Wanted: Used, colorful bras
Undergarments needed for HBO film
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
WATERVILLE — Directors of the HBO movie "Empire Falls" have found a supporting role in the film for hundreds of used local bras.
The call went out this week for used bras and bathing suit tops to adorn a replica of a raucous Florida Keys bar that is the scene of a telephone conversation featuring film star and executive producer Paul Newman.
"We need a little color, too," said set decorator Maria Nay. "A room full just of white bras would be a drag."
Those donating apparel are asked to leave items in a drop box being set up outside the filming company's temporary headquarters at 8 Water St. in Waterville, a former Central Maine Power Co. office.
The movie is based on Camden author Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. Russo wrote much of the novel in Waterville, and most of it is being filmed there and in neighboring Skowhegan.
The book is about the struggles of Empire Falls, a small mill town in fictional Dexter County, Maine, where a shirt factory has shut down and put many local people out of work.
Nay said the scramble to find used women's tops began when she discovered Russo's script called for Newman's character, Max Roby, to appear in "Captain Tony's Saloon," in Florida.
Captain Tony's is a real and famous night spot in the Keys. It was one of the late Ernest Hemingway's many watering holes, and a venue where singer Jimmy Buffett performed early in his career.
"It seems that Captain Tony's has a long tradition of women taking off their bras and hanging them from the ceiling, while the men take their business cards and hang them on the walls," Nay said. "It's my job to create that look."
The bar scene will not be shot in the Waterville area, but in a restaurant in Kennebunkport that will be redecorated to look like Captain Tony's, Nay said.
Nay declined to name the restaurant.
In the scene, Newman, who plays the father of main character Miles Roby, is talking to his son on a phone at the back of the saloon. The scene flips back and forth between Newman and Ed Harris, who plays Miles.
In the script, Russo wrote, "hundreds of bras dangle from the ceiling," Nay said.
The scene is not a long one, but Nay said she wants the set to look authentic, and hit on the idea of asking for donated bras after realizing there was no other way to get them.
"We thought it would be fun," Nay said. "I mean, you can only get so many from Good-Will."
Oscar winner Helen Hunt, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joanne Woodward will also star in the film.
Jonathan Humphrey — 861-9252
jhumphrey@centralmaine.com