Maryland Business

By: jackie.sauter

A funny thing happened on the way to work this morning. Walking down Saratoga Street a few blocks from North Charles, a woman with immaculate makeup wearing a pillbox hat and a very 1950s-looking yellow-and-black checked dress walked by me.

“Odd,” I thought. Then I saw a man in a dress shirt and bowler hat and beyond him, sidewalk tables filled with a spread of breakfast fruit and pastries and several people lined up at a trailer waiting for hot food. The movie trailers parked farther down the street confirmed my suspicions.

Resisting my urge to follow in my sister’s footsteps and pretend like I was a movie extra to score some free grub (she went to school in Los Angeles and would occasionally stumble upon location shoots), I continued to the office to put in a call to the Maryland Department of Business and Development to confirm that it was indeed the Renee Zellweger movie, “My One and Only,” shooting downtown today.

Wanting to know more, we sent down our multimedia reporter, Richard Simon, to harass as many crew members and extras who would speak to him. Here’s what he found:

RICHARD:

I walked onto the “set”, er, sidewalk with my snazzy video camera. There I was, snapping away, when one of the producers on the set told me to get out.

I obliged, and observed from afar. This was only my second time even close to a movie set. The first time was when the cast of Liberty Heights set up shop outside of my middle school (tells you how old I am).

There were a number of community members who served as extras, as they waved to people they knew on the street.

And yes…there was free food.

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer

Photo above by Max Franz, who also got ejected from the area – but not before snapping Ms. Zellweger.

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