Not Howard Stern
I met Ron on the set of Winters Tale and just had to take a picture with him because he looked soooo much like Howard Stern. In fact, when we chatted he told me that he was actually on the Howard Stern show at one point -discussing a script (about a guy who looks like Howard Stern etc.)! As soon as I had my picture with him, all the other surrounding extras immediately came over and asked to do the same. Luckily Ron was good-natured and generous. Unfortunately for him, the production asked if they could cut his hair -which he wasn't going to do... and so they didn't use him in the shoots.
Although there were a lot of big stars in this movie, none of them were present for this two-day shoot of the Ellis Island 1895 period scene filmed at the old Williamsburg Bank in good ole' Brooklyn, NY. But we 300 extras kept ourselves entertained during the breaks. On one of our extended outdoor hangouts, one of the women was taught to juggle three boxes. This was one of the best photos of the day:
Period pieces are fantastic because they really put you into the mood of that era. And I have to say it wasn't that much of a stretch for me since I was born in Budapest and emigrated to the USA when the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 broke out. But the real coincidence of this shoot was that I met two others who were also Hungarians... as well as a wardrobe person with whom I jovially exchanged Hungarian expletives as I was incorrectly hanging my drab and "distressed" costume back on the rack. The only Hungarian word he knew was "lo fasz" and so we kept calling each other by that moniker!
Some of my fellow immigrants on break
The wardrobe location was situated inside the bank's vault! For some, this created a kind of claustrophobic apprehension because of the huge vault doors that were ominously suggesting a "what if they closed in on us" imagery. This, of course, invited numerous gallows-humor conversations along the extended waiting lines during our wardrobe checks.
The set that was built inside the bank was majestic. Numerous pipes and benches recreated the Ellis Island-type of scenery that was needed for the immigrant medical inspections. A number of us had been marked on the back with letters to indicate our various diseases (H for hepatitis, etc.). In one scene, a woman is traumatically (screaming, crying, clutching) dragged through the set because she is being deported. Colin Farrell plays one of the characters in this story and in this scene his parents are part of the deportation decision with a baby in the mother's arm. A real baby was used -and what do you know, the baby cried on cue!???
Although this was pretty much the first scenes of the movie, I expect it should be coming out sometime next year with great anticipation due to the phantasy subject matter and the plethora of stars involved (Russell Crowe, William Hurt, Will Smith, Jennifer Connelly, Eva Marie Saint... oh how I love name dropping)!
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