Film crew wrapping up shoot in Winslow
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
WATERVILLE — Paul Newman tucked a folded newspaper into one hand, stood by the diner steps and waited.
Actor Ed Harris reads a newspaper beside a chair that bears his characterıs name on the set of ³Empire Falls² in Winslow on Thursday. click to enlarge
"Stand by — rolling!" a movie official shouted.
The film crew fell silent and watched as Newman took a step, looked furtively back, and climbed into the passenger seat of an old brown Volkswagen Jetta. Then he opened the glove box, took something out and stuffed it into his pocket.
Actor Ed Harris appeared, said something to Newman, walked around to the driver's side, got in and started up the car.
The actors repeated the scene several times late Thursday afternoon at Bee's Snack Bar in Winslow during the second day of filming the HBO movie "Empire Falls."
The film, based on Richard Russo's novel, is set in a Maine mill town where Miles Roby, played by Harris, runs the Empire Grill. His father, Max, played by Newman, is a notorious mooch.
In the book, Max ritually rifles through Miles' glovebox when he is not looking, scrounging for money he knows his son stashes there.
Filming at Bee's — the setting for a doughnut shop — initially was scheduled to have ended around noon Thursday. The crew then was to have moved to the Second Baptist Church on Water Street in Waterville's South End — the setting for a Catholic church.
But, as often happens in real life, schedules change. By quitting time Thursday, Lynn "Kip" Kippax, location manager for Falls Films Inc., said filming would start this morning at the church, go until about noon, and then the crew would head up to Skowhegan.
At the church late Thursday afternoon, Waterville police Officers Todd Burbank and Shawn Weigelt waited for the movie crew (that ultimately did not arrive). They were there to help block off the street for filming and keep the area safe.
South End residents lingered across the street in groups, waiting for the stars to arrive.
"I've been waiting since noontime," said Mary Blakeslee, 47, of Water Street. "I grew up watching Paul Newman. I'm staying right here."
Barbara Champagne, 37, of Vassalboro, also was waiting. She watched some of the filming in Winslow Wednesday, but wanted to see Ed Harris again, she said.
"Don't get me wrong, I think Paul Newman is a great actor, but Ed Harris is the one," she said.
At the Baptist church, the sign out front had been changed to "St. Catherine's Roman Catholic Church."
At the house next door, which will be used in the film as the church's rectory, Catherine Rancourt, 78, was waiting for the crew to arrive. She said men came to her house about a month ago and asked to use it in the movie. For the last several days, they have been rearranging furniture, changing the drapes and bringing in other props, she said. They even put a new bedspread on her bed, and took statues of Mary and Jesus out of one room and put them into another.
"But it's the sign that tickles me more than anything," Rancourt said.
She was referring to the fact that the name of the church in the film is her own name.
"I'm telling everybody that they named it for me," she said, smiling.
Scott Clevenger napped in the back pew of the old church, waiting for the crew. He said he had been called in as an extra for the film, and had had only three hours of sleep, as he works the night shift at Comfort Inn in Augusta. For one who has taught drama and regularly performed in community theater, Clevenger was not fazed by the delay — that's show business, he said.
Meanwhile, HBO officials this week issued their first press release about the film, which they say is to debut on HBO next year. The three-hour movie also will star actors Aidan Quinn and Robin Wright Penn, as well as Joanne Woodward, Helen Hunt and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
acalder@centralmaine.com