set of CSI: Vegas. He was on set filming for about five hours.

Having spent the last year training for this exact moment, he was ready for it.

“I’d like to think so. I mean, it was a different environment than I was used to, because there were people around. I like to think I did a good job not moving when I wasn’t supposed to, just being a dead body there,” he said.

Nalley has now surpassed a full year of posing dead on TikTok, and will continue to do so. As for future roles, none have materialized yet, but he said he’s open to all discussions.

“15 minutes of fame, let’s stretch it out to 30,” Nalley said, laughing.

The episode of CSI: Vegas featuring Nalley’s appearance airs on Nov. 3 at 10 p.m. on CBS. He said he’s not yet sure of his role in the story, but he’ll be watching along with friends at work.

When asked what they think of his un-alive journey, Nalley said, “I think they were surprised at the perseverance. I don’t think they were surprised that was the one that did this.”