![]() ![]() So I just had to ask the extras: Any behind-the-scenes stories about all those famous people? Public Enemies brought to Wisconsin the kind of Hollywood celebrities we rarely see around here. Kopmeier is quick to add that he's heard, off set, that Michael Mann is a really nice guy. I mean, there were f-bombs going here and there and people getting pissed off and yelling." Kopmeier describes Mann's directing style with a chuckle: "On the set, he's a real grump. He knows what he wants, and you just do what he wants." "He's a very thorough director," he recalls. Mann actually got his start at UW-Madison, where he took his first film class.Īsked about their experiences working with Mann, some extras are more diplomatic than others. Oscar-nominated Mann has directed films like The Last of the Mohicans and Ali, and was executive producer for the 1980s television show Miami Vice. I shivered so much my back was sore." At least Taylor got paid for her discomfort - slightly above minimum wage, plus overtime, for a total of about 48 hours' work. "Clothes from Depression-era 1930s were not very warm, and the shoes were paper thin. "It made me appreciate the improvements in clothing we have today," she recalls. Taylor, whose work brought her to Darlington and Columbus, agrees that the first day was the worst. "They just put us in a waiting room, and I was literally there for 10 hours before they needed us." "It was absolutely boring as hell," he says. Kopmeier hated his first day on the job in Madison. "You have to be always available."īut making movies also can be dull. "It involves being where they want you to be when they want you to be there," says Borud. For cast and crew, this means constant readiness. Throughout the filming, Borud and the others saw over and over again how stressful filmmaking can be. The schedule they have is so moveable and random that a lot of times they don't quite know until a really short period ahead of time what's going to happen on the set the next day." "It's pretty much how for the most part everything works," he says. He learned that this turn-on-a-dime schedule was par for the course in Hollywood. the next day - quite a challenge for someone with a full-time job. It was really awesome."īorud was called around 5 p.m., and he needed to be on set in Columbus at 6:30 a.m. "I called my parents on the spot, and they were ecstatic. "I was totally stoked," he recalls, excitement in his voice. She eagerly researched hair and makeup styles from the 1930s and rushed out to vintage clothing shops to find the perfect outfit: a black, short-sleeved dress accessorized with a scarf belt and an antique pin.įor Drew Kopmeier, 19, a soon-to-be sophomore at Edgewood College, the casting call itself was anti-climactic, but the phone call he received a few months later from Joan Philo Casting was anything but. ![]() One of those was Madison's Jennifer Taylor, 37. "A lot of the people had dressed up to fit the part." "We just showed up in street clothes and felt a little conspicuous," he says. Madison's David Borud, 29, a construction worker and UW-Madison grad, was caught off guard by all the people who turned out dressed in period clothing. Some went to the casting call on a whim, figuring it was worth a shot and might be fun. He was dressed and ready to go when he nearly backed out: "I figured I did not have a prayer." His 15-year-old daughter convinced him to go. Rawson didn't have high hopes when he showed up for a casting call at Monona Terrace on Feb. I tracked down some of them and asked them to reminisce. Rawson is one of hundreds of local folks who got a taste of Hollywood glamour - and, in some cases, Hollywood cigarettes - as extras in Public Enemies. "Nasty! I smoked three and a half packs of the horrible things." The next day, they gave him smokes: Liggett straights. That day he smoked three packs of his own cigarettes. He thought the license to light up would be paradise. Mann that those of us who smoked should do so every time we were on camera," recalls Rawson, 46, a regular performer at Broom Street Theater whose day job is in sales and management. From downtown Columbus to the Capitol Square, our neck of the woods was an important backdrop to the action of Public Enemies, which stars Johnny Depp and Christian Bale and was directed by Michael Mann. Over the course of a couple months in the spring and summer of 2008, portions of the film were shot in various locations throughout the state. Rawson was cast as an extra in Public Enemies, the Universal Pictures release that chronicles the true story of the oft-idolized 1930s bank robber John Dillinger. It wasn't until day two that he learned he could move around and - to his delight - smoke! On Scott Rawson's first day, he stood in the same spot in shoes that were too small. ![]()
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