Star sightings

You know how I mentioned I'd like to spend a little time with Reese Withspoon and Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson? Well, if catching a glimpse of them while filming their latest movie counts, then I'm three out of four. Yesterday Stephanie and I discovered they would be filming about two blocks from our office, so we ran a reconnaissance mission late in the afternoon to check out the situation. Our scouting session revealed a lot of cranes and lighting equipment, but no actual filming. Stink. However, it did raise a couple of questions: (1) how were they were planning on clearing out the McPherson Square bums to actually conduct any filming there, and (2) does the handwriting on these "no parking" signs match the handwriting on the "no parking" signs posted all over our block of K Street...possibly implying that they're filming right by the office next week? (when I'm out of town, of course - but potentially cool for Steph)

Then...our trusty blog at Washington City Paper informed us that filming would actually begin at 6 PM. You know, my sharply honed research skills may not always lead to the right tax answer, but I can do a pretty remarkable job of tracking down pop culture news. That counts for something, right? I made my way over after getting out of work a little later than I would have liked, and Stephanie joined me after escaping from her evening grad class. After being shuffled from sidewalk corner to sidewalk corner with a group of onlookers and being admonished multiple times to not use a flash when taking any pictures, we found ourselves right in the middle of Reese and Paul and Owen. Ok, not right in the middle...across the street. But it was really pretty interesting to see what all goes into making a movie.

For instance....why did they have a giant water truck wetting down the street? Was it theoretically supposed to have just rained, or does help out with the lighting in some way? What's the ratio of time spent waiting around versus actually filming anything? How much do they pay the poor girls with headsets whose primary job is to tell us onlookers to please get out of the way?

We totally want to be in this movie. So...Stephanie and I both filled out our extras applications today with Central Casting. Not sure if anything is going to come of this, but maybe we can make an appearance as "upscale pedestrians" or "attractive bar hoppers" or "Charles & Matty's neighbors," all options for today's extras.

If you want to check out all of the pictures from our movie set adventure, check out my Picasa album. Yes, some zooming might be in order to actually pick out those famous faces, but it was a pretty cool city experience.

Apparently the movie does have a working title...

And here's Reese...

And Paul and Owen and I think James Brooks...maybe...

Oh, and those burning questions from earlier - they were actually filming along 15th Street and not in McPherson Square, so all of the bums could stay on their park benches. Will they be filming in front of the office next week? To be determined - I'll have to count on Steph for the updates, though, because it's time for....blog-cation! Tomorrow morning I'm meeting up with Kami and Carolyn at BWI to head into Boston - we're spending a few days in Provincetown, a few days in Boston, and you can rest assured that a great time will be had by all. I can't wait to see these girls!!

Now I just need to find Jack somewhere around town...